Wishing You All...

.... A Hair-raising Halloween! :-)

viewAuthor.at/HelenHollick 

Shining Light on a Pirate Captain's Ladies

Welcome to a slightly different Blog Tour... 
every Tuesday during October I, and some other fab authors, 
have been shining a light on some of the women of our novels 

Today is the last stop of the tour... :-(

PLEASE TWEET: #LightOnOurLadies

viewBook.at/SeaWitch 

The Sea Witch Voyages. Nautical adventures with a touch of fantasy - tongue-in-cheek sailor’s yarns for adults. Written because I wanted to read something similar to the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie – The Curse of the Black Pearl but couldn’t find anything.

To date (2015) there are four Voyages in the series, with Voyage Five dropping anchor very soon.

But for once, my lead character, Captain Jesamiah Acorne, can take himself off to his cabin (probably with a bottle of rum) while I introduce the ladies in his life:

Jesamiah is one for the women – weren’t all pirates into drinking and wenching? He is not always faithful to ‘his’ woman – Tiola – and the fact that he occasionally finds it difficult to keep his breeches buttoned – even after marrying her – often gets him into serious trouble - with Tiola and various irate husbands!

But let’s take a closer look at why he loves these special ladies:

Tiola (you say it 'Te-o-la' short and quick not long as in 'Tee-oh-lah'). She is not as straightforward as she seems. A healer and a midwife…and a white witch. Although not in the ‘magic wand can do spells’ category. (If she could I’m sure she would have changed Jesamiah into a frog by now!) 
Tiola has the Gift of Craft, which means she can manipulate the forces of nature (as in The Force of Star Wars acclaim), call up a wind, suspend time and such. She can also create illusion by influencing people to see what they are not seeing, or to forget what they have seen. In other words she can make herself appear to be an old woman if she needs to, or can blend in with a rock or cliff. She cannot do harm, unless in self-defence – and I have deliberately given her limitations otherwise for any 'tricky' situation all she would need do is snap her fingers.

One great asset – she can talk telepathically with Jesamiah. But again I’ve put a buffer on this: Jesamiah cannot initiate conversations, nor is he always receptive to her trying to contact him.

Tiola comes from a long, long, line of Wising Women, the ‘Old Ones’ who were created at the very Dawn of Time. Her spirit is eternal providing she can transfer into a new body – and to do this the spirit passes from Grandmother to Granddaughter. If there is no granddaughter – then the spirit Passes (dies). For generations Tiola has been waiting through the millennia to meet her destined soul-mate – Jesamiah.

Her full name is Tiola Oldstagh, which is an anagram of ‘all that is good’ – but she does have her fallibilities, and isn’t always a saint! Jesamiah gets his face slapped more than once!

And this is usually because of one or other of these two:

http://viewBook.at/PirateCode

The lady he possibly would have married had he not known Tiola is Señora Francesca Escudero. The English woman with the Spanish name. A redhead – and definitely not what she first seems to be. We (and Jesamiah) meet her on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in Pirate Code (Voyage Two). She is the widow of a Spanish Don, and the (reluctant) mistress of the island’s Spanish Governor, an unpleasant bully of a man. Jesamiah had been arrested and ‘Cesca, as she calls herself, manages to wangle his release. Of course there’s more to it than that! She turns out to be an English spy, well capable of leading everyone (including Jesamiah) a merry dance. She makes a re-appearance in Voyage Four, Ripples In The Sand – much to Jesamiah’s astonishment and relief, because as ever, he is in deep trouble with a hangman’s noose. To his surprise and consternation, ‘Cesca is pregnant. The question is; is the child his or not?

Then there is Alicia. She is a minx. Originating from the London slums she found herself in the Caribbean and managed to acquire a wealthy husband. When he died she inherited his Barbados estate – and found herself another rich partner.

http://viewBook.at/BringItClose

Unfortunately, he turned out to be Jesamiah’s estranged half-brother. When Jesamiah turns up at the family home in disguise (with the intention of stealing one of his brother’s ships) there’s a very sticky moment. Alicia, of course, recognises him – for he knew her ‘very well’ in her pre-marital days. 
Will she reveal who he is?
Will he give her past away? 

