All posts by NewEngland_Muse

I'm a traditionally and self published author. I write in the genre of children and YA at the moment but working my way up to adults. I'm a sports loving, photo taking gal who loves to sing/dance to my own enjoyment. I love to laugh even at myself. I am also owned by 8 birds and 2 hamsters, and yes they know it. :)
Book Review, Guest Blog, Read

Guest Blog: Jo Ann Mason

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Book Review:

A Fool’s Tale by Nicole Galland

A Fool’s Tale is an extraordinary mix of real life history and romantic fiction set in the tumultuous world of 10th century Wales. Themes of loyalty, betrayal and survival are the driving force behind this spellbound telling of the trials and tribulations of Gwirion (Gir-EE-on), King Maelgwin’s (Mile- gwin) fool and the uncommon yet very powerful relationship between them. The two men are inseparable, bound together since childhood by extenuating circumstances, and are almost never without the other. But when the King marries young Isabel, in hopes to form an alliance with his long-standing Norman rival Roger Mortimer, that bond is tested beyond its limits. In no time Gwirion becomes caught in the middle of a perilous love triangle that puts all three lives in danger.

Isabel knew beyond a doubt that when she was allowed to marry it would be for political purposes. However, in her the back of her mind was the wish for the kind of romance she read about Chretien de Troyes’s Lancelot and the Round Table. King Maelgwin is young and handsome and for a brief moment a spark of hope for a happy marriage blossoms in her mind until she sees how much more Gwirion means to the King than she does. She struggles to fit in to the Welsh culture, which her maid servant Adele calls barbaric. Though the King consistently urges her to learn to like Gwirion the bitterness between her and the Fool grows daily. Her relationship with the King, his habit of inviting his serving girls to his chambers, Gwirion’s constant immodest and offensive foolery and her inability to produce an heir after a horrific miscarriage all take their toll on her. Until she and Gwirion are imprisoned together by one of the King’s disloyal allies.

King Maelgwin is handsome, brave and bold as a king should be. However, he is manipulative, selfish and quite often over indulgent when it comes to Gwirion. To the King Isabel is nothing more than a political tool, one he must pacify yet control to get what he needs. Most of the time he treats her like a child that he doesn’t really want but must tolerate. He encourages Gwirion to torment the Queen with his distasteful behavior. He, himself, torments her with backhanded comments about her being a Mortimer, belittling her ability to rule in his place and his nightly affairs with Madrun, one of the kitchen girls. Maelgwin is at times cold and exceedingly cruel yet at times you find yourself completely taken in by his charm.

Gwirion is an orphan and due to events that happened in their childhood he is beholding to Maelgwin for eternity and the King never ceases to remind him of this. He is an accomplished harpist which is the one good quality that Isabel allows him, in the beginning. He, along with his friend Corr, a midget, commits horrendously inappropriate pranks in public, often humiliating visiting lords, especially Isabel’s relatives. Although he comes and goes throughout the castle and the village as he pleases, he belongs to the King and there is nothing he can do in the way of living his own life without Maelgwin’s permission.

This story is a must read for historical romance lovers. The characters will make laugh and cry and become infuriated throughout the book. Ms. Galland provides you with a pronunciation guide for the Welsh language. But it won’t take long to acclimate your tongue to the names of these delightful characters.

By Jo Ann Mason

Website— http://cerridewnspeaks.blogspot.com

Or find me on Facebook- http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Jo-Ann-Teresa-Mason-Fans/368961286452284

Frenzy, NaNoWriMo 2012, Writing

NaNoWriMo 2012 Update

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This is an update on how I am doing on NaNo 2012. At the end of the first week I have a word count of 25,010. Pretty amazing right? I am surprising myself in so many ways. I guess this speaks volumes for planning this frenzy properly prior to embarking on it. Last year I decided three days before I was doing it. How I won is just pure speculation on anyone’s part. But this year I tried to prepare as much as possible. A lot of things got pushed to the side or rescheduled.

Can I keep up the pace remains to be seen. I will have days where the word count or words will not come to me. There will be days where life calls and I can’t avoid it. But I am hopeful that I can accomplish this madness if I just remain focus.

Wish me luck. I will never turn that down.

NaNoWriMo 2012, Writing frenzy

NaNoWriMo 2012

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Last year I decided a week before NaNoWriMo that I would be participating. Can we all yell big mistake? Not that I was trying this writing frenzy for the first time but that I was very unprepared. I did win and am quite proud of that. But this year the decision was made to be more prepared.

I would wake up at 5am to write my 1667-2000 daily words that is needed to get the 50k done in time. That almost landed me in the hospital with my illnesses acting up. This year while I still get up early as a norm will just do half and leave the rest for later.  I still tried to keep up with this blog not wanting it to dwindle to a halt after all the work I had done on it. This year I have recruited some guest bloggers for the month. I thought I would have to beg people to do this. What I found was a group of people willing to help me during this time frame. It is a win for the both of us. For me it keeps my blog alive and for them it brings their name out to a new audience. The kindness of these people makes me smile.

I wrote every thing by hand. That is my method of writing my books and short stories, pen and paper. But what I ended up with at the end of the month was a novel that needed to be typed up. Not doing that this year, I will try to type this first hand and see where it takes me.  Last year the only idea I had on the novel was a one paragraph synopsis. This year I have envision the entire book in my head and have made notes.

On the side I review books from BookSneeze and from authors who contact me. This year there will be no review. I will read the books that are in the queue for me to read but the reviews will wait until December. Meetings has been set up for members of my writing group and myself to have time to work on NaNo. The buddy system does help for people who are doing this alongside me get what I am trying to do.  What is nice is people have understood when I told them the reasons why I am doing all of this.

I really want to have back to back wins on this so I will be pushing myself. Will I be able to get the magical 50k words in one month I am not sure. But I surely will give it a good try.