Too warm for November

It is warm in Northumberland. Too warm. The Oriental poppies are blooming. Normally these bloom in June to coincide with ducklings. (Somehow we lost a duckling this morning and so are now down to 8. I still can't bring myself to put them in a pie!) The gaudy pink summer flowers are now contrasting with the crisp colours of Liquid Amber birch and the beech. And there is a colour clash..
Maybe the flowers etc know some thing I don't. Maybe all the rain we had earlier this summer felt like a winter. I don't know. All I know is my plants are acting strange. And I am still in t shirts in the house. Normally I take Eileen Ramsay's advice and wear two sweaters at this time of the year as I do not like having the central heating on. Not this year.
I want my November to be cold and frosty. Maybe even snowy. 11 years when we moved to our house, snow lay on the ground for weeks. The movers could not get the tea chests to me until a few days before we moved. Somehow, I can't see this happening here this winter.
BUT all the signs are that someone is going to have a hard winter. Geese and siskins arrived early. The holly bushes are full of gleaming red berries. There has been a bumper crop of apples and pears.
The bees are still flying and I need to take out the varroa strips and make the final preparations for winter -- namely putting the mouse guards on. Mice will try to hibernate in beehives and can thoroughly disrupt a colony. I do not worry about extra feeding as we have plenty of ivy and late autumn flowers, plus a number of winter flowers including winter aconites, snowdrops and hazel. The bees as a general rule of thumb have enough to see them through. If they feel a bit light in February time. I will give them a sort of Royal icing type feed -- apifondant.

My revisions are coming on. The basic problem with this book is that I did not make one key conflict personal and so it ended up being far more external than internal. at my wonderful editors' suggestion, I am internalising it. It is working far better. My editors are there to make the hard suggestions and to tell me to take a second look at those areas that are not working. fingers crossed that it is going to work this time. Already I can tell it is getting better.

Improve your vocab

I blame Kate Hardy for this:

Free Rice -- it is a word game, for every word you get correct, they donate 10 grains of rice to the UN World Programme. It is addictive.

I am busy with my revisions. There is a good book in there, waiting to come out. It is a matter of changing a few things around and making sure it is going to be a super read. Ultimately I want the reader to have the best experience possible.

In sad news, the legendary HM&B writer Anne Weale died suddenly on 24 October. She wrote 88 novels for Mills and Boon, her first one -- Winter is Past in 1955 and her last in 2002. A career that spanned nearly fifty years. When I first started reading Harlequin, I know that she was one of the authors I reached for. Her specialty was the Sea Story. Among other things, she was one of the founding members of the Romantic Novelists Association. Liz Fielding has done a lovely tribute to her.

Building readership at a walking pace

Sybil's comment and Julie's reply in my blog about Latest Romance stats made me going looking to find out more about Debbie Macomber and her publishing history.
This year she celebrates 25 years of being published and all with Harlequin. However, it is only within the last few years that she has become the household name that she is.
In June 2006, Publishers' Weekly did an article on the selling of Debbie Macomber and it makes for interesting reading. It was quite clear in my mind when I read that article that the vast majority of the Reader Outreach programme had come from Debbie and from her heart. She believes that a readership is built reader by reader. Harlequin in the aritcle estimated that Debbie has a core readership of 200,000 who can be counted on to buy everything she writes.
Things Debbie does to reach out to readers include a regular newsletter, an annual posted newsletter, maintaining a blog and a website. She has also created several knitting pattern books. But when she first started, she was not tipped as a star. She was simply a Silhouette series writer. It all came from her and her desire to reach out to readers. And if you visit her website, it does show.

The other key consistent is that she has kept the quality of her writing up. Paula Eykelhof has been her editor for over 20 years and I would assume has given her quality editing.

Personally I like the term -- Reader Outreach rather than PR. It is the readers who are important, in particular that special subset of readers that love and adore an author's work.

