Well, it’s been a busy year but I want to start by thanking all of my readers for continuing to read the books I write, for writing reviews and for interacting with me over on Twitter and via email. I really couldn’t do it without you!
And so to this year.
Well, it’s been a year of two halves. The beginning of 2019 saw me experimenting with a couple of fantasy books, The Innkeeper being released under a slightly different name, and the other secret project under an entirely new name.
I was also really slow to release anything new in the historical fiction genre. There was a good reason for this – I was crossing the timeline of two earlier books and I wanted to make sure the transition was smoother than I knew it was. So, the first two Earls of Mercia books have been comprehensively edited, fiddled with and generally made as good as I can make them without a complete rewrite. The Earl of Mercia’s Father and The Danish King’s Enemy are available in paperback. It’s to be hoped that these new editions will be available in ebook soon as well.
I needed to do this to continue the story of Lady Elfrida, first told in The First Queen of England trilogy, and continuing in The King’s Mother books. When I first wrote about Leofwine and Leofric, I had no idea that I would find myself writing about King Æthelred’s mother. It was fascinating to write the story of the late tenth century and early eleventh century from a different viewpoint. The Queen Dowager and Once A Queen were the first of my ‘new’ releases for the year.
I then turned my attention to a few of the fantastic women I’d discovered while writing about Lady Elfrida. Lady Eadgifu caught my attention because her life spans almost the entire period between The Lady of Mercia’s Daughter and the beginning of Lady Elfrida’s story. Kingmaker charts many of the events of tenth-century England, but The King’s Daughters took me to both East and West Frankia in the middle of the tenth century. It was a fascinating, if frustrating, experience.
I’ve also taken the opportunity to refresh another tenth-century project Brunanburh.
For NaNoWriMo, I’ve worked on another fantasy project which I hope to release early in 2020 and I’ve ended the year with a return to the world of the Earls of Mercia. Viking King was released on 24th December.
It’s been a busy and fascinating year, and I’m looking forward to 2020 and all the new journeys I’m going to be able to take.
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M J Porter 