Award time!

Lana from A Hoyden's Look at Literature has bestowed the I Love Your Blog award on us!

Thank you so much Lana! We really appreciate it.

Friends award

Thanks to Alyce from At Home with Books for giving us the Friends award


These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers.

HT News - Bruce Alexander Historical awards

Danielle from A Work in Progress has a guest post from Laurie R King, author of the Mary Russell mystery series which is set in the years just after the end of WWI. Her books sound very interesting and one of her books was nominated for the following award!

Jeri Westerson, author of Veil of Lies, has been keeping everyone updated on the events at the Left Coast Crime festival for readers of crime fiction for the last few days. In today's post she advised that this year's winner of the Bruce Alexander Historical book awards was Kelli Stanley for her book Nox Dormienda, A Long Night For Sleeping. I don't remember hearing much about this book before, but it is a mystery set in Roman times.

The nominees for the award were:

• Tasha Alexander: A Fatal Waltz (HarperCollins)
• Rhys Bowen: A Royal Pain (Berkley Prime Crime)
• Rhys Bowen: Tell Me Pretty Maiden (St. Martin's)
• Laurie R. King: Touchstone (Bantam)
• Kelli Stanley: Nox Dormienda, A Long Night For Sleeping (Five Star)

Kerry from Mysteries in Paradise has recently reviewed A Royal Pain and the follow up book, Her Royal Spyness, and I have to say they sound quite good too.

I Love Your Blog

A special shout out today to Margaret from Creative Madness who awarded Historical Tapestry with the I Love Your Blog award!

We are very grateful to all our readers, it is a pleasure to post our readings and know that other people share our love of historical fiction. We really enjoy having some feedback in the form of awards like this one or simply comments on our reviews. Thank you!

Premio Dardos

With special thanks to Catherine Delors, we here at Historical Tapestry have been awarded the Premio Dardos. The award is given for "for recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing." Not bad for a group of blog friends who write about something we are passionate about!

The rules of this award are as follows: show the image of the award on your blog, link back to the blog that gave the award, and nominate 15 other blogs that you consider deserving the same.

Fifteen!

We decided to focus on the HF author's whose blogs we love to read:


Elizabeth Chadwick - we love reading her blog which often has great insights into her characters, settings and research

Rosina Lippi/Sara Donati - her blog has been a bit quiet lately because she is trying the next Wilderness book, but it will be worth it when the book is done

Susan Higginbotham - Great posts about English royalty, and quite often a lot of laughs as well.

Jeanne Kalogridis - Another quiet blog for a while, but the next book is nearly done.

Michelle Moran - always fascinating posts about new archeological finds and interesting author interviews. One of the most web smart authors going around.

Sandra Gulland - Her blog has some of the resources she has used for researching her books. She has also listed suggestions for further reading and related links. You can even sign up to get more information on her on-going research.

Sharon Penman - We know she has only posted a couple of times, but I can't wait to see what she does with her blog going forward. And we love her books so it still fits the award!

Deanna Raybourn - Her blog is always fun, and she has a cool gimick in which every posts starts with in which!

Colleen Gleason - Colleen is awesome at interacting with her fans.

Diana Gabaldon - We were so excited when DG started a blog, and she hasn't disappointed so far!

CW Gortner - another author who has awesome interviews with other HF authors.

David Blixt - I really loved his book when I read it each year, and his blog is a fascinating mix of writing, life and acting/producing.

Jeri Westerson - the life of a newly published author, and some medieval bits and pieces

Naomi Novik - Dragons! Lip Gloss! Death! - with a blog title like that how can you resist. Plus I love to hear what is happening next in the Temeraire series.

Paul Doherty - A recent find for us Doherty's blog features his current research interests and news about the publication of his books.

My Friend Amy: Queen of Book Bloggers

We enjoyed the BBAW so much that we want to join the fun once more and properly thank Amy for all her hard work on behalf of book blogs. We can't say it enough that this was a great event that allowed us to know a lot more blogs than we did (Our Google Reader has never had so many feeds), on all sort of reading genres and subgenres. So Thank You Amy! All the best from the Historical Tapestry team!




This summer, after book blogging was patronized in the mainstream media, Amy from My Friend Amy made a suggestion that we celebrate book blogging. From that idea, Book Blogger Appreciation Week was born. Many of us have participated in interviews, contests, give-aways, and through awards; but, this would never have happened were it not for the dream, perseverance, planning, hard work and dedication of Amy. This has been a wonderful week and as members of the Book Blogging community, in one voice we want to thank Amy for all that she has done.

