Juicy and Tudorish: The Queen's Secret hits paperback

Buy me, buy me, buy me!!! Oh, I am so juicy and Tudorish.

Yes, it's official, my Tudor novel The Queen's Secret - which is NOT a romance, as some erroneously believe - is now on sale in the UK in paperback.

It's a spy thriller/adventure set against the backdrop of Queen Elizabeth I's visit to Kenilworth Castle in 1575, and also happens to be Book One in a trilogy about the life of one candidate for Shakespeare's "Dark Lady", black court entertainer Lucy Morgan.

For more on that, please see the book itself, which has an extensive Author's Note!

Anyway, 'tis the first fruits of my labour as historical novelist Victoria Lamb, and I urge all my regular readers to at least THINK about buying it. It's reduced to under a fiver on Kindle - and may drop lower - and could be as low as £3.99 when it hits larger branches of Asda and Tescos. Please support a poor poet by buying her prose.

Snort.

I Don't Call Myself a Poet: a grumpy interview

Poetry: the days when the pen is mightier than the Mac

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but I was recently interviewed by Emine Ahmet on a website of interviews with contemporary British poets: I Don't Call Myself A Poet.

For some reason, lost in the mists of time, I was in a particularly cynical and terse mood the day I was interviewed, and it shows in my responses. Another day might have seen me more inclined to my natural charm and joie de vivre, ho ho. But alas, I am instead doomed to go down - in the history of this website at least - as a grumpy old bag.

My favourite Q&A from the interview:

What keeps you writing and sharing your work with a society that seems to be listening less each day?
 
Stupidity and egotism, I expect.

Read more of this poetry interview at I Don't Call Myself A Poet.

Young Shakespeare: Victoria Lamb

Mealtimes for William Shakespeare would have looked very much like this, in his large and lively Warwickshire family.

I thought some of the readers of Raw Light might be interested in today's entry on my alter-ego Victoria Lamb's blog.

Some of you may know that I published the first book in a trilogy about Shakespeare's 'Dark Lady' in hardback earlier this year. It's called The Queen's Secret and is out in paperback in a couple of weeks.

In this first book, William Shakespeare is eleven years old and plays only a very minor role in the story. But he features as a point of view character in the second book, so his life as a child and young man in Stratford upon Avon is uppermost in my mind.

Please do hop over to read my entry on Young Shakespeare - and maybe click to Follow my blog there, if interested in updates on my fiction writing as Victoria Lamb.