What being a finalist in the Amazon UK Kindle Storyteller Award means to me

Amazon KDP changed my life, as over the past five years I’ve finally enjoyed the success I once dreamed of. In truth, I never dreamed of having a series of books about the early Tudors selling in thirteen countries. I used to write for magazines and always thought it would be great to have a novel published.

I had a great novel idea, inspired by one of my favourite books as a child, Alice in Wonderland. I would take the most famous chess game ever played, between Donald Byrne and Bobby Fischer in New York City, and ‘bring it to life’. The whole of medieval Wales was the ‘chessboard’ with two kings and queens, four great castles, bishops and knights. Each of the sixteen ‘pawns’ would have a backstory and the narrative would be driven by every move of the original game of chess.

The result was my first novel, Queen Sacrifice – and there wasn’t a publisher or agent who wanted to read it. Then I decided to publish my book on Amazon KDP and the rest is literally history. I wrote and published another two novels, learning my craft and building a readership. I continued querying agents and publishers, then my first offer came in. I celebrated until I read the small print. In return for one tenth of the royalties I receive from Amazon, they would take control of every step of the process.

The thing is, I like having control of every step, from deciding the keywords to cover design. I turned the offer down and became an ‘indie’ author. I’ve never looked back – and have since turned down other offers of traditional publishing. I mastered the art of CreateSpace publishing, then worked out how to produce audiobook editions at no cost in partnership with ACX.

My big break came when I realised there were no novels about Owen Tudor, the young Welsh servant man who married a queen and founded the Tudor dynasty. I was born in Pembroke, birthplace of Owen’s grandson Henry Tudor, and realised Henry could be born in the first book of a Tudor trilogy, come of age in the second and become King of England in the third.

OWEN reached #1 in several Amazon categories in the UK, US and Australia. The second book of the Tudor Trilogy, JASPER did the same and the success boosted sales of my other books. After publishing the third book of the trilogy I had a call from Darren Hardy, UK Manager for Kindle Direct Publishing. HENRY had been selected as one of six finalists in the Amazon Kindle Storyteller Awards and Darren asked what it meant to me to be shortlisted.

I’ve thought about the answer to that question since Darren’s call. I used to hesitate to say I was a ‘writer’ before I could earn a living from it. I only felt able to say I was an ‘author’ after I left my job to write full time. Now, whatever the result of the awards, I can call myself a ‘storyteller’. It’s the storytelling which makes a successful novel and although many writers become authors, not all become storytellers. I’d like to say thank you to everyone on the team at Amazon and to all my readers around the world who’ve made this possible.

Tony Riches

Click HERE For details of all the authors shorlisted

for the Amazon UK Kindle Storyteller Award 2017 

Guest Post by Angela Petch, Author of Tuscan Roots: A tangle of love and war in the Italian Apennines

Available on Amazon UK and Amazon US

In 1943, in occupied Italy, Ines Santini's sheltered existence is turned upside down when she meets Norman, an escaped British POW. In 1999, Anna Swilland, their daughter, starts to unravel accounts from diaries left to her after her mother's death. She travels to the breathtakingly beautiful Tuscan Apennines, where the story unfolds. In researching her parents' past, she will discover secrets about the war, her parents and herself, which will change her life forever...

Some thoughts about writing.

The area in Tuscany where I live speaks to me about its history but my local friends are very modest about sharing their experiences. “Why are you interested in our past?” the elderly ask. “It’s over and done with.” 

I understand their reluctance to speak about past hardships; they suffered dreadfully during the Occupation. They were hungry, there were atrocities and it is a poor area, the land difficult to work. The winters are harsh and life has been a battle. “Young people don’t know the half of what we’ve been through,” I hear so often from their lips.  Precisely because of this, I feel it is important not to let their anecdotes, snippets of stories and wisdom disappear.

Apart from my interest in local folklore, recipes, life style, remembering the past helps us with our present and future. I came across a couple of sentences written by CICERO as far back as 46 BC:

“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?”  

I write fiction, not history books, so the difficulty is how to make sure my plots are not pulled out of shape by too many facts? I don’t think there is an easy answer. But I have a few notices pinned on the board above my desk to help me focus:

My favourite:

 “Don’t tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass.”

The following was written about short stories, but can equally apply to the novel:

“Short stories pull us into their world and shake us up. They don’t hang about. They don’t waste any time. They swoop down and get you like a sea gull diving down to take the bread from your hand. They stay with you, the ones you love, forever.” (Jackie Kay)

“You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate.” And, “The fiction writer states as little as possible.”

