Celebrations at the Beach Hotel by Francesca Capaldi - #blogtour #author #guestpost

I am absolutely delighted to be welcoming author, Francesca Capaldi, onto the blog today. Francesca's latest book, Celebrations at the Beach Hotel is publishing in the UK today. Here she will be talking about changing times for men and women, and I can't wait to hear what she says.

The Blurb

Sisters Alice and Annie have always been close but will a man come between them?

Annie and Alice love their life working at the Beach Hotel together and each is thrilled to have finally found a sweetheart. Yet the path of true love never did run smooth, and they soon find themselves facing conflict and strife. Could love come between them and the bond they share?

Meanwhile, as men start to come home from the war, the women have to work out how to keep their jobs, although they are delighted to be back with their beaus. Soon, wedding bells ring out in Littlehampton.

Will everything be made right in time for Christmas?

Welcome to the blog Francesca. Over to you.

Let me introduce you to characters Annie and Alice Twine, two sisters in their early twenties who work in the scullery at the Beach Hotel in Littlehampton during World War 1. They’re looking forward to all the men coming home from the war, but two men in particular.

Once the war was over, the men who’d been fighting didn’t return immediately but did so over the next few months. This is reflected in Annie and Alice’s story. Although the sisters remained working in the scullery during the war, quite a few of the women at the hotel had taken over the men’s jobs as porters and waiters, and even as manager in Helen Bygrove’s case. This would have been the case all over the country in factories, offices and on the land. 

This was a period when women must have started to feel a real sense of freedom, doing jobs normally reserved for men.  While I’m sure most women would have been missing their fathers, husbands etc, there must have been some sense of relief for them, now they could make their own decisions.

In Celebrations, the men at the hotel return in dribs and drabs, and it’s not until March that the two men Annie and Alice like get back to the hotel. Lorcan and Jasper were in a battalion whose part in the battles had ended in October 1918, but they were required to stay another five months for a clear up and salvage mission, which is what their battalion did in real life. Other men at the hotel came home after them, having been sent to the Russian/Finnish border where trouble had been breaking out.

A lot of men, although relieved to return, must have wondered what they were coming home to. They were now years behind the cultural fashions. Music had changed, as had dancing. The women would have looked very different in their shorter, straighter, less fussy outfits, more practical for the jobs they’d now taken on.

Women’s football, already around for a long time, had really taken off during the war, due to the Football Association stopping men’s matches after the 1914/15 season. After this time, more men went to war and were conscripted in 1916. In the Beach Hotel books, Gertie Green is a keen football player and joins a team. This encourages derision from some of the men when they return, especially as the media at the time declared it an unhealthy pastime for women. The men’s football league resumed in August 1919. Worried by its popularity, the FA finally banned the women’s league in 1921, so women were no longer allowed to play on their grounds, instead having to go to parks. The ban wasn’t lifted until 1969.*

When the men return to the hotel in Celebrations, there is naturally some resentment against the women who took on their jobs, especially as some retain them, like Gertie as head porter (or portress, as they would have been called). In reality, not many women did keep these jobs. A minor character, Amanda Lovelock, is sacked by the police and returns to work at the hotel, and it was the case that many women were dismissed from the police force after the war.

Overall, women who had gained freedoms during World War 1, lost them. However, proving their worth at this time went a long way to them gaining something important – the right to vote, if, for now it was only for women over 30 who owned property.

Let me finish with some words from the usually stern housekeeper, Mrs Leggett, who surprises the female staff in a discussion with the men by siding with the women…

‘I agree with Miss Green and Miss Twine, and the rest of the women who would like to see women’s football continue. If the war proved anything, it is that women are equal to men in skills, even if they are still not equal in law.’

‘But they have the vote now,’ Stanley persisted.

‘How many women around this table are able to vote yet? Hands up,’ said the housekeeper. ‘There you are: none… And I, for one, hope that the women’s football goes from strength to strength.’

‘Thanks, Mrs Leggett,’ said Gertie, looking genuinely touched.

Annie gave Mrs Leggett a big smile, to show she approved of the housekeeper’s words, and Mrs Leggett smiled back.

*You can read more about women’s football and the impact of World War 1 on it here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zjxywty )

Thank you for being my guest on the blog today.

