Friday 17 December 2010

“She will not be the strangest creature in the kingdom.”

“No, fortunately we have Leofric for that.”

—Egelric and Alred, September 1078, “Alred gets an invitation”

Thursday 9 December 2010

“There’s no telling what they’ll do! Girls are completely crazy, I find.”

—The Old Man, “Conrad goes too far”

There is a special challenge in writing interesting female characters in historical fiction—at least in places and periods where women were not on equal footing with men, which is pretty much everywhere, at every time.

Tuesday 7 December 2010

She was three years older now and knew better than to look for romance in tragedy.

— Lady Gwynn, “Gwynn is the only witness”

I saved this list for third because I wanted to get the “Greatest Tear-​jerkers” and “Hottest Moments” out of the way. Otherwise, how could I do a list of “Most Romantic” without putting “Alred sees no poetry” at the top of it? How could I get away without mentioning “Malcolm goes out into the rain”?

Friday 3 December 2010

“It is simply another word for romantic. An even more romantic word for romantic.”

— Gwynn, “Gwynn gives another word”

You know, there is not much good, clean sex in this story.

Wednesday 1 December 2010

Vivien Leigh said, “It’s much easier to make people cry than to make them laugh.” But Vivien Leigh was an actress, not a writer.