Here are a couple of other thoughts to bring to the table as we pour another glass of wine for each other. The first is simply “Just write”.  I’ve written that on a stone I found by the river that flows past our watermill. Just get on with it. There are days when you think it is simply not working, the words are heavy, boring, whatever. Keep on writing. Treat it as a work-out, a run on the treadmill to limber up and to keep your writing muscles warm. 

Put the words away until the next day. When you look at it again: A) You might find a couple of sentences or even words that are not half bad B) As in any project, you need to have bits to assemble. If you had no bits, then you would never have a finished project. So keep going and don’t be too critical until you’ve completed your first draft. Then the hard work of pruning and editing begins.

My other tip concerns Social Media. SM (Sad-masochism, I want to call it at times). It’s a necessary aspect of publishing nowadays. That has slowly but surely dawned on me. Get an old fashioned kitchen timer and put it on for the limited time you think you need to spend on Twitter, Facebook etc. and be strict with yourself. Switch off when the bell goes and get on with that masterpiece.

Above all, enjoy your writing! 

Angela Petch

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About the Author

Angela Petch lives half the year in a remote valley in the Tuscan Apennines and six months by the sea in West Sussex. She has travelled all her life: born in Germany, she spent six years as a child living in Rome, worked in Amsterdam after finishing her degree in Italian, moved to Italy for her job, then to Tanzania for three years. Her head is full of stories and she always carries a pen and note-book wherever she goes to capture more ideas. The action of both her novels takes place mostly in her corner of Tuscany. The first, “Tuscan Roots” is a Second World War story of romance, partisan activity, hardships of ordinary people caught up in the cruel tangle of battle and the difficulties of a mixed marriage in grey, post-war Britain - all pieced together from diaries. Angela’s own Italian mother-in-law was a war bride and the book is laced with research, memoirs and embroidered with fiction. From her house by the river, Angela can walk up the mule tracks to ruins of the Gothic Line, a defensive barrier constructed by the Germans during the last years of the war. The area resonates with history. In May, Angela won PRIMA’S monthly short story competition and recently had a story accepted by The People’s Friend but she is concentrating on her third novel. A fourth Tuscan idea is knocking at her door. Find out more at her blog and follow Angela on Facebook and Twitter @Angela_Petch.

Book Launch Spotlight: La Vie En Rose: Notes From Rural France, by Susie Kelly

New on Amazon UK and Amazon US

Living the French dream – vineyards, sunflowers, lavender fields, glasses of wine and platters of fromage. French ladies slender and chic, French men wearing berets and riding bicycles with baguettes clamped under their arms when they are not flirting outrageously, and all the while the sun shines down benevolently upon uniform rows of ripening vegetables.

Dreams are strange and unpredictable, and sometime so is la vie en rose.

A pick from some of the best bits of the popular travel author's blog diaries reveal the minutiae of expat day to day life in rural France. A must-read for Susie Kelly fans and anybody thinking of, or dreaming of, moving to France.

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About the Author

Susie Kelly was born in grey post-war London, and spent much of her childhood and young adulthood in the beautiful country of Kenya. She now lives in south-west France with a menagerie of assorted animals, and is passionate about animal welfare. Since 2011 Susie's books have been published by Blackbird Digital Books, whose theme is strong, adventurous women living life to the full. Blackbird Digital Book people love birds and animals, travel, history, romance, natural health and environment, resourcefulness, humour, the surreal and magic. Find her on Twitter @SusieEnFrance. 

Historical Fiction Spotlight: The Competition: Da Vinci's Disciples - Book Two, by Donna Russo Morin

Available on Amazon UK and Amazon UK

Donna Russo Morin returns with a follow-up to Portrait of a Conspiracy, called “a page-turner unlike any historical novel, weaving passion, adventure, artistic rebirth, and consequences of ambition,” by C.W. Gortner. 

 In a studiolo behind a church, six women gather to perform an act that is, at once, restorative, powerful, and illegal. They paint. Under the tutelage of Leonardo da Vinci, these six show talent and drive equal to that of any man, but in Renaissance Florence they must hide their skills, or risk the scorn of the city. 

A commission to paint a fresco in Santo Spirito is announced and Florence’s countless artists each seek the fame and glory this lucrative job will provide. Viviana, a noblewoman freed from a terrible marriage and now free to pursue her artistic passions in secret, sees a potential life-altering opportunity for herself and her fellow female artists. 

