March is Women's History Month!

Hello!

Has spring properly sprung? I can't honestly answer that since my part of Scotland is showing little tangible signs as yet,  but the month of March has definitely dawned.

image courtesy of Anna Belfrage

March is Women's History Month, in honour of a plethora of strong, impressive women through the ages. My intention is to add posts on a few women on this blog during March, however, I already have a contribution published on the blog of a lovely author friend - Anna  Belfrage. Anna has invited a wonderful selection of excellent historical fiction authors to add to her feature during March 2025.

Since my Celtic Fervour Series is set in the 1st Century CE, I have the honour of being her first contributor with a post on Queen Cartimandua of the Brigantes.

You can catch my post HERE  

image courtesy of Anna Belfrage

In addition to reading my new post on Anna's Blog, you can also check out a previous post that I wrote on this blog about Cartimandua. You'll notice similarities since there is actually not all that much written about this impressive woman who was Queen of the Brigantes for a few decades during a tumultuous point in Roman Britain history.  Find that HERE. 

Slainthe! 

Honourable Mention in the Historical Fiction Club Awards for Novice Threads!

Hello!

It's difficult to believe that it's already the 9th of January 2025. It's very remiss of me but I'm only now posting news about another award that Novice Threads received at the very end of 2024.

The Historical Fiction Company posts the main annual award recipients on the 31st December and the Book of the Year winner on January 1st. It's an incredibly busy time to discover, with absolute delight, that you've received an award. As soon as the award was brought to my attention, I managed to post on other Social Media outlets, thought I had posted here too, but clearly not.

I'm therefore totally over the moon to be able to display yet another award for Book 1 of my Silver Sampler Series. All of the awards make my new social media posts a much more attractive proposition (in my opinion)! 

So...

Gold: 

Silver: 

Honourable Mention:

Aren't they beautiful? I love them. :-) 

Slainthe!

Gold and Silver for Novice Threads at the Coffee Pot Book Club Awards!

Good Morning!

It's Sunday 15th December 2024 and last night I found out that Novice Threads, Book 1 of my Silver Sampler Series, published in May 2020, had won two medals in The Coffee Pot Book Club Awards 2024.

One of the finest things about me entering a book competition is that once entered I tend to forget all about the entry and then the surprise is so huge when I find that my novel has been placed, or won an award! 

That's exactly what happened last night. I noticed a friend in Seattle had posted to Instagram that her book had won an award in the Coffee Pot Book Club Awards 2024 and it prompted me to go searching. To my absolute delight, I discovered that NOVICE THREADS had won a GOLD MEDAL in the Historical Women's Fiction Category and a SILVER MEDAL in the Enlightenment (1600s - 1800s) category.

The books in the competition are absolutely wonderful novels, some of which I've already read and others are still on my TBR pile on my always full Kindle. 

My thanks go top the team at The Coffee Pot Book Club for the time, effort, and expertise it takes to make the selections and to present the awards.

Now to get on with that writing of Books 2 & 3 of the Silver Sampler Series. 

Slainte!