And when she is widowed, Alicia attempts to secure her wealth by landing Jesamiah in even more trouble .... (Bring It Close)

And we must not forget Tethys. 

Jesamiah knows nothing about her, but Tiola has to battle against this feminine entity for she is the spirit of the sea - she is the sea... 

and she wants Jesamiah's soul and his bones for her own.

You can hear her voice calling to him when her waves splash against a rock, or brush against the shingle:   Jesh...amiah... Jesh...amiah... Jesh...amiah... 

His number one love, though, even above Tiola, is his ship. Sea Witch.
He would die for Tiola – he even took a flogging for her once - (and she knows, even when he strays that he will always come back to her). 

But when the choice between Tiola or his ship arises – 

...which one will he choose?
which one will he leave behind?

Voyage One: Sea Witch
Voyage Two: Pirate Code
Voyage Three: Bring It Close

Voyage Four: Ripples In The Sand

Coming soon: On The Account

Buy the books in paperback or on Kindle 

go to my Author Page on Amazon

So that's my Pirate's women - please do visit two more lovely ladies - Anna Belfrage and Linda Collison - who will introduce their ladies...

Anna Belfrage

Had Anna been allowed to choose, she’d have become a professional time-traveller. As such a profession does not exists, she settled for second best and became a financial professional with two absorbing interests, namely history and writing.

Presently, Anna is hard at work with The King’s Greatest Enemy, a series set in the 1320s featuring Adam de Guirande, his wife Kit, and their adventures and misfortunes in connection with Roger Mortimer’s rise to power.  When Anna is not stuck in the 14^th century, chances are she’ll be visiting in the 17^th century, more specifically with Alex and Matthew Graham, the protagonists of the acclaimed The Graham Saga. This series is the story of two people who should never have met – not when she was born three centuries after him.

Meet Anna's 'lady'.... She was blackmailed into marrying an unknown knight. She hadn’t expected having to save his life as well… visit Anna and a chance to win one of  Anna's books! https://annabelfrage.wordpress.com

AND
LINDA COLLISON

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, I’ve worked as a registered nurse, a skydiving instructor, a volunteer firefighter, a freelance writer, a novelist, and other, more ordinary jobs.  Together with my husband Bob Russell, we’ve sailed thousands of nautical miles, many of them aboard our sailboat Topaz. The three weeks we spent as voyage crewmembers aboard HM Bark Endeavour, a replica of Captain James Cook’s ship, sparked my interest in maritime history and inspired the Patricia MacPherson Nautical Adventure Series.

And meet Patricia Macpherson - aboard a ship and disguised as Patrick, a surgeon’s mate – but how long will the ruse last? 

read more.... www.lindacollison.com

And that, I'm sad to say, is the end of the Tour :-( 

I do hope you have enjoyed meeting our ladies -  Thank you for joining us!

The Full Shining Light Tour

 Week One : Helen Hollick (Queen Emma) with Pat  Bracewell and  Inge Borg

Week Two : Helen Hollick (Women of 1066) with Regina Jeffers, Elizabeth Revill and Diana Wilder

Week Three : Helen Hollick (King Arthur’s women) paired with Alison Morton  and Sophie Perinot

Week Four : Helen Hollick (Sea Witch)  paired  with Anna Belfrage and Linda Collison

PLEASE TWEET: 

#LightOnOurLadies

@HelenHollick

Shining Light on... Arthur's Ladies, Aurelia and Medici

Welcome to a slightly different Blog Tour... 
every Tuesday during October I will be shining a light on some of the women of my novels 
- and inviting some other fabulous authors to do the same!

Join the tour!

