Christmas Holidays

Merry Christmas Holidays1

and a Happy New Year 2019

we will be back the 

2nd week of January 2019 

until then

Season's Greetings to everyone.

 

Writing

No, I haven't been, life has got in the way.

Back working at Waddesdon Manor all dressed up for Christmas. 5000 people came yesterday!

The Cinderella Corridor leading to a stairwell filled with mirrors and clocks telling the time as midnight. Pretty little 17thC shoes decorate the ceiling with a mirror ball glistening and sparkling it's stars around the walls.

A spectacular firework tree glows a brilliant red in the armoury corridor.

Thirteen especially grown trees provide the Christmas Carnival this year.

I left as the house was lit with colour and mistletoe balls of lights hung in the bare trees,
I was exhausted. People will touch poke pull the decorations "to see if they are real".

The wind blew up the stairwell lifting curtains and exposing hidden staff stairs, like a lady who's skirt is accidentally blown up by the wind, it's emmbarrassing to see what lies beneath!

So my Knights' adventures will have to wait a while, because real life is important. 
Have a good weekend everybody.
 
 

Back in Time

Ludlow Castle, we go every year for the medieval fayre. The Knights greet us at the door and mead and authentic food is served. We climb the castle, to see the view, the reason why it was built.

To see the enemy coming. 

It's lovely to see the Castle full of people and learning even if they don't know they are!  Modern people are cut off from life. They may not think so, but they have an easier time than Medieval folk.  Hawking is cruel - one woman said - with nothing to go on but seeing this falcon asleep on it's perch. Hawking was for sport and food.

Breeding dogs over and over and throwing the mother dog still alive in the wheelie bin when she can no longer produce - that's cruel and that's today.

 Kinights and a lady discussing the day's events.  A teenage girl asked "Who made the ladies armour?"  Women weren't Knights came the answer. "No, really who made the women's armour?" she asked again.

Because Hollywood films have changed History by equalising women and men, young girls like this do not realise the frustration and struggles that medieval women had. 

They had to keep the household, make sure enough food was stored over the winter to last until spring, make clothes, tapestries. Treat wounds and ailments and in the case of lower class women work on the fields and in the byres, and have and care for children and their husbands.

Yes it's right women have equality now. I was one of the women who fought for it. This is my time, my history. But it wasn't like that in medieval times, where a woman could be sold as a wife, or the Lord of the Manor could claim "first fruits" the virginity of a maid.

My latest book  The Kings' Men is about the Legend of the Rollright stones, Knights bewitched into rocks. The research has been interesting to say the least.  History is made every day, we don't have to change the history of the past. There's a danger in that, the struggles and wars for what we have today forgotten.

 

 

Casting for Farthing for Oxforde

Been having a bit of fun casting actors to play parts in my new book if and when it gets made into a film.

 

Alexander Vhlalos - Prince Rupert

Emma Thompson - Katherine - Anne's mother

Kate Winslet - older Anne

 

 

David Tennant - Charles 1st - have to put him in he's a distant cousin on the Burke side of the family that moved to Scotland.

 

 

Kenneth Collard as Mr Whipp the Apothecary (historical description fits him well - just needs 17thc specs)

 

 

Leo Suter as young Lord Howard

 

It's going to be expensive! I only want the best!

Does anyone know how I can crowdfund this?

 

Have a go yourself - everyone imagines characters differently - how am I doing?

Books

A Christmas tree made from books at Waddesdon Manor.

What a beautiful way to celebrate Christmas and a good book. Nothing better than curling up in front of a roaring fire on a squashy sofa with a good book on a cold winter's afternoon.

As a writer I read a great deal. I always have books for Christmas presents. In my teens my mother used to say that I don't read books - I devour them!

I paper flowers made from book pages. 

I used to feel a thrill opening a new book, the crisp new paper pages, the adventures waiting to be had. I would dive in and leave the real world behind.

Hope you get some lovely books for Christmas, I'd like to think some of them would be mine! Cheeky I know!


A ghost story for Christmas, sexy, funny, scary and enjoyable.

 

Firstly...

Good Morning everyone, hope you had a good weekend.

Secondly, I do not support or endorse Jim Davidson in any way, why he has appeared at the side of my blog on an advertisement is beyond me.

He is a bigot and a thug and a generally nasty piece of work who swears at people who disagree with him.

This is a blog about a Publications House and an Author, not about a so called comedian who gets his laughs by belittling people in his audience.

Years ago that was my sister and her boyfriend who happened to be a black soldier.

I will try and  get him off asap.

Sorry for the rant.


Margaret.

Submissions

Hello everyone,

Thank you so much for your interest in Nuova Stella.  It's been amazing.

Just a few things to say to you all.


We are not taking book submissions until the middle of next year as we still have ongoing projects. 

