HOYDENS AT LARGE: A Farewell and our news...

The Hoydens are very sad to say farewell to Sandra Gulland. Sandra has been with us since the Hoydens first burst on to the blogging scene but her writing and her life are moving her in different directions. While she remains a 17th century passionista, the lure of the Napoleonic days has captured her and that is where she needs to devote her time and her energies.  

Thank you, Sandra, for your support and your friendship over the last five years. You have graced us with some wonderful articles and will always be welcome back as a guest author should you have a 17th century "moment"!

In the meantime we are waiting with baited breath for the televisation (is that a word?) of your Josephine B. series. I am currently half way through the second book and just loving it.  Mini review here:  Sandra Gulland has chosen the first person voice of Josephine Bonataparte to tell her own story in a diarised format.  The result is a deeply personal account not only of Josephine's own  life but the tumultuous times in which she lived. I can't put it down!

Fear not, dear followers...the Hoydens will continue with our core group of Anita Davison (Anita Seymour), Dee Swift, Kim Murphy and Mary Sharratt, supplemented with our wonderful guests.  We are finding more and more fellow 17th century passionistas...so if you write books set in this period of history, do please email me at alison@alisonstuart.com and ask for a guest spot on the blog. The more people we can share our interest in this period with - the better!

Back to the Hoydens:

MARY SHARRATT:

Mary on a panel at HNS

THE DARK LADY’S MASQUE, the story of Aemilia Bassano Lanier, the first rofessional woman poet in Renaissance England, and her collaboration—and star-crossed love affair—with William Shakespeare, as his Dark Lady, sold to Nicole Angeloro at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 

 Conference news: I (Mary) was on three panels at the recent HNS conference: Depicting Religion in Historical Fiction;  Genre vs Literary Historical Fiction ; and The Witchcraft Window: Scrying the Past with Erika Mailman, Kathleen Kent, and Suzy Witten. 



ANITA DAVISON
Writing as Anita Seymour, ROYALIST REBEL, was released in January this year.  The biographical novel of the tumultuous life of Elizabeth Murray who lived through the reigns of Charles I through to William and Mary. The book is gathering some wonderful reviews. 






DEBORAH (DEE) SWIFT
Like Mary, Dee was recently in Florida where she appeared on the Historical fiction bloggers panel. Blogging is alive and well...

Dee Swift on the panel at HNS

Her two wonderful 17th century books THE GILDED LILY and THE LADY'S SLIPPER are out in the world and gathering wonderful reviews. We are all waiting for her next book A DIVIDED INHERITANCE, set in 1609, it moves from London to Seville in Spain...coming soon




KIM MURPHY

Kim reports:  "I'm working on my copy edits for my nonfiction title I HAD RATHER DIE:  RAPE IN THE CIVIL WAR. Release date looks like it will be Jan. 2014."  Kim's study of the American Civil War will be a major contribution to women's history and the fate of women in war time.

ALISON STUART

Alison's September 2012 release, GATHER THE BONES (set post World War One) has gathered some major award nominations this year:  The Australian Romance Readers Awards, the Colorado Romance Writers Award of Excellence, the GDRW Booksellers Best Awards and the InDtale Magazine RONE Awards. 
In April 2013, SECRETS IN TIME was released, an unabashed time travel romance with a time travelling cavalier hero.  Fun to write and a short read.






Alison Stuart
July 7 2013