Book Details

ISBN:  978 1804368497

Publisher:  Hera

Formats:  e-book, audio and paperback

No. of Pages:  384 (paperback)

Series:  Book 6 in the Beach Hotel series

Purchase Links

Bookshop.org

Amazon UK

Amazon US

About the Author

Francesca Capaldi has enjoyed writing since she was a child, largely influenced by a Welsh mother who was good at improvised storytelling and an Italian father who loved history. She is the author of historical sagas, short stories and pocket novels. 

The first novel in the Beach Hotel series, A New Start at the Beach Hotel, won the Romantic Saga Award at the Romantic Novelists' Association Awards in 2024. The first novel in the Wartime in the Valleys series, Heartbreak in the Valleys, was shortlisted for the Historical Romantic Award in the RoNAs in 2021. 

Francesca was born and brought up on the Sussex coast, went to London to do a history degree, but has lived for many years in Kent with her family and a cat called Lando Calrission.

You can also find Francesca at:

Author Website

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(media courtesy of Rachel's Random Resources)

(all opinions are my own)

(Bookshop.org affiliated)

Author Guest Post - Helene Harrison - #author #guestpost

It is my great pleasure to welcome author, Helene Harrison, to the blog today. Helene is going to be talking to us about why she thinks we are still so fascinated with Anne Boleyn.

If you missed my review of her latest book, The Many Faces of Anne Boleyn: Interpreting Image and Perception, you can find it here.

Welcome Helene.

Why are we still so fascinated with Anne Boleyn?

Firstly, thank you so much for having me on your blog, Annie! My third and most recent book is called The Many Faces of Anne Boleyn: Interpreting Image and Perception so today I thought I’d offer some of my thoughts on why we are so fascinated with Anne Boleyn. None of the others of Henry VIII’s six wives get so much attention, or so many books written about them. Even books which cover all six wives, the majority is Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn with the other four wives condensed into the last third or quarter of the book. 

The Many Faces of Anne Boleyn: Interpreting Image and Perception by Helene Harrison [2025].

So, what about Anne Boleyn makes us so enthralled by her story? Well one thing is the sheer drama of her rise and fall. The fact that Henry VIII annulled his first marriage to Katherine of Aragon and broke with the Roman Catholic Church in order to marry Anne, means that she was a very controversial person by the time of her coronation on 1 June 1533. But less than three years later when she was arrested for multiple adulteries, incest with her brother, and treason, her reputation disintegrated further. Anne Boleyn basically became taboo on her execution.

However, her life and reputation have been both rehabilitated and attacked over the nearly 500 years since her death. For me, in choosing to write this book on Anne Boleyn, I consciously decided that I didn’t want to write a traditional biography, but more of a study of how her image and reputation have been tackled over 500 years. The fact that we have Anne recurring through 500 years gives a sense of how much her story means to people – we don’t have the same interest in the other wives, or even in other consorts or regnant monarchs from across time!

Today, we have popular culture. The popularity of the likes of Philippa Gregory, or Showtime’s The Tudors, or Wolf Hall, or SIX The Musical, brings Anne Boleyn and Tudor history to new audiences. We are spoiled in the modern age with television, film, theatre, and a glut of historical novels. Anne Boleyn is a prime candidate for featuring because of the drama of both her rise and fall, as well as her position as the mother of Elizabeth I, often considered to be England’s first successful queen regnant, paving the way for later ruling queens like Victoria and Elizabeth II.  

Anne Boleyn, mid-16th century, at Hever Castle and Gardens, Kent, England.

The lack of concrete knowledge about Anne Boleyn is also intriguing. Once people start digging into her life, they want facts but that often isn’t possible. We don’t know when Anne was born, what she really looked like, whether she really did hold Henry VIII at arm’s length for seven years, or how many pregnancies she underwent during her marriage. The portraits and images we have of her are all from after her death, aside from a crude sketch from her coronation banquet which doesn’t show any features, and a portrait medal from 1534 which has been damaged. The most popular images we think of are later creations. Not knowing her year of birth (estimates vary from 1501 to 1507 generally) means that we don’t know her age at significant events. The state of her relationship with the king is something that intrigues everyone who looks at her life, specifically Henry VIII’s involvement in her downfall.