Amy, you are truly the Queen of Book Bloggers and we love you!

Book Blog Appreciation Week

It's been wonderful to be a part of My Friend Amy's BBAW. Since we have a book blog and we are all book blog readers besides bloggers this was a wonderful opportunity to get to know new blogs and show our appreciaton for our favourites.

We were fortunate enough to have our own blog nominated for the Best History/Historical Fiction Blog. It was great to feel our readers really enjoyed coming to visit us and that we were a part of an incredible group of blogs/bloggers.

We want to thank My Friend Amy for starting the BBAW and congratulate Medieval Bookworm for winning! Keep up the good work!!

BBAW Giveaway

We are very excited here that it is very nearly time for Michelle Moran week to begin! When we saw that it coincides with BBAW, and especially seeing as we were so honoured to be nominated for the Best History/Historical Fiction blog, what else can we do but celebrate both events together.

Whilst we are having a giveaway here of two, yes TWO, signed copies of The Heretic Queen by Michelle Moran, there are lots of other giveaways happening all around book blogland. The official list is below, but keep an eye out on My Friend Amy's blog to see what else gets added to the list

Click here to see how to enter our giveway

The Official BBAW Giveaway List

If you follow along for the festivities of BBAW at My Friend Amy, you will find many chances to win LOTS of goodies! Like what? Well have a look below. All of these things will be given away between September 15-19. There will be a huge variety of ways to win them and giveaways will be announced constantly throughout the week. So be sure to check in often!


A HUGE thank you to Hachette Book Group, Penguin Group USA, Harlequin, The B&B Media Group, Shera of SNS Blog Design, WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group, Catherine Delors, Pamela Binnings Ewen, Andromeda Romano-Lax, Ceceilia Dowdy, Sormag, Book Club Girl, Savvy Verse and Wit, Cafe of Dreams, Fashionista Piranha, and Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin'?.

Daily Raffles:
Monday--Books and Chocolate sponsored by My Friend Amy and Hey Lady! Whatcha' Readin?
Tuesday--Books and Going Green sponsored by My Friend Amy
Wednesday--Books and Coffee sponsored by My Friend Amy
Thursday--Books and Charity sponsored by My Friend Amy and Fashionista Piranha
Friday--Books and Movies sponsored by My Friend Amy

Win a Book Club Girl Hostess Survival Kit!
Do you find it's your turn to host book club and not only do you not know what to serve but you don't know what books to offer up for the next month's selection?! Let Book Club Girl come to your rescue with the Book Club Girl Hostess Survival Kit.

One lucky winner of the kit will receive:

* A basket of cheese, crackers, cookies and wine for up to 12 people
* 5 great book group books to vote on for your group's next pick. And Book Club Girl will then donate 12 copies whichever book is chosen for your entire group to read.
* 12 Book Club Girl mousepads to give out as party favors that night
* 12 Book Club Girl bookmarks to mark everyone's favorite passages
* 12 Book Club Girl coasters to protect your coffee table from all those wine glasses!

TWO SORMAG Goody Bags containing books and more!


A Special Pamper Me Basket from Cafe of Dreams!
From Avon Foot Works
~ Inflatable watermelon shaped foot tub
~ 3.4 FL oz Watermelon Cooling Foot Lotion
~ 3.4 FL oz Watermelon Exfoliating Foot Scrub
~ 12 count Watermelon Effervescent Foot Tablets
~ An ARC of So Long At The Fair by Christina Schwarz
~ A variety of Hot Chocolate and Tea mixes

A pre-made blog template from SNSDesign!

A Subscription to Poetry Magazine from Savvy Verse and Wit!

