Category: historical fiction

Here’s the blurb

This, the fourth and final selection of stories, completes the Seasonal Paths series created by a consortium of best-selling and award-winning North Atlantic writers.

In this anthology you will encounter unintentioned consequences, love in later life, the pull of family dynamics, misguided assumptions and murderous soulmates.

These yarns will take you to new worlds, into a ghostly abyss, across an ocean in pursuit of truth and into the darkness of ancient beliefs.

Make yourself comfortable and surrender to these multi-styled tales, all linked by the theme of summer, within the covers of this book. You will be surprised and entertained by what you find.

Purchase Links 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Summer-Paths-anthology-Angela-Wren-ebook/dp/B0DFMGYVL3

https://www.amazon.com/Summer-Paths-anthology-Angela-Wren-ebook/dp/B0DFMGYVL3

My Review

Summer Paths is a diverse collection of short stories by various authors. They are all engaging and read really well. I don’t read a lot of short story collections but I always enjoy them when I do, which makes me think I should read more.

It’s fun to dip in and out of others’ worlds and I will be checking out the authors other works.

Meet the authors

Sandra Bunting’s publications include two books of short fiction, two poetry collections, a non-fiction book, besides articles, poems and stories in numerous literary magazines. Sandra is on the editorial board of the Irish-based literary magazine, Crannóg, and worked at NUI Galway where she set up the Academic Writing Centre and taught Creative Writing and TEFL teacher training. Now living in Atlantic Canada, she is a member of The Writers Union of Canada, New Brunswick Writers Federation, Words on Water Miramichi, the Grand Barachois group Women Who Write and the Galway Writers Workshop. 

www.sandbunting.com

The youngest of eleven children, Pierre C. Arseneault grew up in the small town of Rogersville, New Brunswick. As a cartoonist, Pierre was published in over a dozen newspapers. As an author, he has six titles published so far: Dark Tales for Dark Nights (2013) Sleepless Nights (2014) Oakwood Island (2016) Poplar Falls – The Death of Charlie Baker (2019) Oakwood Island – The Awakening (2020) Maple Springs (2022) 

www.mysteriousink.ca

www.pcartoons.com

Chuck Bowie studied Science at the University of New Brunswick, in Canada. His writing is influenced by the study of Human Nature and how people behave. He loves food, wine, music, and travel, and all play a role in his work. His latest novel is entitled Her Irish Boyfriend, fifth in the international thriller series Donovan: Thief 4 Hire. He has just completed the third novel in a new cozy mystery series: Old Manse Mysteries, set in a small Atlantic Canadian town. Chuck has sat on the Boards of The Writers’ Union of Canada and the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick. He is a Fellow of the Kingsbrae International Residency for the Arts, and is an author of note with the Miramichi Literary Trail. 

www.chuckbowie.ca

Steve C. Eston has been a lover of the fantastical and the scientific since he was a young boy. He wrote his first story by hand while still in elementary school a five-page story about a tiger-masked ninja — fighting mystical monsters that included his own illustrations. When not spending time with his family, Steve makes time for his numerous hobbies, which include reading (and hoarding) books, listening to music, playing video games, watching movies, making puzzles, and playing hockey and tennis. He also loves to travel and developed an obsession with New Zealand after traveling there in 2015.

www.sceston.com

Angela Wren is an actor and director at a theatre in Yorkshire, UK. An avid reader, she has always loved stories of any description. She writes the Jacques Forêt crime novels set in France and is a contributing author to the Miss Moonshine anthologies. Her short stories vary between romance, memoir, mystery and historical. Angela has had two one-act plays recorded for local radio. 

www.angelawren.co.uk

Gianetta Murray has worked as a technical writer and librarian on two continents, writing everything from specifications to website, marketing, and newspaper copy. She was a Toastmaster county champion and won a Daniel Phelan writing award for a short story casting Peter Rabbit as St. Augustine. She moved from Silicon Valley to England two decades ago after marrying a Brit, and has stories in multiple anthologies as well as having published a collection of humorous paranormal stories (A Supernatural Shindig) and the first of her Vivien Brandt cozy mystery series, Moved to Murder.

