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Returning to my hotel after a day exploring medieval Rouen, I was excited to get the news:  The Storyteller’s Reputation has been long-listed for the 2019 Chaucer Book Award for pre-1750’s Historical Fiction. See more here, and here’s an except from the Chanticleer Book reviews website: It’s wonderful to be included in this group of talented historical …

Read more “September 3, 2019: The Storyteller’s Reputation long-listed for historical fiction award”

At the back of Westminster Abbey sits a squat medieval building built by King Edward III in 1365 to house various treasures and important documents. To build it, Edward basically co-opted the land it sits on from the Abbey, engendering ill will from the monks. Called the Jewel Tower, it survived the fire of 1834 …

Read more “August 31, 2019 – The Jewel Tower”

After a much needed shower (it had been 26 hours since the last one in the Seattle hotel), I’m off to Westminster Abbey, only a few minutes walk away. I had forgotten how glorious the facade is. Known to millions as the site of various Royal weddings, it is an iconic building, central to British …

Read more “August 31, 2019 – Westminster Abbey, Poet’s Corner, and the Palace of Westminster – endings and beginnings”

Every now and then I stumble on a book that blows my kind. In preparing for my research trip I was lucky enough to come across Marion Turner’s Chaucer: A European Life (just published earlier this spring) that was the perfect resource as I finalize novel one and move into the latter half of novel …

Read more “August 14, 2019 – Research manna from heaven”

Here’s where I’m going to research The Storyteller’s Desire…plus a side trip to Juno Beach in Normandy to see where my father landed, fought and was wounded over 75 years ago.

As I work on my second book in The Storyteller series, I think back to visiting Milan three years ago, standing in the mercado – the market square – that Geoffrey Chaucer would have stood in, the hair standing up on the back of my neck as I sensed his presence still, over 650 years …

Read more “June 25, 2019 – Preparations for a journey…”