Left on the Shelf

About the Author

Nancy Jardine writes historical adventure fiction, historical saga, time travel historical adventure and contemporary mysteries. Research gobbles up lots of time but it’s a delight, and never a chore. Her garden wouldn’t win any prizes but tending it is a great way to unwind and gives her some lovely plants to post on Instagram!

When not creating her novels, or promoting her writing, she loves to interact with readers at Book and Craft Fairs where she signs/sells paperback versions of her novels. Recently she’s taken part in author panels at Book Festivals.

Memberships include: Historical Novel Society; Society of Authors; Scottish Association of Writers; Federation of Writers Scotland; Romantic Novelists’ Association; and Alliance of Independent Authors. She’s self-published with Ocelot Press.

You can also find Nancy at:

My Other Blog Posts Featuring This Author

Tailored Truths

Novice Threads

(media courtesy of The Coffee Pot Book Club)

(all opinions are my own)

(Bookshop.org affiliated)

Friday, 21 August 2026

The Maternal Element by Kate Nicholls - #extract #excerpt #blogtour

I am very excited to be bringing you an extract from The Maternal Element by Kate Nicholls. I love books which feature forgotten women and this one looks fabulous.

The Blurb

Siberia 1833.

Forty-one-year-old Maria Mendeleeva is enduring her seventeenth pregnancy. Her husband Ivan has lost his sight, and her brother Vasily has left their grandfather’s glass factory in ruins. The factory Maria hungered for as a child. On the brink of poverty and her family’s only remaining hope, Maria must find a way to make the factory viable. She must find the power to bring her grandfather's dreams back to life. She must make the glass sing.

The Maternal Element is a sweeping, gripping epic with an extraordinary woman at its heart. Maria Mendeleeva – mother of Dmitri Mendeleev, who devised the Periodic Table of the Elements – is a heroine like no other. A woman who refuses to be quashed by circumstance, Maria fights against the strictures of her time to gain an education for herself and for her children as she traverses the Urals of Russia seeking opportunity and safety for her family. A vivid and visceral portrait of a woman history has long since forgotten, The Maternal Element is a manifesto for truth, female empowerment and defying societal expectations.

The Extract

“Why must I stay at home and study all alone? I know there are questions that I cannot ask because I am ignorant of their very existence,” Maria cried furiously one morning, pummelling her fists into a heap of flour moistened by buttermilk. She and Nyanya were preparing the midday meal with Cook, who was at the other end of the kitchen table chopping yellow onions into fine pieces and adding them to a bowl of minced pork.

“Gently, Masha, gently,” Cook instructed, “you must encourage the dough – not beat it to death.”

“Exactly my point,” declared the girl, “I want to be encouraged . . . to be allowed to grow and think and understand the world. Instead, I’m trapped at home, and without Papinka and Vasily to help me, I would be lost.”

Cook glanced at Nyanya and saw a fleeting hurt pass over her friend’s face.

“You have a good many people here to help you, Masha,” Cook retorted sharply, “and you have much to learn. One day, your Papa will not be there to give you a roof over your head, and there may not be so much good food in your pantry or so many fine pots to boil soup in.” Her knife was gathering quite terrifying speed. “Your book reading won’t feed your family or keep them warm at night, I can tell you that . . . you need to know how to squeeze the goodness out of a cabbage leaf Miss Know-it-all . . . that’s women’s work . . . and good work too, don’t you think otherwise.”

Cook ran her sleeve against her face to wipe away tiny pearls of sweat that had gathered on her brow, and Maria ran to hug her.

“I know, I know how lucky I am. You and Nyanya are my dearest friends,” cried the child, distraught to see the usually cheerful woman in such distress.

Yet, Maria’s frustration grew, and things came to a head on a rainy afternoon some months later when she and her brother fought so fiercely that they tumbled onto the floor, pulling each other’s hair, and had to be separated by their exasperated nanny.

“Vasily Kornilyev,” cried the woman, wrenching the boy from his sister’s grasp and shaking him until he rattled – the household keys around her waist clanging in lockstep with her fury. “Maria Kornilyeva, what is this? You are both too old to engage in such unruly behaviour. I have never seen such bad children. I shall put you both out in the night to freeze to death.”

“He called me foolish,” shouted the unrepentant girl, “I’m far cleverer than he and – and – I shall do great things in my life – you shall see – I shall travel far and wide like Professor Lomonosov and I shall go the far ends of the earth, just you wait. Vasily is so stupid – too – too stupid to remember the words of his poem . . . and such a wonderful poem . . . and he called me foolish and . . . oh I just hate him.”

At this she ran out of the room in a storm of tears. It transpired that Vasily had been instructed by his teacher to learn An Ode on the Benefits of Glass, by the polymath Mikhail Lomonosov. On seeing her brother struggling to recall the lengthy poem, Maria had offered to help by reading the text and gently correcting his mistakes. For a while, she urged him along, but as time passed, his fumbling became too much to bear, and finally throwing the book to the floor, she stood full square and recited the entire poem with such a flaming passion that her brother fell upon her in a fury, declaring her a foolish girl who had no right to their father’s library.

Perhaps it was irony that had caused Maria such anguish, for the ode revealed the poetic chemist’s reverence for the enigmatic material that lay somewhere between liquid and solid in which light and colour were both captured and free. It was she, not Vasily, who shared their grandfather’s passion for glass – it was she who longed to be taken to see the great furnaces in which, by glorious alchemy, sand was transformed into transparency. And it was she who trundled up stairs to watch from the upstairs window as her father and Vasily sped off in the carriage to spend weeks and weeks together in the village on the other side of the forest.

