The fine historical novelist Elizabeth Chadwick has posted an excellent essay about medieval lighting on her site.

I have very little to add to that except that once upon a time, in the interest of research, I lived by candlelight every evening after supper for quite a few evenings.  I had the advantage of good candles, which many ordinary medieval people did not have, but the experience was still extremely useful.  The room became full of soft shadows beyond the gentle, rich, golden glow of the candles.  As few as three slender candles provided enough light by which to read, and – here is a point I came to cherish – I found myself relaxing in the candlelight, easing out of the day’s tensions far more easily than usual, so that I went to bed much earlier than was my wont and sleeping very well.

Added to that, I am now far more appreciative when I flip a switch and simply get all the electric light I want.  There is nothing like research to help you enjoy the commonplaces of the 21^st century.

– Margaret

After an almost interminable wait, The Novice’s Tale and The Servant’s Tale are both available as e-books in the United States! They can be purchased from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the iBookstore, Kobo, and the like!

Unlike the other e-books I’ve announced here on the site, these are being offered from my publisher. That means I don’t control the price and I don’t know if they’re being sold with DRM or not. If you have any problems, please let me know. But you might also be better served contacting Berkley directly about these titles.

UNHOLY PASSIONS AND DEMONIC DEATH...In the fair autumn of Our Lord’s grace 1431, the nuns of England’s St. Frideswide’s prepare for the simply ceremonies in which the saintly novice Thomasine will take her holy vows. But their quiet lives of beauty and prayer are thrown into chaos by the merciless arrival of Lady Ermentrude Fenner and her retinue of lusty men, sinful women, and baying hounds. The hard-drinking dowager even keeps a pet monkey for her amusement. She demands wine, a feast… And her niece, the angelic Thomasine. The lady desires to enrich herself and her reputation by arranging a marriage for the devout novice. She cares nothing for the panic and despair she leaves behind her. But all her cruel and cunning schemes are brought to a sudden end with strange and most unnatural murder. As suspicious eyes turn on the pious Thomasine, it falls to Sister Frevisse, hosteler of the priory and amateur detective, to unravel the webs of unholy passion and dark intrigue that entangle the novice and prove her innocence… or condemn her. The first volume in the award-winning Sister Frevisse novels! Paperback - Kindle U.S. - Kindle UK - Nook Edition British Hardcover - Large Print Edition French Edition - German Edition

THE PLAY'S THE THING, TO CATCH THE CONSCIENCE OF A KILLER...The Christmas season brings strange guests to the medieval nunnery of St. Frideswide’s when a troupe of penniless players comes knocking at the gate. They bear with them the badly mangled body of a villager, swearing they found the drunken fool lying in a ditch. But Meg, the victim’s wife and a scullery maid of the cloister, thinks there are far fouler deeds afoot. As the players rehearse for the nativity, ancient scandals lick at their heels and dark desperation haunts Meg’s steps as she finds cruel feudal laws threatening to strip away the lands that would support both her and her sons in the wake of her husband’s death. Dame Frevisse must thrust herself between these violent feuds, awakening dreams of her youth that she had believed long buried. Her very faith may be threatened, but Frevisse knows she must unravel a path to true salvation… before false raptures of lust bring ruination upon them all. EDGAR-AWARD NOMINEEPaperback - Kindle U.S. - Kindle UK - Nook Edition British Hardcover - Large Print Edition French Edition - German Edition

– Margaret

The winter solstice has arrived and, with it, the end of the Midwinter Blog Tour! But before we bring things to a close, we do have one last special event planned to celebrate the release of Circle of Witches: The Great Midwinter Blog Tour Quiz.

Here’s how it’s going to work: Below you’ll find a list of twelve questions. They can all be found within either the guest posts, interviews, or sample chapters of Circle of Witches which have been posted during the Midwinter Blog Tour. (And you can find links to all those posts on the blog tour’s home page.)

1. Answer the questions.

2. Send your answers to contest@margaretfrazer.com by December 31st, 2012.

3. A winner will be drawn at random from among those who answered the most questions correctly.

4. PRIZE: A signed copy of Circle of Witches + 1 e-book of your choice.

Wait… how am I going to sign an e-book?

I’m not. Surprise! Circle of Witches will be getting released as a trade paperback! (It was actually supposed to happen during the blog tour, but we’ve had some quality issues with the initial round of proofs and it’s been held up until we can make sure it gets printed the way it’s supposed to.) I’ll be posting more information as soon as I have it!

