Special Offerr, Tangled Love, Historical Novel, Prologue

 

Tangled Love by Rosemary Morris

Prologue

England -1693

 

Nine year-old Richelda Shaw sat on the floor in her nursery. She pulled a quilt over her head to block out the thunder pealing outside the ancient manor house while an even fiercer storm raged deep within. Eyes closed, she remained as motionless as a marble statue.

Elsie, her mother’s personal maid, yanked the quilt from her head. ‘Stand up child, there’s nothing to be frightened of. Come, your father’s waiting for you.’

Richelda trembled. Until now Father’s short visits from France meant gifts and laughter. This one made Mother cry while servants spoke in hushed tones.

Followed by Elsie, Richelda hurried down broad oak stairs. For a moment, she paused to admire lilies of the valley in a Delft bowl.  Only yesterday, she picked the flowers to welcome Father home before arranging them with tender care. Now, the bowl stood on a chest, beneath a pair of crossed broadswords hanging on the wall.

Elsie opened the great massive door of the great hall where Father stood to one side of an enormous hearth. Richelda hesitated. Her eyes searched for her mother before she walked across the floor, spread her skirts wide and knelt before him.

Father placed his right hand on her bent head. ‘Bless you, daughter, may God keep you safe.’ He smiled. ‘Stand up, child. Upon my word, sweetheart, your hair reminds me of a golden rose. How glad I am to see roses bloom in these troubled times.’

Richelda stood but dared not speak for she did not know him well.

Putting an arm round her waist, he drew her to him. ‘Come, do not be nervous of your father. Tell me if you know King James II holds court in France while his daughter, Mary, and William, his son-in-law, rule after seizing his throne?’

‘Yes, Mother told me we are well rid of King James and his Papist wife,’ she piped up, proud of her knowledge.

With a sigh, Father lifted her onto his knee. ‘Richelda, I must follow His Majesty for I swore an oath of allegiance to him. Tell me, child, while King James lives how can I with honour swear allegiance to his disloyal daughter and her husband?’

Unable to think of a reply, she lowered her head breathing in his spicy perfume.

Father held her closer. ‘Your mother pleads with me to declare myself for William and Mary. She begs me not to return to France, but I am obliged to serve King James. Do you understand?’

As she nodded her cheek brushed against his velvet coat. ‘Yes, I understand, my tutor explained why many gentlemen will not serve the new king and queen.’

‘If you remain in England, you will be safe. Bellemont is part of your mother’s dowry so I doubt it will be confiscated.’

If she remained in England! Startled, she stared at him.

Smiling, he popped her onto her feet. ‘We shall ride. I have something to show you.’

*****

Before long, they drew rein on the brow of a hill. Father pointed at a manor house in the valley.  ‘Look at our ancestral home, Field House. The Roundheads confiscated it soon after the first King Charles’ execution.  Richelda, I promised my father to do all in my power to regain the property.’ Grey-faced, he pressed his hand to his chest.  ‘Alas, I have failed to keep my oath,’ he wheezed.

Richelda not only yearned to help him keep his promise to her grandfather, she also yearned to find the gold and jewels legend said her buccaneer ancestor, Sir Nicholas, hid.

She waited for her father to breathe easy before she spoke. ‘If we found the treasure trove you could buy Field House.’

 ‘Ah, you believe Sir Nicholas did not give all his plunder to Good Queen Bess,’ he teased.

 ‘Elsie told me legend says he hid some of his booty in Field House,’ she said excited by the thought of a treasure trove. ‘In his old age, when Sir Nicholas retired from seafaring, is it true that he put his ship’s figurehead, Lady Luck, in the great hall?’ she asked by now less shy of him.

‘Yes, for all I know she is still above a mighty fireplace carved with pomegranates, our family’s device.’

‘I would like to see it.’

 ‘One day, perhaps you will. Now, tell me if you know our family motto.’

‘Fortune favours the brave.’

‘Are you brave, my little lady? Will you swear on the Bible to do all in your power to regain Field House?’

To please him, she nodded.

 

* * * *

 

Tangled Love, is on special offer for £1.84 OR $3.05.

 

Available from:-

https://museituppublishing.com/bookshopwww.amazon.com.www.amazon.co.uk kobo, nook, barnes and noble and elsewhere.

 

View the book trailer and read the first three chapers at:

www.rosemarymorris.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nasty Review. Please Help

Vicious Attack.

 

I am not the only novelist to have received a distressing, vicious review of one or more novel.

Another novelist suggested we should take action by replyitng and readers cab support us by replying No to amazon’s query “was this review helpful to you?”

Unfortunately, in spite of other 5***** reviews, two people replied Yes to the question re:my novel Tangled Love which currently on special offer.

