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!

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!

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!

You might have noticed that the blog has been taking a break. Or you might not! A Passion For History is now reborn, with a slightly different focus for a new decade. There will be items of historical and writing interest (I won't say trivia but that's what I really mean), historical recipes -pigeon pie, anyone? - places, people and quotations. There will be some book news from me, links to other historical blogs and my current personal favourite feature, Academic Crush of the Week. Come to think of it, this might be a shortlived feature. Having worked around academics for 15 years, I can say that crush material was thin on the ground. We'll see. Here's a quick round up of what's been keeping me away from the blog: I've just sent in book 2 of my new six part series Scandalous Women of the Ton. The first trilogy kicks off in October 2010 with Whisper of Scandal. The current manuscript, One Wicked Sin will be out in November 2010 and Mistress By Midnight wil...

I'm a huge fan of the Happy Ever After. It doesn't matter which genre I'm reading, I still want to feel warm and satisfied and, yes reassured, when I get to the end of a book. Of course this doesn't work out well for me sometimes. My favourite reads include crime and thrillers and although the ending may satisfy in the sense that the mystery is solved and the bad guys caught, there's an unhappy ending for someone, usually the corpse. If the victim wasn't very pleasant then that's fine. That's why I enjoy watching Midsomer Murders. Maybe that's also why I don't read much gritty crime with random violence in it. I hear enough about that on the news. And then there's non-fiction. I love reading historical biographies but frankly I know that if I'm reading about Anne Boleyn, for example, then there's an appointment with the executioner waiting and history isn't going to change. So even as I read the book I'm preparing myself. Wh...