What we find so alluring about Anne Boleyn is that she is a bit of an enigma, surrounded by drama, and ripe for modern entertainment drama. But we need to remember that Anne was a real person, who really was beheaded on the orders of her husband, a mother who lost at least two children, and spent years serving a queen, only to replace her on the throne. We will never be able to know or understand what she was feeling because times have changed hugely. We need to be careful not to put 21st century thoughts and feelings onto a 16th century woman. Anne Boleyn will no doubt continue to fascinate, and I hope that my book, The Many Faces of Anne Boleyn: Interpreting Image and Perception, will give some insight into how some of the myths about Anne came to be, and why I don’t think interpretations of Anne will ever stop – we just need to dig down into what we actually do know and strip away the layers of myth and perception to try and get closer to the real Anne Boleyn.

Thank you for being my guest on the blog today. That was so interesting and I thought your book was fascinating.

More About the Author

Helene Harrison studied at the University of Northumbria in Newcastle, achieving both a BA and MA in History before going on to complete an MSc in Library Management. Her passion for Tudor history started when studying for A Levels and completing a module on Tudor rebellions. Her master’s dissertation focused on portrayals of Anne Boleyn through the centuries, from contemporary letters to modern TV and film adaptations. Now she writes two blogs, one Tudor history and one book-related, and works in the university library of her alma mater. In her spare time, she loves visiting royal palaces and snuggling up with a book or embroidery project. Her books are ‘Elizabethan Rebellions: Conspiracy, Intrigue and Treason’ (2023), ‘Tudor Executions: From Nobility to the Block’ (2024) and ‘The Many Faces of Anne Boleyn: Interpreting Image and Perception’ (2025), all published by Pen and Sword.

Purchase Links to Helene's Publications

‘Elizabethan Rebellions: Conspiracy, Intrigue and Treason’ (2023)

Bookshop.org   Pen & Sword

 ‘Tudor Executions: From Nobility to the Block’ (2024) 

Bookshop.org     Pen & Sword

 ‘The Many Faces of Anne Boleyn: Interpreting Image and Perception’ (2025)

Bookshop.org    Pen & Sword

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(all opinions are my own)

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#GuestPost with Heidi Eljarbo - #author of The London Forgery - #blogtour

I am delighted to have Heidi Eljarbo guest posting on the blog today. Heidi's book, The London Forgery, looks fantastic and I cannot wait to read it. Just before I hand over to Heidi I will post the blurb of the book to give you a flavour of what it is all about.

1973. Art historian Fabiola Bennett sees herself as a prudently observant deer who becomes a daring and even mischievous lioness if the situation calls for it. And that’s exactly what’s required when greedy criminals steal, forge, and tamper with treasured artwork. When the crooks add murder to their list of crimes, the chaos is complete.

A mysterious note is delivered anonymously at the door of the National Gallery in London, and the director immediately calls Fabiola’s office in Oslo and pleads with her to come without delay. The message is confusing, but it seems one of her favorite eighteenth-century portraits is in trouble.

Fabiola hops on the first plane and meets up with her vibrant side-kick Pippa Yates and the ever-loyal Detective Inspector Cary Green from New Scotland Yard. But she is not naïve enough to think untangling the purpose and meaning of the mysterious note will be as simple as a walk in Hyde Park. These things never are.

1750. Newly married Robert and Frances Andrews, members of the landed gentry of Suffolk, England, hire young and talented Thomas Gainsborough to paint their wedding portrait. Their desire is a lovely conversation piece showing their wealth and class, an artwork to remember them by for generations to come.

Little do they know the gifted artist portrays their personalities exactly how he perceives them, and the artistic symbolism is not as flattering as they’d hoped for. Even the looming clouds in the distance promise a troublesome future.

This is the first book in a new dual timeline series by Heidi Eljarbo — an intriguing spin-off from the much-loved Soli Hansen Mysteries

.

Fans of Lucinda Riley, Rhys Bowen, Kathleen McGurl, Kate Morton, and Katherine Neville will love this cozy historical art mystery, which takes the readers back to the nostalgia of the groovy seventies and the classical Georgian era of the eighteenth century.

 As long as I can remember, art and art history have been my passions. I grew up with a father who brought a drawing pad to every outing and painted oil paintings to sell, give away as gifts, and to hang on the wall of our home. Our living room looked like an art museum, packed with paintings of mountains, fiords, and forest interiors. In fact, when he and my mother prepared for their wedding in Oslo in 1944, my father painted during the night to trade his art for meat for the wedding dinner.

I loved art, as well, and chose to study Art & Design at Brigham Young University. I adored my art history lectures. It’s hard to explain how my heart still leaps when I learn about master painters of old, visit ancient churches and castles, or stand in front of original artwork by my favorite artists throughout the centuries.

