Tag: The Lady of Mercia’s Daughter

A Conspiracy of Kings turns 3 today.

It’s a week of book birthdays! Today, it’s the turn of A Conspiracy of Kings, the sequel to The Lady of Mercia’s Daughter.

Here’s the blurb

Mercia, 918.

Lady Ælfwynn has taken her mother’s place as the Lady of Mercia, to the displeasure of her uncle in Wessex, and against his efforts to subvert it.

King Edward, casts his eye longingly over Mercia, and finds a willing accomplice where none should exist. This time, the threat to Lady Ælfwynn is not as easy to defeat.

This is the continuing story of Lady Ælfwynn, the granddaughter of King Alfred, begun in The Lady of Mercia’s Daughter.

It is intended that The Lady of Mercia’s Daughter should be read before A Conspiracy of Kings.

books2read.com/TheLadyMercia

books2read.com/ConspiracyofKings

A Conspiracy of Kings was the book I wrote immediately before starting the stories of King Coelwulf, Mercia’s last king. If not for these two books, I’d never have wanted to write about Coelwulf, so I feel I owe this book a lot, and indeed, having just reread it, I can see a lot of details that resonate with me.

If you’ve not thought of reading these two books, then please do. I can assure you, my incarnation of Lady Ælfwynn is a bit bad ass. The new covers are also available in paperback.

These two books are part of my Tales of Mercia series of standalone stories charting the rise and fall of the Saxon kingdom of Mercia.

Check out my post on visiting Gloucester, where Lady Ælfwynn’s mother, Lady Æthelflæd, the lady of Mercia, was buried.

And if it’s before 24th February 2023, check out my other book birthday for this week, Son of Mercia, and enter the competition to win a signed set of the first three books in the series.

I’m excited to share the new cover for A Conspiracy of Kings, and The Lady of Mercia’s Daughter is currently just 99p/99c on kindle (and reduced globally)

Here it is. The new cover for A Conspiracy of Kings, the sequel to The Lady of Mercia’s Daughter. And not only does it have a shiny new cover, it’s had a thorough new edit as well ( as had The Lady of Mercia’s Daughter).

Here’s the blurb

Mercia, 918.

Lady Ælfwynn has taken her mother’s place as the Lady of Mercia, to the displeasure of her uncle in Wessex, and against his efforts to subvert it.

King Edward, casts his eye longingly over Mercia, and finds a willing accomplice where none should exist. This time, the threat to Lady Ælfwynn is not as easy to defeat.

This is the continuing story of Lady Ælfwynn, the granddaughter of King Alfred, begun in The Lady of Mercia’s Daughter.

It is intended that The Lady of Mercia’s Daughter should be read before A Conspiracy of Kings.

books2read.com/TheLadyMercia

books2read.com/ConspiracyofKings

It’s been fabulous to have the opportunity to revisit both of these books in the last few months, while working on my non-fiction book about the royal women of The House of Wessex in the long tenth century. I plan on giving the same treatment to Kingmaker and The King’s Daughters when time allows, and of course, King of Kings, which starts just as A Conspiracy of Kings finishes, is being released by my publisher on 10th February 2023.

Do check out the posts I wrote for The Coffee Pot Book Club blog about both books.

The Lady of Mercia’s Daughter

New Release alert – Kingmaker – England: The Tenth Century

Last July, I decided to hand my notice into work to write ‘full-time’. In a fit of panic at my decision, I wrote a book in about 5 weeks. That book was The King’s Mother.

This year, to celebrate my one year anniversary, I decided to celebrate by doing the same thing! (Yes, I know, why give myself more work to do? (I don’t know)).

Anyway, I’ve loved the challenge and it is a bit of a rush to fling yourself headlong into something. So, I’m proud to present Kingmaker – the story of Queen Eadgifu of the Anglo-Saxons. She is not a new ‘character’ for me, but rather one I’m returning to, after her appearance in The First Queen of England.

Queen Eadgifu has been a joy to write, and I’ve loved the challenge of writing one novel that covers the entire lifetime of a person, as normally, I tend to stick with just a decade at most.

I really hope that you, my readers, will find Lady Eadgifu as fascinating as I have, and also, that the middle of the tenth century will feel a little more accessible.

Here’s the blurb;

“This is the tenth century in Anglo-Saxon England between the reigns of Alfred the Great, and Æthelred the Unready.

As England’s first Viking Age grinds to a halt in a war of attrition that will see Jorvik finally added to the kingdom of the English, one woman will witness it all.

Seventeen-year-old Eadgifu knows little about her new husband; he’s old, he only wants to marry her because she’s so wealthy, he already has ten children, and he’s Edward, king of Wessex. He also hopes to claim Mercia as his own.

That he’s the son of King Alfred, the man credited with saving Wessex from the Viking Raiders adds no mystique to him at all.

Many say he’s handsome, but Eadgifu knows they speak of the man twenty years ago. Her mother won’t even allow her to be alone with him before their wedding.

But an old man will not live forever. The mother of his youngest sons can be more powerful than the wife of the king of Wessex, especially in the newly made kingdom of England where king’s lives are short and bloody, and war with the Viking Raiders is never far away.

Lady, wife, queen, mother, king’s mother, grandmother, ally, enemy, amenable and rebellious.

Lost to the mists of time, this is Queen Eadgifu’s story, Kingmaker.”

Kingmaker is released on August 29th 2019 and will be available from Amazon as both an ebook and a paperback.

I am calling Kingmaker, Book 2 in a series of standalone, but interconnected novels I’ve written about The Tenth Century. The Lady of Mercia’s Daughter (Book 1 ) is already available from here and at the moment it is 99p/99c and equivalent in every Amazon territory