Happy Holidays Everyone!

Happy holidays everyone from my family to yours. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday this year!

Philippa Gregory and a new Non-Fiction Release for 2011

Books that make you go hum is an understatement with this book. What the heck a non-fiction book by Philippa Gregory? This is going to be interesting but it is a long way off until we get the official down low on the new release.

Releasing September 6th 2011

The Women of the Cousins' War: The Duchess, the Queen, and the King's Mother

by Philippa Gregory and  Michael Jones

"#1 New York Times bestselling author Philippa Gregory and two historians present a must-have non-fiction book for both fans and scholars.

About the Author Philippa Gregory is the author of several New York Times bestselling novels, including The Other Boleyn Girl, The Queen’s Fool, The Virgin’s Lover, The Constant Princess, The Boleyn Inheritance, The Other Queen, and now The Cousins’ War books which include The White Queen and The Red Queen. She lives in England.

David Baldwin taught history at the Universities of Leicester and Nottingham for many years, and is the author of four books dealing with people and events of the Wars of the Roses.

Michael Jones did his PhD on the Beaufort family, and subsequently taught at the University of South West England, the University of Glasgow and Winchester College. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and now works freelance as a writer and media presenter. He is the author of six books, including The King's Mother, a highly-praised biography of Margaret Beaufort shortlisted for the Whitfield Prize"

Amazon
The Women of the Cousins' War: The Duchess, the Queen, and the King's Mother

The Chadwick Hunk Bundle from Sourcebooks

To celebrate the upcoming March 3rd 2011 US release of "To Defy A King" by Elizabeth Chadwick; Sourcebooks has announced a new Chadwick bundle. But we will have to check out the.... cool book trailer for To Defy A King first!

To Defy A King
 

"A story of huge emotional power set against the road to Magna Carta and the fight to bring a tyrant king to heel.The privileged daughter of one of the most powerful men in England, Mahelt Marshal-s life changes dramatically when her father is suspected by King John. Her brothers become hostages and Mahelt is married to Hugh Bigod, heir to the earldom of Norfolk. Adapting to her new life is hard, but Mahelt comes to love Hugh deeply; however, defying her father-in-law brings disgrace and heartbreak. When King John sets out to subdue the Bigods, Mahelt faces a heartbreaking battle, fearing neither she, nor her marriage, is likely to survive the outcome . . ." 

This is your chance to get caught up on the set of books and Sourcebooks has a brand new bundle of e-books that include: The Greatest Knight, The Scarlet Lion, and For the King’s Favor. Ooooh just trust me on this one these are some very sexy and romantic books that have a whole score of hunky medieval men. I know that these books will knock your socks off, they did mine all three books are five stars in my book.

My Reviews: The Greatest Knight, The Scarlet Lion, For The King's Favor.

Here is what they had to say:

"Get ready for Elizabeth Chadwick’s highly anticipated new release…

If you haven’t read Elizabeth Chadwick yet – here is your chance. With her new release, To Defy A King, quickly approaching, Sourcebooks has developed the ultimate eBook bundle.

Hailed by the Times of London as “an author who makes historical fiction come gloriously alive,” Elizabeth Chadwick is a gifted storyteller who captures the passion, deceit, honor, and heartbreak of Medieval England like none other.

Now, get three books from historical fiction powerhouse Elizabeth Chadwick at one low price. This bundle includes The Greatest Knight, The Scarlet Lion, and For the King’s Favor, each on their own a shining example of a novelist at the peak of her powers. Taken collectively, you’ll witness an era you won’t want to leave".

                                                                                                                  

Elizabeth Chadwick Bundle: The Greatest Knight, The Scarlet Lion, and For the King’s Favor"

Sourcebooks Landmark
ISBN 13: 9781402261343

ISBN 10: 1402261349

DLP $35.99 U.S.

epub format (PDF also available)

3 books in one bundle; 1680 pages

November 2010

I am assuming that when it does release it will show up for sale on this link, book mark it if you have to, that way you remember to go back and check on it.

