All posts filed under: Historical posts

Sunday update and book giveaway!

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I hope you have enjoyed the Lord of the Rings season on this site, which was concluded on Friday with my final post of the series, with the search for the next Tolkien to grab the fantasy world’s attention.  I will return to other fantasy works soon, but I think on my next post I should come up with a post more centred on historical works…after all, this site does cover both genres.  It can be quite difficult to get the balance right, but as I’ve stated many times in the past, I think the two genres have more in common than they have differences. I try to be quite open to new ideas for this site, therefore in an endeavour to help involve my readers in the running of this site, I have come up with a new giveaway competition.  I will be giving away three copies of the paperback version of my book Roman Mask.  Possibly you haven’t purchased it yet, and even if you have you may only have read it on …

Sunday update!

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I hope you have been enjoying the series on The Lord of the Rings this past week.  I started off with a post on my own memories of when I first read the trilogy and followed that up with a piece on what separates Tolkien’s work from other novels.  I could leave it at that, but I would like to write one more post on how our perceptions on the three books have changed since the films have come out, and what the legacy of The Lord of the Rings is likely to be, since the three film’s incredible success at the box office.  I will also try and look ahead, at other fantasy novels that may one day be considered classics and take their place alongside The Lord of the Rings at the top of the genre.  This will come out on Wednesday. Roman Mask An update on my own novel Roman Mask.  I still haven’t managed to work out what has happened to the three missing reviews from my blog tour which were supposed …

Bernard Cornwell, The Winter King. A great combination of myth and history.

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Bernard Cornwell has always been a great favourite of mine, managing to combine exciting action with historical events – informing the reader, whilst keeping them on the edge of their seat.  So I was intrigued when he decided to write a series of novels based on the legend of King Arthur.  The Winter King is the first of the Warlord chronicles and is set in ancient Britain just after the Romans left its shores and the Saxons started to make incursions into the British Isles.  King Arthur comes to hold back the impending storm, and by so doing spawns the legend that has inspired the myth that has lasted through the millennia. The difficulty with any Arthurian novel is striking the balance between historical accuracy and the myth that has grown over the past fifteen hundred years.  Most people realise that Sir Thomas Mallory’s concept of knights in shining armour is completely inaccurate, but do you throw out all the elements of the legend you think untrue or exaggerated?  If so you may come up …

10 Castles to see before you die!

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picture from Etonnantes-pyrenees.com Montsegur, Southern France.  Unless you know your European history well, you might be unaware that there was another branch of Christianity once.  They were called the Cathars and were based mainly in Southern France in the 12th and 13th century.  Alas, they fell out with the Catholic Church, who declared them heretics and with the co-operation of the French King pursued a religious crusade to wipe them out.  The Cathar’s last stand was held in this tiny castle in the Pyrenees.  A year long siege was ended by a daring raid of French knights who climbed up the cliffs to take the castle in the night.  The Catholic Church then burnt the 225 Cathar priests alive at the foot of the mountain (they apologised in 1979). picture from en.wikipedia.org Alnwick Castle, Northumberland UK.  I had to have this one on the list because it used to be my favourite as a child.  My grandmother had dinner mats of different English castles in her cottage in Northumberland.  I used to always insist I had …

Process of building a character #books #writingtips

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If you want to write a novel, you will need well rounded and believable characters to pull your readers along with the story.  For readers to care what happens at the end of a book, you will need to forge a connection between them and your characters. Different authors will have a variety of different approaches to constructing characters for their novels.  Some will take a more ad-hoc approach, and develop them along the way.  But for myself, if I am going to create realistic characters, it is important to map out their characteristics at the planning stage of a novel – after all, you wouldn’t start writing a book without knowing what your plot is going to be, so why should the characters be any different?  They are just as vital to your novel so it is worthwhile spending some time on character development before you start writing.   These are the stages I go through when putting my characters together – you can play around with the order, nothing here is set in stone. picture from …