www.gianettamurray.com

Eden Monroe loves giving voice to the endless parade of interesting characters who introduce themselves in her imagination. In her novels she writes about real life, real issues and struggles, and triumphing against all odds. In her short stories she likes to color outside the lines. A proud east coast Canadian, she enjoys a variety of outdoor activities, and a good book. 

www.edenmonroeauthor.com

Growing up in South Branch, Allan Hudson was encouraged to read from an early age by his mother who was a schoolteacher. He lives in Dieppe, NB, with his wife Gloria. He has enjoyed a lifetime of adventure, travel and uses the many experiences as ideas for his writing. He is an author of action/adventure novels, historical fiction and a short story collection. His short stories – The Ship Breakers & In the Abyss – received Honorable Mention in the New Brunswick Writer s Federation ’ competition. He has stories published on commuterlit.com, The Golden Ratio and his blog – South Branch Scribbler.

www.southbranchscribbler.ca

Angella Cormier grew up in Saint Antoine, a small town in south east New Brunswick, Canada. This is where her love of reading and writing was born. Her curious nature about everything mysterious and paranormal helped carve the inspiration for her passion of writing horror and mystery stories. She is also a published poet, balancing out her writing to express herself in these two very opposing genres. Previous titles include: Oakwood Island – The Awakening (2020), Oakwood Island (2016), A Maiden s Perception – A collection of ’ thoughts, reflections and poetry (2015) and Dark Tales for Dark Nights (2013, written as Angella Jacob). 

www.mysteriousink.ca

Here’s the blurb

Three girls seem to have the world at their feet in the summer of 1914. But World War I is coming and things will change forever – especially for women.

Debutante Lucinda McFarlane is engaged to be married to Major Sir David Melcome, but their society wedding has to be scaled right down when war is declared and David is recalled to his regiment.

Mabel Oakley, once a maid for the McFarlanes, has inherited Thomas Clarke’s printing works, but an unexpected turn of events leaves her at the mercy of her father’s old enemy, solicitor John Sheridan. What can she do?

Lady Diana Fosse-Bury is incredibly beautiful and reckless. When war is declared she immediately wants to be in the thick of it. Can her budding romance with Lucinda McFarlane’s brother Iain survive the Western front?

With war coming, the destinies of these three girls will soon be entwined forever, but only if they dare to love in the face of the dangers ahead of them.

Purchase Links

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Girls-Who-Dared-Love-captivating-ebook/dp/B0CVRX7WP5/

https://www.amazon.com/Girls-Who-Dared-Love-captivating-ebook/dp/B0CVRX7WP5/

My Review

The Girls Who Dared to Love is a story of three young women at the start of World War 1, all with different intentions in life.

We first meet Lucinda and follow her marriage to Sir David. The storyline then intermingles with feisty Mabel before Diana makes an appearance. We follow the many intricacies and minutiae of their lives as the threat of war begins to build. Then it starts, complete with the oft-repeated phrase that it would all be over by Christmas 1914, which adds poignancy to their stories.

While the writing style isn’t one I favour (as the chapters aren’t character-specific), I found the storyline engaging and was certainly rooting for Mabel, who perhaps, as the working-class member of the cast, has the biggest fight of all on her hands.

A charming novel, sure to appeal to fans of the genre, and those with an interest in women’s lives during the First World War.

Meet the author

Diney Costeloe is the author of twenty-four novels, including The Girls Who Dared to Dream, several short stories, and many articles and poems. She has three children and seven grandchildren, so when she isn’t writing, she’s busy with family. 

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The working lives of medieval nuns

In this post, I’m going to share something of what I’ve learned about the life of medieval nuns, and the other people who lived and/or worked in or for the priory. To paint a picture of how life might have been for Sister Rosa and her sister nuns, I’ve drawn heavily upon a book written in the 1920s by a medieval historian, Eileen Power: Medieval English Nunneries. 

