MATILDA by Lise Arin: Guest Post & Exclusive Excerpt
Lise Arin
Mathilda Empress
Release Date March 14, 2017
Buy links:
Amazon Kindle: http://amzn.to/2iXkfR8
Amazon Hardback: http://amzn.to/2iyY8iq
B&N Nook: http://bit.ly/2jKwVrO
B&N Nook Hardback: http://bit.ly/2jMcKsy
Kobo: http://bit.ly/2kadkRJ
Blurb:
A novel of the medieval queen who lost her empire and her heart versus woman who almost conquered England Matilda, a twelfth-century Empress of the Holy Roman Empire and daughter of Henry I, is twenty-four years old and a widow. She returns to inherit her father’s double realm of England and Normandy, but is promptly married against her will to Geoffrey, a minor continental nobleman. Absent from England at the time of her father’s death, Matilda loses her throne to her cousin, Stephen, despite their ongoing and secret love affair. For almost twenty years, anarchy reigns throughout the empire, and their illicit passion fluctuates between hatred and obsession. The only hope is the Empress’ growing faith and their illegitimate son, whose rightful claim to the English throne could finally halt the bloody, endless war. In the vein of Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl, Matilda Empress illuminates the real history of the early English monarchs, while exploring what is at stake when a strong woman at the center of great upheaval refuses to play by the rules laid out for her.
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31573848-matilda-empress
Delish, Devine and All Mine, Exclusive Excerpt
We traverse the channel, from Romney to Boulogne, on a small fleet of vessels. Traveling on my boat, Stephen boasts to me of his city and castle, and the welcome that he will offer our entourage. Neither one of us mentions Maud’s name, though it is her childhood home that will shelter and restore us. Falling in with our serenity, the water is as calm as a stagnant pond. There is no sickness for anyone on board. Even Gerta forgets to chasten me, as she enjoys the placid trip.
Just now, my cousin and I stood alongside the wooden railing, enjoying the view, sipping ale ladled from a barrel. Robert crosses with us on the same ship, the better to spy upon our trifling, and all the while he darted reproving glances in our direction.
Stephen withdrew below, and Gloucester and I remained alone on the deck. I tried to tease him, not to offend him, but to overthrow the pall that he casts on our merrymaking. “Your long face is out of sorts with the high humor of our band.”
The earl did not smile. “The climate is indeed temperate, but the somber purpose of our journey should not be forgotten.”
Why must he depress my own spirits, titillated by the clean air, the gentle breeze, and Stephen so near to me? “These past days, I have been counting my blessings.”
Robert’s light eyes were clouded. “I had hoped that this pilgrimage would renew your strength of purpose as our Lady of the English. Make these days of reflection.”
I stretched my arms out, arching my back. “I prefer to look neither forward, nor back, but to live in the moment. I am not yet ready to resign myself to the injustice of my royal duty.”
Gloucester put his back to the wind and to the expanse of the sea and sky. “How can you resent your fate, one that I would have embraced so willingly? I cannot help but notice, Empress, that you have been given so much, yet you still ask for more.”
The serious earl darkened my mood. I sighed. “I will try to adapt myself to circumstances. But today you cannot dissuade me from bliss. Do you not know what it is to pine for the caresses of another?”
“Lust and obsession do not come well recommended, not even in the Song of Songs.”
I shrugged my shoulders at his prudery. “Express your affection to your countess; your worthy passion will honor and please her.”
“A wife is not the usual partner in such foolery, or the source of such misery.”
If Robert had hoped to take divert my thoughts, he has succeeded. I wonder with whom such a courtly knight might be entranced. Gossip always places Gloucester above suspicion. Amabel’s beauty and her husband’s probity seem to guarantee connubial bliss. My brother is handsome; his lank, dark locks, shrewd green eyes, and small mouth assemble harmoniously. His regal features are too fine and his hands are too small for my taste, but he personifies distinction. Could the earl be infatuated with Queen Adeliza? Both are models of virtue; I assume that their stateliness has never been sullied by wrongdoing.
Delish, Devine and All Mine, Guest Post: My Ten Favorite Novels
People, readers, often ask one another for a list of favorite books. I find this an enormously hard question. I am a former English professor; there are countless novels that have moved me deeply – there had to be, or I couldn’t have happily studied literature for ten years, let alone continue to teach it. Still, I do search for a similar sort of story, decade after decade, and shelves are not so eclectic as most people’s.
Everything I love enough to re-read, and to keep, is set before World War II; everything has a central female character; everything features long descriptions of picturesque gardens and sublime forests, roasted meats and mulled wines, glittering jewels and finely-worked clothing, expensive horses, crowded ballrooms, roaring fireplaces, drafty castles and elegant town-houses. The characters in one of “my books” dress for dinner, consider writing a letter to be the work of an entire afternoon, suffer for love and regularly discuss the thorny details of a complex etiquette system as if their lives depended on it. The consumption of tea is a given, every day, like clockwork. There is very little physical violence, but the characters sustain a lot of emotional damage. In essence, my preferred stories are all novels of manners. And many are romances, although I prefer an unhappy ending, the better to continue unspooling and unraveling the characters’ fates for myself.
Guest Post: My Ten Favorite Novels
Ok, then, ten favorites. If I were forced to name names, here we go: Portrait of a Lady and The Golden Bowl (Henry James), Can You Forgive Her and The Small House at Allington and The Eustace Diamonds (Anthony Trollope), Mansfield Park and Persuasion (Jane Austen), The Volcano Lover (Susan Sontag), Memoirs of Hadrian (Marguerite Yourcenar), Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley), Forever Amber (Kathleen Winsor), The House of Mirth and Custom of the Country and The Buccaneers (Edith Wharton), Evelina (Fanny Burney), Vanity Fair (William Thackeray), Middlemarch (George Eliot), Possession (A. S. Byatt), Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy). Then again, I love the work of Honoré de Balzac and George Sand and Graham Greene and Somerset Maugham.
Nope, I can’t do it.
About the Author:
Lise Arin has a BA from Harvard and a PhD from Columbia. She is thrilled to be publishing her first novel of historical fiction, MATILDA EMPRESS, on March 14, 2017. She lives in New York City with her husband and children.
Author Links:
Website: Www.lisearin.com Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16292050.Lise_Arin Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Lise-Arin/e/B01N90YAVF/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisearin/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lise.arin/