Readers Favorite! Roman Mask, 5 Stars! #books

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You may notice a silver medal on the top right hand side of my blog, showing five stars.  This is from readers favorite, who have awarded me this after reviewing my book, Roman Mask.  Readers favorite are The fastest growing book review and award contest site on the Internet.  They are the recipient of “Best Websites for Authors” awards by the Association of Independent Authors. They are also used by the large publishing houses Penguin, Harper Collins, Random House, and Simon & Shuster among others. The reason I went to these guys to review my novel, was because I felt it was important to get a completely impartial view on my novel, from a source that is world recognised and renowned for their fair and honest reviews.  Needless to say, I was delighted to receive 5 stars!  They also have an annual book award contest in April, so who knows, I might just take part in that too! Anyway, here is the review I received: Reviewed By Cheryl E. Rodriguez for Readers’ Favorite Thomas MD …

10 Great features of a castle #writing #fantasy #history

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You can’t beat a castle to form a dramatic setting for a novel.  If you are writing a story from the past, you can steep it with the historical detail so beloved of the genre.  Equally, if you are writing a fantasy novel, you can let your imagination run free as you create a great stronghold.  One of my favourite aspects of George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones is the number of incredibly expansive and spectacular castles, all uniquely different, that form the seats of power for all the great families. If you want some pointers where to start, here are 10 to get you going. picture from lookandlearn.com Battlements and Machicolations.  A few crossbowmen along the battlements go a long way to deter any but the most determined attacker, but if necessary, you can have machicolations – stone boxes that project from the wall and had holes in the floor – ready to pour boiling oil, rocks, or any other nastiness down on the poor unfortunates below. picture from travelblog.org Arrow slits.  Such a simple …

Calling all authors and book reviewers…FREE marketing! #bookmarketing #authors

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picture from youtube.com My own novel ‘Roman Mask’ is about to appear on a blog tour of historical fiction websites, through the end of August and throughout September.  It has made me appreciate how important it is for authors to gain the exposure necessary to get a new book up and running.  As I have a website of my own, it only seems fair to make the same offer to other authors in need of marketing their own novels.  So you will see there is an extra tab on my site called ‘Submissions’.  This shows how you can submit a post to my website promoting your own work, providing it is a fantasy or historical novel.  It is completely free of charge; I just need a post that tells the readers something about your novel – it could be the inspiration behind writing the book, or why you were interested in a period of history, or anything really that tells us something about the novel.  I will then post this with a description of the …

Allan Massie, Augustus. A Emperor like no other… #books #greatreads

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If you really like your Roman Imperial history, or would like to learn more, this is a great place to start.  Alan Massie’s novel on Augustus is both detailed and engaging, an excellent commentary on the man who probably did more to shape the Roman Empire than any other – high praise when you consider Julius Caesar is on that list. Augustus is largely accepted as Rome’s first Emperor (Julius Caesar was dictator for life) and although Augustus preferred to go by the term ‘princeps’ or first citizen, he completely reformed Rome’s old Republic into an imperial super-power capable of controlling the vast lands and provinces that stretched through Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa. Alan Massie’s novel is a fictional memoir from Augustus, as he recounts his life.  It is divided into two parts.  The first is recounted by a middle aged Emperor in a triumphant tone as he retells the period of the civil wars which followed the assassination of his uncle, Julius Caesar.  He tells of his ascension to power as, with the …

What I love about writing… #writing

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picture from en.wikipedia.org What do I love about writing most? Well, it’s the same things that made me such an avid reader in the first place.  Books have the ability to transport us to new worlds, or periods of time that are otherwise completely locked away from us.  The immersion can be so deep from a novel that we can imagine every step that any given character makes, and it is bringing those same characters to life that is the greatest joy for me as a writer. A book needs to be well written and full of descriptive passages, as they play an essential part in setting a scene and giving the writer’s world depth.  But it is the characters within that world, their hopes, wishes, loves, and desires that will make the story come to life.  When constructing a character for a novel, you want to be able to really get under their skin, understand all their passions and frustrations, their strengths but equally their weaknesses.  Only then can you understand how they will …