The Titles in the Bundle

The Greatest Knight

"Royal protector. Loyal servant. Forgotten hero. 

A penniless young knight with few prospects, William Marshal is plucked from obscurity when he saves the life of Henry II's formidable queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine. In gratitude, she appoints him tutor to the heir to the throne, the volatile and fickle Prince Henry. But being a royal favorite brings its share of danger and jealousy as well as fame and reward.

A writer of uncommon historical integrity and accuracy, Elizabeth Chadwick resurrects the true story of one of England's greatest forgotten heroes in a captivating blend of fact and fiction. The Greatest Knight restores William Marshal to his rightful place at the pinnacle of the Middle Ages, reflecting through him the triumphs, scandals, and power struggles that haven't changed in eight hundred years.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ELIZABETH CHADWICK AND THE GREATEST KNIGHT:

The Greatness of William Marshal: The descendants of the Greatest Knight himself include George Washington and Winston Churchill, as well as the Stuart kings of England and Scotland. He was partly responsible for the Magna Carta. He vowed his body to the Templars and is buried in Temple Church in London.

The Appeal of the Time Period: There are very few novels about Marshal, and no one has covered him as in depth as Elizabeth Chadwick has. In addition, unlike the Tudor era, there are not extensive amounts of historical fiction set in the 13th century.

The Integrity of the Research: Elizabeth Chadwick's research is impeccable. She not only visited many locations, but she re-enacted with a living history society where a quarter of the membership are either historians or archaeologists, and she collected and used replica artifacts from the period and engaged in experimental archaeology. She has taken courses in various medieval studies to facilitate her knowledge.

The Breadth of the Audience: Readers who are fans of Sharon Kay Penman, Anya Seton, Diana Gabaldon, Phillipa Gregory, and Jean Plaidy will like Elizabeth Chadwick. She appeals to readers who are looking for historical accuracy and strong, believable characters, readers who want to feel that they are being immersed in the period with well-rounded characters".

The Scarlet Lion

"The Legend of the Greatest Knight Lives On

William Marshal’s skill with a sword and loyalty to his word have earned him the company of kings, the lands of a magnate, and the hand of Isabelle de Clare, one of England’s wealthiest heiresses. But he is thrust back into the chaos of court when King Richard dies. Vindictive King John clashes with William, claims the family lands for the Crown—and takes two of the Marshal sons hostage. The conflict between obeying his king and rebelling over the royal injustices threatens the very heart of William and Isabelle’s family. Fiercely intelligent and courageous, fearing for the man and marriage that light her life, Isabelle plunges with her husband down a precarious path that will lead William to more power than he ever expected".

For the Kings Favor 

"A Bittersweet Tale of Love, Loss, and the Power of Royalty

When Roger Bigod arrives at King Henry II’s court to settle a bitter inheritance dispute, he becomes enchanted with Ida de Tosney, young mistress to the powerful king. A victim of Henry’s seduction and the mother of his son, Ida sees in Roger a chance to begin a new life. But Ida pays an agonizing price when she leaves the king, and as Roger’s importance grows and he gains an earldom, their marriage comes under increasing strain. Based on the true story of a royal mistress and the young lord she chose to marry, For the King’s Favor is Elizabeth Chadwick at her best".

November 1660 Guest Post by Gillian Bagwell Author of The Darling Strumpet

November 1660

By Gillian Bagwell

On October 30, King Charles, his brother James, the Duke of York; his sister Mary of Orange; and his cousin Prince Rupert had met his mother Queen Henrietta Maria and his sixteen-year-old sister Henrietta Anne, affectionately known as Minette, at Dover.

Mary of Orange

They were all that remained of the King’s immediate family, and it’s unlikely they had ever been together in the same place before, as Minette wasn’t even born when Mary, accompanied by her mother, had left England in 1642 to join her new husband William of Orange. The Queen had not been at Whitehall since then, and in the interim, everything had changed. That journey had turned into a long exile, her husband had lost the throne and been executed, her young daughter Elizabeth had died a prisoner of the Commonwealth, and her youngest son the Duke of Gloucester had died of smallpox only a few weeks earlier.