It was Vasily who cared not a jot, who would inherit the dragon’s lair.

Life was intolerably unfair.

Book Details

ISBN: 978 1784633998

Publisher: Salt Publishing

Formats: e-book and paperback

No. of Pages: 400 (paperback)

Purchase Links

Salt Publishing

About the Author

Kate Nicholls is an author and former actor who traded the stage to study evolutionary biology. She raised and home schooled five children while researching lions in the Ocavango Delta. She now lives and writes in Rome

You can also find Kate at:

Instagram

Bluesky

(media courtesy of Random Things Tours)

(all opinions are my own)

(Bookshop.org affiliated)

Wednesday, 15 July 2026

The Making of Marigold McGraph by Carrie Hayes - #extract #excerpt #blogtour

I am delighted to have an excerpt from The Making of Marigold McGrath by author, Carrie Hayes on the blog today. The book begins in 1930's New York before moving to London.

The Blurb

New York City, 1937 - Seventeen-year-old Marigold McGrath is coming undone.Her mother is dead. Her father is drawn to dangerous politics. The only place she feels joy is behind a camera — where she can frame the world on her own terms.

After a series of her own missteps, she reinvents herself in London: mentored by a celebrated émigré photographer, photographing Kindertransport children, working alongside Edward R. Murrow. She falls in love with Joop, a charming Dutch student, and shrugs off the war gathering around her.

Then the Blitz begins.Joop vanishes into the Dutch Resistance. And Marigold — who has always preferred to photograph the world as she wishes it were — must finally decide what kind of woman, and what kind of witness, she is willing to become.

A sweeping WWII coming-of-age novel set in wartime London.

The Extract

1936

WINTER

NEW YORK CITY

The cinema was nearly deserted, and the two girls took the best seats in the house. They opened their bags of peanuts and chocolate covered raisins, silently munching until the movie got to their favorite part.

Marigold mouthed along with the woman on the screen who spoke first. “Not because I love England, but because it will pay me better.” She continued, “The very brilliant agent of a certain foreign power on the point of obtaining a secret vital to your air defense.”

Trude whispered, “I tracked two of his men to that music hall. Unfortunately, they recognized me.” The two girls took bites of their candy. Trude continued, “That’s why they’re after me now.”

Marigold smiled from ear to ear. She loved this part. “You ever heard of a thing called persecution mania?”

Trude’s eyes grew wide and she said, “You don’t believe me?” As if from nowhere, the usher came over and shushed them.

Marigold scowled at him and turned back to Trude. “Frankly I don’t.”

They had been doing this for days now. Rather than go to math class, they skipped school instead. How it was that nobody reported them must have been because they were the kind of girls who were rarely in trouble. They did well enough that their absences didn’t seem to matter. So, for two weeks running, they faithfully bought tickets for the 2:55 show and watched The 39 Steps until they knew it cold.

Afterwards, they stood by the window outside the ladies’ room, where one could see the traffic below.

Trude stopped Marigold and said, “Go and look down into the street then.” She always said this with a campy accent, like her father’s. Trude’s father was Swiss. Her late mother had been British and Marigold thought everything about Trude was glamorous in the most spectacular way.

Marigold pretended to be afraid. “Are they there?”

Trude looked terrified. “Yes. I’d hoped I’d shaken them off. I’m going to tell you something which is not very healthy to know. But now that they have followed me here, you are in it as much as I am.”

Then she grabbed Marigold’s hand and they bolted down the stairs, out through the back door gasping and chuckling on the short walk to the pharmacy.

When they arrived, Trude stopped short. “Oh, mein Gott!”

“What is it?”

“It’s Will Carrington!” Trude pointed to the counter.

“I love him.” Marigold spoke with as much gravity as she could muster. It was part of their shtick. Whenever Trude saw a boy they knew, Marigold would simply say, “I love him.”

These declarations of love always made Trude laugh, then respond by either sticking something up her nose, or putting her spectacles on sideways. Anything, anything to make Marigold laugh back and Trude look like a freak.

Silently, they went to the counter. “Oh hi, Will,” Marigold said, in her most modest, simple style. Trude looked away.

Will was blonde, handsome, an athlete. He was in the boys’ section at school, so they rarely saw him outside of class. “Hi.” He leaned past Marigold. “Hi Trude,” which didn’t surprise Marigold. All the boys were in love with Trude, who was beautiful, smart, and kind.

Trude turned to face Will. She’d stuck a raisin into each nostril, so they hung out just the smallest amount. “Will, hi!”

Will stopped short of recoiling. He paid his tab and said, “See you.” Then gestured to his own nose, discreetly, for Trude’s benefit.

She continued to smile, oblivious. “See you tomorrow.”

“Girls.” Home was on Riverside Drive, where Marigold’s mother stood in the foyer, surrounded by boxes. Some were on the floor, others stacked upon the table, which normally held only letters and an orchid. On top of the boxes were large oblong tickets indicating their contents. The tickets were stamped with round and dashed holes, like eyelet made of cardstock.

Marigold opened one of the boxes. “What are they?”

There had to be thousands inside. She passed a dozen cards over to Trude, who fanned herself with them.

“These could be dollahs, thousands of dollahs, nicht so, Schatze,” Trude said.

“Jahwohl, they could.” Marigold held up a card to the chandelier, examining the tiny square holes in the light. She held it over the face of her friend and it created dashes and dots upon Trude’s skin. She moved to look through the dashes at her mother. Cool and elegant in her grey silk dress, with her creamy colored pearls and her white, white skin.

