Liebster Blog Award

My thanks to Kathryn Warner of the Edward II blog for awarding me a Liebster (German for ‘Favourite’) blog award.

The rules of the Liebster Award are:

1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog and link back to the blogger who presented this award to you.
2. Answer the 11 questions from the nominator, list 11 random facts about yourself and create 11 questions for your nominees.
3. Present the Liebster Blog Award to 11 blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve to be noticed and leave a comment on their blog letting them know they have been chosen.
4. Copy and Paste the blog award on your blog

My answers to Kathryn’s questions:

What's your favourite novel and what do you love about it?

-Impossible to pick just one.  Sword at Sunset, by Rosemary Sutcliff, for the marvellous writing.  King Hereafter, by Dorothy Dunnett, for the love story between Thorfinn (Macbeth) and Groa. Legacy, by Susan Kay, for the complex portrayal of Elizabeth I showing her cruelty and caprice as well as her charisma.   

Do you have any pet peeves in historical fiction?
-The same as in any fiction; dullness.

What are you most proud of?

-Having Paths of Exile selected as Editor’s Choice by Historical Novels Review.

Your favourite and least favourite people in history?  (As few or as many as you like!)
-Alfred the Great.  In part because of his comment in his translation of Boethius, “a king must have people who pray, people who fight and people who work”.  I have a soft spot for a king who actually recognised and acknowledged the importance of working people.

-Least favourite? That’s a hotly contested title!  Too many to mention.

The country, city or other place you'd most like to visit?

-I have a fancy to cycle the length of the Outer Hebrides, hopping from island to island on the ferries.

Which five people would you invite to your fantasy dinner party?

-Aethelflaed Lady of the Mercians, Hild of Whitby, the un-named early-seventh-century queen of East Anglia, Acha of Deira and Bernicia, and Rhianmellt of Rheged.  

All these women were important in early medieval Britain.  Aethelflaed ruled Mercia and fought the Vikings in the early tenth century.  Hild ran the seventh-century monastery of Whitby and advised kings and princes – in modern terms her role was a sort of cross between a university vice-chancellor, diplomat and CEO of a sizeable company. The queen of East Anglia influenced (at least) key religious and political decisions, yet we don’t even know her name.  Acha and Rhianmellt made international marriages that may have helped to weld kingdoms together, yet they are recorded only as names.  Historical fiction can try to imagine their lives and characters; Theresa Tomlinson featured Hild as a secondary character in Wolf Girl and A Swarming of Bees and Nicola Griffith has a novel forthcoming with Hild as the central character; Kathleen Herbert imagined Rhianmellt in Queen of the Lightning; I have plans for the un-named queen of East Anglia when Eadwine’s story gets that far. I would like to find out what they were really like.  I suspect it would be a lot more complex and surprising than anything in fiction.

Facebook or Twitter or neither?
-Neither

What's one of your goals for the future?
-Finalise Ring of Scorpions (the follow-up to Paths of Exile) to get it ready for publication

What's your favourite season?
-Spring

Dogs or cats or neither?
-Neither

What's your favourite hobby?

-Writing and the associated reading about history.  Embroidery, dressmaking and hill-walking.

My 11 blogs:

The Bard’s Nest

Trifolium Books

Constance: Life onthe Periphery

Meghan

Esmeralda’sCumbrian History and Folklore

Helen Hollick: Of Many Things

RocketpunkManifesto 

Gemaecca

Sally Wilde

Gabriele

Elizabeth Chadwick 

I know some of these have already been nominated.  Feel free to take part or not as you choose, and to do as little or as much as you wish.  These are 11 blogs that I enjoy reading and that I think are well worth a visit.