On that note, A Christmas Wedding Wager has gone on sale at eharlequin both in print and as an ebook. In my November and December newsletters, there will be some of the recipes from the book including the recipe for Mrs Charlton's Lambswool Punch and Emma Harrison's mincemeat pies.

Reviews, revisions and ghosts

My revisions for QI arrived yesterday. And they are what revisions should be -- challenging but achievable. They are going to help make this book so much better. Ultimately it is about giving the reader the best possible read and making sure their experience with that book means that they can't wait to read the next one.
My editors have done a fantastic job of detailing what works and what does not work. Quality editing. It is now up to me to find the solutions -- basically increasing the underlying emotion and making the hero more Alpha, so that the focus is firmly on the couple.

Why is it that I feel far more satisfied with a long revision letter than a short one?

Red Roses for Authors has done a lovely review for Taken by the Viking. Anne thinks my Viking books are even better than my Romans. Personally I think that my writing is still growing...

Today is Halloween which means it is the day that various spirits were supposed to walk the earth. This area of Northumberland is replete with its tales of grey ladies, burning eyed dogs, and mysterious knocks at doors. One ruined castle is supposed to have hidden treasure which a lady in white will reveal if only she can get someone to follow her. The son of one of the owners did try one night, but was discovered hanging on by his fingernails over a pit, a quivering wreck the next morning. He never fully recovered...
The Haydon cemetery is a peaceful place most of the year, and my walk with the dogs normally takes me past it. But with the great avenue of overlapping yews, and its quiet situation, it is a place to be avoided this evening. Cruel Sykes burn which runs quite near it once ran red with Scots blood when a battle was fought here. Some say that you can hear the cries of the dying in the murmur of the yews on Halloween. I have no wish to put it to the test!

Latest Romance Stats

The November edition of the RWR has the latest romance reading stats. I found them interesting.
Romance had 26.4% share of all market categories. It was only surpassed by the religion/inspirational category. Romance fiction sales were $1,370 million compared to Mystery sales of $422 million or Sci fi sales of $495 million. You do the math. In my view the basic reason why so much more advertising is spent on mystery etc is that far fewer mystery books are published as opposed to the 6,400 titles of romance that were published.
In the new technology of ebooks, the trend continues. According to Peter Wayner writing in the New York Times last August, early ebook lists were dominated by sci fi and other genres favoured by men, but now the lists showed romance and women's fiction were coming to dominate. This fact should not surprise anyone as according an AP/IPOS poll, women read more than men -- nearly twice as much. On average women read nine books per year while men only manage five. Women are also more likely to read every major category of books. And of people who read books, one in five reads romance novels.
As a general rule of thumb, men are more likely to be early adopters of technology. The shift in the ebook lists could be interpreted to mean that ebooks are here to stay. BUT the amount spent on ebook, despite doubling in 2006 remains tiny at $24 million. Print is not dead yet.
The leading sub genres of Romance appearing on the best seller lists were suspense, historical and paranormal. Harlequin remains the top Romance book publisher, according to Simba estimates. The leading US romance novelists were Nora Roberts, Sandra Brown, Catherine Coulter and Debbie Macomber. All of whom started out by writing category. I think they were all with Sil, Debbie Macomber is the one I have a question about as I can't think of which line she wrote for. Super? Nora Roberts and Sandra Brown were SR and Catherine Coulter was SIM. Shades of my college free time reading...
If you look at romance books published -- 40% were series romance. 17% historical single title, 16 percent were contemporary. Paranormal accounted for 9%. This shows the massive increase in the paranormal romance market in recent years as not so very long ago it was under 5% of books published. The big unanswered question is how large is the paranormal market and has it peaked.
For 2007, sales of romance fiction are expected to hold steady. The projected increase in book sales (2.6%) is down to the last book of Harry Potter hitting the stands.
Anyway, I thought it very interesting.

