Step Into The Story

Today I am blogging at the Word Wenches on the Regency country cottage and the fact that the "mean habitations" of the villagers were a far cry from the rustic prettiness of the "gentleman's cottage." Visit the Word Wenches blog here ! Meanwhile I have a giveaway here on the blog! Mary Gramlich "The Reading Reviewer" located at www.marygramlich.com has very kindly donated her Advanced Reading Copy of Whisper of Scandal along with a lovely book mark to celebrate the start next month of my new series. If you would like to enter the contest for this ARC please go to her website and tell me what there is a picture of at the bottom left hand corner of her home page. Clue: It's most appropriate for "The Reading Reviewer"! Email me the answer at ncornick@madasafish.com for the chance to win!

Thank you very much to all those who volunteered to help me test drive my new website! Today I am blogging at the UK Historical Authors Blog about women travellers in the late 18th and early 19th century. Yes the photo is taken rather later than that (!) but I thought it summed up the intrepid spirit!

Hello! Today I'm asking for help with a spot of website testing. I have a brand new, gorgeous website coming soon and next week we need to test it to make sure there are no problems before launch. What I am looking for is people who enjoy reading historical romance books and who can also: Spend 1-2 hours on the site, see if all the links work, surf around and report anything confusing, spot any errors or typos and give an overall impression of the site. I'll want people to be honest. I'm (not) thick skinned but I need to know anyway. Did you get bored? Did you get frustrated? Did you get lost? Did you love it? Did you want more? Is anything missing? If you would like to help, please email me on ncornick@madasafish.com and I will send you all the details. I'm really excited about the site and want to make sure it's ready for launch. And as a sign of my appreciation I am offering all my testers a small gift to say thank you for your work - an Amazon book token. Becau...

There aren't many places in England (as opposed to the UK) where you can still get lost in a wilderness and there are even fewer ancient forests where you can wander for hours without seeing another person. Savernake Forest is one of those few remaining places. Last weekend we were on another of our "butterflies and history" trips, this time in pursuit of the Purple Emperor, a fabulous gold and purple butterfly that lives in the tree canopy where it feeds on aphid honeydew. Occasionally it will come down to the ground to find sap or in the case of the male, animal droppings, carrion or moist ground to provide salts and minerals. Apparently people will often try and lure the males down from the canopy using everything from banana skins to shrimp paste. I hadn't read this when we set off and so had neither shrimps nor bananas and although we had our own animal with us there were no droppings so perhaps not surprisingly we didn't see a Purple Emperor but we did have...

Here is a picture of Manchester racecourse during the nineteenth century. Today I'm blogging over at the Word Wenches about the Georgian and Regency experience of the races and race-going. As this is a blog about gambling there is an ARC of my new book Whisper of Scandal to be won! Please come and join me!

Yes, I'm blogging about swimming again, which for someone who is afraid of water seems a bit odd. It must be all the hot and sunny weather we're having. But something caught my eye when I was reading the newspaper over the weekend and sent me off researching the gardens of Oxford and Cambridge colleges, a mysterious and secret world that is fascinating to explore. And so to Emmanuel College Cambridge which claims that it has (probably!) the oldest swimming bath in the country that is still in use. This glorious little pool was in use as early as 1690 or possibly even earlier. A changing hut in the classical style was built about 1745 and the present thatched hut dates from the mid-19th century. By 1745 a 'plunge' was regarded as good for headache, and 'against the vapours and impotence'. In living memory the water in the pool was dark green with algae, so dark that a Fellow who liked to swim the whole length along the bottom complained that he lost his way. A l...

Well, it's a sort of academic crush of the week plus the opportunity to post some lovely pictures. I missed this debate when it happened a month ago and have only just caught up with it but apparently at the Annual TV Lecture at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Stephen Fry, broadcaster, presenter, comedian and much more, criticised the BBC programmes Merlin and Doctor Who as being "like a chicken nugget. Every now and again we all like it … But if you are an adult you want something surprising, savoury, sharp, unusual, cosmopolitan, alien, challenging, complex, ambiguous, possibly even slightly disturbing and wrong... You want to try those things, because that's what being adult means.... The only drama the BBC will boast about are Merlin and Doctor Who, which are fine, but they're children's programmes. They're not for adults. And they're very good children's programmes, don't get me wrong, they're wonderfully written … but t...

I was tidying up my study and came across this article on gargoyles and it was so interesting I thought I would share it. Aren't they pretty! The gargoyle originated as plumbing. They can be traced back to Ancient Greece, Egypt and Rome when decorated terracotta waterspouts depicting lions, eagles and other creatures were common. Today they are still visible on the Parthenon in Athens and at the ruins of Pompeii. The word "gargoyle" comes from the French gargouille (throat) from which the verb to gargle also derives. The gargoyle was, however, a rather splashy way to dispose of rainwater and in 1241 King Henry III invented the drainpipe, instructing the Keeper of Works at the Tower of London "to cause all leaden gutters... to be carried down to the ground." Lead drainpipes began appearing in quantity in the Tudor period. At the top of these pipes where the gargoyle had originally sat, there was often an open-topped box known as a rainwater head. In the great h...

I almost didn't post up the recipe becaue I don't like pickles and chutneys. Then I thought this is like licorice - just because I don't like piccalilli doesn't mean that there aren't hundreds of people who do. So here is the recipe for those who do. The origins of this familiar mustard-coloured pickle and its name are open to conjecture. Recipes date from the 18th century and because of the inclusion of spices they may have developed with Britain's expansion into India and the East. The most likely explanation is that the name is a pun on the words pickle and chilli. 1lb peeled button onions 1lb 8oz cauliflour florets 1lb 3oz chopped cucumber or courgette 1lb chopped green beans 3 red chillis cut into strips Half a teaspoon cayenne pepper 2 tablespoons mild curry powder 2 tablespoons mustard powder 2 teaspoons turmeric 2 teaspoons allspice 2 tablespoons ground ginger 8oz sugar 2 tablespoons black peppercorns 3 oz plain flour 2 and a half pints of malt vinegar...