THE GREAT MIDWINTER BLOG TOUR QUIZ

1. How many novels have I written including Circle of Witches?

2. What were the two books I wrote while taking chemotherapy for the first time?

3. What are the names of Damaris’ cousins?

4. Where did I work as an assistant matron?

5. How old was I when I wrote my first story?

6. If there was a fire, what’s the one book I would save from my shelves?

7. What are the names of BOTH of Damaris’ uncles?

8. If I wrote a memoir, what would be its title?

9. What’s the book I said I found most useful as an author?

10. How long did I live in the Yorkshire dales?

11. How old was I when I read Shakespeare for the first time?

12. What is herb named “lily of the valley” used for according to Aunt Elspeth?

– Margaret

For the eleventh day of the Midwinter Blog Tour, the Hopeful Heroine takes us on a guided tour through the Yorkshire dales — the beauty-ridden countryside in which Circle of Witches is set. I had a truly wonderful time with this interview, wandering through places and memories that I love in an exploration of how those experiences shaped both my life and the novel. Please join us with a few joyful laughs.

– Margaret

Today’s pit stop for the Midwinter Blog Tour is Tiffany’s Bookshelf, where Tiffany is offering up a fresh review of Circle of Witches for you. If you’re still wondering whether or not the book is for you, check out what Tiffany has to say about it!

Meanwhile, the cover remake contest at the Authoress continues apace. We’ve also been seeing some really great discussions at our other stops and over on my Facebook page, so please click around and feel free to join in! Looking ahead, the blog tour will be wrapping up in a couple of days with the Great Midwinter Blog Tour Quiz, featuring questions about the tour and the book with another prize package give-away!

– Margaret

Let’s pop over to the Alexandrian, where Justin Alexander is Designing a Cover. Justin has been designing the covers for the e-books releases of my short stories and Dame Frevisse Mysteries, and he threw himself into the task of designing the cover for Circle of Witches. He created more than a dozen unique drafts of different covers for me to consider, slowly working through a dual process of elimination and refinement until we finally ended up with the very handsome and very dramatic piece which blesses the front cover of the book today.

– Margaret

Start with Chapter 1!

CHAPTER SIX

Autumn dwindled into early winter, with the last ploughing done and the sheep and cattle driven down from the farthest hill pastures. The weather continued wet and chill, and Damaris came down with the fevered cold and cough she had helped treat in others with her aunt all autumn. It took deeper hold with her than it had with most. She was moved from her high room to one near her aunt’s and uncle’s. There she was nursed through the nights, turn and turn about, by Aunt Elspeth, old Agnes, and Betty, for more than week. Even when the worst was past, she remained weak, only too happy to lie abed or – when she was stronger – sit at a window for hours, first in the bedchamber, then in the parlor, watching cloud-shadows shift along the winter-grayed dale or, in worse weather, the rain falling in icy sheets.

Her body’s exhaustion as it struggled to heal had exhausted her mind, too, but when she was well enough for visitors, she was stirred a little more aware by Irene’s company a few afternoons and even several visits from Lauran. Irene brought fashion magazines and chattered on about nothing in particular, requiring only slight answers from Damaris in response. Lauran, unexpectedly more thoughtful, came his first time with a book of ballads and read aloud to her – strong, stirring ballads of danger and daring; of desperate battles won or heroically lost; of perilous loves and fatal sword fights and wild rides to safety.

“Irene says I should be reading you softer stuff,” he told Damaris as he settled into a chair. “That these aren’t for ladies. Are you become a lady, Damaris?”

“No,” she said. She might be presently too weak to do even embroidery, but she was quite sure of that. So he had read to her by the hour, and when he was done she was no stronger in body, but her mind was stirred more awake than it had been since she fell ill.

He came twice more, the last time bringing not the ballads but a novel of dire doings in Scotland’s past. This he left with her after having read from it. “To keep your mind from having nothing but Irene’s fashions to think on,” he teased before giving her a surprising kiss on the cheek and leaving while she was still too startled by that to say anything. (more…)

Start with Chapter 1!

CHAPTER FIVE

For the next few weeks, however, Damaris found that her best chance of seeing Lauran again was not by way of visiting Irene, but by being out and about with Nevin and Kellan, since her cousins and Lauran were together more days than not.

“Making up for lost time,” Kellan told Damaris.

“And avoiding his mother,” Nevin added.

“And you two having no more sense when you’re around him than you ever had,” Aunt Elspeth said the evening her sons came to supper late and damp from climbing near a waterfall farther up the dale with Lauran who was going to be even later to his supper, having farther to go to home. “Let you be glad you weren’t with them today, Damaris.”