If it is not against your conscience, I would be grateful if you would visit www.amazon.co.uk search the kindle store for Tangled Love by Rosemary Morris, visit the reviews, find the only 1* review and reply: No this review was not helpful.

Amongst other things the reviewer commented on clichés in Tangled Love. As I explained yesterday, my contents and line editors would dispute their use and I would agree not to use them, unless I used a cliché very occasionally in conversation.

I would be pleased to do this for another novelist who receives an unjustified attack on a novel.

Personally, if I can’t give a book a 4**** or 5**** review, I don’t post one – in other words if I don’t have anything nice to write, I don’t post anything.

 

All the best,

Rosemary Morris

Historical Novelist

 

Visit my website to read the first three chapters and view the book trailer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tangled Love. Historical Novel. Special Offer

 Just to let you know that my historical novel, Tangled Love, is on special offer for £1.84 OR $3.05.

 Tangled Love set in England in 1706 during Queen Anne Stuart’s reign is a story of two great estates, duty, honour, betrayal and passionate love.

 Available from:

https://museituppublishing.blogspot.com/bookstore

www.amazon.com.
www.amazon.co.uk
and elsewhere.

 Read the first three chapters and view the book trailer for free on Rosemary Morris’s website. www.rosemarymorris.co.uk

Queen Anne - part Three

Queen Anne Part Three

Princess Anne’s relationship with Sarah Jennings, the future Duchess of Marlborough would last into her middle age.

Sarah, a year younger than Anne’s fifteen year old stepmother, was the daughter of a landed gentleman and the young sister of Frances Jennings, a maid of honour, appointed to serve Anne’s mother.

At the age of twelve, Sarah, who would play such a crucial role in the Cinderella princess’s life, was appointed as one of her attendants. Years later Sara wrote: We had used to play together when she was a child and she even ten expressed a particular fondness for me. This inclination increased with our years. I was often at Court and the Princess always distinguished me by the pleasure she took to honour me, preferably to others, with her conversation and confidence. In all her parties for amusement, I was sure by her choice to be one.

Kneller’s portrait of the teenage Sarah reveals a pretty girl with an oval face, broad forehead, fair hairs and confident blue eyes. Yet no portrait could reveal her vivacity and charm.

It is not surprising that the motherless, Cinderella princess living in the shadow of her older, cleverer sister, Mary, and the daughters of her governess, Lady Frances Villiers, became deeply attached to Sarah.

Anne was pretty with plump features, re-brown hair and her mother’s elegant hands of which she was very proud. However, she was shy, easily ignored and all too aware of her short-comings – her poor education did nothing to boost her confidence. As Sarah said years later: Your Majesty has had the misfortune to be misinformed in general things even from twelve years old.

Undoubtedly, there was no reason to provide Anne and her sister with a better education because it was not unlikely that the Queen would provide an heir to the throne. In her day few women could read and write – perhaps as few as one in a hundred. For Anne it is likely that little more than dancing, drawing, French and music were required to prepare her for life at court. Her general education was neglected but not her religious education which was rigorous and founded her life long belief in the teachings of the Anglican faith.

Anne and Mary lived apart from the court at White hall and their indulgent Roman Catholic father and step-father. Expected to be virtuous, the sisters could not have been totally unaware of the licentiousness of their uncle’s court and that both their uncle, the king, and her father had acknowledged illegitimate children. Indeed, their governess, Lady Frances Villiers, wife of Colonel Villiers, the nephew of the ill-fated Duke of Buckingham, a favourite of James I and his son, Charles I, was the daughter of the king’s notorious mistress, Barbara Castlemaine.

Lax though King Charles II’s moral were he took some interest in Anne who would be one of the best guitar players at court. She also had a pleasing voice and he ordered the actress, Mrs Barry, to give Anne and Mary elocution lessons. These stood Anne in good stead when, as Queen, she addressed Parliament and no doubt when she and Mary took part in some of the masques and plays popular at Court.

However, ‘Cinderella’ and Mary grew up in the company of clerics and women, secluded from Whitehall with little to entertain them. One can imagine the boring conversations, stifling closets (small rooms) and endless card games. Sarah declared: I wished myself out of Court as much as I had desired to come into it before I knew what it was.

In spite of the boredom and whatever storms lay ahead, Anne dearly loved her sister. So much so that when Mary married her Dutch cousin, William of Orange, in 1677 and Anne lay sick of smallpox, her father, who visited her every day, ordered that she should not be told her sister had departed for the Continent. The charade went as far as messages purported to be from Mary asking about her health being delivered to Anne.