“They’re some sort of punch cards, darling,” her mother said. “They’re for your father.”

“I love them,” Marigold said.

Trude raised an eyebrow. “Even more than Will Carrington?”

Marigold bit her lip to keep from laughing. Her mother didn’t know about her silly crushes. “Yes, even more than he.” Marigold spread the cards out upon the table. They looked vast and impersonal, like in that film. What was it? Metropolis. Oh, yes, she thought, just like Metropolis. “Say, Moms, how about I take some pictures of you and Trude with these cards?”

“Aren’t you girls supposed to be doing your algebra or something?”

“Yes, but let me take your picture first, Moms, and you should wear that dress, you know, with the print just like these cards.”

“Marigold.” She loved the way her mother folded the R in the word Marigold. It was always under the tongue with a delicate precision used by those whose English is flawless albeit foreign.

“Come on, Momsy. You’ll be the living embodiment of industry, and Trude will be the future. It’ll be fun!”

Her mother chuckled and left the room, only to reemerge in her dress with the printed dashes and circles just like the punch cards. In her hand was a large silk scarf printed with the same design.

“We’ll stack them like this. Then Trude, lean on them here and look up at Momsy, like so.”

Marigold opened her camera case. She looked through the lens and adjusted the aperture. Her models struck a pose. The light in the foyer was bright, bright. Her mother was cool, aristocratic, and Trude simply brimming with life. Both of them were beautiful. Marigold wound the film and pressed the button.

“Perfect,” she said and wound the film again.

Suddenly, her mother waved an arm and the scarf fluttered outward, like a wing. Trude moved her own arms upward.

“Wonderful!” Marigold pressed the button. “Wonderful!”

She did it again, then her models adjusted their poses in varying degrees, leaning away and toward each other.

“Fabulous!”

“What are you doing? Put those down.” Marigold’s father stood in the doorway. “Don’t touch those. Put the camera down.” Suddenly, he roared, “I said put the camera down!”

“Sorry.” Marigold looked down at the ground. There was a tense silence It was the same silence which often occurred when Marigold’s parents were in the same room.

Her mother said, “She was merely experimenting.”

“Not with my cards, she’s not. Stupid girl.”

“Ta gueule, Arnold.” Her mother had been from Arlon, in Belgium. But she rarely spoke French. “Don’t talk to her so.”

Marigold watched her mother go into the kitchen as Trude gathered her coat and slipped out of the apartment.

Make amends, Marigold warned herself. “Excuse me, Dad.” She stacked the cards and returned them to their boxes. “I just thought—”

“Don’t think. They’re not for you.”

“Sorry.”

“They’re for my German clients.” He glanced at himself in the mirror, his reflection confirming his golden hair and hazel eyes were still handsome, still distinguished.

“Sorry,” she said again. “What are they used for?”

“These cards store information. Who is doing what and how much of it they’re doing. Like who’s buying how many apples, or how much money is withdrawn from a bank. Who lives where in what part of town. It’s the latest technology, Marigold. They revolutionize how records are kept. And they come from IBM. They’re the future. Not props for a childish fashion show.” With a small nod, he took a lapel pin out of his pocket. “Help me with this.” He held it out to her and Marigold obliged, fastening it behind the worsted wool as he added, “I’m going to present them at tonight’s dinner.”

She turned the pin. The black lines echoed themselves as they had when the symbol meant good fortune, in Asian religions, long, long before it was used by the German government. Marigold rotated the pin the other way, so the black lines inside the white circle with the red background appeared in a more upright position.

Book Details

ISBN: 979 8995323914

Publisher: HTPH Press

Formats: e-book and paperback (currently available on Kindle Unlimited)

No. of Pages: 346 (paperback)

Purchase Links

About the Author

Carrie’s first two novels, Naked Truth or Equality and Well Dressed Lies, follow the lives of the iconoclastic suffragist sisters, Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin.

Carrie lives with her husband and two spoiled dogs in a rambling Victorian house just outside of New York City.

You can also find Carrie at:

(media courtesy of The Coffee Pot Book Club)

(all opinions are my own)

Monday, 1 June 2026

The Miller's Bride by Liz Harris - #bookextract #bookexcerpt #blogtour

I am thrilled to be bringing you an excerpt from this book today. The Miller's Bride by Liz Harris is set in Scotland during the 1880's and looks like a great read for historical fiction fans.

The Blurb

When independence comes at a price...

Scotland, 1885

Gracie McLeod’s life changes overnight when her father sells the family grocer’s shop and moves the family from their Highland village to a distant fishing town. But Gracie refuses to follow.

Desperate to maintain her independence, she reluctantly agrees to an arranged marriage to Angus MacKenzie – a stranger who makes it clear he doesn’t want her, and who is in love with another woman. When Gracie arrives at the mill she now must call home, she finds herself entangled in a web of deceit and ambition. Unknown to her, Angus’s cousin is plotting to take over the mill and destroy her marriage from within, and he’s enlisted Angus’s former lover to help him.

As secrets and sabotage threaten to ruin everything Gracie has tried to build, she must decide whether to fight for a life she never wanted – or walk away with nothing.

A sweeping, emotionally rich saga about betrayal, resilience, and a woman brave enough to demand more.

The Extract

Chapter One

Callentoon, Scotland, April 1885

‘Absolutely not!’ Grace McLeod stood in the parlour facing her parents, her grey eyes blazing. ‘You can’t make me.’

