The Adulteress - New Novel coming soon

This story is called The Adulteress and is set in the twelfth century, when England was in the throes of a civil war, known as the Anarchy, which went on for nineteen years. My story, however, does not cover the entire period, but centres around the Empress Maud landing in England in 1139 in an attempt to claim back the throne from her cousin, King Stephen.

 

When King Henry I died, he left no male heir, his only son having been drowned in the White Ship disaster. He named his daughter, Matilda (also known as Maud) as his heir and secured the allegiance of his most powerful nobles to the succession.

Maud was married as a child to the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry V, and kept the title of Empress after his death. She was later married to Geoffrey of Anjou and it was from Anjou that she secured enough support, thanks to her illegitimate half-brother, Robert Earl of Gloucester, to invade England.

Although known as both Maud and Matilda, to avoid confusion, I have called her Maud throughout the story, since Stephen's Queen was also called Matilda.

A painting of Maud, escaping from
Oxford Castle in the Snow

My tale concerns David, Earl of Ravenscroft and a close advisor to the King. While away at court, with Maud's armies seen close to his own house, his soldiers are ordered to search the whole town, including his house. But David's world is shattered when the captain comes to him with the news that a naked man was found in his countess' bed.

 

This story is based around factual events. Maud did land in England in 1139 with the intention of waging war to regain her throne; she did defeat Stephen in 1141 and briefly became Queen of England, although she could not persuade the Archbishop to crown her. The people of London objected to her haughty manner and she was chased out of London. Stephen's Queen, Matilda, raised an army against Maud and her half-brother, Robert of Gloucester, was captured and swapped for Stephen.

The war raged on and Stephen's armies kept Maud and her followers under siege in Oxford Castle until she had herself lowered from the battlements in the dead of night and in the snow. She managed to travel many miles that night, so would not have had time to stop off anywhere, but that part is fiction.

Here is the first chapter. I hope you enjoy it.

 

 

Kindle Unlimited comes to the United Kingdom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kindle Unlimited, Amazon's borrowing scheme for kindle owners was launched in the US in July and has been successful so far. As a result, Amazon have now decided to launch the same scheme in the UK.

To learn more, click on this link. Amazon Prime has been available for a long time now, but this is different in that for a monthly subscription fee, readers can borrow as many books as they want to, although they are only allowed to keep ten on their kindle at once. So if they want to borrow another, they have to delete one. The other big difference is that while Prime is only for kindle devices, KU allows members to read the books on apps as well.

Don't forget though, readers have to read 10% of the book before the author gets paid! Unlike Prime, where they get paid as soon as their book is downloaded.

The first month's subscription is free so you have nothing to lose by trying it out. Enjoy!

 

 

The Past is another Country - they do things differently there.

Why do people buy a historical novel and expect it to have the attitudes and values of modern times?  I have known of authors who have written a modern story, picked it up and shoved it into some historical period where the values of modern times would not happen.

One of my favourite books is Gone With the Wind and although Scarlett O'Hara must be one of the most unsympathetic heroines in literature, one of the things I love about that book is its historical accuracy.  Scarlett pretending to be not very bright to catch a husband, not knowing what Charles Hamilton was doing to her on their wedding night. Not showing her bosom in the morning!  Wow!

Yet it seems that people read historical novels and expect attitudes to be those of today.

One silly woman declares that a book set in the sixteenth century has no respect for women.  Well, yeah!  The fact that women were the property of their husbands seems to have escaped people like that.  If you want respect for women, don't read an historical novel.

The daft thing is that today women are expected to leap into bed with a man they hardly know and will never see again, and they very often do, and if that is not disrespect for women, I cannot imagine what is.

Domestic violence is still common today, despite the law being on the side of battered wives.  They still keep going back for more, even though they have rights, which they certainly never had in the middle ages or even Victorian times.
I remember when they made rape illegal within marriage, though I can't recall how old I was then, probably in my late teens.  Before that, there was no such thing as rape within marriage, it was the man's right to have sex with his wife whether she liked it or not.  Even today, many men don't seem to realise they no longer have that right.
There was also no law against a man beating his wife even up to the early 20th century, and even then the police took little notice. Given all this, why on earth should anyone expect a novel set in the sixteenth century not to have these attitudes?