The women first speak to Lorenzo de’ Medici himself, and finally, they submit a bid for the right to paint it. And they win. But the church will not stand for women painting, especially not in a house of worship. The city is not ready to consider women in positions of power, and in Florence, artists wield tremendous power. Even the women themselves are hesitant; the attention they will bring upon themselves will disrupt their families, and could put them in physical danger. 

All the while, Viviana grows closer to Sansone, her soldier lover, who is bringing her joy that she never knew with her deceased husband. And fellow-artist Isabetta has her own romantic life to distract her, sparked by Lorenzo himself. Power and passion collide in this sumptuous historical novel of shattering limitations, one brushstroke at a time.

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About the Author

Donna earned two degrees from the University of Rhode Island. In addition to writing, teaching writing, and reviewing for literary journals, Donna works as a model and actor; highlights of her work include two seasons on Showtime’s Brotherhood and an appearance in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed. Donna is the proud mother of two sons, one a future opera singer, the other a future chef. Donna's titles include The Courtier's Secret, The Secret of the Glass, To Serve a King, The King's Agent, Portrait of a Conspiracy, and The Competition. Donna enjoys meeting with book groups in person and via Skype chat. Visit her website at www.donnarussomorin.com. You can also connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

Blog Tour Schedule

Monday, June 26 Interview at The Book Junkie Reads
Tuesday, June 27 Review at A Bookaholic Swede
Wednesday, June 28 Spotlight at Passages to the Past
Thursday, June 29 Spotlight at The Lit Bitch Spotlight at A Holland Reads
Friday, June 30 Review at The True Book Addict
Monday, July 3 Review at Pursuing Stacie
Wednesday, July 5 Guest Post at Books of All Kinds
Thursday, July 6 Spotlight at The Writing Desk
Saturday, July 8 Review at Svetlana's Reads and Views
Monday, July 10 Review at History From a Woman's Perspective Spotlight at The Never-Ending Book
Tuesday, July 11 Spotlight at A Literary Vacation
Friday, July 14 Interview at Dianne Ascroft's Blog
Monday, July 17 Review at Let Them Read Books
Tuesday, July 18 Guest Post at Bookfever
Thursday, July 20 Spotlight at What Is That Book About
Monday, July 24 Review at Ageless Pages Reviews
Wednesday, July 26 Spotlight at CelticLady's Reviews
Thursday, July 27 Review at Oh, for the Hook of a Book!
Friday, July 28 Review at Just One More Chapter

Giveaway

During the Blog Tour we will be giving away a paperback copy of The Competition & a Key Pendant necklace! To enter, please enter via the Gleam form below. Giveaway Rules – Giveaway ends at 11:59pm EST on July 28th. You must be 18 or older to enter. – Giveaway is open to residents in the US only. – Only one entry per household. – All giveaway entrants agree to be honest and not cheat the systems; any suspect of fraud is decided upon by blog/site owner and the sponsor, and entrants may be disqualified at our discretion. – Winner has 48 hours to claim prize or new winner is chosen. The Competition

Tips for new writers Part One - Repetition, by Wendy Janes

Lady Writing - Albert Edelfelt (Wikimedia Commons)

Previously Tony invited me to write a post for his blog about how to have a positive proofreading experience. I’m so pleased to be invited back to write this series of four posts for new writers.

As a proofreader I come across the same types of errors over and over again and thought it would be helpful to group some by theme and share them. The themes are repetition, dialogue, rules and consistency, and although they’re not intended to be comprehensive guides, I hope they’ll help you improve elements of your writing.

These suggestions are things you can do when you’ve finished pouring the first draft of your story onto the page/screen and you’re revising, editing or proofreading prior to sending your work to an editor or proofreader. The more polished your work is before it goes to the professionals, the better job they can do.

So, let’s get on with the first post: Repetition

Discover, search for, and eliminate your crutch words – words we overuse in our writing. We all have them. My worst one is ‘just’. I just can’t stop using it (see what I did there?), closely followed by ‘smile’. When I’m writing a first draft, my characters smile all over the place, whether it’s to show happiness or to cover anxiety, you name it, they’re smiling. After a good edit, they’re no longer so smiley!

Here’s a short list of common ones: believe, feel, felt, glance, grin, just, look, nod, now, realise, really, that, think, turn and very. These can be deleted or replaced, sometimes with minimal reworking of a sentence. The word ‘just’ can often be deleted or it can be replaced by ‘only’ or ‘merely’, depending on context.