Our remit is History and Mystery books, with a strong leaning towards women's issues and their lives.

We do not publish Children's books. 

We do not illustrate other author's books.

We do not have a political bias, and will not publish anything that has. 

Everything we publish is copyrighted to us and if we come across articles from our books that are unauthorised we will take action.

We cannot at the moment commit to any more charities.

We already support: 

The Blue Cross and RSPCA
The Salvation Army
Shelterbox 
Movember

But thank you for thinking of us.

Sorry to lay down the law as it were.  It's always best to be straight so we all know where we stand.

Have a good Wednesday.

Five Stars!

Thank you for every reader who gave me five star reviews over the weekend. It really is appreciated.

Since the  book launch I have been fighting the flu. It finally got me last week, so there has been little activity on the Nuova Stella sites as Andy went down with it as well.

One of the few things we managed to do through the hacking coughs and shivers was to re-load 1955, a book written for an Amazon competition, if that had got in the top 100 I would have been £20K richer!  However, it came in at 102.

We looked at it again to find that the KDP automatic proof reader had changed words, got rid of the ends of paragraphs, and generally messed it up - and it still got to 102!!

We have reviewed and repaired and reloaded 1955 - it is now on e.book and paperback on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/1955-Margaret-Cooper-Evans-ebook/dp/B071HF5VTY/#reader_B071HF5VTY

Rememberance Day

I write a lot about the English Civil War, it's a period I've researched and lived in a small way.
We re-enact the Battles up and down this island, in the hope that this will never happen again. To remind people that war is terrible.

We lost a third of all young men in the UK during these battles. Women and children died in their thousands.

Rememberance day does not glorify the dead and the brave. It honours them. The CUSA Cambridge Students should remember that. 
 
Wilfred Owen was 25 years old when he died fighting in France a week before the end of hostilities. Here is his poem about life in the trenches.

 The last two lines echo what the Cambridge Students are trying to say.  He was with them but brave enough to go and give them freedom to learn, spliff, party and forget his sacrifice.

Really?

Cannot stop laughing - The Oxford Mail's headline Couple cash in on Civil War - nearly wet myself!! We get 8p per book!!

We fund, advertise, promote, research, write, do social media and everything else!! I wrote this because the women who lived through this time were undervalued and this was a way of telling how they survived! If we make our money back we'll be pleased!

Click on the link below to see our article in the Oxford Mail

A lovely article in the Oxfordmail about Nuova Stella

Press on the above link to see the article about our Micropublishing house, a big thank you to James Roberts for putting us in the paper.

Fifteen minutes of fame - then fish and chip covering!

Yes we are in the Oxford Mail this Tuesday and the Witney Gazette on Wednesday - I'm not sure what they are going to say about us - but all publicity is Good Publicity isn't it?

The Ashmolean Museum has Guy Fawkes' original lantern, kept because it may have been worth something one day - by one of his captors.

So even in the past the thought of money from a historical event was motivation to preserve it.

My book I hope will shed some light on the 17th Century and the interview may shed some light on me. Watch this space.

I've never been much for celebrating a Catholic being torn apart and mutilated - or anyone else for that matter. But it brings Guy Fawkes back to life for one day a year, so I suppose at least he's not lost to history.

Remember, remember the fifth of November, Gunpowder treason and plot. We see no reason. Why gunpowder treason. Should ever be forgot! 

Happy Firework Night everybody.

Amazon Kindle best sellers list!

Yes we're in at number 100!  We ARE in!

See the screen grab taken this morning.

 Thank you everyone who made this possible!!

It seems to have gone on a long time this year!

Halloween of course.

 Hubby dressed for work - yes truly leaning on our dear friend the invisible man!

Me looking dug up! Both cats refusing to pose! I have horrible cold, very little sleep (thanks to next door neighbours arguing outside their house and ours!) So I suppose looking a bit Zombie-fied is okay for this time of year.

Because I feel so wretched today, I won't be working. Just catching up with friends and trying to get better for the weekend. But in Overdown Evie is rising from the dead tonight and a cat kills a warlock. 

 Enjoy if you dare!

Halloween

A Farthing for Oxforde is out in paperback and Kindle, being reviewed by the Guardian newspaper sometime next week, and by the Witney Gazette and The Oxford Mail.

It has been a tortutous two years of writing and research, the stress of which gave me a minor stroke, called a TIA.  I was at Edgehill in full 17thC kit when it happened, on the living history, demonstrating how to get musket balls out of the wounded soldiers with my new musket ball remover. It was a stiflingly hot day, the event was crowded.  I had just stopped for a drink when my husband noticed my face had dropped on the left side, and I was speaking rubbish. 

I ended up in Warwick hospital with my husband and sister in full 17thC soldier's kit along with me.