A nunnery – even a relatively small one like my fictional Northwick Priory – was a community, including not only avowed nuns, but also novices (children or adults) and servants. Depending upon the size of the priory, there could be a large domestic staff, easily outnumbering the nuns themselves. There would be household maids, and some of the senior nuns (especially in a wealthy nunnery) might have personal maids, although in Northwick, only the prioress has such a maid. Other staff could include both men and women: for example, the cook(s) and kitchen servants, workers for the brewery, bakery and dairy (milking cows, making butter and cheese), the laundry and in the kitchen garden (potager).

I imagine most of the servants probably lived in the nearby village. Outside the priory itself, there would be an estate – the manor(s) owned by the priory – with a home farm. To run the estate and farm required a number of secular officials (typically all men).

The steward was often an honorary position, held by a local gentleman – or even a nobleman if the nunnery was high status. He’d oversee and make decisions about the nunnery’s properties, including the lands, buildings and livestock, although he’d have other officials working under him, such as the bailiff and the reeve. He’d also liaise with those nuns whose roles involved some form of property management, such as the sacrist and the cellaress, and of course the treasuress, and the prioress herself.

The bailiff was to some extent the farm manager, but might also help the nuns acquire supplies, if they had to be purchased some distance away. As on secular manors, there would be other farm officials, like the reeve, and all the usual workers: ploughmen, cowherds, swineherds and shepherds, carters, and general labourers. Also, of course, craftsmen such as carpenters and masons would be needed when the buildings required repairs or new work was planned, and, if the priory kept its own horses and vehicles, a blacksmith or wheelwright too. All such workers would probably be employed from the nearest village.

The priory itself, of course, even if it was comparatively small, had to be managed, just like any business or institution, and the nuns themselves undertook most of this administrative work.

One important aspect of their daily lives that nuns couldn’t undertake themselves was that part of their religious practice that demanded the services of an ordained priest. Nuns could conduct services but could neither hear confession nor administer the sacraments, and so had to have at least one chaplain, who might have his lodgings within the priory’s grounds (but outside the nuns’ quarters).

At the top of the administrative hierarchy was the prioress, essentially the CEO or chairman, supervising the work of senior nuns, and chairing daily meetings in the chapter house, where all nuns gathered to discuss day-to-day concerns and make joint decisions. The prioress was also, in principle, the person who liaised with important people outside the priory, including the bishop.

There might also be a subprioress, but reporting to the prioress were “obedientiaries”, senior nuns who held particular positions of responsibility. In a relatively small priory like Northwick, nearly every nun would have such a position, to enable all the work to be done.

After the prioress, I imagine the treasuress was the next most important person in the priory. Larger priories might have more than one treasuress. Her job was to receive and record all income and manage all expenditure. It must surely have been a demanding job, especially when one considers that she was managing the finances not just of the priory itself but also the home farm and estate.

I also feel that the job of the cellaress must have been quite onerous, being responsible for providing food for the nuns and the domestic servants, and usually overseeing the management of the home farm. The cellaress had to ensure that the nunnery had constant and adequate stores of food and drink, no simple task in the days before refrigeration. Some supplies came from the home farm, the rest bought in. I think the cellaress would manage the priory’s gardens, where vegetables and fruit and herbs would be grown, presumably employing a number of gardeners to do the work.

Two obedientiaries reported to the cellaress: the kitcheness and the fratress. 

The kitcheness supervised the work of the kitchen, managing the kitchen staff, who were mostly lay people, not nuns, and could be both men and women. The cellaress made sure food was supplied but ensuring meals were prepared fell to the kitcheness, although she was unlikely to do much, if any, of the cooking herself. The fratress, unsurprisingly, was in charge of the frater, the dining hall. She ensured the tables and benches or stools were kept in good repair, looked after table linen and dishes, and supervised the servants who served the meals.

The sacrist took care of the church building, arranging for any repairs or works, and looked after the valuable church plate, vestments and altar cloths. She also had to provide lighting for both the church and the priory itself, buying the wax, tallow and wicks and arranging for candles to be made, often by a local candle-maker. At Northwick, I have the sacrist also caring for the priory buildings, as well as the church. If repairs were needed, she would have worked closely with lay people from outside the priory, such as the steward. Finally, it was the sacrist’s job to ensure that the bell was rung for chapel services and meals.

