Cathie Dunn writes...

Join me on a little journey to my favourite country –  Scotland .  Despite my love for warmth and sunshine, my heart will always stay in the Scotland. I lived there for around 16 years, and I still miss it. The breathtaking beauty of the scenery and the fascinating history over many centuries combine to provide us with intriguing ruins and riveting tales. Buachaille Etive Mòr, Scottish Highlands Now you know why I – now that I live in France – still write fiction set in my previous home, my spiritual home. I think you can see why... Hut near Culloden field My  Highland Chronicles series is currently made up of Highland Arms , and A Highland Captive , but I currently have another two stories in the pipeline. All Highland Chronicles tales are standalone, set in different times, so can be read independently from each other. Watch this space...  Urquhart Castle, Loch Ness Highland Arms is a tale set on the shores of Loch Linnhe, my favou...

I'm delighted to welcome author Jen Black to my blog. Jen writes historical fiction , and today, she tells us a bit more about something vital to writing historicals: research! Over to Jen... ~~~ Research and Historicals The thing about writing historicals is that there is always research to be done. Not only on what happened when, to whom and why, but also on locations. Visiting the places that feature in stories is often illuminating. Victorian, Georgian, and even Tudor buildings are not too hard in the UK, but when I made a 4-day trip to Dublin, I discovered that the street I had chosen to house my heroine’s home was still there. I walked up and down Fishamble Street with my eyes as wide as they would go. Why was I so delighted? Because I had set my story in the eleventh century – almost a thousand years ago. The street looked nothing like the scene I had envisaged, but that didn’t spoil things for me. There might be ordinary brick buildings there now, but the sh...

Oooh, my favourite landscape is featured on My Place today: the Scottish Highlands! I love the sweeping valleys and steep hills, the open lochs, the absolute silence and those four-seasons-in-one days. I've not been back since I moved to France nearly three years ago, so having guests on my blog who write about them helps a little... In my view, you can never have enough of the Highlands, and therefore I'm thrilled to welcome historical romance author Emily Royal to My Place. I have downloaded her debut novel, Sins of the Sire, and I can't wait to get reading.  Over to Emily... ~~~ Living in Scotland I’m fortunate enough to be surrounded by stunning landscapes. Even more fortunately, I live in the shadow of a prominent hill. It’s not a mountain, but you can see it from the aeroplane window on the flight into Edinburgh Airport. My debut novel  The Sins of the Sire is set in the Highlands; a little further north from where I live, but a lot of the landscape aro...

It’s March. The sun is shining and daffodils are coming out of hiding (unless you have a husband who mows them down in his attempt at tidying the garden...), and where am I taking you? To the wild, windswept Scottish Highlands!  Sunday, 3rd March sees the release of A Highland Captive , the second tale in my Highland Chronicles series of standalone novels.  Like Highland Arms , A Highland Captive is a fast-paced historical adventure romance. But instead of the Jacobite rebellion setting, this second instalment is set in medieval Scotland during the Wars of Independence in the late 13th century.   Island of Eorsa So, to celebrate the upcoming release of the second tale, Highland Arms is free on Amazon for three days!  And if you like what you read, feel free to download A Highland Captive , too. It’s currently on pre-order at the reduced price of 99p / 99c , but not for long after release! So allow me to take you to the beautiful Scottish Highl...

The countdown is on!  Only four more days to go until A Highland Captive is let loose! I’m very excited, but also terrified. My first completely new release in nearly seven years. Gulp! A Highland Captive is the second tale in my Highland Chronicles series set in the beautiful Scottish Highlands, a region I miss very much. Books in the series are standalone, but that doesn’t mean that characters within them may not feature in another story in future. Watch this space! It’s already available on pre-order at Amazon , so if you fancy, feel free to grab it whilst it’s only 99p / 99c. On Sunday, the story will then magically appear on your Kindle, and you can dive straight in... I hope you'll enjoy it. My beta-readers have helped me immensely in the final stages of preparation, and it now reads much better. My thanks goes to them. You know who you are! But for now, enjoy the blurb, and an exclusive excerpt of the beginning of A Highland Captive . The small island...