Happy Sunday! Pull up a chair, click the above pics to see other virtual reading rooms.. what are you reading this week??
First .. some Blog Housekeeping and announcing winners of March's giveaways.
This week I had two giveaways end this week. I have randomly selected the winner from the qualifying entries (no email address= no entry) and the 2 winners of The Stolen Crown by Susan Higginbotham are:
The winner of 31 Bond Street by Ellen Horan is:
HEATHER!Congratulations! Emails will be sent, and the winners have 48 hours from the email to respond or I will choose the next on the list.
How about a new giveaway for my loyal followers?
Up for Giveaway courtesy of little ol' me are:
What Would Jane Austen Do? By Laurie Brown
See my review here (ARC from May 2009)
Fireworks Over Toccoa by Jeffrey Stepakoff
See my review
(ARC April 2010)
If you are a Newsletter Subscriber, you will see Important information right here in your newsletter on how to enter for this giveaway.
Onwards to current happenings in my blogosphere...
The Historical Fiction Bloggers Round Table Event with Elizabeth Chadwick has just wrapped up. I enjoyed myself for this one, reading and reviewing both The Greatest Knight and The Scarlet Lion for the event, as well as writing an article titled "William Marshal In Ireland". I also had a guest post from Elizabeth Chadwick herself, explaining the Curse that was put on William Marshal's family. We had a giveaway for both of these books at the main site which concluded this weekend as well. I really enjoy the medieval era, and learning the stories of William Marshal's family has propelled me into a search for more books on the family and specifically his wife's family in Ireland. I look forward to learning more about them in the historical romances by Mary Pershall.
I've got a busy week coming for you guys, with reviews posting so I can work around the HFBRT busy schedule, so they'll be squished into a single week, but I hope you have time to come back for a visit. (SO glad the Round Tablers are taking a summer break!!)
The book that I gushed about here last week was The Kitchen House, and after confiming I have a guest post coming and a giveaway I decided it was finally time to publish the review which can be found here. Stay tuned for the Guest post and giveaway coming up hopefully this week as well. I finished reading The Founding by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, and my review will post this coming week, which is about a fictional Morland Dynasty inserted into the plot of the Wars of the Roses. I will also post a review of Within the Hollow Crown by Margaret Campbell Barnes on Monday, and this was a wonderfully inspiring look at Richard II. Coming up awful quick is the Claude and Camille HFBRT on April 6 which is why I am slamming you with reviews this week. But hey, what am I here for, right? And right now I am reading the fabulous Christine Trent's The Queen's Dollmaker. This is my first foray into an official Marie Antoinette read! Finally!
For those that read and enjoyed Higginbotham's The Stolen Crown, there is a new guest post by Susan at Wonders and Marvels that gives an interesting tid-bit into Harry Stafford aka Buckingham's son, Edward Stafford.
In more book news, I have decided that the month of May I am going to start to catch up on some older books that I have really been neglecting to read and review which will go nicely with two new ones that I have in my pile right now.
I am going to use May as the kickoff month of Tudor Mania at The Burton Review. Some reviews you can look forward to (hopefully!!) will be Secrets of the Tudor Court by D.L. Bogdan, No Will But His by Sarah A. Hoyt, Jane Seymour by Elizabeth Norton, Mary Boleyn by Josephine Wilkinson, The Lady Penelope by Sally Varlow and The Six Wives of Henry VIII by David Loades. Hopefully I won't be ready to pull my hair out with so many Tudor themed reads. But I think that is a good mix of fiction and non-fiction and these are all reads that I do want to read for my personal entertainment and not just must-review reads.
If I find that I cannot fit it in..I will carry over to June! But my goal is to read them all for May. And I have some more I could read for June and July.. I know many people are either "challenged-out" or "Tudored-out", but I decided to host a TUDOR CHALLENGE!
I have set up a "main landing page" post for it with all of the details, and then you can comment with links to your current Tudor reviews for any Tudor books you have reviewed in May, June and July. And then at the end of July, I will choose the member of the challenge who reviewed the most Tudor books in that period and offer up a book prize of their choice up to $15 in value from The Book Depository since that is FREE SHIPPING WORLDWIDE. That way, International Readers can join in the LinkFest and compete for the prize.
The Tudor Mania Challenge includes both non-fiction and fictional books set between 1485 and 1603, in England. Reviews must be around 300 words or more in length (to make sure everyone is playing fair).
The Official Post and link up page has been created here. You can start reading your books now, and then get your reviews ready to post for May, June and/or July, when the linky widget is open to review links.
And finally this week, you can (Watch Online starting 3/29) look forward to Masterpiece Classic which returns Sunday night, 3/28 8:00 PM Central!!
For a limited time starting March 29, see Sharpe's Challenge in its entirety, or select your favorite scenes.
Soldier-adventurer Richard Sharpe (Sean Bean) comes out of retirement to find a MIA officer (his old friend Patrick Harper) and to quash a rebellion in British India. Sharpe faces shifting allegiances, the conniving seduction of Madhuvanthi (Padma Lakshmi, Top Chef) and an explosive confrontation with an old foe. Will this be Sharpe's ultimate challenge? Sharpe's Challenge is based on the characters created by novelist Bernard Cornwell.
I am there!!
See you on the blogs this week, let's see if you can keep up! =)
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