I can't write any more about that because even thinking about it today brings on a panic attack.

It's a year since it happened, the book has been re-written three times. The research has been endless. It's strange as no-one actually sees you doing the research, they think it hasn't been done. 

I have been in long discussions with the Cromwell Museum in Ely, they questioned my research into the man. I actually managed to find things out about him of which they claimed they knew nothing. It was stressful and worrying, but I didn't have the time to re-find all my paperwork and hand it across to them, and why should I? Everything is out there if you look for it. It was just me doing the looking.

A friend who is not really interested in history said she couldn't believe what the women went through, and that the book was so exciting she couldn't put it down.

She loved the characters and said she could see it as a film.  I wish!

Anyway time to go. Have a good day, buy my book on Kindle £2.99 is a small price to pay for the work and pain it cost me.
 

Back to Work

My book, A Farthing for Oxforde, will be out on e.book sometime this week. Just in case you have forgotten what it looks like - here it is!

 Here's Oxforde by Wenslas Hollar

Have a good day - I will sometimes go off topic and use this page as writing practice as I have always done, but today I need some R&R!
 

The Veil between life and death.

As All Hallows Eve approaches, children will dress up as ghosts, witches, and skeletons, my son's favourite was a mad monk. He would take a magic 8 ball in his costume of a shabby grey cowl made from an ancient blanket, to tell his friends future.

When I wrote Halloween in Overdown, I did a lot of research into necromancing, ghosts, and life after death.

For children it's a game. For us it's a reminder of what's to come. 

In a 17th Century graveyard I saw a tombstone with a badly sculpted skeleton on it grinning. Underneath it said:

Passer by don't laugh at me,

for as I am now,

so you will be.

Today as the veil that separates the realms grows thin enough to pass through, I thought of my dear little cat who died eighteen months ago, missing him brought on a poem. I rescued him from starving to death with other animals on a farm in Tring. The RSPCA brought a successful prosecution and the farm was closed. Unfortunately so many of the animals were in such poor condition that the only way to help them was to put them to sleep. The others went on to find loving homes. When I picked up my little cat, he was a fur covered skeleton he had been trying to keep alive by eating horse poo, he was stinky, but had the most amazing Amber eyes. He put his paws either side of my face and kissed me on the nose, and the rest as they say is history.

This poem is for him

I miss your head on my shoulder and the way it fitted into the palm of my hand,

Your lovely little chirrups, to make me understand,

Your brilliant Amber eyes shone like torches in the dark,

I miss you my dear kitten and the way you used to lark,

Stealing bits of bacon, chasing ducky duck,

It was a shame my darling you were born to such bad luck.

You reached your paws around my face the first day that we met,

You took me as your mummy,

I took you to the vet.

Half starved and tiny, the vet gave me no hope,

but nearly ten years on my love proved he was a dope!

My bionic kitten cost a fortune at the vet,

seeing you playing in the garden in the sun and wet,

was worth the price I paid.

I'd do it all again my love if your life was saved.

How I loved my BoBo, my handsome little boy,

racing through Christmas wrapping to find your latest toy.

Your life ended as it started, me holding you in my arms,

I loved you so much little one, and all your funny charms.

I'll always always miss you because you belong to me,

I'll always always love you,

deeper than the sea. 

 Amber Evans April 2007-October 2017

  

Bookshop Frenzy!

Really happy to have my book, 'A Farthing for Oxforde' in Blackwell's bookshop in Oxford yesterday.

Also in the Mad Hatter's Bookshop in Burford

And in the window of The Woodstock Bookshop 

I really hope everyone enjoys reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Last night in Oxford, the other half of Nuova Stella was attending Publishing lectures held by
the Young Publishers Society and found it very enlightening.
 
 
 

The first bite is with the eye...

This is my book, wrapped in parchment, tied with red ribbon, and sealed with sealing wax.
Sent to the Guardian newspaper for review, in the hope that a little 17thC magic will grab their attention.

Edgehill weekend re-enactment. Another chance to honour the 2000 young men and women who died fighting for their beliefs. Yes there were old soldiers as well, but the majority of the men who died in the first battle of the English Civil War were young.

As the Kings Guard of the 21st Century regiment form up to go on the battlefield the cross section of men and women would have been pretty much the same. Computer analysts now would have been statisticians or librarians then. Car salesmen would have been coachmen or horse dealers.

Young mothers would have picked up their husbands army coats and become soldiers or drummers to feed their family. Whereas now they have their own careers.

Computer games artists would have been court painters, illustrators, print makers.
Same but different.

Nothing much seems to change over time, we still fight on different sides for what we believe in. We don't seem to learn that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Book release tomorrow A Farthing for Oxforde hits the shops in Oxford and the surrounds and is out on Amazon.

