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!!