Many authors have their characters repeatedly sitting or standing or laughing or walking, or biting their nails, running their hands through their hair, raising their eyebrows. This type of repetition can be almost invisible to authors, but it can irritate readers and take them right out of the story.

I’ll pause here to say that when handled carefully, repetition of words and phrases can work wonders to help set a scene, bring out a character trait, create an atmosphere, add drama, anticipation and pathos to a story. There are some wonderful examples of the effective use of repetition here: http://thejohnfox.com/repetition-examples/

Back to repetition that doesn’t enhance anyone’s writing: repeating the same words within the same sentence or paragraph. Let me introduce you to Daisy and Horatio to illustrate this:

Daisy heard a knock at the door. She walked to the door and opened it to find Horatio standing in the door, a huge bouquet of roses in his arms.

You could turn the above into something like:

Daisy answered a knock at the door to find Horatio standing there with a huge bouquet of roses in his arms.

Another handy search you can carry out is for sentences beginning with the same word or phrase. These and other repeated words will jump out at you when you read your work through to yourself, or better still, when you read it out loud. There’s absolutely no problem in starting a sentence with ‘He…’ or ‘She…’ or ‘I…’ , but when every sentence in a paragraph begins ‘He…’, unless it’s done on purpose for effect (see above), the writing starts to sound a bit samey.

Avoid having your characters thinking something and then repeating that thought immediately or a few lines later in dialogue or narrative. This often happens when an author has been editing and they haven’t realised that the same information has been given twice in quick succession. Let’s pop back to Daisy greeting Horatio at the door:

Seeing his sparkling green eyes peeking at her over the bouquet banished all her fears that these past weeks of silence from him meant he had lost interest in her.

‘Darling, I’ve missed you so much. All these weeks of silence, I’ve been fearful you were losing interest in me.’

Here I would advise an author to choose which information to relate in dialogue and which in narrative.

One more thing to avoid is having characters repeating information again and again throughout a novel. After we’ve heard Daisy telling Horatio that the reason her favourite flower is the rose is because her beloved grandmother grew them in the grounds of her childhood home, we don’t need to hear her saying it again in chapters 3, 5 and 8. Although, what could work is if the author ensures that it’s clear that Daisy is either oblivious to this repetition or she’s doing it on purpose and how this impacts on her relationship with Horatio. In this case the repetition is being used specifically for character development, and basically shows the reader that the author is on top of their material.

When searching for repetition, I find Word’s ‘find’ function extremely helpful.

I hope you’re now feeling ready to return to your manuscript, eager to hunt down those repeated words and phrases. If they’re enhancing your writing, then great, otherwise, off with their heads.

Wendy Janes 

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About the Author

Wendy Janes is a freelance proofreader for a number of publishers and many individual authors. She is also a caseworker for The National Autistic Society’s Education Rights Service. Author of the novel, What Jennifer Knows and a collection of short stories, What Tim Knows, and other stories, she loves to take real life and turn it into fiction. She lives in London with her husband and youngest son. You can connect with Wendy online and discover more about her via her Facebook author page, her website, Amazon author pages (UK/US) and Twitter @wendyproof.  

Guest Post by Ruadh Butler, Author of Lord of the Sea Castle (The Invader Series, Book 2)

New on Amazon UK and Amazon US

1170 is a tumultuous time for the people of Wales, England and Ireland. Raymond de Carew is in love, but the woman he desires is an earl's daughter and so far above his station that he has no hope of ever winning her. However, Raymond s lord has a mission for him: one that if it succeeds will put an Irish king back on his throne and prove Raymond worthy for in Norman society, a man can rise as high as his skill with a sword can take him. With only a hundred men at his side, Raymond must cross the ocean to Ireland ahead of his mercenary lord's invasion. There he will face the full might of the Viking city of Waterford... and either his deeds will become legend or he will be trampled into dust.

It was a wet March morning when the terrible truth was discovered. As a tiny spectacled and freckled red-head with a mouthful of braces and only one full year of secondary school under my belt, few could have realised the monster that lay within that diminutive frame.

Our first class of the day was history, always my favourite of mine, and as usual it was noisy as the children filed into their seats to begin the lesson. News that our teacher, Miss Somerville, was off sick soon began to circulate, causing the braver lads to begin a small cheer and ever more rambunctious play.

That ended abruptly as Dr Marsh strode into the room, halting just inside the door to cast an imperious stare over everyone in the class.

“Good morning, 2H1.”