Hamish McLeod, upright in his favourite high-backed chair at the side of the small black grate, took the pipe from his mouth and shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, hen, but that’s the way it has to be. Fergus McCulloch has offered what’s a fair price for the grocery shop in the circumstances, and I’ve accepted it.’

Grace gave an audible gasp.

‘Ever since your mother wrote to your uncle that times were getting harder,’ her father continued, ‘your uncle’s been pestering us to move to Portweem. And when he told your mother in his last letter that their local grocery store was up for sale, I knew the time had come.’

‘Your father’s no choice, hen,’ her mother said. She took a letter from the table next to her and put it on her lap. Then she settled back in the chair on the opposite side of the grate from her husband. ‘You know the shop’s been struggling for years.’

‘That doesn’t mean we have to go and live next door to Uncle Malcolm! You know how much he hates me. That time we stayed with him, he was always complaining about me, criticising everything I did. Criticising everything everyone in his family did. I know he’s your brother, Da, but he’s a bully. We’d have to answer to him for everything, and you know it.’

‘That won’t happen,’ her mother said firmly. ‘But I admit he didn’t seem to take to you, hen. You must agree, though, you can be outspoken at times. Even as a little girl that was true. Da and I have encouraged you to think for yourself, and to say what you think, but I’m not sure your uncle takes the same approach.’

‘You know he doesn’t, Mam. Cousin Sarah is scared of him. You can tell that from her letters. So in addition to living next door to a tyrant, we’d be stuck in a small fishing village miles from anywhere,’ Grace snapped. ‘Everyone there will smell of fish. It’s a smell I loathe, and it lingers. There’d be gutted fish everywhere and piles of nets wherever you turned. I can’t think of a place I want to be less than that. I’m not going, and you can’t make me.’

Her sister looked up from her seat in front of the sewing table under the window. ‘Uncle will have probably changed since then. He could have mellowed over the years.’

‘There’s no sign of that in Sarah’s letters. But anyway, what you say doesn’t count, Eliza,’ Grace said sharply. ‘All you care about is sewing. You’ve no intention of staying in Portweem for long, and you know it. As soon as you can, you’ll move to a large town and start your own business. So where we go isn’t as important to you as it is to me.’

Eliza shrugged. ‘You can never be sure of what the future holds.’

‘Well, like most people, I hope it holds a wedding for me, but not with a fisherman! All a fisherman would be able to talk about is the latest herring catch.’ She shuddered. ‘I can’t think of anything worse. It’s just not for me.’

‘Well, it is for your mother and me,’ her father said with a note of finality. ‘You’ve helped in the shop for long enough to know that we’re not getting the number of customers we used to, not since the price of cattle started falling some years ago, and large sheep farms needing fewer workers began to replace them. People are leaving the area every day.’

‘I know that,’ she said sullenly.

‘And you also know that the potato blight hit the crofting communities so hard that a lot of crofters have been leaving, too,’ her father went on. ‘People just aren’t as attached to their land in the way their forefathers were and they’re going further south to the new towns and villages nearer the borders, where there’re lots of new industries. They know they’ll find work there. We’re doing the same. The herring industry is booming, so we’re going to Portweem.’

Grace folded her arms and glared mutinously at her parents. ‘I’m not. I’m staying in Callentoon.’

‘You can’t stay here without us,’ her mother said firmly. She picked up the letter in her lap and cleared her throat. ‘But luckily you’ve an alternative.’

Grace frowned at her. ‘What alternative? What’re you talking about?’

Martha McLeod shifted her position to face her daughter. ‘You know I’ve always kept in touch with my school friend Ellen ever since she moved away to marry the miller in Alltburn. It’s too far for us to visit each other, so we’ve had to make do with writing. Well, in the last letter I wrote to Ellen, I told her that when we’d sold the shop, we’d be moving to the fishing village where your uncle lived, and I said that whenever the subject had come up, you’d been very against going there.’

‘Aye, and I still am.’

Martha held up the letter. ‘This is from Douglas MacKenzie, Ellen’s husband. It contains the very upsetting news that Ellen has died. My letter arrived after her death, and he read it. When he learnt that you were reluctant to live in a fishing village, it gave him an idea.’

Grace’s brow creased. ‘An idea about what?’

‘About what you could do, hen. From everything he’d heard about you over the years, he’s certain he’d like you, and he suggested you marry his son, Angus. Ellen and Douglas were married for several years before I wed your father, and Angus is a few years older than you.’

‘What!’ Grace exclaimed. Laughing dismissively, she looked from her mother to her father and back again to her mother. At the sight of her mother’s expression, her laughter died away.

‘Think about Douglas’s proposal,’ Martha said quietly. ‘Moving to Alltburn Mill would solve the problem of you not wanting to come with us to Portweem.’

‘It’s a rather extreme way of doing that, don’t you think?’ Grace retorted.

‘That may be,’ her mother said. ‘But think carefully about what you really want. You say you want to stay here, but do you? Callentoon is getting smaller all the time. A lot of the men you might have married have moved away, and the ones pursuing you don’t interest you. But you do want to marry. You’re not like Eliza who’s always wanted to have her own dress shop. While you’ve helped your father enough to know how to run a shop, you’ve never indicated any desire to do so. Isn’t it going to Portweem that’s the problem, not leaving Callentoon?’

For a long moment, Grace stared at her mother without speaking. ‘What’s wrong with this Angus that he can’t find someone for himself?’ she asked at last.