The chambress was in charge of everything to do with the nuns’ clothes and bedding, buying cloth, employing seamstresses to make up garments, sheets, and blankets, and ensuring it was all kept clean and in good repair.

There were two “care-giving” roles: the infirmaress and the almoness. The nun in charge of the sick in the infirmary was the infirmaress. She would care directly for the patients, presumably with the help of servants. She provided food, drink and medicine, and treated wounds, sometimes at the behest of a physician, but perhaps preparing some medicines herself. The infirmary was generally a separate building from the priory, to avoid the spread of infection. The almonesswas responsible for giving help to the poor and sick who lived in the community around the priory. The giving of alms – typically food, clothing or money – was a most important part of a nunnery’s function.

The chantress or precentrix ensured the chapel services and offices ran smoothly and reverentially. She trained the novices in singing and led the sisters in the psalms and hymns during services. The mistress of the novices acted as schoolmistress to the novices, teaching them all they needed to know in order to become nuns, and supervising their general behaviour. If the nunnery had a school for local children – which Northwick doesn’t – the mistress of the novices would usually be in charge of that as well.

It’s clear that many of the nuns who held these, sometimes onerous, positions were women of great skill and competence. The tasks of the treasuress and the cellaress, for example, were surely quite demanding, and required at the very least an ability to read and write and manage accounts, for which one presumes they received no training but rather learned “on the job”.  I feel they should be much admired!

Here’s the blurb

How can you rescue what you hold most dear, when to do so you must break your vows?

1363. When Mother Angelica, the old prioress at Northwick Priory, dies, many of the nuns presume Sister Rosa – formerly Johanna de Bohun, of Meonbridge – will take her place. But Sister Evangelina, Angelica’s niece, believes the position is hers by right, and one way or another she will ensure it is.

Rosa stands aside to avoid unseemly conflict, but is devastated when she sees how the new prioress is changing Northwick: from a place of humility and peace to one of indulgence and amusement, if only for the prioress and her favoured few. Rosa is terrified her beloved priory will be brought to ruin under Evangelina’s profligate and rapacious rule, but her vows of obedience make it impossible to rebel.

Meanwhile, in Meonbridge, John atte Wode, the bailiff, is also distraught by the happenings at Northwick. After years of advising the former prioress and Rosa on the management of their estates, Evangelina dismissed him, banning him from visiting Northwick again.

Yet, only months ago, he met Anabella, a young widow who fled to Northwick to escape her in-laws’ demands and threats, but is a reluctant novice nun. The attraction between John and Anabella was immediate and he hoped to encourage her to give up the priory and become his wife. But how can he possibly do that now?

Can John rescue his beloved Anabella from a future he is certain she no longer wants? And can Rosa overcome her scruples, rebel against Evangelina’s hateful regime, and return Northwick to the haven it once was?

Purchase Link

https://books2read.com/u/bWaYM0

This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.

Meet the author

CAROLYN HUGHES has lived much of her life in Hampshire. With a first degree in Classics and English, she started working life as a computer programmer, then a very new profession. But it was technical authoring that later proved her vocation, word-smithing for many different clients, including banks, an international hotel group and medical instruments manufacturers.

Although she wrote creatively on and off for most of her adult life, it was not until her children flew the nest that writing historical fiction took centre stage. But why historical fiction? Serendipity!

Seeking inspiration for what to write for her Creative Writing Masters, she discovered the handwritten draft, begun in her twenties, of a novel, set in 14th century rural England… Intrigued by the period and setting, she realised that, by writing a novel set in the period, she could learn more about the medieval past and interpret it, which seemed like a thrilling thing to do. A few days later, the first Meonbridge Chronicle, Fortune’s Wheel, was under way.

Seven published books later (with more to come), Carolyn does now think of herself as an Historical Novelist. And she wouldn’t have it any other way…

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