Three paces took him to the blackboard and he carves the words, big and brash, up there in chalk: THE NORMANS.

Without elaborating, he swept up the class roll from the desk and runs his finger down the names.

“Wilson, Thornton, Black, Suitor, Smyth, Jeffers, Purvis, Cuddy, Simpson,” he murmured as he searched through the list, disappointed it seemed with what was contained therein. Then suddenly his eyes lit up. “Ah-ha!” he cackled. The folder snapped shut in his hand.

“Butler! Where is Mr Butler?”

Blood poured to my ears, away from my chest, as my hand gingerly rose in the air. Dr Marsh beckoned that I should join him at the front of the class. His face gave away nothing to indicate what might follow.

I was turned by my shoulders to face my classmates. They seemed as shocked as I that one of their number – particularly the smallest and most bookish amongst them – had been pulled from the safety of the flock to be exhibited before them. Each wondered what was to befall me.

“This,” Dr Marsh announced, his hand landing onto my head, “is one of the most dangerous people ever to arrive in Ireland. This is one of the Normans. Beware.”

I like to think that there was a sharp intake of breath, a strained silence, and, as I wandered back to my desk, that my classmates inclined away from my path. What did happen was, as everyone else listened in to Dr Marsh continue talk about crop rotation, the manorial system, and the Doomsday Book, my mind drifted elsewhere.

I was thirteen. I had just learned that I bore the name of conquerors. I couldn’t have been more delighted.

Fast-forward fourteen years and I came across a number of journals about the Butler family while I was staying with my father’s cousin in London. Remembering back to that moment in school, I began reading. I was hooked. I had to know more and began investigating the deeds of their great rivals, the FitzGeralds. I had stumbled across an untapped treasure trove of stories; of battles beyond the frontier, of adventure and grand romance, of political scheming at a time of great change. They were my ancestors’ deeds. I was fascinated. I knew had had to write about them.

My first attempt was Spearpoint. Told from the perspective of an exiled Irish king, I didn’t think it quite worked. So I began again, this time from the angle of one of the real-life mercenaries from Pembrokeshire who he had employed to help him reclaim his kingdom. With a bit of patience a book called Spearpoint was transformed into one called The Outpost with the Welsh-Norman knight Robert FitzStephen as the main character for the first time. 

Further work and fine-tuning – for one hour during lunch break at work as well as a good few weekends and late nights – saw The Outpost become Vanguard. It was only when I was confident that the book was ready that I sent it to my father’s old sailing pal, Wallace Clark, a respected (and much missed) travel writer, for his thoughts. He loved it, but suggested a name change. Thus, Swordland was sent out for the consideration of literary agents. It found a home with Accent Press and was published in paperback in April 2016. The second in the series, Lord of the Sea Castle, was released in June 2017 and I am writing the third right now.

Am I doing homage or attempting to keep these people alive beyond their lifespan is through storytelling? I’m not a religious person, but I suspect my writing is a form of ancestor worship. My characters are all based on real people and real events, and by telling their story with as much authenticity and passion as I can muster, I hope that they will be in a sense resurrected and that I can help my readers have a glimpse of a different world. And, of course, I too am a Norman. Beware!

Ruadh Butler

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About the Author

Born in Derry and brought up in Tyrone, Ruadh Butler studied Biomedical Sciences and has worked in newsrooms, bars, and laboratories, as a security guard, musician, and a lifeguard. A keen reader of historical fiction from his youth, he decided to try and emulate his heroes - Conn Iggulden, Bernard Cornwell, and Robert Louis Stevenson - and write an adventure during lunch time at work. A year later he had completed the first draft of his debut novel, Swordland, which charts the remarkable career of Robert FitzStephen, a Norman-Welsh warrior who became the first invader of Ireland in 1169. His second novel, Lord of the Sea Castle, was published by Accent Press in June 2017. It tells the story of Raymond the Fat and the Siege of Baginbun, Ireland’s version of Hastings, in the summer of 1170 when a hundred Normans faced a Viking horde twenty times their number on the south Wexford coast. Find him nattering about all things Ireland, Norman, historical, and rugby on his author page on Facebook, on Twitter at @ruadhbutler, or at his website, www.ruadhbutler.com.