Her mother gave a slight cough. ‘Actually, he thinks he has done. He’s been seeing a totally unsuitable girl, a Jessie Wilson, and he’s told Douglas that he wants to marry her.

Douglas dislikes the girl intensely, and won’t have her near the mill. So if you marry Angus, it would help Douglas as well as you.’

‘That’s hardly the most important consideration for me,’ she said, close to tears of despair.

‘I know, hen,’ her mother said quietly. ‘But isn’t having a house of your own an important consideration? Douglas and Angus live in one of the cottages by the mill. He’s got a housekeeper who’s been with him and Ellen for years. He wrote that Angus will move into the cottage next to his when he marries.’

‘Angus should be allowed to marry whoever he wants, not who Douglas wants,’ Grace said sulkily.

‘With Angus and his wife living so close to Douglas, what Douglas wants does matter, hence him making the suggestion he did. And it’s not such an unusual thing to suggest – parents often find the husband or wife for their child. If you marry Angus, you’ll not only have your own home, but also the security of the mill. Angus is the only son. It’s the ideal solution.’

‘For Douglas, maybe, but not for me. I’d be a housekeeper to someone who’s in love with someone else. I want more for myself than that.’

‘Angus might be very good-looking,’ Eliza said with a sly smile.

‘And he might resemble a short fat bulldog,’ Grace sharply countered. ‘I’m not going to take that chance.’

‘Then you must go into domestic service,’ her father said firmly. ‘If you’re determined to stay in Callentoon, it’s the only way you can do so.’

‘Never!’ Grace exclaimed. ‘If I was someone’s servant, I’d lose all my freedom. I could be living anywhere as I’d seldom be allowed outside the house. Even a housekeeper has more freedom than that.’

Hamish McLeod stood up. ‘You’ve a choice, lassie. Go into domestic service with one of the local families, move with us to Portweem, or marry Angus. Think about it overnight and tell your mother and me your decision tomorrow.’

‘There’s no point in waiting,’ Grace said sullenly. ‘I haven’t really got a choice, have I? I’ll have to marry the man, no matter how ghastly he is.’

Turning, she burst into tears and ran out of the room.

Book Details

ISBN: 978 1807031183

Publisher: Boldwood Books

Formats: e-book, audio, hardback and paperback (currently available on Kindle Unlimited)

No. of Pages: 312 (paperback)

Series: Book 1 in the House of McLeod series

Purchase Links

Dark Secrets on Dressmakers' Alley by Rosie Clarke

About the Author

Liz Harris is an award-winning author of 28 novels, including emotional and heartwarming sagas that are perfect for fans of Dilly Court, Rosie Goodwin, Rachel Brimble and AnneMarie Brear.

Her latest series of sagas, The House of McLeod, is set in Scotland in the 1880s, and was a joy to research for someone who loves to travel, as Liz does, as it involved Liz going up to beautiful Scotland for several weeks and staying in Central Scotland, Fife and Edinburgh, where the three books are set.

After graduating in Law in the UK, Liz moved to California where she led a varied life - from cocktail waitressing on Sunset Strip to secretary to the CEO of a large Japanese trading company. Upon returning to England, she completed a degree in English and then taught in a secondary school for a number of years before developing her writing career.

Liz now lives in Windsor, Berkshire. Her two sons have fled the nest, and now have families of their own. In what free time she has, which isn't much, she loves to travel, go to the theatre and cinema, do cryptic crosswords, and above all, to lose herself in a novel!

You can also find Liz at:

Author Website

Instagram

Bluesky

Other Blog Posts Featuring Sagas

Stormy Skies at the Beach Hotel by Francesca Capaldi

Troubled Times for Tilly by Kay Seeley

The Market Girls of Petticoat Lane by Patricia McBride

Heartache on West India Dock Road by Renita D'Silva

(media courtesy of Rachel's Random Resources)

(all opinions are my own)

(Bookshop.org affiliated)

Thursday, 21 May 2026

Some Starry Night by Irene Latham - #bookextract #excerpt

I am thrilled to be bringing you an extract from this gorgeous looking book today. Some Starry Night by Irene Latham looks like a great read and one that I am definitely adding to my wish list.

The Blurb

Under the pale glow of a Parisian spring in 1886, two restless souls move toward the same horizon-unaware that their meeting will ignite a love as luminous and fleeting as the stars themselves.

Vincent van Gogh arrives in Paris with little more than paint-stained hands and an aching determination to create something worthy of the world. Living in the cramped apartment of his brother Theo, he struggles against poverty, doubt, and the relentless pull of his own restless mind.

Across the ocean in Amherst, Emily Dickinson receives news that changes everything. Faced with the nearness of death, the reclusive poet does the unthinkable: she leaves the quiet safety of the Homestead and sails for Paris, determined to taste life before it slips beyond her reach.

When Emily agrees to sit for Vincent's portrait, their worlds collide in a blaze of color, poetry, and dangerous intimacy. Through letters, poems, and whispered confessions, the two artists discover in one another a fierce, unguarded understanding-one that will shape their art, their faith, and the fragile hours they have left.

But love between stars is never simple. As time grows short and darkness gathers, Vincent and Emily must decide whether beauty is meant to last...or simply to burn bright enough to change the night forever.

Some Starry Night is a sweeping, lyrical imagining of the hidden story behind Vincent van Gogh's most iconic painting-an unforgettable tale of love, creativity, and the courage to live fiercely, even in the shadow of the end.