Back from Malta

Let me say at the outset that Malta was never somewhere I planned on going. It was an island in the Mediterranean and a lovely lady who reviews my books lives there. I also knew of the connection with the Knights of Malta and that the Romans called it Melita or Honey Island.
A friend of the family's mother is Maltese and they recently acquired a flat which they generously allowed us to use.
We arranged transport through Percius who were very friendly and efficient -- picking up at the airport at 3 am etc. And I would certainly use them again.
We arrived in a horrid thunder and wind storm. The plane rocked as we landed and the rain was horizontal. Negotiating the stairs proved tricky and I had to cling on to both railings.
Malta is generally limestone which means when it rains, the water runs off quickly, creating streams and floods in the valley. The trip to the apartment went through several floods, and in the dim light, cascades of water could be seen, pouring off the hillside.
The first day was spent in and around the Paceville/St Julian area where the flat was located. Paceville, in particular Portomosta is where some of the best restaurants on Malta are located. The Hilton Portomosta complex looks as if it belongs in HM&B Presents novel -- private marina, marble, turquoise blue water. We ended up going to the Blue Elephant (a very upmarket chain of Thai restaurants -- you can get packets in Waitrose of their spices --Tom Yam soup with prawns and ginger is really good). The service is fantastic and the interior setting recreates a Thai garden. The food is to die for. We also went Buffalo Bill's ( steakhouse with Maltese sides) where the steak was some of the best I have had in Europe (on a par with some of the meals I had in Colorado). It is difficult to get a bad meal in Malta. The other area where we went out was the Spinola Bay with two restaurants standing out -- Terrazza and San Guilano's. San Guilano's has a reputation of being a place that film stars visit when they are filming in Malta. The Mediterranean Film Studios are famous for their water tanks. We did not see any stars (or at least none that we recognised but there again we didn't look too hard!) The service and food, however were excellent. Below in the marina, brightly coloured boats with the Phoenician eye bob in the waves.
The Maltese buses are picturesque. They date from the 1960s and 1970s and bright yellow. My dh remembered travelling across India on a Leyland bus... Because of Malta's position, the waters are exceptionally clear and many people go diving. We did not -- the children went swimming instead.
M'dina and Valletta proved to be our two main sight seeing areas as we spent most of the time at the beach. Mdina is also known as the Silent City and is one of the best preserved walled medieval cities. The Mdina catherdral is reputed to on the site where Publius the Roman governor who witnessed StPual's miracles in 60AD lived. Malta has one of the oldest communities of Christians in the world and they remain very Catholic. The silence fills up the streets of Mdina and it made me jump to hear the rumble of horses hooves and carriages along the pavement. Out side the city walls is a Roman villa with excellent mosaics. It made me quite nostalgic for my Romans.
Valletta is the main area of commerce in Malta and is the city that the Knights of St John Hospitaliers built after the 1565 siege when they defeated the Turks. They ran their famous Sacred Infirmary here until Napoleon kicked them out in 1798. He melted down the silver plate that they used for the patients to finance his Egyptian campaign. The populace rebelled and fought the French until finally the British came to their aid. The British then ruled the colony for 150 years. During WW2, the ENTIRE nation was awarded the George medal of honour for their collective bravery. We visited the Larcaris War Rooms which are deep within the bowels of Valletta where the Allies planned the invasion of Sicily. It was very evocative.
After my experience in Malta, I would urge any who enjoy good food, good weather, the beach and many 1000s of years of history to visit the island. Most of the Maltese speak English. The language of Malta is the only Arabic language written in the Latin alphabet.

Up and away

I am off to Malta for a week. From everything I hear, Malta is lovely and I am looking for to exploring it. Apparently driving in Malta is not for the faint hearted... Normal service on this blog will resume on Monday 29 October when I am planning on recounting my adventures.

For your viewing pleasure, I am posting some of my hero inspiration for my last several books. ( And an upcoming one...)

