I love, love, love the Elizabethan period!  The music, the clothes, the houses, the sense of adventure and discovery, the poetry—it’s all so exciting.  Writing the Kate Haywood Mysteries lets me live in the time period for a few hours every day, see it through Kate’s eyes, talk to Queen Elizabeth, sweep around in farthingales and ruffs—and then come back to my own cozy house, with running water and electricity.  The best of both worlds! My love of the Elizabethan era started when I was about ten years old, and found a magical box full of paperbacks at my grandmother’s house one summer.  That box was full of wonders, and started me on a lifelong love of reading and history.  Jane Austen’s Emma; Jane Eyre;  Little Women; 1960s Harlequins set in mysterious places with names like Cornwall, where young, innocent secretaries encountered dark, brooding millionaires; Victoria Holt Gothics with crumbling castles and dark, brooding dukes (who may or may not have killed their wives).  These treasures kept me gloriously busy for weeks. One of the best finds was a Barbara Cartland story called Elizabethan Lover.  I was no newcomer to Cartland novels by then.  My grandmother had an endless supply…

Fresh Pick for Sunday, May 4th, 2014 is MURDER AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY by Amanda Carmack #HistoricalMystery Elizabethan Mystery Signet April 2014 On Sale: April 1, 2014 304 pages ISBN: 0451415124 EAN: 9780451415127 Kindle: B00F9EZBQU Paperback / e-Book Add to Wish List Mystery Historical Buy A Copy Amazon.com Kindle BN.com Powell’s Books Indiebound Murder At Westminster Abbey by Amanda Carmack 1559. Elizabeth is about to be crowned queen of England and wants her personal musician Kate Haywood to prepare music for the festivities. New to London, Kate must learn the ways of city life…and once again school herself as a sleuth. Life at the center of the new royal court is abuzz with ambition and gossip—very different from the quiet countryside, where Kate served Elizabeth during her exile. Making her way among the courtiers who vie for the new queen’s favor, Kate befriends Lady Mary Everley. Mary is very close to Elizabeth. With their red hair and pale skin, they even resemble each other—which makes Mary’s murder all the more chilling. The celebrations go on despite the pall cast over them. But when another redhead is murdered, Kate uncovers a deadly web of motives lurking just beneath the polite court banter,…