BOOKS
Mistress of the Revolution by Catherine Delors
The Moon in the Mango Tree by Pamela Binnings Ewen
The Spanish Bow by Andromeda Romano-Lax
John's Quest by Cecelia Dowdy
Confessions of a Contractor by Richard Murphy
Acedia & Me by Kathleen Norris
The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks
The Book of Lies by Brad Meltzer
Supreme Courtship by Christopher Buckley
A Tale Out of Luck by Willie Nelson with Mike Blakely
The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent
When Will There Be Good News by Kate Atkinson
An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken
Exit Music by Ian Rankin
The Smart One and the Pretty One by Claire LaZebnik
Gunmetal Black by Daniel Serrano
Isolation by Travis Thrasher
The Miracle Girls by Anne Dayton and May Vanderbilt
Every Freaking! Day With Rachell Ray by Elizabeth Hilts
Dewey by Vicki Myron
The Shiniest Jewel by Marian Henley
Keep the Faith by Faith Evans
The Book of Calamities by Peter Trachtenberg
A is for Atticus by Lorilee Craker
After the Fire by Robin Gaby Fisher
Mike's Election Guide by Michael Moore
War as They Knew It by Michael Rosenberg
Fixing Hell By Col. (ret.) Larry C. James
Wild Boy: My Life with Duran Duran by Andy Taylor
The Last Under-Cover: The True Story of an FBI Agent's Dangerous Dance with Evil By Bob Hamer
Border Lass by Amanda Scott
Insatiable Desire by Rita Heron
Hungry for More by Diana Holquist
Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee
Trespassers Will Be Baptized by Elizabeth Emerson Hancock
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not by Trish Ryan
Never Surrender by General Jerry Boykin
Dream in Color by Congresswoman Linda Sánchez, Congresswoman Loretta Sánchez
Beyond Belief by Josh Hamilton
Cobain Unseen by Charles R. Cross
Doing Business in 21st Century India by Gunjan Bagla
Branding Only Works on Cattle by Jonathan Salem Baskin
Launching a Leadership Revolution by Chris Brady, Orrin Woodward
How to Hear from God by Joyce Meyer
Knowing Right from Wrong by Thomas D. Williams
Pope John Paul II: An Intimate Life by Caroline Pigozzi
Pure by Rebecca St. James
He Loves Me! by Wayne Jacobson
So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore by Wayne Jacobson and Dave Coleman
Move On, Move Up by Paula White
The Rosary by Gary Jansen
Shoot the Moon by Billie Letts
The Choice by Nicholas Sparks
Right Livelihoods by Rick Moody
by George by Wesley Stace
The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold
Trunk Music by Michael Connelly
Hollywood Crows by Joseph Wambaugh
Dead Boys by Richard Lange
The Gifted Gabaldon Sisters by Lorraine Lopez
Sisterchicks Go Brit! by Robin Jones Gunn
Beyond the Night by Marlo Schalesky
With Endless Sight by Allison Pittman
Harlequin Titles: To Be Announced

Many other blogs are giving away books and prizes for BBAW as well! You can see the links to all of these giveaways here.

Interested in gaining entries into the daily raffles? Post this complete list on your blog with links and you'll earn two extra entries!

This BBAW giveaway is hosted by My Friend Amy. If you post this list on your blog don't forget to go there and leave a comment so you can earn the two extra entries.

More Excellence Awards

A bit late, we know, but we would like to thank the following bloggers for giving us an Excellence Award:



Sarah Johnson at Reading the Past

Julianne Douglas at Writing The Renaissance

It's always great to receive an award, it means our readers appreciate what we do here. When they come from bloggers we also admire and whose blogs we also read it's an added bonus!

HT has been tagged!

Thanks go to Sheramy from Van Gogh's Chair who has awarded us the E for Excellence award. I was interested to see from the other people that she tagged that author Sandra Gulland now has a blog. How did I miss knowing this already??

We choose to tag our favourite authors:

Elizabeth Chadwick

Sara Donati

Susan Higginbotham

Jeanne Kalogridis

Michelle Moran

Catherine Delors (we do know Catherine Delors was tagged before but we think there's no such thing as too many awards when we like an author!

Also, we've been tagged for the 123-meme by Heloise and Abelard from Bodice Ripper Reviews! For fun, the three of us are going to do it!

This is a nice easy tag. Take the book nearest you, turn to page 123 and then find the fifth sentence and share it with us!


Marg:

The book nearest to me is Book of Love by Sarah Bower and the fifth sentence on page 123 is:

All the brothers were fine musicians, but Guido was best of all; he could play any instrument and sang like an angel.

Kailana:

The book nearest to me is Traveling Music: The Soundtrack to my Life and Times by Neil Peart and the fifth sentence on page 123 is:

Indeed I have, and I find it incredibly frustrating to have my music become
such a product.

Not very exciting... It's a quoted passage. I was going to count the whole passage as one sentence but using that method there are not five sentences on the page. It is the only book I have with me, though, so afraid it is going to have to remain boring.

And I didn't know Sandra Gulland had a blog either. I must check into that!

Ana:

The book nearest to me is The Crimson Portrait by Jody Shields and the fifth sentence on page 123 is:

He would come to her.