Looking Forward To...

Several things! I have my first post for the Light Touch Paper Stand Back series of guest posts, from Ripley Patton, author of "Mary Had A Little Unicorn". It will be up tomorrow, all going well.

The lovely History Girl and historical novelist Louise Berridge has emailed to tell me I have won a signed copy of her new novel Into The Valley of Death. It was totally unexpected and out of the blue, as you had to live in the UK to qualify, but she liked my comment so much she wanted me to have it, despite postage costs. Her publisher does have a distributor here but she wants it to be personal. I'm very much looking forward to that parcel.

Incidentally, if you haven't yet discovered this fabulous web site, I do heartily recommend it. There is a post daily. One of the latest is about what the author discovered while researching executions in the eighteenth century. Did you know that at one stage, if you were being burned at the stake your family had to pay for the wood? I knew people had to tip the headsman if they didn't want to have their execution deliberately botched, but not this! Anyway,check it out here.There's also a fascinating post about travelling with a baby in 1645, and how you'd feed them if you had no milk of your own. This web site is pure gold for anyone writing history-based fiction, including fantasy, as Jordyn Redwood's site is for anyone wanting to hurt their hero. At some stage I may do a post about useful web sites like these.

I have some more reading to look forward to, including the Carolyn Morwood mystery, Death And The Spanish Lady, I bought the other night at the Sisters In Crime event at the Atheneum. In fact, I have two weeks to enjoy reading without having to put it aside for the day to work... A charming Year Seven boy asked me the other day, as a librarian, how much was I reading. I told him, at work nothing, though quite a lot in my own time. He was impressed when I said a dozen books, though the figure was plucked out of the air. It's far more than that.

Stand by for plenty of action here in the next few days!