On November 2 diarist Samuel Pepys saw “the boats going very thick to Lambeth, and all the stairs to be full of people: I was told the Queene was a-coming, so I got a sculler for sixpence to carry me thither and back again; but I could not get to see the Queen.” But he noted that later “I observed this night very few bonfires in the City, not above three in all London for the Queenes coming; whereby I guess that (as I believed before) her coming doth please but very few.”

The Queen’s first days on English soil were full of events the significance of which would be echoed throughout Charles’s reign. She was Catholic, and at the welcoming banquet her chaplain Father Cyprien said a second grace as soon as the first was done, recording that some people “were highly astonished at the liberty which I took to make it thus publicly at the table of a Protestant king.” In the morning he said mass, with the doors open, to the fury of many.

The Queen, though, had more immediate matters on her mind. She had left Paris with a head of steam at the news that Anne Hyde had born a child to the Duke of York and that the couple was now married. Anne was not only Protestant, she was a commoner, she had been one of Mary’s ladies in waiting, and she was not at all the bride that the Queen had in mind for her second son, who was at the moment the heir to the throne.

Though Charles had accepted James’s marriage and pronounced Anne Duchess of York, the Queen refused to receive her daughter in law or acknowledge her title, and was in a cold fury at Anne’s father Edward Hyde, who Charles had recently made Baron Hyde of Hindon.

Powerless to do anything about the Duke of York, the Queen threw herself into matchmaking for her other children. Louis XIV of France wanted Minette to marry his brother the Duke of Orleans, and a French envoy had not had much luck in getting the consent of Charles, so his mother went to work on him, and by the middle of the month he had agreed to his sister’s marriage to her satisfactorily royal and Catholic cousin Philippe.

 Minette

London was charmed by gentle Minette, the baby of the family. The House of Commons voted her a gift of £10,000, and later in the week received her letter of thanks. She had lived all her life in France and prettily “excused herself that she could not do it so well in the English tongue, which she desired to supply with an English heart,” evoking echoes of Princess Katherine’s capitulating to the wooing of Shakespeare’s Henry V.

The Queen also had her sights set on a possible bride for Charles – the fourteen-year-old beauty Hortense Mancini, favorite niece of Cardinal Mazarin, chief minister of France. Charles had asked to marry Hortense a year earlier, but since at the time he was penniless and the prospects of his ever sitting on the throne seemed remote, the Cardinal had turned him down. Now the Cardinal was not only willing to marry his niece to the King of England, he offered a dowry of five million livres. But now it was Charles who held the power, and he balked.

Hortense Mancini

The question of religion, and how much tolerance should be extended and to whom, had been a burning issue throughout the first months of the King’s reign. The times were changing. On Sunday, November 4, Pepys went to church and his minister “began to nibble at the Common Prayer by saying, ‘Glory be to the Father,’ &c after he had read the two psalms. But the people have beene so little used to it that they could not tell what to answer.”

Parliament reassembled on November 6, and a bill was introduced to give effect to the Worcester House Declaration, the watered-down version of the promise of religious freedom that Charles had wanted. The emboldened Commons prepared a declaration to put in effect all the laws against Catholics that had existed under Queen Elizabeth sixty years earlier, but this Charles could not stomach, and the Lords did not take the matter up.

The King also had no taste for more blood, and nothing further was done about the regicides whose sentences had been suspended. On November 19, a friend told Pepys “that if the law would give leave, the King is a man of so great compassion that he would wholly acquit them.”

The disbanding of the army had continued, and by mid-November only eight regiments remained to be paid off. Pepys was working hard on the business of the Navy Board, and on November 5 he was “at the office at night, to make up an account of what the debts of the 19 of the 25 ships that should have been paid off is increased since the adjournment of the Parliament.”

The Convention Parliament had been formed solely to handle the nuts and bolts of the restoration of the monarchy. Now that work was almost done, and in late November Charles announced that the dissolution would take place on December 20, and elections for the new Parliament would be held early in the New Year.