The Excerpt

He threw up his hands. “I can’t believe it. I won’t believe it.” He swiped a fallen branch from the ground and flung it back toward the pond. “I only wanted to bring you out here to show you what it means to be an artist. I didn’t ask for this.”

“I didn’t ask for this, either.” She hadn’t come to Paris to see skeletons or climb a tree. Or to meet an artist. “I didn’t ask for you.”

The intensity of his gaze awakened the anaconda in her brain. It uncoiled, undulating in its nest. She hadn’t expected anger from him, nor regret. She opened her mouth to comfort, to explain. To beg him not to leave.

No. She set her jaw. She was done begging men, as she’d begged Thomas to please-please-please read her poems. She was done masterminding and manipulating. It never worked anyway.

Book Details

ISBN: 978 1964700854

Publisher: Historium Press

Formats: e-book, hardback and paperback

No. of Pages: 314 (paperback)

Purchase Links

The London Forgery by Heidi Eljarbo

About the Author

Irene Latham writes poems and stories from the Purple Horse Poetry Studio & Music Room in Blount County, Alabama. She is the author or co-author of many books for young people, including African Town, winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Outstanding Historical Fiction.

This is her first novel for adults.

You can also find Irene at:

Author Website

Substack

You Tube

Other Posts About Art on the Blog

Painting Time by Maylis de Kerangal

The Dream Collector: Sabine and Sigmund Freud by R.W. Meek

The Silent Witness by K.J. McGillick

The Paris Portrait by Heidi Eljarbo

(media courtesy of The Coffee Pot Book Club)

(all opinions are my own)

(Bookshop.org affiliated)

Wednesday, 13 May 2026

Lady of Lincoln by Rachel Elwiss Joyce - #blogtour #excerpt #extract

I am absolutely thrilled to be bringing you an extract from this book today. Lady of Lincoln by Rachel Elwiss Joyce is a novel of Nicola de la Haye, the medieval heroine history tried to forget.

The Blurb

A true story. A forgotten heroine. In a time when women were told to stay silent, could she become the saviour her people need?

12th-century England. Nicola de la Haye wants to do her duty. But though she’s taught a female cannot lead alone, the young noblewoman bristles at the marriage her father has arranged to secure her inheritance. And when an unexpected death leaves her unguided, the impetuous girl shuns the king’s blessing and weds a handsome-but-landless knight.

Harshly fined by Henry II for her unsanctioned union, Nicola struggles to salvage her estates while dealing with devastating betrayals from her husband… and his choice to join rebels in a brewing civil war. Yet after averting a tragedy and gaining the castle garrison’s respect, she still must face the might of powerful men determined to crush her under their will.

Can she survive love, threats, and violent ambition to prove she’s worthy of authority?

In this carefully researched and vividly human series debut, Rachel Elwiss Joyce showcases the complex themes of honour, responsibility, and freedom in the story of a remarkable heroine who men tried to erase from history. And as readers dive into a world defined by violence and turmoil, they’ll be stunned by this courageous young woman’s journey toward greatness.

Lady of Lincoln is the gritty first book in the Nicola de la Haye Series historical fiction saga. If you like richly textured female heroes, courtly drama, and fast-paced intrigue, then you’ll adore Rachel Elwiss Joyce’s gripping true-life tale.

The Extract

Lincoln Castle, May 1168

Nicola stood atop the western battlements under a duck-egg sky, her frozen fingers clutching the cold crossbow, her skirts snapping in the wind as she waited for Edwin—and humiliation. What was she doing here? And what had possessed her to think she could master a soldier’s weapon? Papa had laughed. Julia had just rolled her eyes.

She pulled her woollen cloak tighter against the biting wind, ignoring the guards further down the wall who studiously avoided her gaze. The longer she waited, the more foolish she felt.

Still, this wasn’t her greatest worry. Papa was determined she marry some nameless, greying nobleman. She didn’t want to dishonour her family, but what was the rush? Papa wasn’t dying. Surely there was a handsome, gallant knight out there who might win her heart, and guard her lands. She just had to find him.

She drew a breath and scanned the horizon, thrilling at the view. Lincoln Castle crowned a steep escarpment, towering over the Upper City. Below, mist uncoiled from the river valley, pierced by golden shafts of morning sun. She loved the castle, yet the stone walls, symbols of her family’s power, were starting to feel like a gaol.

Boot-steps echoed behind her. She turned.

Edwin, the grizzled garrison commander, climbed the last stair to the curtain wall. Thickset, bearded, his leather armour worn smooth with use, he gave her a sardonic smile. “There you are. The castle’s very own shield maiden.”

Nicola flushed. He clearly thought this was a farce.

She lifted her chin. “A fine morning to you, too.”

Edwin chuckled and moved beside her, reeking of leather and stale ale. “I’ve set up some targets.”

She shifted uneasily. Was she about to make a fool of herself?

“See there,” he said, pointing across the ditch towards the steaming Lawn. “I was a green squire, firing bolts from this very wall during the Battle of Lincoln. Never been so scared in my life.”

“Papa never speaks of it. He’s never forgiven Uncle Ralph for the disgrace.”

“I don’t know how his mother forgave Ralph after he cheated her out of the castle then switched sides like that.” Edwin spat over the wall. “But then he’d always been jealous.”

“Of what?”

“Your grandfather was raised from minor lord to royal constable. That honour was meant to pass to your father, the eldest, but Ralph, always arrogant, hated that.”

Nicola’s jaw tightened. Of course. Papa’s obsession with honour had begun with Ralph’s betrayal. If he hadn’t turned traitor, maybe Papa wouldn’t be so desperate to bind her future to a husband he deemed trustworthy enough to honour the family name.