Two types of time

There are two types of time both in novels and in real life. There is linear time which is measured through the ticks on the clock and there is emotional time which is filtered through a person's emtional state. Of the two for the novelist, the second is far more importnat as a novel never happens in real time. It always happens in emotional time. In times of stress and great tension, time appears to slow down. When you are relaxed and happy, time speeds up.
For the novelist, to replicate this state, it means she should expend the greatest amount of words on those times when time appears to stand still (ie those moments of high tension). In other words, unless there is tension in the scene, skim over it. Don't allocate the word space. Low tension indicators include: drinking or eating food, travelling in a car, dating. I can hear the screams now -- Dating, but isn't that what romance is all about? NO, romance is about emotional tension combined with sexual tension. When people are dating, they are relaxed and happy. time speeds by. It can be lovely, but unless there is another source of tension, the reader is also going to want to skim. In order to make a scene worthy of spending words on, the tension has to be there and the emotional clocks have to be slowed down.

I first read about time and its problems for novelists in Vanessa Grant's Writing Romance. Donalad Maass alludes to it in his low tension scene problems, but Swain has a really good section on the nature of time.

I know tonight if the Rugby match is close, it is going to take an eternity. But hopefully England will be able to dig down deep. And India, the Hexham Courant has a photo of Jonny just before he went off to the World Cup. Personally I think he looks better with slightly longer hair...

Blinding flashes and cat's paws

Sometimes insight into a book comes in blinding flashes and sometimes it creeps in softly on cats' paws. And you only realise that it is there when the cat gives a loud purr and nearly knocks your mug of tea onto the keyboard. You grab a pen and hurridely jot down a few lines because that insight is already starting to slip away again.

However, it came, I am very glad as I had felt like I was writing thick porridge for the last few days and my mind wouldn't function. Now things make sense. I simply need to tweak the heroine's back story slightly.

And all will be well. It also fits into the first story better.

There were little hints in the first story, and I may need to tweak them slightly but it will work.

The best thing is that my mind feels like it is functioning again -- just in time for half term... but I do feel like the veil has lifted and my muse has allowed me a peek into the uplands and I know where I am headed...

Courtesy of Philippa Ashley...

Focal v Viewpoint Character

Last evening, I briefly read Swain's Techniques of A Selling Writer and discovered a chapter on feelings and transmitting those feelings to the reader. It is one of the reasons why I do like going back over writing books. I know I have read the chapter before because some of the jokes irritated me. HOWEVER the substance of what he had to say was important. And for some reason this chapter resonated with me last night in a way it hadn't before.
The main way readers view events are how they affect the focal character. The focal character provides the emotional compass for the reader and the focal character is the character that draws a series of unrelated events together. In order to understand the events of the story, they need to be filtered through the emotional lens of a character. The character is the character that the reader identifies most with and there is generally just one in a story. The focal character does not have to be the viewpoint character, although it is easier if the majority of the POV is in his/her POV simply for identification purposes. Swain uses the example of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes is the focal character while Dr Watson is the viewpoint character. Personally I would argue some of Watson's emotional colouring and compass does effect the way of the reader views the story, but that may just be me.
With my books (and the vast majority of romances), the main focal character is the heroine. The reader needs to be able to identify with the heroine and her struggle. It is her interpretation of events that is the driving factor in the story. The hero is her hero. In Taken, the main focal character is Annis with Haakon being the second focal character.
It is all about creating emotions and feelings. Events that happen can either be good or bad depending on the emotional justification. The raid on Lindisfarne is an event. It is the reaction of the characters to that event that colours the novel. Without the emotion and the emotional compass of the main characters, readers can not interpret the events. To put in McKee terms, the events apply the pressure that force characters to make choices. It is through those choices that the deep character is revealed. And as McKee points out -- readers are always looking for a character to identify with.
Anyway, I thought it interesting.