PLEASE TWEET: #LightOnOurLadies

King Arthur’s ladies. In the traditional stories they all seem a bit of a bitchy lot. There’s the fickle Guinevere who bats her lashes at Lancelot – and thus destroys the whole nature of what Arthur was trying to establish at Camelot, then there’s Morgause /Morgaine/Morgan le Fey who equally tries to ruin everything by having an affair with Arthur (her own brother) and thus producing a turncoat traitor (Mordred). Add to that the ethereal Lady of the Lake who goes about swathed in white samite and waving swords about while swimming in a lake. The stuff of fairy tales and chivalric adventure.

In my Arthurian Trilogy I took a slightly different look at this gaggle of gals.
A very different look in fact.

For a start I ignored all the Courtly Tales of the later Medieval period and set my story very firmly in the mid fifth-sixth century. I ditched Merlin, Lancelot, Camelot and the Holy Grail. And threw out Gwenhwyfar’s infidelity. Why? Because IF Arthur had existed he would have been a war lord of that chaotic period between the going of the Romans and the coming of the Anglo Saxons. (And incidentally the formation of Scotland by the Scoti people who came from northern Ireland).

I never liked the Medieval tales of knights in armour, couldn’t stand Lancelot and could never figure out why ditzy Guinevere chose to muck it all up for him. Nor why Arthur, a supposed strong king, turned a blind-eye to their adultery. My Arthur would have had their heads (and Lancelots other bits!) from the first whiff of after-shave on Gwennie’s shift or her lipstick on his chain-mail.
And anyway, I wanted my Gwenhwyfar and Arthur to be lovers and soul-mates. Even if their relationship was occasionally somewhat fraught.

Early Welsh legends speak of ‘Arthur’s Sons’ – one killed by a boar, another killed by his own father (Arthur) another slain in battle – oh and remember the character Mordred, the result of that incestuous liaison? In those early tales he and Arthur fell at the battle of Camlann – but you know what? There was no mention that they were enemies. They could well have died together while fighting on the same side.

So I set out to make my Gwenhwyfar a feisty redhead who had a sword and knew how to use it. She has three sons and she is faithful to Arthur. Although when writing a novel you have to include a bit more than that, so despite they love each other very much, the pair of them frequently don’t see eye-to-eye, often fight – and often make-up afterwards.

Nor is their initial union all that straight-forward. Arthur is coerced into marrying someone else – Winifred, the daughter of the dastardly King Vortigern and his scheming Saxon wife, Rowena.
Winifred can be a bit of a cow. (I enjoyed writing her scenes). She is spoilt and wants her own way – and God help anyone who gets in it!

Then we have Morgaine /Morgause / Morgan le Fey – three women, one woman? Different tales have different angles. The consensus being that she/they are also manipulative and even magical. I made her/them into two characters, mother and daughter, Morgause and Morgaine.

Morgause is the evil one of my Trilogy. I enjoyed writing her as well because she was so delightfully nasty! Another who manipulated her way to power, starting with being the mistress of Uthr Pendragon (Arthur’s father) and ending up as Queen of the Caledonian Picts. Strewn in her wake, the men she had used for her own gain, a boy baby swapped for a girl (Morgause was determined to even have control over birth) and an unloved and abandoned daughter, Morgaine...

Even though I had no magic in my trilogy Morgaine, when she came to adulthood, was to be known as the Lady Of The Lake – but she explains to Arthur that she uses her knowledge of nature to seem mysterious: appearing from nowhere because she knows the secret paths across the flood-levels, knowing someone is coming because the birds all rise from the lake… I liked Morgaine, and felt sorry for her. All she wanted was to be loved – and she fell for Arthur the first time she saw him, (she was a little girl and he was kind to her.) Unfortunately the need to love and be loved can bring about disastrous things, for her, having sex with Arthur and bearing him a son, completely unaware – both of them – that they were half-brother and sister.