“Thousands dead in the field,” Edwin muttered, crossing himself. “Good men; good horses. The grass ran red. I saw King Stephen captured. Then I had to serve Ralph.” He scowled. “That man changed sides so often, we never knew who the enemy was.”

A gust slapped Nicola’s braid across her cheek. She turned into it, breathing the sharp, clean air. Over the gate, the Haye red sun banner snapped in salute. Beyond, geese flapped over Brayford Pool. She envied them. Free. While she, despite the commanding view, was little more than a prisoner in her own castle.

She hefted the crossbow. “Shall we begin?”

Edwin took it from her. “Lady Nicola, if you’ll pardon me—this is nonsense. If there’s a battle, you’ll be in the tower, not fighting on the walls.”

Her cheeks burned; half ashamed, half angry. “I will be constable one day.”

“Your husband will. You’ll never be a knight.” He snorted. “Or a crossbowman.”

Her fists clenched. “If that’s what you think, Edwin, I’ve better things to do.” She turned to go.

He caught her arm. “Forgive me. I just...” He hesitated. “When the castle last fell under siege, the town was attacked. The women...” His jaw tightened. “You’re like a daughter to me. If the worst comes, I want you safe in the Lucy Tower. I’ll teach you to use a dagger—but not this.”

Her jaw tensed. She liked and admired him, but he wasn’t her father. He’d no right to tell her what she could or couldn’t be. “Mayhap I’ll surprise you,” she snapped.

He blinked, as though seeing her for the first time.

She folded her arms.

He sighed. “Very well. Strap this on.” He handed her a thick belt with a large iron hook.

She cinched it around her waist.

“Tight,” he said. He passed her the crossbow.

A laugh echoed from the bailey. Three guardsmen stood shielding their eyes, staring up. Her cheeks flamed. One of them had laughed, but which? She couldn’t see.

She lifted her chin. Let them stare. She was a Haye.

“Hitch up your gown,” Edwin said.

She pulled at the fabric, revealing her ankles and goatskin shoes.

Edwin frowned. “You’ll never manage in those. You need boots... really, you need chausses.”

“You should have told me. I’d have worn my riding boots.”

“Next time.” He took the belt back, buckled it on, placed a boot in the stirrup, caught the whipcord with the hook, and bent his knees. “You have to use your body. It’s got more power than your legs or arms.” Slowly, he rose, the hooked belt moving with him, dragging the cord until it clicked into place.

Nicola stared. What had she been thinking? She’d never manage that.

He fitted a bolt. “Here.” He handed the weapon to her.

The crossbow felt heavier than before. She’d watched men do this hundreds of times; but it was her turn now.

“Hold it to your shoulder, like so.” He positioned the crossbow. “Set the butt firmly. It keeps the weapon steady.” He moved her fingers into position.

Another laugh ripped through the air.

“Now,” Edwin said, “look straight down the length of the stock, using the tip of the bolt as your guide, and align it with the target. For most shots, this’ll be enough. I can teach you how to adjust for range another time.”

If there was a next time.

“Steady breath. Exhale. Then squeeze. Let the crossbow do the work.”

She braced and fired.

The weapon jolted.

The bolt vanished.

“God’s Knucklebones!” Edwin said, eyes wide. “Only an arm span from the target. We might make a constable of you yet.”

An unexpected surge of pride swept through her, followed by a rush of uncertainty. Was he mocking her? “Did you mean that?”

He didn’t answer. His eyes were fixed on the horizon. “Visitors. Ricard du Hommet, I think. And another knight, but I can’t see the emblem.”

Nicola followed his gaze. Four riders galloped from the woods across the Lawn. Two bore the Hommet lilies. The others rode beneath a banner of bright blue with white lions passant. She didn’t recognise the arms.

A cold knot formed in her gut. She had a bad feeling one of the men with the lion emblem was the man Papa would make her marry.

The riders clattered through the barbican.

Her knees buckled. She gripped the parapet.

“Are you alright?” Edwin asked.

“Of course,” she said, forcing a smile. “Just silly women’s concerns.”

Book Details

ISBN: 978 1919337906

Publisher: Hedgehog Books

Formats: e-book, audio and paperback (currently available on Kindle Unlimited) )

No. of Pages: 462 (paperback)

Series: Book 1 in the Nicola de la Haye series

Purchase Links

About the Author

After a rewarding career in the sciences, Rachel returned to her first love—history and the art of storytelling. Fascinated by the women history neglected, or tried to forget, she creates meticulously researched, emotionally resonant fiction that brings her characters’ stories vividly to life.

Her fascination with the past began early. At six years old, she was already inventing tales about medieval women in castles, inspired by her treasured Ladybird books and other picture-rich stories that transported her to another time. By the time she discovered Katherine by Anya Seton as a teenager, she knew the joy and escape that only great historical fiction can bring.

Rachel’s two grown-up children still tease her (fondly) about childhoods spent being “dragged” around castles, archaeological sites, and historical re-enactments. For Rachel, history and imagination have always gone hand in hand.

There was, however, a long gap between the stories of her childhood and her decision to write her own novel. The spark came when she discovered the remarkable true story of Nicola de la Haye—the first female sheriff of England, who defended Lincoln Castle against a French invasion and became known as “the woman who saved England,” Rachel knew she had found her heroine, and a story she was destined to tell.

Rachel lives in the UK, where she continues to explore the lives of women who shaped history but were left out of its pages.

