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 …
Category: European History
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. …
Just Published …. [2]
Dark Inheritance A Mediaeval Fantasy Today, I am posting another extract from my novel. "She prods the bundle with her finger. To her astonishment it moves. With beating heart, Tessera pulls aside some folds of cloth and finds herself looking into the face of an infant of no more than a few months old. Its …
Just published . . .
Today, I can announce the publication this week of my novel entitled Dark Inheritance: a Mediaeval Fantasy. The setting for the book is Europe in the years around 1348, when the world is ravaged by the Black Death. Medical science is almost non-existent. Instead, people believe that God visits these plagues on humanity because of …
In Black And White [4]
Genesis of the Piano (Cristofori, Maffei and others) by Andrew G Lockhart Credit for inventing the piano belongs to an Italian, Bartolomeo Cristofori, who was born in Padua in 1655. Little is known of his early life but he must have trained as a craftsman and technician. By the beginning of the 1690s, he had …
A Modern Edmond Dantes
The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon translated by Lucia Graves The Prisoner of Heaven is the third book in Zafon’s cycle of stories set in Barcelona and featuring the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. It is much shorter than either of its predecessors yet lacks none of the intrigue of the earlier books. Nor …
Back to Carcassonne
I mentioned a few weeks ago taking another look at Kate Mosse's novel Sepulchre. I'm glad I did so because it put me in the right frame of mind to buy her latest book The Burning Chambers. This is the first book of a trilogy which tackles in novel form the history of the persecution …
1066
Viking Fire by Justin Hill A Review I love good historical fiction. However, it's not often I discover a book that is totally absorbing and at the same time an author who makes me think, why the devil didn't I learn all this at school? Of course, our schools are good at putting our country/countries …
Two Brothers
by Ben Elton A Review 'Thus, as the months went by, a strong bond formed between the youngsters, a bond separate to their school friends and their individual lives. They were the Saturday Club. . . . Paulus, Otto, Dagmar and Silke were a true gang of four.' Ben Elton is better known (in the …
Return to Kingsbridge
A Column of Fire by Ken Follett A Review 'The fire continued to burn, and the dead body of Philibert turned into a blackened ruin ...... I did not know how men could do such things, and I did not understand why God would let them.' It's nearly twenty years since Ken Follett surprised many …