Guest Post by Stephanie Churchill, Author of The Scribe's Daughter

Available on Amazon US and Amazon UK

Kassia is a thief and a soon-to-be oath breaker. Armed with only a reckless wit and sheer bravado, seventeen-year-old Kassia barely scrapes out a life with her older sister in a back-alley of the market district of the Imperial city of Corium. When a stranger shows up at her market stall, offering her work for which she is utterly unqualified, Kassia cautiously takes him on. Very soon however, she finds herself embroiled in a mystery involving a usurped foreign throne

and a vengeful nobleman.

When Fantasy Could Be Historical Fiction but Isn’t

Genre is a funny thing.  While the lines delineating genre have probably been around for as long as books have existed, it is really in the most recent generations that the explosion of the subgenre has occurred.  Books used to just be books.  Now a reader walking into the nearest bookstore can order a book like one would order off the Starbucks menu: ‘I’d like a fiction, mystery, half-romance / half-paranormal, with a shot of psychological thriller, please!  Oh, and I’d like it to go.’

When I was a child I was drawn to fairy tales and mythic history, to stories that lived somewhere in that realm where truth and legend collide, where the real things are tinged with the fantastical.  One of the earliest books to capture my imagination was In the Hall of the Dragon King, by Stephen Lawhead, followed a close second by his Song of Albion trilogy.

The Song of Albion trilogy is considered mythic fantasy.  Set in a real, concrete world, it focuses on the Celtic legend of Llew Silver Hand.  Like other legends of old, mythic fantasy is based on heroes of tradition.

Was Llew Silver Hand real?  How about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table?  Beowulf?  Likely all of these men were real.  Their immortalization came from the performance of a heroic feat or from the completion of a task of such great immediate importance that the peers of these men perceived what they had done as something superhuman, even mystical.  

So overwhelmed by the amazing exploit, tales were told, quickly taking on a sort of sentient life.  Songs were sung around home fires and were thusly handed down and passed around from people group to people group throughout the ages.  As with all good oral cultures, the story grew in the telling, evolving with each repetition, over and over throughout the centuries.  It’s in this crossing of real and history, in the ever-growing mythos, that we have the beginnings of fantasy.

Mention the fantasy genre to most people, and immediately the mind will directly conjure images of wizards, witches, unicorns, dragons and magic in fairytale-like worlds where the impossible is possible, and a wand-wielding protagonist saves the day.  Harry Potter, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, The Game of Thrones -- these are undoubtedly fantasy.  The worlds are imaginary, the people fictitious, there is magic and fantastical beasts, but the feel of the books echo the historical.

And yet what if fantasy lacks the magical or even the fantastical?  This is the place I found myself when I wrote The Scribe’s Daughter.  My first love is history and historical fiction, but I knew when I set off to write a book that I would not write historical fiction.  Instead, I used a sort of cultural familiarity, the world of historical fiction, as the foundation for my own world building.  The world I created in Mercoria has no fantastical aspects.  It is fantasy only in that the world came from my imagination.  It is like historical fiction in that it echoes historical realities.  My world reflects real, historical people, places, and cultures even though they never existed.  As award-winning historical fiction author Elizabeth Chadwick said of The Scribe’s Daughter, “It felt historical without containing any actual history.”

To me, this is the best of both worlds.  My version of fantasy has the heart of historical fiction without requiring the constant devotion to exacting research.  And since my characters are fictitious, their timelines were mine to control.  They can continue to pretend to be real even if I’ve never had the heart to tell them they are imaginary!  But unlike fantasy, I didn’t have to remain true to any rules governing the use of magic since there is none.

If you enjoy historical novels but don’t necessarily need the history, I invite you to try out the world I have created in my novels The Scribe’s Daughter and The King’s Daughter, fantasy that reads like historical fiction.

Stephanie Churchill

Now Available for Pre-Order from Amazon US and Amazon UK:

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About the Author

Stephanie Churchill grew up in the American Midwest, and after school moved to Washington, D.C. to work as a paralegal, moving to the Minneapolis metro area when she married.  She says, 'One day while on my lunch break from work, I visited a nearby bookstore and happened upon a book by author Sharon Kay Penman.  I’d never heard of her before, but the book looked interesting, so I bought it.  Immediately I become a rabid fan of her work. I discovered that Ms. Penman had fan club and that she happened to interact there frequently.  As a result of a casual comment she made about how writers generally don’t get detailed feedback from readers, I wrote her an embarrassingly long review of her latest book, Lionheart.  As a result of that review, she asked me what would become the most life-changing question: “Have you ever thought about writing?”  And The Scribe’s Daughter was born.' 

Find out more at Stephanie's website www.stephaniechurchillauthor.com and find her on Facebook and Twitter @WriterChurchill.