You can also find Rachel at:

(media courtesy of The Coffee Pot Book Club)

(all opinions are my own)

Monday, 27 April 2026

Lucie Dumas by Katherine Mezzacappa- #extract #excerpt

I am so pleased to be sharing an extract from this book today. Lucie Dumas by author, Katherine Mezzacappa is an historical fiction novel set in the 19th century.

The Blurb

London, 1871: Lucie Dumas of Lyon has accepted a stipend from her former lover and his wife, on condition that she never returns to France; she will never see her young son again. As the money proves inadequate, Lucie turns to prostitution to live, joining the ranks of countless girls from continental Europe who'd come to London in the hope of work in domestic service.

Escaping a Covent Garden brothel for a Magdalen penitentiary, Lucie finds only another form of incarceration and thus descends to the streets, where she is picked up by the author Samuel Butler, who sets her up in her own establishment and visits her once a week for the next two decades. But for many years she does not even know his name. Based on true events.

The Excerpt

Avant, avant, lion le melhor

‘Forward, forward, Lyon the best’

Motto of the city of Lyon

My parents were what is known as respectable. I know that my mother is dead and assume my father is also. If he were not, I would not wish to see him anyway, so we can say that he is dead to me. I don’t know how much my mother was grieved by my conduct, for no-one ever asked her opinion on anything, and I have not seen her since my flight to Paris with Gaston. My father, I since learned, turned to drink after what happened to me. It had always been his regular solace, but it was to become his life. I want you, my reader, to be reassured that I was not the cause of his descent, but his own greed and foolhardiness. I prefer to think that he drank to smother his own conscience.

I was brought up in the Croix-Rousse district of Lyon, not amongst the crowded dwellings of the canuts, the silk weavers of the Montée de la Grand Côte, but closer to the foot of that steep quarter, where the traders and merchants lived. The further up in lyonnais society one was, the further down the hill one dwelled – pronounced calf muscles by contrast were a sign of poverty. My father straddled both ends of the silk trade, much as our home did. He was not a weaver, nor a merchant, but built the Jacquard looms that enabled both. Forty thousand looms whirred and clacked in Lyon when I was a child, many of them in the tall buildings marching close to each other up that gradient. If I close my eyes here in London, I can still hear that sound behind the rattle of hansom cabs on cobbles, the clop of their horses. The sticky, cloying smell of silk is in my nose still, as though when breathed in it clotted itself forever in those tiny hairs.

Father would regale us with tales of the grandeurs of Lyon silk, telling us the brocades of Lasalle adorned palaces as far afield as St Petersburg. I wondered once if those who swathed their vast halls with the work of the canuts ever spared a thought for those who wove it. Now I know that they do not, any more than the respectable ladies of London consider those who trim their bonnets, stitch their ballgowns or accommodate their husbands. Once of Girondist principles, my father had grown to admire Napoleon, for every man can be bought, though not as easily as a man can buy a woman, perhaps. The Directorate effectively brought the heyday of Lyon silk to an end, for dressing sumptuously one’s person or one’s home amounted in some cases to a capital offence and Fouché’s butchery in 1793 is I am sure still remembered. It was thanks to Napoleon that the part of Lyon destroyed in that siege was rebuilt, the silk trade re-established to clothe the new dynasty’s court, and thus Father had money to feed and clothe us.

It was through Father’s trade that I met Gaston. You do not need to know his real name so I do not supply it, even if he could be dead by now. For years my allowance was remitted. It was stopped when Théodore reached fifteen (if indeed he did, but its regularity until then suggests that was the case). Certainly someone is dead. It may be Gaston, and so his wife has ceased to honour his shabby commitment. It may be that

she has followed her husband to the grave, and some notary has seen the payment made to the Comptoir in London, shrugged his shoulders and cancelled it. It may be that my child is dead, his grave unvisited because everyone who knew who he was is also deceased, and I am the only one who remains, not knowing it. I wondered often if Gaston and his wife had any children, not because I was allowed any concern in their marriage, but because a woman without children may choose to love another woman’s child, or to hate him.

In my own case, I keep as far away from children as I can, walking in the opposite direction should I encounter a nursemaid with a perambulator in Russell Square Gardens (but then if the nursemaid knew what I was, she would do the same). Monsieur has a passionate dislike of all small humans, yet he will photograph those he regards as the most peculiar specimens, according to Mr Jones. I have seen some of these plates: barefoot Italian urchins, sturdier somehow than their London equivalent, as though clean air and sunshine nourishes them. Mr Cathie has shown me them, as he assists at the birth of these images in the darkroom. Never does Monsieur photograph the kind of children who have nursemaids or governesses. Sometimes I think his eye is cruel; some of those Italian children are crétins, horribly goitred. Mr Jones said that this is because they live too far from the sea. These poor souls dwell, for the most part, corralled behind high walls with others similarly afflicted. But if their parents do not gaze on them, I do not see why others should. Monsieur could have found a different subject for his camera.

I have ceased to wonder what my life might have been had I not met Gaston. There is no benefit in regret unless it prevents one from making similar mistakes in future. You see, the problem is that once one falls, one is obliged to keep on in one’s descent, for that precipice is sheer. It isn’t that one doesn’t want to go on making mistakes; the desire to live makes them an obligation.

Sample book of Lyon silk, 1861

(Wikimedia Commons: Prelle livre de patron 1861 La Canute)

Book Details

ISBN: 978 1917334228

Publisher: Stairwell Books

Formats: e-book and paperback

No. of Pages: 236 (paperback)

Purchase Links