As usual, the month was not all work for Charles. He was looking forward to and planning his coronation, which was tentatively planned for January. In early November diarist John Evelyn recorded that he had had the privilege of viewing the many curious objects in “his Majesties Cabinet and Closset of rarities,” which included “rare miniatures … after Raphael, Titian & other master… a Landskip of Needleworke, formerly presented by the Dutch to K Charl… a vast book of Mapps in a Volume of neere 4 yards large: a curious Ship modell, & amongst the Clocks, one, that shewed the rising & setting of the son in the Zodiaque, the Sunn, represented in a face & raies of Gold upon an azure skie, observing the diurnal and annual motion, rising & setting behind a landscap of hills, very divertisant.” On November 23 Evelyn was at Whitehall, “his Majestie carying my Wife to salute the Queene & Princesse, & then led her into his Closet, & with his own hands showed her divers Curiosities.”

November 1660 saw major steps forward in the return of theatre to England. On Friday, November 2, Elias Ashmole noted “This day was kept solemnly at the Middle Temple and after the auncient manner. The Lord Chancellor, Judges and Sergeants that were of the Society dined in the Hall, after dinner they had a play, viz., Wit Without Money.” This was almost certainly the King’s Company, which had split off from the united company that had been performing at the Cockpit in Drury Lane.

The company roster included Theophilus Bird, Charles Hart, Michael Mohun, John Lacy, Nicholas Burt, William Cartwright, Walter Clun, Richard Baxter, Robert Shatterel, William Shatterel, Marmaduke Watson, Edward Kynaston, William Wintershall, Thomas Bateman, and Nicholas Blagden, many of them big guns from the pre-Cromwell playhouses. William D’Avenant’s company, according to the November 5, 1660 articles of agreement, included Thomas Betterton, Thomas Sheppey, Robert Noakes, James Noakes, Thomas Lovell, John Moseley, Cave Underhill, Robert Turner, and Thomas Lilleston, but they were not yet performing.

Guy Fawks and conspirators

On Bonfire Night, Pepys wrote “This 5 of November is observed exceeding well in the City; and at night great bonfires and fireworks.” No doubt the annual commemoration of Guy Fawkes’s plot to assassinate James I in 1605 was more rowdy and full voiced than under Cromwell.
The date marked an important step for theatre, as on Monday, November 5, the King’s Company gave their first official performance, performing Wit Without Money by Beaumont & Fletcher at the old Red Bull at the top of St. John Street in Clerkenwell, one of the remaining Jacobean theatres, the stage in an innyard, surrounded by galleries on three sides, and open to the wintry air.

Vere Street Theater

The run at the Red Bull continued with James Shirley’s The Traitor on Tuesday, November 6 and The Beggar’s Bush by John Fletcher on Wednesday. On Thursday, November 8, the King’s Company opened their new home in the Vere Street theatre, just off the southwest corner of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, with Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part One. Literally overnight, the players had left behind Elizabethan performance conditions and moved into a new era in English theatre.

On November 20 Pepys wrote, “I to the new Playhouse near Lincolnes Inn fields (which was formerly Gibbons’s tennis-court), where the play of Beggars’ bush was newly begun…. It was well acted (and here I saw for the first time one Moone [Mohun], who is said to be the best actor in the world, lately come over with the King); and endeed it is the finest playhouse, I believe, that ever was in England.” (In the picture accompanying this article, Gibbons’s Tennis Court can be seen running diagonally in the middle of the clump of buildings just off the southwest corner of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, at the lower left of the picture. Lisle’s Tennis Court, shortly to be the home of the Duke’s Company, is the long building extending from the houses along the southern side of the square, near the center of the picture.)

The King’s Company must have been rehearsing relentlessly over the previous weeks or months, because they opened in full swing. During their first three weeks in the new theatre they played The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Silent Woman (Epicoene), Love Lies a Bleeding, Love’s Cruelty, The Widow, The Mayd’s Tragedy, The Unfortunate Lovers, The Scornful Lady, The Elder Brother, The Chances, The Opportunity, and The Humorous Lieutenant.

