The Sicilian Secret Why has Angela written a blog about Sicily? She hasn't even been there! Well, this Angela hasn't, but my fellow Cariad author, Angela Petch has. As you know, I occasionally
A Little Spark It's been just over a year since the publication of The Rose of Florence, and it's taken some time to organise my thoughts for Book #2. Should I do something
Guest Post - Luisa A Jones As most of you will know, Florence was the biggest inspiration behind The Rose of Florence, and I'm always fascinated by the settings and history behind other authors' books. Today,
Happy Book Birthday to The Rose of Florence We all have at least one book within us. Isn't that what they say? How many of us believe that to be true? I, for one, was extremely dubious. It
Food for Thought It’s a great privilege to share my musings with you, and today I offer some culinary contemplations for your delectation! My debut novel, The Rose of Florence, is an
Award-Winning, Katy Turner! In August, you may remember I mentioned travelling to Imperial College, London as a contender for the Joan Hessayon Award for debut novelists. It was a wonderful experience, and I
A Cariad Collection Finding your tribe is important in any part of life, and I have frequently mentioned that my "writing tribe" is the Cariad Chapter of the RNA. Inspiration by the bucketload,
And the winner is... Well, it wasn't me! The winner of the Joan Hessayon Award for new writers was a lovely lady, called Katy Turner, for her novel "Let's Just Be Friends". I couldn't
My Ramblings On Historical Fiction Those of you who follow my social media posts will know that I've been lucky enough to be announced as a contender for the Joan Hessayon Award for debut novelists
Coming Soon It's been a while since there have been any posts from me, for which I apologise! You may know that there have been some problems getting these posts out to
Luisa A Jones: My First Book In the true tradition of every great series, just when you think it's over...it's not! The same goes for my series entitled My First Book, featuring some great local
The Pazzi Conspiracy 26th April, 1478 A day like many others in Renaissance Florence. A Sunday. A day when everyone went to Mass, to kneel, to pray, to take communion. But it was
An Historical Fiction I was recently asked to write a short overview of The Rose of Florence for a book club, so that they could get a flavour of the story before I
Jan Baynham: My First Book In the last of my series of blogs from authors talking about their experience of publishing their first book, I'm delighted to welcome Jan Baynham. Jan is a fellow Cariad
Emma Bennet: My First Book For the third in my series of "My First Book" interviews with fellow authors, I am welcoming another Cariad Chapter member, Emma Bennet. I am very envious of how Emma
Jane Cable: My First Book - The Cheesemaker's House This week, I'm delighted to welcome Jane Cable to my blog. Jane is a fellow member of the Cariad Chapter of the Romantic Novelists' Association, and during the time I
My First Book! It's finally happened! My First Book has been released into the wild! To celebrate, I'll be hosting a series of blogs from authors, who will be telling us about their
Katherine Mezzacappa: My First Book As promised, this month, I'm sharing a series of blogs from other authors, who tell us about their experience of publishing their first book. It seems only fitting that my
The Rose of Florence is about to bloom Early in 2019, I started to jot down a few words, thinking that I might eventually make a reasonable short story. Well, many months of work, many sleepless nights trying
Florence in Flood On the night of 3rd November, 1966, the people of Florence went to bed as usual. The heavy rain was nothing unusual for a November night, but this night was
Where I Write... Writing is a lonely business...or so I've been told. That hasn't been my experience, so far. Authors are a social and supportive bunch, keen to boost each other when
And so it begins... When you first have an inkling of an idea for a book, everything seems so simple, but writing and publishing a book is a whole new world, not for the
Today is Dantedì 700 years ago, on 25th March 1321, the "Supreme Poet", Dante Alighieri died. He is widely considered to be the father of the Renaissance, and his most famous work is
A Rare Treat If you are a bit of a meat-lover, like me, one of the highlights of visiting Florence is ordering a Bistecca alla Fiorentina – a Florentine steak. Being faced with such
In Times of War Even though he was only 3 during the time of my story and therefore doesn't feature in it, Michelangelo was probably the first to fire my interest in the Italian