My Windows 8 Saga!

My pc is ancient, takes about fifteen minutes to boot up and that is after I have to press function one to stop the threat of disc failure.  Also it is a pc, which I have always preferred, but sitting at the desk all day is doing my poor back no favours. 

I thought I would try a laptop, so I could sit in the sofa instead.  I first bought a second hand one on Amazon to try, little 12 inch screen, second rate processor, no optical drive, Windows XP.  All good enough to see how I got on with it, if I could actually touch type on the thing.  It was ok and was helping my back, which was the important thing, so I decided to buy a new one.  That is where the fun started.

 

I took myself off to PC World on Saturday, purchased a Hewlett Packard Pavilion, very nice, purple colour for £329.  Now I didn't want to pay any more than that and I did want the Pentium 3i processor at least.  This one had that, as well as 500 gb hard drive, DVD RW drive, 4 gb memory and everything else I needed.  Great.  I set it up and it was all going fine.  Sunday morning, set up a few other things, email etc, then the keyboard stopped working.

 

I phoned PC World helpdesk who told me to do a back to factory settings system restore, which was no surprise.  Hours later when that had finished I set it up again, which I was able to do because the keyboard worked fine for that, then found it still didn't work.  So I took it back to PC World, damned nuisance as it is 12 miles away and I am doggie sitting my daughter's spaniel this week.  I couldn't leave him alone with my bears as it is not his house and although they get on fine, it could be a disaster.  Also he barks when I leave him, a lot, and Ferdie, my newfie boy, howls because he doesn't like his barking.  So I had to take him with me and leave him in the car, which meant I had to find a space in the shade.  I have a disabled badge because I can't get out of the car unless the door is wide open, so I also had to find a space with two empty spaces beside it and hope nobody parked there.  All the disabled spaces were in the sun.

 

PC World did not have another in stock, and the only other comparable one was also out of stock, so I asked for a refund, came home and went on Dell's website.  Found one on there, rang them to ask a couple of questions, ordered one from there, much cheaper though almost the same, and it came the next day!  Great!

 

Set it all up, and guess what?  The keyboard didn't work!

 

I thought I was trapped in a Stephen King novel - just could not believe it.  I rang Dell, who of course suggested the system restore;  that did not work.  They decided that as the keyboard worked for setting up, it must be a software problem and they sent me a recovery USB stick which came today, Thursday.  They rang, as promised, went through the whole business of re-installing Windows, downloading drivers, all of which took most of the afternoon.  I had to plug into the internet with an ethernet cable because the drivers for the wireless were not installed, which meant sitting on the dog food box as the router is in the spare room.  That did my back the world of good!

 

Wow!  The keyboard worked - for about fifteen minutes!  So I emailed the lady at Dell, told her it had gone caput again, and I was not prepared to waste more of my precious hours trying to fix something which should not need fixing.  She rang me and kindly informed me that they would collect it and replace the keyboard!  This is the same keyboard they already said had nothing wrong with it!  I told her they were not replacing anything except the whole machine.  She did not think they could do that, so I quoted the Sale of Goods Act at her, whereupon she went away to consult with her supervisor.  She returned after a few moments to tell me they would replace it and it would take about ten days.  Considering the original one came literally overnight, I thought that was a bit much.  I said no, that was not good enough, I would have a refund.  Again, she didn't think they could do that, so again I quoted the Sale of Goods Act at her.  Now they are arranging to collect it on Monday, a refund will take about seven to ten days, and I still don't have my new laptop.  After all this, I am not sure I'm not better off with the second hand one!

I would also like to add that although the woman in India at the technical help section seemed to know more than most of her ilk, she was extremely rude and kept interrupting me.  Not impressed with that at all.  I should not have to demand a replacement from a big company like Dell;  it should have been offered.

 

Remember folks, in the United Kingdom the Sale of Goods Act states that an item has to be fit for the purpose for which it was purchased and if it isn't, you are entitled to a replacement or refund.  Do not let them tell you it is not their policy;  their policy is irrelevant. 