My passion for the written word has taken me on a path where I get to combine my love for art, history, and historical fiction. I get to make up stories about brave women who give their all to fight for truth and fairness. I get to dress them up in the fun clothes of their time (yes, I studied clothing history, too), and I can put them in situations where they struggle to meet their goal and solve the mystery. They stumble, get back on their feet again, and sometimes they fall in love…all in a backdrop of the times they lived in.

To write such historical fiction, I do oodles of research. Did they eat potatoes in 1661? Did they have curtains? What kind of hats and cravats did the men wear? When did chocolate digestives come on the market? What did British police cars look like in 1973? You get the point. But this research makes writing historical fiction fun. There’s so much to learn, and all these details add to the story and make it believable.

Think about this as an example: you enter the world of Charles Dickens and ride in a horse-drawn covered wagon through the streets of London. What do you hear? What do you see out the window? What do you smell? What do you feel when the roads are uneven and sitting still is impossible? What do you taste when you open the napkin on your lap and take a bite of your travel food? Are your feet cold? Every detail needs thorough research.

When writing The London Forgery, I had two different time periods to consider. The main story is situated in London, and the year is 1973. I was a young teenager in 1973 and still remember much from that time. Still, there were aspects I had to research, and I had a blast doing so. The second story goes back to Thomas Gainsborough when he painted his masterpiece Mr. and Mrs. Andrews in 1750. Now, those chapters needed much more research, and I loved every minute of it.

I hope you’ll enjoy going back in time—first to London in 1973, and then to Suffolk in 1750—and spend time with the characters in their own setting. I certainly did.

Happy Reading!

Thank you Heidi. It has been a pleasure to have you on the blog.

The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz - #BookReview

 

Just after eleven o'clock on a bright spring morning, the sort of day when the sunshine is almost white and promises a warmth that it doesn't quite deliver, Diana Cowper crossed the Fulham Road and went into a funeral parlour.

She was a short, very business-like woman; there was a sense of determination in her eyes, her sharply cut hair, the very way she walked. If you saw her coming, your first instinct would be to step aside and let her pass. And yet there was nothing unkind about her. She was expensively dressed, her pale raincoat hanging open to reveal a pink jersey and grey skirt. She wore a heavy bead and stone necklace which might or might not have been expensive and a number of diamond rings that most certainly were.

***

A woman is strangled six hours after organising her own funeral.

Did she know she was going to die? Did she recognise her killer?

Daniel Hawthorne, a recalcitrant detective with secrets of his own, is on the case, and he's found himself a sidekick - popular crime novelist Anthony Horowitz, who's struck a deal with Hawthorne to turn his latest case into a true crime bestseller.

But the case is twistier and bloodier than Hawthorne had bargained for, and the unlikely duo of detective and writer find themselves neck deep in danger. When the written word is your only defence, you know you're in trouble when the word is murder...

***

Several years ago I was fortunate enough to meet Mr. Horowitz, and I found him to be utterly charming. One of my sons was hooked on the Alex Rider novels and when we heard that he was coming to the children's bookshop, Bags of Books in Sussex it was an absolute must.

I have been a fan of his for a while, largely through his screen writing of Midsomer Murders and Foyle's War. I have also read his book Magpie Murders and you can read my review by clicking here.

Prior to beginning the book, I could not decide if I found it a conceited decision to write himself as the main character in the book, or whether it was a clever device. Let's be honest, had the author written this novel about an author who, for arguments sake was called Fred Bloggs, reviewers would probably have accused him of writing about himself anyway. Thus, by the time I had finished the book, I thought it had been an intelligent and honest choice that he made.In fact, I adored the characters of Hawthorne and Horowitz. The relationship between the two completely different characters was wonderful to read and skilfully created.

It almost feels like an oxymoron to use the words murder and fun in the same sentence but there is no escaping that this murder mystery was entertaining and fun to read. I enjoyed the way the author demonstrated his ability to laugh at himself and there is a lot of humour included in the pairing of Hawthorne and Horowitz in their Holmes and Watson type relationship.It always delights me when there are enough twists and turns in a mystery plot that I have not been able to work out the identity of the murderer prior to the resounding surprise reveal at the end.

I am delighted that the author has already written and published further books in this series. I have already ordered the next one, The Sentence is Death, and I am looking forward to reading it very much.

