Hello all,
It’s a while since I posted a newsletter – time has just raced past and there are never enough hours in the day, but I’m doing a quick catch up now on the run.
WRITING
THE ROYAL REBEL, about Joan of Kent (called Jeanette in the novel) comes out in the UK and the United States in hardcover and on digital on September 5th. I love the stunning green and gold cover with the illustration of a kneeling white doe, a chained crown around her neck – Jeanette’s symbol. The first chapter is available to read at the back of the paperback of THE KING’S JEWEL, or you can read it on my website here: https://elizabethchadwick.com/novel-extracts/the-royal-rebel-extract/
I am hard at work on its sequel at the moment, as yet untitled, but following Jeanette’s story further into her life. A third book, branching off to cover Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt, will follow on from that, but not due to begin writing until next year.
For interest I have begun an occasional series on my website about how I came to write each of my contracted novels. The story of THE WILD HUNT is here.https://elizabethchadwick.com/blog/novel-stories-the-wild-hunt/
Events
I have no events over the summer but I am in the planning stages of giving a talk at Bromley House Library in Nottingham the autumn. I am also going to be appearing at The Historical Novel Society Conference on September 6th-8th at Dartington Hall in Devon, where I shall be talking on a panel chaired by Sharon Bennet Connolly and in discussion with fellow authors of Medieval fiction Matthew Harffy and David Gilman. If any more events crop up, I’ll announce them here and on other social media.
Social.
I post daily on my Facebook author’s page with a range of historical facts and writerly snippets. If you are a Facebook user you can find me at this url. There’s something new every day. https://www.facebook.com/ElizabethChadwickAuthor/
Domestic – a couple of paragraphs about ordinary life.
My husband and I married young when house prices were not through the roof and affordable to ordinary people. At the time we married, my husband was a welder in an engineering factory and I was a shop assistant.
We were fortunate enough to pay off our mortgage and eventually buy our current house (after a couple of moves) which has a garden covering about a third of an acre. We wanted to be able to grow our own fruit and vegetables from the back door rather than having to traipse to the allotment. We are now self-sufficient in onions all year, and three quarters self sufficient in peas, potatoes, carrots, beans, beetroot etc. We grow perishables such as lettuce and we freeze or dry or store as much as we possibly can. There is a small farm down the road with livery for two horses, and we mix their manure into our compost. The farmer also keeps a handful of hens who peck about free-range during the day, so we have a dozen eggs from him each week. Now at midsummer we are harvesting our own strawberries, raspberries, potatoes, cabbage, carrots and lettuce.
We share our house with four lively, happy, Patterdale terriers who are always on the go. Jack is 14 now and going blind and deaf, but is still game and enjoys his walks. Billy has just turned twelve and is the elder statesman of the group although not yet a pensioner. Ted is 20 months and a laid back young chap with a very strong maternal streak, which he lavishes on the baby of the family, Pan, eight months old. Pan is short for Pandemonium and also with a nod to Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series and Lyra’s daemon Pantalaimon. He certainly keeps us on our toes!
This is Ted inspecting the onions! I’ll post more photos of the other four-legged garden inspectors next time round.