Breast Cancer Awareness month

October is Breat Cancer awareness month. And if you had not read Day LeClaire's account of her bout with breast cancer on PHS, it is well worth a read. Hopefully, it will make someone stop and think. The piece is also very inspiring and tells how one woman fought to get her creativity back. And I for one am pleased she did as I did enjoy her books before she became ill.

One thing that I am very proud of is how HM&B donates money every year -- 10p from every Modern or Modern Extra from the October publication cycle sold will go to support breast cancer research. Modern happens to be the most popular line.

There is very little else I can say, but read the article...

Dear Author Review of Taken by the Viking

Jayne from Dear Author.com has penned a thoughtful review of Taken by the Viking. I always enjoy reading her reviews as she makes think how I can improve the book I am working on.
My cp, Donna Alward, will be nodding her head at the comment that the villian went too easily with Annis towards the end. She had mentioned this to me. I sort of ignored it because I didn't agree, and there was no way that Annis was going to allow him to do anything else. She does enjoy being proved right.
Jayne also mentions Johanna Lindsey's Fires of Winter -- a book I enjoyed way back but I have to agree with Jayne. I think now I would find the rape scenes disturbing. I know in 1970 Violet Winspear famously proclaimed that she could not write a hero that was not capable of rape. But that was way back when. I know in my heart of hearts that I could not write a hero who WAS capable of rape. Forced seduction -- yes perhaps but there would have to be good reasons., The key word here is seduction and it implies consent and the woman is eventually a partner in the scene. Rape implies something very different and that the woman has no desire or wish to participate. I like to have the sexual tension building before the actual act. One of the revisions I had to do for Taken was to move the first sex scene to later in the book. I had had it too early and it felt off and the tension had decreased. Luckily my lovely editor spotted the problem and suggested a neat solution. The revisions I did on Taken actually stretched me quite a bit and I think made me grow as a writer.
Anyway, I have been very pleased to read the reviews and to hear what readers think about the story.
Don't forget to visit Unusual Historicals for a chance to win a signed copy of Taken.

Bits, pieces and ennegrams

First and foremost, Philippa Ashley has a very inspirational (and illicit) photo of a certain Richard Armitage. Hint he has his shirt off. It is worth taking a look.

Yesterday, I dragged out my book on ennegrams again. I wanted to make sure that I knew my main character better and understood why he had behaved in a certain fashion. He is a five with a six wing. Basically, he attempts to control his life by concentrating or focussing on certain technical projects and avoiding hurt that way. Fives will often know all there is to know about things in their chosen field but really very little about the things that they think they are not good at. In this case -- relationships. It explains why he basically ignores his son for example, preferring instead to spend time perfecting an engine. The description fits Simon, so I was pleased about that. Knowing what type he is means that I make sure that his growth arc follows a certain pattern. A five under stress behaves in a similair fashion to the domineering 8, so I should hopefully have no problem with making him alpha and keeping him true to his character type.

One of thegreat things about enneagrams is that they do allow me scope to expand my characters and to explore different types.

The heroine at the moment seems to be a 3 with a 2 wing. Charming, concerned about others and good a t social situations.

My author copies of A Christmas Wedding Wager arrived yesterday, just after I did a massive posting of review copies of Christmas by Candlelight. In the flesh as it were, ACWW is very Christmassy with a green back.

The ducklings are fine and the weather continues to be unseasonably warm. Grain, in particular wheat prices have been going up and so suddenly feed is much more expensive -- about 30% more expensive. There again, it has not gone up in price for years. I foresee more expensive food prices in the weeks and months to come. The harvest was not good in the UK due to the strange summer weather conditions.

October contest winners!

The winners from this month's newsletter were

Jo Major who wins a copy of Christmas by Candlelight.

and sauble who wins a copy of one of my backlist books. Both have been contacted by email.

Unusual Historicals is running a draw for a signed copy of Taken by the Viking. You simply need to post a comment to be put in the draw.