ISBN: 978 1784757236

Publisher: Arrow

Formats: e-book, audio, hardcover and paperback

No. of Pages: 400 (paperback)

Purchase Link *

About the Author:

Anthony Horowitz is the author of the bestselling teen spy series, Alex Rider, and is also responsible for creating and writing some of the UK's most loved and successful TV series, including Midsomer Murders and Foyle's War.

He has also written two highly acclaimed Sherlock Holmes novels, The House of Silk and Moriary; a James Bond novel, Trigger Mortis; and his most recent stand-alone novel, Magpie Murders, was a Top Five Sunday Times bestseller.

He is on the board of the Old Vic Theatre, and was awarded an OBE for his services to literature in January 2014.

The Word is Murder is the first in a series of crime novels starring Detective Daniel Hawthorne and the author Anthony Horowitz, and has been followed by The Sentence is Death and A Line to Kill. The Twist of a Knife is due to be published in August 2022.

Purchase Link *

*Disclosure: I only recommend books I would buy myself and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post contains an affiliate link from which I may earn a small commission.

The Testimony of Alys Twist by Suzannah Dunn - #TuesdayTeaser

 Hello and welcome to this week's Tuesday Teaser. The place where we take a sneaky peek at a book that has caught my eye.

This week we are looking at The Testimony of Alys Twist by Suzannah Dunn.

Suzannah is the author of many historical fiction novels and I am loathe to admit that I have not read any of them. I'm not at all sure why I haven't, as all of her novels look like they are just the kind of thing that I enjoy reading. So, I intend to rectify this by reading The Testimony of Alys Twist, very soon.

Have you read this book? Or do you have another favourite that you think I would enjoy?

The Blurb

1553: deeply-divided England rejoices as the rightful heir, Mary Tudor, sweeps to power on a tide of populist goodwill. But the people should have been careful what they wished for: Mary's mission is to turn back time to an England of old. Within weeks there is widespread rebellion in favour of her heir, her half-sister, Princess Elizabeth, who is everything that Mary isn't. From now on, Elizabeth will have to use her considerable guile just to stay alive.

Orphan Alys Twist has come a long way - further than she ever dared hope - to work as a laundress at the royal wardrobe. There she meets Bel, daughter of the Queen's tailor, and seems to have arrived at her own happy ending.

But in a world where appearance is everything, a laundress is in a unique position to see the truth of people's lives, and Alys is pressed into service as a spy in the errant princess's household. Alys herself, though, is hardly whiter than white, and when the princess is arrested she must make a dangerous choice.

The Beginning

Parchment Halo

I remembered it once said, when I was small, that I would go far. Whoever had spoken over my head had been right, I thought, because just twenty or so years later here I was, arriving to work at the palace, and no servant gets further than this.

Fresh off the wherry-boat, foot in the washroom door, I was all smiles for the pair introducing themselves as my fellow laundresses: Mrs Fox - more ox-like than fox-like - and her sourpuss sidekick, Kay. I was only too aware I was no choice of theirs, but a recommendation taken up by whoever at Whitehall did the hiring and firing. And, worse, three's a crowd. So busy was I with the smiling that I didn't spare a second glance for a young woman, small and neat in periwinkle mockado, who passed us on her way to what I would later learn was the drying room.

Introductions over, I was directed to my lodgings - the Wiltons' house on Kings Street - and when I returned to the laundry a half-hour later, there was no sign of the laundresses. Instead a ruddy-faced royal-liveried man came bounding across the deserted washroom towards me: 'Mistress Twist?'

Well, there was no denying it.

He said he was Mr Hobbes, Yeoman of the Robes, and would like to borrow me to cast my gaze over the queen's wardrobe: he'd value an expert eye, he said, and I had to stop myself from looking over my shoulder, because any eye I had was for linen, not the silks and wools of gowns. Mistress Fox had been so kind, he said, as to lend me for the day. Neither she nor the sharp-faced sidekick were in evidence to confirm or deny it, and who was I to argue with a man in uniform? So, out of my depth before I'd even started, I did my best to look competent, snatching up my pouch of fuller's earth and a couple of my flasks of flower waters: wood sorrel and celandine, if only because those had the tightest stoppers. I took no soap - gowns can't be soaped - and followed him from the laundry back to the riverside steps, which was when I queried: 'Wardrobe?'

***

Well I am feeling intrigued and am keen to read on. How about you?