On November 19, they also performed The Silent Woman at court. When Pepys went to meet his patron the next morning he found him still in bed, “he having been with the King, Queene, and Princesse at the Cockpitt all night, where Gen. Monke treated them; and after supper, a play – where the King did put a great affront upon Singleton’s Musique, he bidding them stop and bade the French musique play – which my Lord says doth much out-do all ours.”

The November 19 performance of The Unfortunate Lovers had unfortunate consequences. Edward Gower wrote to Sir R. Leveson, “Yesternight at the Fleece Tavern … the gentlemen were discussing the play, which they came from…. At the latter end of the play there was a duel upon the stage; which, they, discounting upon, drew their swords in jest to show wherein they failed.” In this demonstration, Sir Robert Gaskoll was wounded in the hand and fell over at the same time the man who had wounded him tripped and fell forward, running Gaskoll through with his sword. He died half an hour later.

On November 22 Pepys got to take his wife to court. He thought the Queen was “a very little plain old woman and nothing more in her presence in any respect nor garbe then any ordinary woman. The Princesse Henriettee is very pretty, but much below my expectation – and her dressing of herself with her haire frized up short to her eares did make her seem so much the less to me.”

The bustling social life and entertainment scene was creating a problem that sounds very familiar – heavy traffic and parking problems -- and the King enacted a seventeenth-century version of the congestion charge, proclaiming that “no Person of what estate, degree, or quality soever, keeping or using any Hackney Coaches, or Coach-Horses, do from and after the 6th of November next, suffer the said Coaches and Horses or any of them to remain in the Streets or Passages of the Cities of London or Westminster there to be hired, but that they keep them within their respective Coach-houses, Stables, or Yards.”

Sources and further reading:
Online:
The Diary of Samuel Pepys - http://www.pepysdiary.com
Publications:
1660: The Year of Restoration, Patrick Morrah (Beacon Press, 1960)
The Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, Leslie Hotson, (Cambridge Harvard University Press, 1928)
The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. Guy de la Bédoyère (Boydell Press, 1995; First Person Singular, 2004)
The London Stage, 1660-1800, A Calendar of Plays, Entertainments, and Afterpieces Together with Casts, Box-Receipts, and Contemporary Comment, Part I, 1660-1700, ed. William Van Lennep et al. (Southern Illinois University Press, 1963)
Pepys’s Diary, Volume I, selected and edited by Robert Latham (Folio Society, 1996)

Gillian Bagwell is the author of the upcoming novel The Darling Strumpet, based on the life of Nell Gwynn, who rose from the streets to become one of London’s most beloved actresses and the life-long mistress of King Charles II.

This is the seventh in a series of articles chronicling the events from May 1660 through January 1661, in commemoration of the 350th anniversary of the Restoration of the English monarchy, the reopening of the playhouses, which had been closed for eighteen years under Cromwell, and the first appearance of an actress on the English stage, in contrast to the old practice of boys playing women’s roles.  

For links to the other articles and information about Gillian’s books, please visit her website, gillianbagwell.com.

Giveaways Going On Now

Dracula In Love by Karen Essex Ends 12. 23.2010

Louisa May Alcott The Woman Behind Little Women DVD Ends 12.22.10

Amazon
 

Giveaway Karen Essex and she is on Facebook too!

Just in time for the holidays some hot and steamy Mina and Vampire loving to warm the cold winter nights. I am really excited to have up for grabs one very nice copy of "Dracula in Love" by Karen Essex.

Karen Says "It is Christmas Giveaway Time"!

To get in on the giveaway it is a must that you head on out to Dracula In Love's FB page and "like it", some of you might already be liking her; if so then you already qualify. Check out the info on the book if you have not had the chance to read this one it is a 2010 must read for me that I highly recommend. I just yesterday almost cried giving up my copy to my sister but I wanted someone else to love it just as much as I did a tearful hand over. It was wildly wicked and magical. Steamy in all the ways it should be for a sexy edition to Bram Stoker's "Dracula" novel.