The overall result, I have always hoped, is a tale of struggle, a fight to survive, of wanting what cannot be had, and of love and loyalty. From my reviews on Amazon the 5 stars seem to conclude I’ve achieved it, while some of the 1 stars miss the point or are anti-sex / violence readers. It does amuse me that one reviewer can say I have no grasp of history / realism / writing ability  while another praises the exact opposite! But there you go, you can’t please all readers all the time,

Here are a few of the comments relating to my Arthurian Ladies:

“Dirt, death, tragedy and a nicely dispassionate view of life and death keeps the books rocking along even though they are quite substantial. If I did have one criticism it was that Guinevere (spelt in the more realistic Welsh fashion in this book) was possibly a little bit more of a modern feminist action hero than I feel reasonable. But then again what is a novel without a challenging interpretation of life and love.”

“Although you'll find pretty much the usual characters as you do in other books on the Arthurian legend, what sets this one apart is Hollick's take - Arthur  drinks, he wenches and when he does lead his army into battle he is a fearsome and ruthless warrior. Winifred and her equally wicked mother schemes both together and behind each other's backs in bids for power were priceless, as well as Winifred's constant plots to get herself back into Arthur's bed, and keep Gwenhwyfar out of it. Gwenhwyfar was nicely portrayed as a young girl growing up a bit of a tomboy, and while I enjoyed her portrayal as a strong woman there were times she was just a tad bit too independent and feminist.”

“ Gwenhwyfar is no gentle female, rather she is spirited and brave. As both child and woman she is an extremely attractive, strong and interesting character.”

“The Gwenhwyfar and Arthur of this tale are solid and believable”

Or the not so good praise: (oh well, you can’t win ‘em all!)

“we learn that Arthur … drinks a lot, and is a horrible womanizer. Gwen, on the other hand, is pretty cool…. The spiritual Arthur, the chivalric Arthur, the noble Arthur, the sleeping Arthur whose legend inspires hope for the British people are all gone. In their place is a greedy warlord who aspires to little more than women, power, booze, and, did I mention, women? We have no idea what Gwen sees in him, but she's a saint. The only saving grace in this story is that this Arthur is probably closer to the historical figure (if he actually existed) than most of the fictions we enjoy today.” This reviewer clearly did not like my non-Christian portrayal of Arthur, missing the point that warlords (in order to stay a warlord) were more often b*stards rather than saints – and chaps of the fifth century did drink, fight and ‘womanise’.

This reviewer didn’t like the sordid side of relationships that go wrong: “…all the women save for Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere), are apparently bitches, sluts, whores.” Well yes, that’s what made it all such fun – they weren’t simpering damsels in wispy pointy hats swooning at the feet of every knight they met along the way.

So I guess if you don't like rough men who like their drink and who fight to survive, are not keen on violence or sex my Trilogy is not for you.

Still, here are the nicer comments:

“While the relationship between Arthur and Gwenhwyfar is tempestuous, I like it. She's a match for him in strength, anger, love, and stubbornness. While there is much to love about Gwenhwyfar, there is much to hate in two other women Arthur can't seem to extricate himself from --- his ex-wife Winifred who still calls herself the Pendragon's wife, and Morgause, his father's ex-lover and his aunt. Both women cause so much pain and destruction wherever they go. They are so annoying yet so riveting.”

I like this one:  yes – I agree! “Arthur can be a dolt of a man, especially with his own wife. He can't ever seem to find the words I love you or I'm sorry. He'd rather show anger than fear and while I don't like admitting it, I couldn't get enough is his debauched ways. He's not overly kind or gentle but after meeting this Arthur, I don't know if I want the old version back.”

“Arthur is charismatic, yet flawed. Gwenhwyfar, his wife, a feisty, capable and honourable woman. I found myself living in their world, caught up in their joys and sorrows. Painstakingly researched and well-plotted, Hollick delivers a believable and spellbinding tale.”

And finally:
“In book two of this series, Arthur has taken up the mantel of King, Gwenhwyfar has given him sons to carry on the Pendragon title, but he still refuses to settle down preferring to fight knowing the minute he stops it might be the end of him and his reign. When tragedy pushes Arthur and Gwenhwyfar apart, he finally comes to the realization that being Supreme King may not mean anything without his wife and family.”

