German Version of A Place Beyond Courage

This just arrived this Morning. A Place Beyond Courage German-style. I think John Marshal would have approved re one of his 'hands on' jobs at court!

TO DEFY A KING trailer

Just to say I've put up a new trailer of TO DEFY A KING at youtube now that I have the book cover.

I have a short story called A Clean Start which features in the RNA's 50th anniversary short story anthology. It's about John Marshal's washerwoman. Anyway, I am delighted to say that the UK's Woman's Weekly magazine wants to publish the story in a fiction special in the spring. I'll let you know when I have a more positive date. In the meantime, it's available in the anthology.

I will also be appearing at South Shields Library on February 13th in cahoots with other RNA authors for the promotion of the Loves Me, Loves Me Not short story anthology.

THE RUNNING VIXEN is now available from Amazon.co.uk and in bookshops. I haven't had my author copies yet. I'll organise a belated giveaway once my publishers actually get organised on that score, so keep watch!

The Cover For To Defy a King!

Not quite complete but as near as to be ready. This is the first exposure online of the cover for TO DEFY A KING, due out May 2010. It's low resolution at the moment, but I hope to have a 'proper' one up soon.
I am so pleased with this cover. It says historical fiction, but with a twist. Hooray!

Cover for To Defy A King

Sorry, you can't see it yet. I've only just seen it in rought draft. But wow, oh WOW! I knew they were going to come with something slightly different, but what I've just seen is TRULY fabulous.

To Defy a King: Little Brown Spring Catalogue

This kind of explains itself. Scanned page from Little Brown's Spring Catalogue! Click on the photo to enlarge and read the text if you want.

Bits and bobs

Meant to say but forgot. I've put up a biography of John Marshal at my blog. It will then be going onto my website as a permanent fixture once Thea my website designer has done her thing. http://livingthehistoryelizabethchadwick.blogspot.com/2009/10/biography-of-john-marshal.html

I have put the first chapter of my work in progress at my Excerpts blog.
http://elizabethchadwicks.blogspot.com/


In other news my agent has sold The Greatest Knight, The Scarlet Lion, A Place Beyond Courage and Daughters of the Grail to Turkey. Also The Greatest Knight has sold to Hungary.

Loves Me Loves Me Not

I keep forgetting to mention this book, which is totally remiss of me. It's an anthology of short stories to celebrate 50 years of the Romantic Novelists Association in the UK.
There are forty new stories including contributions from Joanna Trollope, Katie Fforde, Adele Parks, Maureen Lee, Judy Astley, and umm...Elizabeth Chadwick. :-)
My own story, titled A CLEAN START, is about John Marshal's washerwoman and features a cameo moment from John himself, although the story is firmly about the lady and her dilemmas.

Amazon UK url here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Loves-Me-Not-MIRA/dp/0778303217/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255109421&sr=8-1

More languages!

Yippee, great news from my agent a few minutes ago! We have just agreed a four book deal with Turkey for A Place Beyond Courage, The Greatest Knight, The Scarlet Lion and Daughters of the Grail! Earlier this week Hungary bought The Greatest Knight. Not sure how many languages that brings me up to without consulting my agent but I reckon it's about 16. Anyway, it's a lovely note on which to end the day!

New e-mail account.

Hello everyone.

I returned from holiday to find my e-mail account with BT had very messily died in my absence. Not being inclined (after two TRULY TERRIBLE experiences with BT's non UK call centres) to get them to fix things this time around I have done what needed doing long ago, and transferred elsewhere. This does mean though that for the past week I have been unable to read any incoming e-mails to my Elizabeth Chadwick account, and also that until I get things moved over, I won't be able to read incoming e-mails on my old account.
If anyone does want to get in touch with me, my new account address as of today (Saturday 12th September 2009) is elizabethchadwick@live.co.uk So sorry for any inconvenience, but believe me, this is sooooo much easier than going through the torturous circular rigmarole of a BT overseas call centre experience (shudder).

Another wonderful review for The Greatest Knight

I'm busy on a blog tour at the moment and have just had this lovely review over at Booking Mama, for The Greatest Knight. http://bookingmama.blogspot.com/2009/08/review-greatest-knight.html As usual, I am doing the happy dance for William rather than ego-freaking myself!

INTERVIEW WITH SHARON KAY PENMAN

On top of my own blog tour to celebrate the USA publication of The Greatest Knight, I have recently posted an interview on my Living The History blog with my good friend Sharon Kay Penman. She's given me some fanatastic answers! http://livingthehistoryelizabethchadwick.blogspot.com/2009/08/interview-with-sharon-kay-penman.html
Do drop by and have a look.

Announcement of Blog Tour!

As many of you know, Sourcebooks is publishing THE GREATEST KNIGHT in the USA on September 1st. It's going to be available in both paperback and electronic format, including Amazon Kindle.
To celebrate the publication, Source has arranged for me to go on a virtual Blog Tour. I'd love to cross oceans at some point and meet the readers, but this is a great substitute for now. Look out for guest appearances on the blogs below on the given dates, where I'll be talking a little bit about William Marshal (a lot actually, what a man!), and about writing historical fiction. I am told there are going to be book giveaways too, so there's a chance to win a free copy of THE GREATEST KNIGHT.
See you there!