The Rules

The giveaway is open to US and Canada.

Up for grabs is one hardback finished copy.

First go to Dracula In Love's FB page and "like it" then head on back here and do the following:

  For 1 entry leave me a comment with a way to contact you.

For 2 entries follow my blog. If you already do, thanks following my blog, and please let me know in the comments. You're eligible for the extra entry as well.

For 3 entries blog or tweet this giveaway to spread the word.

Giveaway will end on December 23nd at midnight. 

I will draw one lucky winner using Random.org 

Good luck to everyone!

Synopisis 

"Karen Essex turns on the heat in this transporting and darkly haunting new tale of love and possession that puts forth the question: What if everything you knew about Dracula . . . was wrong?

From the shadowy banks of the River Thames to the wild and windswept coast of Yorkshire, the quintessential Victorian virgin Mina Murray vividly recounts in the pages of her private diary the intimate details of what transpired between her and Count Dracula—the joys and terrors of a pas­sionate affair and her rebellion against a force of evil that has pursued her through time.

Mina’s version of this timeless gothic vampire tale is a visceral journey into the dimly lit bedrooms, mist-filled cemeteries, and locked asylum chambers where she led a secret life, far from the chaste and polite lifestyle the defenders of her purity, and even her fiancé, Jonathan Harker, expected of her.

Bram Stoker’s classic novel was only one side of the story. Now, for the first time, Dracula’s eternal muse reveals all. What she has to say is more sensual, more devious, and more enthralling than ever imagined. The result is a scintillating gothic novel that reinvents the tragic heroine Mina as a modern woman tor­tured by desire".

Amazon

Henry VIII's Mary Rose Limited Edition New Pens

Alan Titchmarsh Pledges Support to New Mary Rose Museum Campaign

Broadcaster and author Alan Titchmarsh is putting his weight behind the campaign to build a spectacular new £35 million Mary Rose museum, by launching a set of limited edition Mary Rose pens, made from wood found at the Tudor ship’s wreck site.

 

The Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Hampshire and long term supporter of the Mary Rose Trust, the charity responsible for the conservation and preservation of King Henry VIII’s flagship, today launched the limited edition of 200 pens in time for Christmas.

 

The Trust hopes to raise £50,000 from the sale of the pens, to help support the work of the Mary Rose and the new museum project.

 

Only 50 each of four types of hand crafted pen (including a fountain pen, a ballpoint pen, a rollerball pen, and a propelling pencil) have been fashioned from oak, beech, elm, boxwood and poplar timber found on the wreck site of the Mary Rose. However, the wood is not believed to be from the ship or any of her artefacts.

 

Each limited edition pen is marked with a unique number beginning with “MR”, to signify it was recovered from the Mary Rose wreck site. 

Speaking on the pen launch at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, Alan Titchmarsh said, “I have always been fascinated by this iconic English wreck. As a resident of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, I often look across the Solent and think of that fateful day in 1545 when The Mary Rose sank in such mysterious circumstances.  This is a chance for people to get a little closer to those historic, yet tragic, events.”

 

Deputy Chief Executive of the Mary Rose Trust, Robert Lapraik, added, “We are grateful for all the help we have had to date, but financial support from the public must continue in order to ensure this national treasure is preserved for future generations. We hope people will take this opportunity to buy a truly unique Christmas gift for a loved one and help the Mary Rose secure her rightful place in British heritage.”

 

David Plummer, who was responsible for handcrafting each of the pens, commented, “I am delighted to have had the opportunity to work on such a distinctive project and to lend support to the Mary Rose in this way. When carving the wood, I was amazed by the unique aroma and at the integrity of the ancient wood.”

 

The limited edition Mary Rose pens can be ordered from the Mary Rose Gift Shop, Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, 023 9283 9938, at a price of £250 each. They come in a beautiful presentation box, together with a certificate of authenticity signed by Rear Admiral John Lippiett, Chief Executive of the Mary Rose Trust, and David Plummer.

