Assassination of an Empress Elisabeth von Wittelsbach (Sisi) Even before the death of her son, the Crown Prince Rudolf, in 1889, Empress Elisabeth of Austria had retreated into a life of sport, travel and poetry. But there was a morbidity in her thoughts too. In 1887, she wrote: I flee from the world and all …
Author: Andrew G Lockhart
My name is Andrew Lockhart and I grew up in Scotland. After spending more than thirty years in industry, I am now a writer, family historian and blogger. Apart from writing (and reading great books), my other interests are science, music of all sorts, and traveling the world.
Sisi
Looking back, I see that I wrote the following two critiques in 2014. Empress Elisabeth of Austria is a historical figure I very much enjoy reading (and writing) about and, indeed, since penning these articles, I have read a few other works in which she features, regrettably not all as good as Brigitte Hamann's biography. …
The Dark Side of the Fylfot
(A Short Extract #2) by Andrew G. Lockhart Gretl July, August and September were always busy months and that year they were more hectic than ever. All summer, my father and Roland were preoccupied with affairs on the farm. The crops had come under threat from unusually large numbers of rats that descended on us …
The Dark Side of the Fylfot
(A Short Extract #1) by Andrew G. Lockhart Gretl I awoke on a bed of straw. It was just past daybreak, and there was enough light for me to see I was in a peasant cottage. The woman who had befriended me the evening before was bending over me. She handed me a cup. Thinking …
Sistersong
by Lucy Holland ‘I am as light and am as dark, I am as birth and am as breath, I am as flesh and bone and brain, Look inside and know my name.’ Just as I was beginning to think no one writes stories like that any more, along comes Lucy Holland’s tale of war, …
Project Hail Mary
by Andy Weir 'I think my job is to solve the Petrova problem . . . . in a small lab, wearing a bedsheet toga, with no idea who I am, and no help other than a mindless computer and two mummified roommates.' In Project Hail Mary, Dr Ryland Grace is a thirty-something high school …
Hamnet
by Maggie O'Farrell 'A boy is coming down a flight of stairs. The passage is narrow and twists back on itself. He takes each step slowly....' After The Tale of Genji, Hamnet is a nice, easy read. Based on the life, and death, of the only son of William Shakespeare, it is a fictionalised account …
The Tale of Genji
by Murasaki Shikibu English translation by Arthur Waley ‘At the court of an emperor (he lived it matters not when) there was among the many gentlewomen of the Wardrobe and Chamber one, though she was not of very high rank was favored far beyond all the rest.’ For a reader in the West, The …
Sweet Entanglement
Sweet Entanglement, Book 2 of my Fields of Wine series is released today, and is available in both digital and paperback format from Amazon, and as a digital book only from Kobo, Draft2Digital, Barnes and Noble, and Apple Books. I would love you to read it and tell me what you think in a review. …
Wine, Chocolate and Sex . . . #5#
Sweet Entanglement Today, I'm posting the final taster/teaser from Sweet Entanglement, my forthcoming novel. The narrator is once again Andy. Enjoy! "Something wakes me from a sound sleep. A noise from outside is my first thought, perhaps a nighthawk or a nocturnal animal foraging for food. I peer through half-closed eyelids. The room is in …