I wrote the Trilogy more than twenty years ago (I was accepted for publication by William Heinemann in 1993) and I admit to flaws within it (mostly inexperienced writing technique) but to re-edit and re-print would, I think, spoil the genuineness of my first published books. If you decide to read them - and to get to know my Arthur with all his flaws, the woman he loved beyond life, and the ones who were determined to destroy Arthur and Gwen (in any way possible) I look forward to seeing your comments added to Amazon (yes, even the 1 stars!)

Buy the books in paperback or on Kindle 

#1 The Kingmaking

#2 Pendragon’s Banner

#3 Shadow Of The King

Helen’s Amazon Author Page

Helen’s Website

* * * 
So that's my Arthurian women - please do visit two more lovely ladies - and their shining heroines...

Alison Morton

Raised by a feminist mother and an ex-military father, it never occurred to Alison Morton that women couldn’t serve their country in the armed forces. After six years, she left as a captain, having done all sorts of interesting and exciting things she can’t talk about, even now…

Fascinated by the complex, power and value-driven Roman civilisation since childhood, she wondered what a modern Roman society would be like if run by strong women…

Now, she lives in France and writes award-winning Roman-themed alternate history thrillers with tough Praetorian heroines – INCEPTIO, PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO and now AURELIA.

 and her lady: AURELIA

Late 1960s. Sent to Berlin to investigate silver smuggling, former Praetorian Aurelia Mitela barely escapes a near-lethal trap. 

Her old enemy is at the heart of all her troubles and she pursues him back home to Roma Nova but he has struck at her most vulnerable point 

– her young daughter.

Visit Alison (and Aurelia) to read more - and a chance to win a paperback copy of Aurelia http://alison-morton.com/2015/10/20/meet-aurelia-mitela-woman-and-warrior/

AND

Sophie Perinot 

Sophie Perinot is a re-invented attorney. With a BA in History and a passion for reading, writing historical fiction seemed a natural second career. She is the author of The Sister Queens (March 2012/NAL), A Day of Fire (Nov 2014/Knight Media, LLC) and the upcoming Médicis Daughter (Dec 2015/Thomas Dunne). 

An active member of the Historical Novel Society, Sophie has attended all the group’s North American Conferences, and served as a speaker on multiple occasions. When Sophie is not visiting corners of the past, she lives in Great Falls, Virginia, with her three children, three cats, one dog and one husband.

with her lady: Médicis Daughter

As 16th Century France twisted under the serpentine rule of Catherine de Médicis, her youngest daughter, Princess Marguerite, walked a knife edge between the demands of her dangerous family, and those of her own conscience, cleverly navigating a court seething with intrigue and riven by religious war.

click here to read more :  http://www.sophieperinot.com 

NEXT TUESDAY: Our final stop on our Tour

We  set sail with Captain Jesamiah Acorne's ladies aboard Sea Witch, meet a lady surgeon disguised as a man aboard another ship, and a lady who was blackmailed into marrying a knight....

Do come back and join us!

If you would like to win a book by Helen Hollick 

send a message via my main website 

and automatically enter my monthly giveaway draw! 

PLEASE TWEET:

#LightOnOurLadies

@HelenHollick

The Full Shining Light Tour

  Week One: Helen Hollick (Queen Emma) with Pat  Bracewell and  Inge Borg

Week Two : Helen Hollick (Women of 1066) with Regina Jeffers, Elizabeth Revill and Diana Wilder

Week Three : Helen Hollick (King Arthur’s women) paired with Alison Morton  and Sophie Perinot

Week Four : Helen Hollick (the Sea Witch women) with Anna Belfrage and  Linda Collison

Shining Light on...

Welcome to a slightly different Blog Tour... 
every Tuesday during October I will be shining a light on some of the women of my novels 
- and inviting some other fabulous authors to do the same!