And I will be running another contest in November to celebrate the publication of Christmas by Candlelight. Details will be in my November newsletter.

Falling off horses and other bits of extreme research

My post about Taken is up today at Unusual Historicals and Delia asked about research. This reminded me of the lengths I went to do my research for Taken by the Viking.

When I was in Iceland last year, not only did I visit museums, but I also went riding in the lava fields with Is Hestar. At the end of the 2 hour ride, the horse decided to make a run for the stable and I fell off. Totally my fault I should add, and the people running the stable were lovely. If anyone is interested in the Viking period, I would certainly recommend going to Iceland to ride one of the Icelandic horses. The horses are direct descendants of Viking horses and have an unusual gait.

I also tried on Viking armour and lifted a replica sword. The picture of my youngest, doing the same, mainly because my children objected to their mother having her photo taken. But I thought it was important to gauge the weight of a sword and how cumbersome a shield might be. This came in useful when I was writing the opening chapters of Viking Warrior, Unwilling Wife.

One of the great things about being a novelist is that it does give me an excuse to go out and try things.

Ho and hooray for England on beating the French. Jonny Wilkinson's boot proved golden in the end. But the game was very tense. And now, England are in the final. Can they go all the way? Certainly the 30 men of the squad think so.

Christmas by Candlelight books arrive plus duckling update

One of the things I have been anxiously waiting for -- my author copies of Christmas by Candlelight have arrived. The postman rang the doorbell at about 8 this morning with the parcels.

It is wonderful to hold the book in my hand and reread the Dear reader letter and the dedication as well as seeing the back pages. Christmas By Candlelight is one of M&B's Special Releases, and so there is not a list of upcoming historicals. One of my great pleasures has been to see what is coming out way in advance. But not this time. Although Silent in the Grave -- the Mira book that appears on 21 Dec sounds excellent.

I will now get to read Helen Dickson's Wicked Pleasures as the book is a duo. I am a fan of Helen's books so I am really pleased to be twinned with her.
I now need to get the review copies sent out.

The hero of ACWW is Jack Stanton and he was not based on Richard Armitage. Although having watching North and South, I can see the resemblance. I just knew I wanted to do a self-made hero. And he is one of my favourites for a number of reasons. My fingers are very firmly crossed that readers like him just as much...

Tomorrow I am blogging at Unusual Historicals and a signed copy of Taken by the Viking will be given away to one lucky person who comments. I do ship anywhere in the world.

For those wondering about the ducklings. Last night was an experience. The choice of three houses completely flummoxed the ducks. Three of the ducklings decided to go into the stream and become lost. My eldest had to borrow the torch and fish them out while I prevented more escapes. Eventually, the ducklings went into the A framed duck house and several ducks went into the oldest duck house. The remaining ducks had to be caught with a fishing net and placed into the newest house. An operation that was not without difficulty and escape attempts.

Ducks like their routine. They are easily confused.

All seem well today. We shall have to see tonight.

Duckling Photo

As promised -- a photo of the ducklings today.

My dh is convinced that they were being trampled in the duck house, so he has bought another house. He and my youngest put it together. It will be my task tonight to ensure the ducks go into the correct house. It should be interesting...

Ducklings in autumn

Much to my dismay, we have ducklings. 11 at last count. We lave lost two. My dh assures me that we will lose more.
How could this have happened?
It is not the right time of the year for ducklings. There are reasons why ducklings are born in the spring.
I am not running a duck farm and we have far too many ducks as it is.
The ducklings however are very cute and fluffy. But totally unexpected. I hadn't even bothered searching for nests because you don't get ducklings in autumn, but obviously you do.
Evidence of global warming? Or how awful the summer was? Should I take this as a prediction of a mild autumn?
Watch this space. And yes, I will try to get a photo. Currently we have 2 yellow ones and 9 brown ones with yellow bibs.
SIGH!