 The New Mary Rose Museum , scheduled to open in Autumn 2012, is a major step towards the final chapter in the conservation of the great ship, which began in 1982.  Taking the form of a finely crafted wooden ‘jewellery box’, clad in timber planks, the museum will house the Mary Rose’s fully conserved hull and reunite her with the 19,000 beautifully preserved Tudor artefacts found inside of the wreck. 

 

The existing temporary museum, located 300 metres away from the ship itself, which has space to display only one twentieth of the Tudor items recovered with the wreck, will remain open throughout the construction of the new £35 million museum.

 

The Trust was awarded one of the largest Heritage Lottery Fund grants ever for the new museum project and has an appeal for £15 million to add to this. They now have a final £3m to raise to complete the appeal.  The Trust receives no central funding and is entirely reliant on donations, along with museum entrance fees and profits from its shop, to reach its ambitious final target.

 

To help secure the future of The Mary Rose visit www.maryrose.org  

 

Ends

For media enquiries, contact:

Charli Beale, Bell Pottinger Business & Brand

cbeale@bell-pottinger.co.uk

07800 582 266

 

Or

 

Stuart Disbrey, Bell Pottinger Business & Brand

sdisbrey@bell-pottinger.co.uk

020 7861 2495

 

 

The Mary Rose

The Mary Rose is the only 16th century warship on display anywhere in the world. Launched in 1511, she was one of the first ships able to fire a broadside, and was a favourite of King Henry VIII.

After a long and successful career, she sank during an engagement with a French fleet in 1545. Her rediscovery and raising were seminal events in the history of maritime archaeology.

 

A dedicated Mary Rose museum in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, remains open while the ship hall housing the preserved wreck is temporarily closed during construction of the new Mary Rose Museum . The amazing artefacts discovered with the great ship, remain on display and new exhibits, including Hatch, the ship’s dog, are being introduced to maintain the highest quality of visitor experience.

 

The new Mary Rose Museum will, for the first time since her sinking, re-unite the ship and her contents, fully preserved and presented in a time capsule of Tudor life at sea.

Happy Birthday Jane Austen Lets Celebrate with Free eBooks!

Today December 16th is Jane Austen’s 235th birthday! Happy Birthday Jane!

Sourcebooks, the world’s leading publisher of Jane Austen fiction, is offering a unique deal to readers who want to celebrate Jane by reading special editions of all six of Austen’s beloved novels in a 21st century format.

Special e-book editions of Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion and Mansfield Park will be available for free for one day only. These celebratory editions include the full novels, plus the legendary color illustrations of the Brock brothers, originally created to accompany the books in 1898.

In addition to the Jane Austen classics, readers can also enjoy these bestselling Austen-inspired novels. The following bestselling e-books will be free on December 16th in honor of her birthday:

Eliza’s Daughter by Joan Aiken
The Darcys & the Bingleys by Marsha Altman
Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife by Linda Berdoll
What Would Jane Austen Do? by Laurie Brown
The Pemberley Chronicles by Rebecca Ann Collins
The Other Mr. Darcy by Monica Fairview
Mr. Darcy’s Diary by Amanda Grange
Mr. & Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy: Two Shall Become One by Sharon Lathan
Lydia Bennet’s Story by Jane Odiwe
Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy by Abigail Reynolds

Available wherever eBooks are sold. If you own a reader this is the perfect time to snag yourself a collection of Jane Austen free eBooks.

UPDATE:

First off let me sincerely apologize for all the confusion regarding the free offer of Jane Austen special edition titles as well as the 10 Austen inspired novels. Please extend this apology to your readers and followers as well.

We have been trying to fix the problem all morning. It takes a lot of cooperation from different parties to make the offer happen and it unfortunately it took some extra time to iron out the kinks.

Let me tell you know that iBooks and Google books currently has everything correct.

Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Sony are currently working to get their prices adjusted. They should be correct shortly.  Sourcebooks.com will also have our books and the illustrated versions available for free within the next hour!

Because of this confusion we want to celebrate Jane Austen’s birthday an extra day! This offer will be good tomorrow as well.

Again I am sorry for the confusion and thank you for being patient!

Amazon