While Anne’s tutor fretted in case her fanatical Roman Catholic nurse influenced her while Anne was ill, as soon as she recovered, Anne had to cope with the death of her governess. Fortunately, she still had Sarah’s companionship and enjoyed the vast grounds of Richmond Palace, leased by the king for his nieces. However, this tranquillity would soon be disturbed by the so called ‘Popish Plot’. And it is not unreasonable to suppose that her mind would be occupied with thoughts of who she would marry.

Queen Anne - Part One

My novel, Tangled Hearts, is set in the reign of Queen Anne a ‘Cinderella’ princess of little importance during her childhood.

At her birth, neither her uncle, Charles II, nor her father, James, Duke of York, imagined she would become the last of the Stuart monarchs. After all, Charles’ seven bastards proved his virility and there was every reason to believe he and his queen of three years would have legitimate heirs to the throne. And in the unlikely event of their not producing one, his brother and sister-in-law, James and Anne, had produced an elder brother and sister for the latest addition to their nursery, Baby Anne.

In those days infant mortality was high. The son ‘Cinderella’s’ mother carried when she married only lived for six months. But Anne and her older sister, Mary, survived the Great Plague which broke out in the year of her birth. The little princesses grew up in their nursery but their brother James, another brother and two little sisters died. One can imagine the effects of these deaths on ‘Cinderella’, a small girl with poor health whose weak eyes watered constantly.

Doubtless, it was with the best of intentions that with the consent of ‘Cinderella’s’ uncle, the king, her parents sent the four year old to her grandmother, widow of the executed Charles I, who now lived in France.

As I write, I have before me a portrait of Anne as a small girl painted by an unknown artist at the French Court. She is plump and adorable, dressed in brocade and playing with a King Charles spaniel. Her eyes are wary set in an oval face with a mouth shaped in a perfect cupid’s bow.

In 1699, after Anne’s grandmother died, the little girl passed into the care of her father’s sister, Henrietta Maria, Duchess of Orleans, whom Anne’s uncle, the King of England doted on. In 1670 five year old Anne had to cope with yet another death, this time that of her aunt, whose husband, younger brother of the French king, was suspected of poisoning her.

Anne returned to England, her eyes only slightly improved, to be reunited with her parents. By then her mother was unpopular because she had converted to the Church of Rome and her father, who in 1699, gave serious consideration to his salvation took Holy Communion from a papist priest. Her parents’ decisions would have a long term effect on the young princess Anne’s future.

www.rosemarymorris.co.uk

Tangled Hearts set in Queen Anne’s England received five star reviews and is available now.

Writer's plan for a Summer's Day

A Writer’s Plans for a Summer Day
Two of my interests in life are writing fiction and gardening. These activities complement each other. For the first I need a fertile imagination, for the second fertile soil suitable for the requirements of various plants. Sometimes I think that I would be happy if I had nothing more to do than write and garden.

So far, this morning has been typical of an early summer day. Here in Hertfordshire, England the sun is shining but the air is cool. As soon as I woke up I hurried downstairs and started the dishwasher and washing machine to take advantage of cheap rate electricity called Economy 7. I then unearthed the ice cream maker from a kitchen cupboard and put the bowl in the freezer so that I can make mango ice cream later on. Next I turned on the sprinkler to give one of the vegetable patches a good watering.

For the first time in many years I have not grown runner beans. The bees have suffered a disease which has reduced their numbers so the flowers were not pollinated. Instead, I’m growing French Beans. The butternut squash is slow to take off but the beetroot, brussel sprouts, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, swiss chard, courgettes, cucumbers, new potatoes, different varieties of lettuce, spinach and the outdoor and indoor tomatoes are flourishing and so are the herbs, soft and stone fruit.

The miniature water lily in my garden pond is also flourishing. Pond is a grandiose name for an old bathtub sunk in the ground. My youngest son and I went to a garden centre to buy a pre-formed pond. Those on sale were too shallow. On our way home we saw a bathtub in a skip. All I wanted was a pond to attract wildlife so we asked for and were granted the bathtub. The builder said he would deliver it later and my son excavated a hole for it. Later the builder knocked on my door. ‘Thought you might need these,’ he said and handed me the bath fittings obviously pleased with his good deed for the day. The dear man thought I am too poor to afford a bathtub.

Edged with paving stones my pond looks great. At one time I kept goldfish and the pond became home to a refugee. One night my daughter-in-law woke and screamed. Something wet had flapped on her face. Capri, her tortoiseshell cat had brought her the gift of a large goldfish. My son woke and put the fish in the bathtub. On the following day he put it in my pond. Sadly, another cat or – maybe – a fox caught all my fish.

Near the pond are my potted herbs. While I walk back down the garden path to the house I imagine gardens in times past when herbs were essential for health and flavouring.