Thank you to everyone who helped me reach the 50 blog followers milestone this week! Today I am blogging with the lovely Deanna Jewel at http://deannajewel.blogspot.com/ Please drop by to say hello and join us for tea and cakes in the virtual parlour of Ashdown House. There is a set of the Brides of Fortune trilogy books up for grabs too!

“Romantic fiction, at its best, has a lot of truth to say about the human heart. It gives readers the chance to dream and aspire.” So said Joanna Trollope, keynote speaker at this year’s RNA Conference summing up two of the most enduring and appealing aspects of the genre. Yes, I’ve just returned from the Romantic Novelists Association annual conference, this year held at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, London. As if the conference itself is not inspiring enough for a writer, to be in the surroundings of this extraordinary historical site was enough to take my breath away. Permanently. For the entire three days. In Tudor times Greenwich Palace, reputedly Henry VIII’s favourite palace and the birthplace of Elizabeth I, lay on the site. Then in 1694 The Old Royal Naval College was established by charter with the aim of providing relief and support to seamen and their dependents. The site was planned by Sir Christopher Wren and during the first half of the eighteenth century va...

I'm mentioning my July website contest here on the blog because it is a very special one. I'm celebrating the fact that next month I will have be launching a beautiful new website - so this is the very last contest on the current site. The prize is an ARC of my new Regency historical Whisper of Scandal which is out in October. There's also a silver charm bracelet up for grabs. So if you would like an advance copy of Whisper of Scandal just click here to enter!

A couple of weeks ago I played truant from the writing and went on a trip to Somerset. Somerset is one of my favourite places. I lived there for seven years in my haunted cottage and it's a place I love re-visiting whenever I can. It's a county that feels particularly steeped in history and folkore. On this occasion I was combining some natural history with some English Civil War history. We were on a trip to find the Large Blue Butterfly at Collard Hill, a few miles from Glastonbury. The Large Blue died out in the UK in 1979 but has been brought back from UK extinction as a result of the re-introduction of butterflies from Sweden combined with some very hard work on the part of the National Trust to make sure it has exactly the right habitat and conditions to flourish. At Collard Hill visitors are allowed to wander freely trying to spot this rarest of butterflies. We had a hot day for our visit and our sense of anticpation rose as we toiled up the hill in the sunshine. I was ...

Okay, I'm cheating now and cross posting something that I put up on the Ashdown House blog a month or so ago. I've closed the Ashdown blog down now and I'll be posting stuff here instead in future and also posting archive articles I hope will be of interest. Then, in August, it will be all change again when my NEW WEBSITE and BLOG are launched - exciting times! But for now, here is a piece I hope is interesting. It's also topical at the moment with temperatures in the UK set to hit 30C today and tomorrow. So pour yourself a cooling drink - iced tea? - and read on for a bit of a chill! Readers in the Southern Hemisphere might want a hot toddy instead, of course! In Ashdown village there are the remains of an icehouse. Trust me, they really are under this pile of weeds! A weed covered mound is now often the only evidence for the existence of an icehouse on an estate. There are similar enigmatic bumps in the grounds at Lancing Manor in Sussex and at Sherborne in Glouces...

I've taken a longer-than-expected break from the blog over the past couple of weeks due to a terminally stubborn set of book revisions that simply refused to work. I knew there were problems with the manuscript and, hard as I worked to fix them, my writer's intinct told me that there was still something wrong even when I had finished draft 2. I tinkered, I re-wrote, I changed one thing which led to another which brought the whole thing down like a pack of cards. I had a fabulously helpful set of revision notes from my editor but still I could not do it. I cried. I comfort ate. I didn't sleep. Now I have draft 3, a sleep deficit, and no idea whether the book is any good since my judgement is shot to pieces. I love being a writer. Anyway, now I've emerged into the daylight I see it is a beautiful hot sunny day so to get back into the blogging I decided to post a piece about aspects of the history of swimming, some of which is taken from an article I read in the Daily Tel...

This is a fantastic meme from Michelle Styles for anyone who loves to talk about books, especially the books that captured you when you were a child and are still with you now. Name at least one book that you read as a child (ie 11 or under) that still exists in your memory as a perfect story. You can say why if you wish, or simply give a list -- your choice. It can be a story that you are now uncomfortable about having loved or were uncomfortable at some point and have now come back to or alternatively just one that you have always loved. Here is my list: 1. A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley. History fascinated me even as a child, as did the idea of stepping back in time. I’ve been hooked on timeslip romance ever since! 2. The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner. I could name just about every Alan Garner book for this list. I was totally hooked on his writing. The combination of adventure, magic and something just a little bit strange and spooky fascinated me. Plus the fact ...

Does the idea of a romantic short story set against the background of a historic house inspire you? If so then The Lady magazine is running a short story contest especially for you! The Lady has joined forces with Harlequin Mills & Boon and the National Trust to sponsor a writing competition and a series of creative writing workshops around the country. I am very excited to be running one of these at National Trust headquarters at Heelis, Swindon, on 28th June, when I will be sharing my top hints and tips on writing romance but also pictures and stories of my most inspirational National Trust sites. The writing contest is for a short story set against the background of a National Trust property - a historic house, a romantic ruin, a stretch of coastline or any other Trust venue you like. The stories should be in the romance genre and between 1500 - 2000 words. Details of the contest are here on The Lady website. The winner will be published in The Lady magazine. The runner up wil...