August 20—Pop Syndicate’s Book Addict http://popsyndicate.com/books

August 25—My Friend Amyhttp://myfriendamysblog.com/

August 27—A Reader’s Respite http://readersrespite.blogspot.com/

August 28—Booking Mama http://bookingmama.blogspot.com/

August 31—Historical Tapestry http://historicaltapestry.blogspot.com/

September 1—Passages to the Past http://passagestothepast.blogspot.com/

Yankee Romance Reviewers http://yankeeromancereviewers.blogspot.com/

September 2—A Journey of Books http://ajourneyofbooks.blogspot.com/

September 3—The Tome Traveller’s Weblog http://thetometraveller.blogspot.com

September 4— http://historical-fiction.com/

September 21—Love Romance Passion http://www.loveromancepassion.com/

September 22—The Review From Here/Scribe Vibe http://scribevibe.blogspot.com/

September 23—Bloody Bad Books http://trinsnook.blogspot.com/

September 25—Morbid Romantic http://www.morbid-romantic.net/

TO DEFY A KING - Agent approves anyway!

Agent stayed up until 3.30 in the morning to finish To Defy a King. She said:

'I love the manuscript. I felt bereft when it stopped. Wow oh wow.'

Now, obviously she is my agent and I'm her client, but even so, I am wiping my brow with relief that it has passed the first hurdle now it's out in the world. I still have to hear from editors - they are reading it this weekend.

I guess my News blog is the only place where I trumpet blow. I don't like doing it more broadly online because the 'look at me' stuff gets stale very quickly and I'd rather talk history, writing and books in more general terms than my latest puff - so I confine the 'me' stuff to here!

Oh, and here's the video trailer!

To Defy a King - finished and handed in!

A note to say that I handed in my story of Mahelt Marshal and Hugh Bigod today. To Defy a King is now officially into the next stage of production i.e. out of the writer's hand and heading (6 drafts later!) into the world.

The Greatest Knight Book Trailer!

Well, I've been fiddling again, and here's the book trailer for The Greatest Knight Sourcebooks edition, published in the USA on September 1st.

Sneak Preview!

Here's a sneak preview of the cover of The Running Vixen. This is draft, it's not quite done and there will be a couple of minor alterations, but the gist is the same. I really like it!

American Ammendment!

Here it is, the Source Book jacket for The Greatest Knight. I love it!
So well have advance orders to booksellers been going that Source Books have decided to follow up in the spring of 2010 with The Scarlet Lion rather than their original plan of Lords of the White Castle.
This makes a lot more sense all round and I am pleased to bits.
I am busy working on some new pages about the Marshals for my website at the moment and should have them up in a few weeks' time.

I have another cover to share with readers soon - The Running Vixen roughs are in and the overall look is terrific. I hope to post in a couple of weeks, so look out for that.

COMING TO AMERICA!

Yes!
Source Books now have my USA cover for THE GREATEST KNIGHT up at Amazon.com!
It's being published September 1st!
url here:

http://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Knight-Unsung-Queens-Champion/dp/1402225180/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238963335&sr=1-3

EVENTS GALORE!

I've cut and pasted the below from my Events and Titles blog, but thought I might as well have it in 2 places as an announcement. I'm going to be doing quite a bit of toing and froing throughout the end of Feb, March and April. If anyone wants to come along and I'm nearby, do drop in and say hi! Gracious knows when I'll get any writing done, but this is still a part of the job I enjoy. I will be bringing my medieval shoes and my strip of mail shirt to talks!

February 26th. Birkbeck College, London. 6.30 pm
Talk on writing historical fiction, specifically about the Marshals.

Wednesday March 4th. Talk at Nottingham Central Library, Angel Row. 2pm in the afternoon!

Thursday March 5th. Talk and booksigning at Waterstones in Bury st Edmunds. 5 - 6.30pm.
36 Butter Market Bury St. Edmunds.

Wednesday March 18th. Talk at Shrewsbury Library with medieval music too (apparently!). Starts 7pm. Parts of the library date back to the 1450's. Can't wait!

Thursday March 19th. Talks at Dudley Library West Midlands. 10.30 am and 2pm.

Friday 27th March. Talk at Leominster Library. 7pm.

Thursday 2nd April. Talk at Weston Favell Library Northampton. 7.30 pm.

Monday 6th April. Talk at Ramsbottom Library 7pm

Wednesday 15th April. Talk in London - Kensington and Chelsea Libraries. This will be a joint talk with Katie Hickman, author of The Aviary Gate. 6.30 - 8pm

Thursday 16th April. Event at Merton Library, Surrey with Katie Hickman. Another joint talk starting at 7.30 pm.

Friday 17th April. Event at Knowle Library, Solihull. 2.30 pm

Thursday April 23rd. Event at Northwich Library, Cheshire. 6-7pm

Website back in Business

The title is self-explanatory. The website is back up again - Yippee!
I'm just finalising some talk dates with publicity at Little Brown, and I'll try and get them listed by the end of the week on my Events blog. I'll post here as soon as I have the details up.

Temporary Website Blip

Just a note to say my website has a technical error and has temporarily gone splat. I've alerted my website keeper and I'm sure normal service will be resumed very soon.

Elizabeth