Hope you enjoy your adventures with Anne Farthing through the English Civil War.
 
 

The truth is out there...if you look for it.

Nuova Stella scandal!!

On my twitter page I have been getting grief from the Cromwell Museum on social media because I said they were glorifying war at Dhogheda where Cromwell killed over 2000 people.

They also put up a Victorian painting of the raising of Basing House also saying it was a great victory - even though through research I found that Cromwell left some of his worst wounded soldiers in the basements, then burnt the house to the ground with them in it.
The villagers report hearing their screams.

They denied this and asked where I got my information from, so I sent them links some from the Imperial War Museum, which stated that it was the first War Crime and genocide of Catholics.  

Anyway this started a whole thing of others having a go at me,  asking where I found these things out.

As I have a book to write. I haven't got time to state where I got all my 25 years or so of research from. What papers, what libraries, what Museums, what living source. So anybody who keeps asking me questions should do the research themselves.

Try the Bodlien Library, go to the large country houses, talk to living relatives about their ancestors. I am at the moment in discussion with an Oxfordshire family about their famous Civil War relatives. I also mentioned that point scoring is also bullying, and it was time to draw a line under this now.

History is a strange and interesting subject, people will always "know for a fact" without anything to back it up, and yes history is mainly written by the winners.

That is why I spend my time digging up the untold stories of heroic women, as history was written by the men, and these women made history too.

A Farthing for Oxforde was written based on research of the facts of what it would be like to live during that time as a women, and it's not good.

Another Nuova Stella day

Our Logo is based on a 17th Century compass. A new star showing us the way. 

 

In the last two weeks our little company has gone from success to success, it's exciting and scary in equal measure - it's all happening so fast. 

Today the bookmarks arrived - looking spectacular - I might add. Just waiting for the books to arrive from the printers now.  This coming weekend our "Farthing for Oxforde" will be in the bookshops. Out on Amazon as an e.book and paperback later in the week.

 Anne, Lady Halkett (née Murray) (1623–1699

 

This is a waxwork of the real "Anne Farthing" - Lady Anne Halkett in her 80s just before she died in Scotland. Sitting at her desk at The Abbot House, Dunfermline in Fife. Unforunately she sits alone waiting for the house to re-open as a museum. Whereas our version of Anne made it back to Oxford.

 

The book is based on some of Anne's life, and some lives of other women who wrote letters,day books and diaries as they lived through the war.  

This is my take on what Anne Farthing looked like in her late twenties. Like many of the women I write about, there is no portrait of them that I could find.

 

Amazing Halloween Book Offer starts Monday!

 Halloween Special

All Halloween horror books reduced in price from Monday.  Scare yourself silly!

Also as a special treat - ALL The Hilary Long Mysteries series will  be reduced to 99p 

 Get to know Hilary, Overdown and her new friends.  As Stacey says "You wouldn't buy a bag for life if you lived in Overdown!"

Magic in the Air

The Cotswolds. A romantic view of a typical village. The last resting place of Agatha Christie, the place where M.C.Beaton and her Agatha Raisin mysteries live. It's a place many stars call home, handy for London, Oxford, Stratford on Avon, Birmingham, Bristol. also The Chipping Norton set. 

For the past 4 years it has been home to my fictional runaway millionairess called Hilary Long.

I wrote the Hilary Long mysteries when we moved to the Cotswolds, the mixture of honey coloured houses, and the interesting people living in them filled me with inspiration.

Hilary wasn't mean to be a sleuth. She was just trying to prolong her life after a court case found her business partner trying to undermine the City of London. She knew he would be out for revenge. In my research I found out that people who go into witness protection usually only survive two years. Shocking. So my character had to become someone else that no-one knew, not even the police.

Unfortunately she ended up in Overdown, a place where one of my minor characters, Stacey, says "you wouldn't buy a bag for life if you lived here!"

Where does the magic come in you ask?  Well all my books have supernatural events in them. When we first moved here I noticed the trees in the Cotswolds reach their arms to sky, the knots in the wood, have faces, dark things race across corners in my house. There are goblins and fairies that you almost see. Sometimes the cats catch something and you really don't know what it is. It has wings, green mostly, as they die they disappear.

I work in historic houses, sitting in a bedroom where the lady of the house commited suicide, I as a room guide, could feel her pain, near the window by her dressing table. Tangible, real.

So the paranormal crept in and stayed, involving research that scared me silly, but based on real spells, real events, even real people that I have met here.

Halloween is coming up, so as a treat a week before all the Hilary Long e.books will be reduced in price. Look out for:

Hope you enjoy these two. There are two previous books that lead up to these, but they also stand alone. So get a glass of wine, light a candle, and snuggle down to be scared witless!