Join the tour!

PLEASE TWEET: #LightOnOurLadies

There were two Edith's in Harold Godwineson's life (that's King Harold II - the last English King who died defending his kingdom from foreign invasion on October 14th 1066.) When writing Harold The King I had great difficulty keeping the information for the Ediths apart (the same applies to all  the different Harold's!) I came to the conclusion that there was a shortage of Names for Baby books during the Saxon period. In the end, I changed the spelling for my leading ladies: Edith and Edyth. 

Well, strictly speaking there were three Ediths  - but I'm going to concentrate on the two who were involved throughout most of Harold's life. His sister Edith Godwinesdaughter, and his 'common-law' wife Edyth Swanneck, or Edyth the Fair.

My novel of Harold's life and the events leading to the Battle of Hastings that October day is just that, a novel. It is fiction, but it is imagination woven around the facts. Think of these facts as the skeleton framework; it is the author's job to fill in the muscle, flesh, hair and eye colour - and character - with imagination, and a little intuition perhaps.

Facts: Edyth Swanneck

• Harold took Edyth Swanneck as his 'common law' wife (i.e he didn't have a formal Christian-blessed marriage within a church).
• Her father was a minor nobleman (a thegn) from Nazeing in Essex
• They were 'man and wife' for over twenty years
• They had at least six children
• Harold had to set Edyth aside when he was crowned King in January 1066 in order to seal an alliance with the Earls of the North of England. (That's the third 'Edith' - but it is also another story for another blog!)

Probable facts: 

• Edyth Swanneck nursed Harold back to health after a serious illness
• She had to identify Harold's mutilated body after the battle
• She fled into exile after 1066

Facts Edith Godwinesdaughter

• She married Edward (the Confessor,) King of England
• He set her aside, sending her to a nunnery,  in 1051/2 when the Earl of Wessex, her father, Godwine, fell out with the King and was exiled along with the rest of the family
• Edward took her back as wife when Godwine was re-instated
• The couple had no children
• Edith used to sit at Edward's feet during public audiences or council business
• She supported her brother, Tostig, not Harold, when there was a family crisis in 1065/6
• She supported Duke William of Normandy after Harold's defeat and death at Hastings

Probable facts:

• She was well aware that either Edward was purposefully celibate, impotent, or gay
• She supported Duke William in order to retain her position as Dowager Queen, retain her lands and wealth.

Buy The Book (UK edition)
Buy the Book (US edition)

It was a combination of these facts that sparked my interest in writing the novel, way back in 1998. If Harold loved Edyth so much, why did he set her aside? How did they meet, how did the love between them develop? I pictured her as a caring, gentle, loving woman who gave everything for Harold and her sons and daughters. I feel her tears and heartbreak throughout that entire year of 1066! And more significant, how on earth  did that woman find the courage to walk a bloody battlefield littered with dead men and horses in order to find what was left of her beloved husband? Of course, she was doing it to find his body in order to give him an honourable burial ... but even so! What courage she must have had!

And Edith - I saw her as spoilt, precocious and manipulative. A daughter among brothers, molly-coddled by father and brothers alike, particularly her favourite, Tostig (who was probably the nearest to her in age). I saw her as always getting her own way, stamping her foot and having a tantrum if she didn't. Maybe she wasn't like that at all - but it is a fiction author's prerogative to see their characters in their own way.

And I know this is extremely clichéd but the final reason I decided to write Harold the King was because I had a very vivid dream - right down to detail of clothing, dialogue and action. It was like watching a movie.

Four men were riding beside a river. I knew straight away who they were: Earl Godwine and his sons Swegn, Harold and Tostig. They had two dogs with them who were running ahead and sniffing at the rushes along the river bank. The river was the Lee at what is now Waltham Abbey.
Swegn and Tostig were arguing. They were always arguing. The dogs put up a pair of ducks and were called back. Swegn laughed in a derogatory manner and pointed out a girl hiding beneath the trees on the far bank, called her a little slut.

