Terrie

Saw John’s news, but congratulations to Mad Iguana too – what an achievement for you both.

Fab news. I wish both of you could win, and I certainly hope you both make the shortlist.

Brainstorming here. Like Squidge, I love your working title. Limelight does nothing for me. Sorry.

Maybe turn things around:

The Improbable Life of an Ulster Storyteller – a Lyttle blarney goes a long way.

Or

Are you sitting comfortably? Then let me tell you a Lyttle story.

Or

Hold The Front Page – the improbable life of an Ulster storyteller

First off, I prefer your original working title – Limelight doesn’t say much to me, but the play on words makes me wonder who Lyttle was, and what sort of ‘long way’ was it? Journey? Promotion? Makes it sound quite comedic, too. It would certainly attract interest, regardless of whether anyone knows of your ancestor or not.

With your subtitle,…[Read more]

Wow! Saw John’s news but didn’t realise Mad was in the longlist too! Flippin’ well done to both of you xx

What lovely news. Congratulations both of you.

Thank you, Jane!

Many thanks Jane and Thea! If anyone who has read it could consider leaving a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads, that would be wonderful. Thanks for your review Squidge, delighted you liked it

Thanks, Jim. And I’m so glad you enjoyed the Oath and Crown duology 😊

Most probably true, Richard. There’s a great youtube video showing people wearing full plate armour doing somersaults. Squires were required to master all the courtly and manly arts – combat, riding, tumbling, swimming, dancing etc – and often practised all of them in full armour. (Well probably not swimming because then there would have been far…[Read more]

I think you’re probably right there, Daed. I doubted my own findings so I consulted a few horsey people (breeders, riders etc) A horse can comfortably carry a third of it’s own weight. You’re average destrier of 15 hands weighed 1200 lbs. So they could comfortably carry 360lbs.
Assuming the average height and weight of a knight was 5’7″ and 150lbs…[Read more]

I wonder if there was a bit of modern extrapolation going on with the notion of destriers being really huge, based on the misconception of the weight of armour? I admit I thought they were vast until I looked into it. If it was thought that armoured knights needed to be winched onto their horses, it would need to be a seriously hefty horse

Thanks, Sandra 🙂 re destriers – apparently the modern shire/ cart/ draught horses are descended from them. Basically they bred some warhorses too big to have enough speed for battle and that’s where the latter great horses come from. I too was surprised to learn that a Medieval warhorse was usually only 15 – 16 hands high. (Apparently I also…[Read more]

Well done, Jules and thanks for the horse breed check list, correcting my belief that a destrier was a sort of fast carthorse. I’m a big fan of Dorothy Dunnett so this will be added to my list.

Thanks, everyone 🙂

I am just about halfway through writing the second book now so the encouragement is much appreciated.

@JaneShuff – that has to be one of the best TBRs 😀

@Bella – I thought I was being flippant when I spoke about lads marrying their mother-in-laws, but having checked, there were cases where families got split up and the…[Read more]

Brilliant! Loved the idea of ‘what horse’…and the 14th C sex manual. 😉

Looking forward to reading. Well done, Jules x

Excellent.

I do wonder how anyone can marry their mother-in-law accidentally or otherwise – rather puts the lie to all those joke, though.

Congratulations, Jules. Sounds like a brilliant book – I’m off to buy it now. And thanks for all the tongue in cheek info. Made me laugh as well as being interesting.

This is a fantastic book. A perfect weekend read. You’ll learn a heck of a lot about the Peasant’s Revolt but won’t realise until the end because you’ll have been so absorbed in the story