When I moved into my house the garden was overgrown and subconsciously it fired my imagination. In my novel Tangled Hearts set in England in 1702 during Queen Anne’s reign, the heroine, Richelda, has inherited a neglected manor house with unkempt grounds which I use to emphasise her situation.

“Dudley opened the lichen-stained wooden gate. They entered the weed-infested drive, on either side of which only the hardiest of the untended ornamental plants survived.

Back straight, head held high, Richelda strode past parallel orchards towards Bellemont House. Embarrassed because she had declared her love, she battled against the urge to weep.”

After turning on the tap and checking the sprinkler was working properly I went upstairs to a small book-lined bedroom converted into an office. This week I will blog, e-mail and tell people about Tangled Hearts. (You can read the first chapters on my website and my blog.) Sometime this week I will work on part Three of my brief history of the Cinderella princess who became Queen Anne.

On most mornings I work from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. with a very short break for breakfast. Today will be no exception. I plan to dig over a patch in the front garden which resembles a cottage garden filled with lupins, roses, delphiniums, cranes bill geraniums and many self–seeded plants such as love-in-the-mist and Californian poppies. I will then mix my home made compost with fertiliser and dig it in before planting a dozen strawberry plants which have fruit on them, pale mauve cranes bill geraniums and penstemons which I bought at the summer fete at my grandson’s primary school. And I hope to find time to pot up some scarlet and white geraniums, lupins and Gardenrs Delight tomatoes which I grew from seed.

Compared to our ancestors we are fortunate to enjoy a wide variety of plants and gooks.

After a lunch of new potatoes and lettuce from the garden with cucumbers, baby tomatoes and a vegeburger followed by mango ice cream I’ll put my feet up and read.

At the moment I’m re-visiting old favourites Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass by Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) which was made into a film starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. And I will catch up on some research A little History of British Gardening by Jenny Uglow, The English Rococco Garden by Michael Symes and A Taste of History 10,000 years of food in Britain published by English Heritage.

Currently, I’m revising several novels and short stories for which I will seek publishers. On most days I return to the computer at about 4 p.m and work until 6 30.p.m. After dinner I then work until 8 or 9 p.m. by which time I yawn and watch television or read before I nod off to sleep after another happy day.

Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men. My daughter phoned to ask if she and her children, boys aged 6 and 2 and three quarters may have dinner with us. So I’ll pull a homemade macaroni cheese out of the freezer and serve it with new potatoes, garden peas and gravy. They’ll come round about 4 p.m. when I’ll let the boys help me to make the mango ice cream which I’m sure they will enjoy.

All the best,
Rosemary Morris

www.rosemarymorris.co.uk
www.rosemarymorris.blogspot.com
Tangled Hearts available now.

Introduction

My infant memories are of the stories I made up, the stories read to me and the night sky coloured by fires, the aftermath of incendiary bombs.

I grew up first in Kent and then Surrey from where I visited ‘the sights’ such as St Pauls Cathedral, the Tower of London, Westminster Cathedral, Dick Whittington’s stone on Highgate Hill and St James Park. In the countryside, to name a few, I visited Hampton Court, Richmond, Windsor and Eton. My heritage inspired my love of history. I read voraciously and my imagination grew.

My late husband encouraged me to pursue my dream of becoming a published author. If he were alive today he would be proud to know I have achieved my ambition.

Writing, researching and reading must run in my veins and I am so glad that I joined the Historical Fiction Critique Group and through the owner, Anne Whitfield, submitted my novel to Enspiren Press which accepted Tangled Hearts.

Every time I look at my debut novel a thrill runs through me. For months the hero and heroine, Chesney and Richelda, stayed by my side at the computer and while going about my daily business. Their life is so interesting that I suffered withdrawal pangs after I typed ‘The End’.

Richelda and Chesney lived in England during the reign of the last of the Stuart monarch, Queen Anne, who ruled from 1702 –1714. In common with the rest of the population Chesney and Richelda suffered fears and uncertainties about who would reign after the queen’s death. The economic and political situation affected every aspect of my hero and heroine’s lives. I fell in love with the period’s elaborate clothes, stylish houses, sumptuous food and the concept of honour and dishonour at that time. .

Being a historical novelist is amazing. It sweeps the author into another time and place with all the happiness and tears the characters experience.

Authors want to share their tales with readers which leads to the challenge of how to publicise their books. I live in England. When Tangled Hearts is available in my home county, I plan to promote them, in bookshops, libraries and elsewhere. In the old days Enspiren Press would have sent me on a book tour. Today, my commissioning editor, Anne Whitfield, and Enspiren Press have inspired me to blog. This enables me to keep in touch with old friends and new.

Visit me at: www.rosemarymorris.co.uk