Harold had already seen her, had watched her hurry to hide from the loud, angry-sounding men, and even at this distance he was attracted to her, wondered who she was.

And then my dream changed (as dreams do). I saw the girl running up a steep meadow, hurrying home, her great, lolloping dog at her side. Her cloak was fluttering in the breeze. It was a bright, kingfisher blue, and I knew that this was the young Edyth Swannneck, the love of Harold's entire life.

 I wrote the scene exactly as I had seen it. It became chapter two of the novel.

NOTE: Harold the King  is the UK edition title in the USA and Canada it is I Am The Chosen King
exactly the same book, different publishers, different titles.

Buy The Book (UK edition)
Buy the Book (US edition)

Buy the books in paperback or on Kindle as above or 

go to my Author Page on Amazon

* * * 

By  contrast we have some very different ladies to shine a light upon...

Regina Jeffers 

Regina Jeffers has worn many hats over her lifetime: daughter, student, military brat, wife, mother, grandmother, teacher, tax preparer, journalist, choreographer, Broadway dancer, theatre director, history buff, grant writer, media literacy consultant, and award-winning author of Austenesque and Regency era romance. 

Living outside of Charlotte, NC, she does not consider herself a “snowbird,” but rather an adventurer with a penchant for warm weather. 

Jeffers’ novels take the ordinary and add a bit of mayhem. Meanwhile, she masters the tension in her  life with a bit of gardening and the exuberance of her “grand joys.”

and please welcome Miss Elizabeth Bennet... 

You are “the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.” 

But is he? Can Elizabeth Bennet come to terms with the fact the one man she most despises is the one man who owns her heart? Find out ...reginajeffers.wordpress.com - and win a giveaway book!

Meet Also Diana Wilder...

Diana Wilder comes from a family of storytellers and people-watchers. A childhood spent traveling with her military family gave her plenty of opportunities to weave stories around the places and people that she encountered.  Her first novel, written on lined paper and barely legible, was a story of the Hawaii of Kamehameha the Great. The Safeguard, born of a lifelong fascination with its period, features several of her ancestors who were in the area at that time. She says it is difficult to be bored when there is history to read and people to write about.
And her shining lady, Lavinia Wheeler: Born into the cream of Southern society in Savannah, Georgia, Lavinia Wheeler was raised to run an estate with a light touch. That training proves to be of some use when the American Civil War comes roaring to her doorstep. 

Plus a chance to win a book - go here!


And also Meet: Elizabeth Revill 

A professional actress for many years with extensive experience in theatre, radio, film and television fuelled Elizabeth's passion to write. Ever since she was a little girl I enjoyed writing stories and would keep friends and family entertained with her world of make believe. Born in Birmingham, Elizabeth now lives in North Devon.

who introduces us to WWII District nurse Carrie -

Carrie's strength, passion and fire prove her to be a determined woman who knows what she wants. Her spiritual and emotional journey survive a heart wrenching struggle of tangled, traumatic and life affirming experiences, which shape her into a woman never to be forgotten.  click here to read more! 

* * * 
Next Tuesday - Shining Light on some more Ladies! We meet a woman who walked a knife edge between the demands of her dangerous family, and those of her own conscience, and a former Praetorian Guard sent to Berlin to investigate silver smuggling,..

If you would like to win a book by Helen Hollick 

send a message via my main website 

and automatically enter my monthly giveaway draw! 

The Full Shining Light Tour

Week One: Helen Hollick (Queen Emma) with Pat  Bracewell and  Inge Borg

Week Two : Helen Hollick (Women of 1066) with Regina Jeffers, Elizabeth Revill and Diana Wilder

Week Three : Helen Hollick (King Arthur’s women) paired with Alison Morton  and Sophie Perinot

Week Four : Helen Hollick (the Sea Witch women) with Anna Belfrage and  Linda Collison

PLEASE TWEET: 

#LightOnOurLadies

@HelenHollick