Uncle Russell shared a grin with both boys and said, “They’re sensible enough under it all. Lauran has been talking to me, and my guess is he’ll steady to his duties at Ashbrigg by autumn’s end, once these two are off to school again and stop bringing him into ill ways. There are brains in that handsome head of his, no matter what he pretends. Which is more than I’m willing to say about these two oafs of ours,” he added with a dire look at them that no one, including them, took seriously.

The trouble for Damaris was that when Lauran grew used to her sometimes being with Nevin and Kellan, he was the same toward her as they were, and it was impossible for her to remember he was handsome and think him charming while he and Kellan were trying to put a frog down the back of her dress and she was both avoiding it and throwing stream water at them. As the summer went through July, Lauran became less the handsome youth from the next manor and more like simply another cousin.

But she could not be always with her cousins and him. Instead, she often kept company with Irene, a kind of friendship growing between them. Their talk – mostly Irene’s talk – was of clothing and of all she had seen and the admirers she had had while traveling with her mother. Damaris could not quite understand how she could have had so very many admirers, being only two years older than Damaris and not even come out yet. Irene talked much of her coming out. “Not that it can be here in Glavedale,” she said more than once. “There’s simply no society here, just friends. It will have to be in York, with my aunt and uncle. They’ve a very fine house that will suit perfectly. I might even be able to use their carriage instead our shabby old one. Surely I will. They won’t want to be embarrassed by their niece!”

She also confessed to Damaris in absolute and utter confidence that she had romantic hopes of both Nevin and Kellan. “I’m awfully used to them, of course, but they are handsome and there’s no one else nearby at all.” (more…)

Sharon Kay Penman started as one of my very favorite authors and has become a very dear friend. For the Midwinter Blog Tour, we had a very long discussion of where the ideas that lay at the heart of Circle of Witches came from… and what the book means to me. Please join us for a thoughtful lingering as the blog tour marches on.

– Margaret

Start with Chapter 1!

CHAPTER FOUR

Damaris went to breakfast the next morning embarrassed by how promptly she had fallen to sleep and expecting to be teased, but her cousins and uncle were deep in talk of the sheep-shearing and the likely price of wool this season. They gave her smiles and nods as she joined them but nothing else. Damaris supposed they might be trying to be kind, but she thought resentfully they could have done that better by letting her go to the bonfire last night.

Aunt Elspeth was not there, and Damaris asked Betty, coming in with a plate of fresh-baked muffins, where she was.

“Already gone out to the garden,” Betty said, setting the muffins closer to Damaris than to her cousins, giving her first chance before their quick hands.  “Says you’re to come out when you’re done, Miss.”

With nothing to say about sheep or wool and refusing to ask about last night – especially whether Nevin or Kellan had danced with Virna – Damaris ate in silence, left the men still talking sheep, and went out to the garden that was now in the full-leaved richness of late June, the flowers of high summer blooming in their scarlets and yellows and a few blues among the varied greens of other plants that had finished their year’s glories or were still to come to them. Aunt Elspeth, in the far corner from the gate, looked around as Damaris entered and raised a dirtied hand in greeting.

Damaris joined her, scooped her skirts around herself, and sat down on the grass. She thought maybe her aunt would say something about last night, but rather than that and as if yesterday hadn’t happened at all, Aunt Elspeth began to talk about the herbs she was weeding, just as usual. Damaris still felt wronged, but being wronged did not lessen her pleasure in learning; she leaned close and listened.

“You see how it spreads by its root along the surface,” Aunt Elspeth said, holding aside the spear-pointed leaves of a thick-grown bed of lily of the valley. “It grows abundantly, given the chance, and is useful…”  She paused and looked at Damaris.

Pleased she remembered what her aunt had told her in the spring when the plants were flowering, Damaris said, “It’s useful against inflammation of the eyes, palsy, and apoplexy. It comforts the heart and vital spirits, and in quieting disorders of the head and nerves. It need be used in only very small amounts for any of those.”

“Do you know why?”

Damaris paused, then shook her head. “Why what?”

“Do you know why it should be used in only very small amounts?”

“Oh.  Because that’s all that’s needed and enough is better than too much. Waste not, want not.”

Damaris stated that with assurance. It was something her mother had often said about almost everything, from a serving of dessert to rising early rather than late in the morning.

“Yes,” Aunt Elspeth agreed, but then added, “And also because the entire plant is deadly poison if too much is taken.” (more…)