Making a Meal of it

One of my latest research books is Making a Meal of It -- Two Thousand Years of English Cookery. ISBN 9781850749717

It is a compilation of English Heritage pamphlets about how food and food preparation has changed over the past 2,000 years. Prior to the Roman invasion, there is actually very little solid substance to how food was prepared or cooked as the society was not literate.

The book focuses on seven main times periods -- the Romans, the Medieval period, the 17th century, the Georgian and the Victorian periods. It looks at food was obtained, how it was prepared and how it was eaten.

Examining the eating habits can tell you a lot about a society. Food -- the getting of it, the growing and the consuming is one of the chief preoccupations of much pf society. The type of food stuffs can also tell you about the relative wealth of a society. For example, examining how tea becomes a staple in England and gives rise to a whole new industries (eg the making of tea pots *g* )

For example, at the beginning of the 18th century, the hostess did most of the carving. By the middle, both the host and hostess did the carving. And at the end of the 18th century, the food was carved outside in the kitchen and served by servants.

Breakfast in the 18th century for the upper classes was generally taken about 9-10 am. It generally consisted of chocolate, coffee or tea, toast and hot sweet rolls. However, by the early Victorian period, the cooked breakfast was becoming more popular, in particular with men.

The reason for using silver in the early 19 century for servers, spoons, forks and knives was because steel was consider to spoil the flavour and was easily corroded. Forks were introduced chiefly by Thomas Coryate publishing an account of its use in 1611.

I had not realised until I read the book that prior to the early 19th century, ladies entered the room first in order of precedence, followed by the gentlemen so that the sexes were seated separately. In the early part of the 19th century -- promiscuous seating happened -- ie gentlemen began to escort ladies into the dining room and were seated next to them. However, ladies still had to be served first, and the custom arose of a gentleman serving his lady before himself. As a lady could not ask for wine, he had make sure that she was served with the wine she preferred.

The book also details when various food stuffs were introduced into England. For examples, tomatoes began appearing in recipes in the late 18th century, but were not eaten raw until the end of the 19th century. Garden rhubarb was introduced from Italy in the 17century but not made into tarts until the late 18 th century. Favourite fruits in the 18th century were damsons and gooseberries, with the favourite garnish being the lemon.

Things not introduced until well into Queen Victoria's reign include -- quick acting yeast, baking powder, and self-raising flour, custard powder, bottled gelatin, bulk produced cheeses, sweetened condensed milk, and dried packet soups. Canned baked beans do not appear until after the 1870s...how would my dh and youngest have coped?

Smoking and salting meat remained almost the sole way of long term storage until a cheap way of making and storing ice was discovered in the 1860s.

Anyway, the book is full of interesting information and has a variety of recipes at the back.

Reviews for Taken by the Viking

Okay I will admit it. I love getting reader feedback, and I enjoy reading reviews. Taken by the Viking has just been reviewed on Cataromance and the PHS review site.

One of my favourite bits of the 4.5 starred Cataromance review was

Readers looking for historical romances that are densely plotted, meticulously researched and highly evocative ought to look no further than Michelle Styles. Blazing with all the passion and intrigue that she has become renowned for, Michelle Styles’ latest Mills and Boon Historical Romance, Taken by the Viking is a sensuous tale that will beguile and captivate romance readers everywhere.
In Taken by the Viking, Michelle Styles combines courageous heroes, valiant heroines, powerful romance and heart pounding action in an unforgettable tale that will captivate, beguile and enthrall.

And on the PHS Review

Michelle Styles is a wonderful historical novelist whose spellbinding tales of romance, adventure and intrigue never fail to hold readers spellbound from beginning to end. Writing with plenty of skill, style and alacrity, Michelle Styles paints a vivid picture of the Viking era and makes her readers feel as if they are living the story next to her characters rather than just reading it.Michelle Styles combines history, passion and suspense in an engrossing tale that cements her position as one of the finest writers of the genre.