 

Another warning for Windows 8 and 8.1 - even if you don't put in a password when setting up, it will still ask for one when you try to turn it on.  That is what it did to my son.  I don't want a password to log in, and neither does he, but because he cannot read it is more than a nuisance for him to have to copy out a password every time.  The result was he could not get into it again after it went to sleep, so we had to wipe the thing and start again.  I am hoping there is a way to get rid of it;  damned stupid idea if ever I heard of one.

 

Not amused today;  not getting any work done, my new novel is only one chapter in and I have been trying to buy a new laptop since Saturday!

Don't open your mouth until you've got your brain into gear!

That was a saying of my brother's and it still applies.  It is just as relevant when writing as when speaking, especially when leaving a review which the world can see.  Twice now I have had people tell me in a review that I have the history wrong.  One thought Newgate Prison was built in the eighteenth century, when in fact it was built in 1188 and served as a prison in London until 1902, over seven hundred years, until it was demolished to make way for the Central Criminal Courts, familiarly called the Old Bailey.

 

Now I have another who says my latest novel is silly because the premise goes against the law of primogeniture, that the eldest son was entitled to inherit.  He obviously did not know that the law never applied in the County of Kent, which is where the story is set.  He has also never read the book, since there is no verified purchase.

 

It has got to a stage now, where I have to give detailed history of every building and law in the book, just in case some know all comes along who thinks he knows better.  If leaving a review and you didn't like the story (provided you have read it) that it fair enough, but don't question the history when you have no idea what you are talking about.

 

Sorry for the rant, folks, but I go to a lot of trouble to research my history and to have someone who knows nothing come along and criticise is extremely galling.  A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Paperbacks of my books

I have recently updated many paperback versions of my books and am currently working on The Scent of Roses.

I am doing this because the font was too small and the size all wrong, so bear with me and you will find all the novels available in a more realistic size.  And the moment I am battling to get the correct page count displayed on The Judas Pledge, as the paperback is 260 pages but the kindle version is showing 100 pages, with real page numbers! So if anyone is confused about page count, look to the paperback versions and you will find the genuine page count.

I have also given the Judas Pledge a new cover. 

 I am working on a new novel now which is very different as it is a mystery set in 1960s London.  More than that I cannot say, but it has been floating around my little grey cells for years so it is high time it saw the light.

 

 

Medieval marriage and the Wyatt Rebellion

My new novel, The Viscount's Birthright, is based on the very real fact that consent on both sides was vital for a marriage to take place.  I have seen descriptions for historical romances which have the woman having no say in the matter.  I even saw one where the woman found she had been married by proxy without her knowledge.  Absolute rubbish!

The fact is that while consent can be coerced through threats of penury by the bride's family, consent still must be got before a priest will marry a couple.  There were very few grounds for divorce in the middle ages, but one of them was proof that the marriage took place without consent.

I have set it at the end of Edward VI's reign, the short nine day reign of Jane Grey and the coronation of Mary I.  My hero and heroine are protestants and not welcoming to a catholic monarch, especially one as zealous as Mary.  It was very likely that such a man would get involved in the Wyat rebellion of 1554.

This rebellion was led by Sir Thomas Wyatt following the announcement that Mary would marry Prince Philip II of Spain.  The people did not want the influence of Spain on England and they most certainly did not want the Inquisition here.  It must be remembered that Mary was the first female monarch since the Empress Matilda in the twelfth century, who failed to win her throne back from her cousin Stephen.  People did not believe a woman could rule and believed that if Mary married Philip, he would be king.  As it happened, that was one privilege she failed to give him.

Wyatt's plan was to murder Mary and put her half sister, Elizabeth on the throne, but Elizabeth was far too sensible to get involved in such a plot.  She was imprisoned following the failure of the rebellion, and famously sat on the steps of Traitor's Gate and refused to enter that way, declaring that she was no traitor.

Despite the efforts of her enemies, no evidence was ever discovered against Elizabeth in the plot and her name was cleared.

To assume Elizabeth would be willing to marry Edward Courteney and take the throne was really idiotic on the part of the conspirators, and the plan had no hope of succeeding.