Prizes galore . . .
Wonderful prizes for the Masked Ball on May 1st . . . each of the competitions on the night will have a beautiful prize:
Wonderful prizes for the Masked Ball on May 1st . . . each of the competitions on the night will have a beautiful prize:
Before I add another chapter to The Masked Ball, this time from myself, I must tell you that my Niccolo de Fleury is a mere caricature, a light pencil sketch, even a cartoon. He was loosely inspired by the real Nicholas van der Poele, alias Niccolo de Fleury, who is one of the most extraordinary creations in the world of Historical Fiction. Nicholas van der Poele, (de Fleury) is a blonde Renaissance man from Bruges with a stupendous intellect that enables him to range across all the political, economic and cultural demesnes of Europe in his time. Dorothy Dunnett wrote 8 books about him and I love every single one of them and would like to say without fear of correction that I believe she is the greatest historical fiction writer the world has ever seen. Equally my Sir Percy is a caricature of the most excellent Sir Percy Blakeney of The Scarlet Pimpernel and if either of my characters prompt you as reader to dash off and read of the real characters in the afore-mentioned books then I will, quite simply, have done my job. Having said that, if ever there was a movie made of The House of Niccolo, I can actually imagine Richard Armitage in the role as he has proved himself time and again through North and South, Robin Hood, Spooks and no doubt with his upcoming and more contemporary TV dramas that he could pull off the convoluted and intricate character that is Nicholas van der Poele. I must also add, if anything has really inspired me in this whole Masked Ball story, it’s the perfect creations from Bo Press Miniature Books
I am still completely snowed under with edits, so my other dear long-distance friend, Rebecca Bingham, has agreed to guest-blog. She, along with Pat, has also agreed to help organise the Ball which is proving more fun than we could possibly have imagined and heavens knows its imagination that is oiling the whole machine.
I’m still frantic editing Paperweights (again), so I’m leaving my blog in the very capable hands a long-distance friend of mine who is going to be helping me run the Masked Ball. She is a former costumier
I visited my tiny local library today and came across a giant book (one that just fitted into my bike basket), called The Map Book edited by Peter Barber. Published in GB in 2005, it is the quintessential history of maps and their making and has the most extraordinary collection illustrated in its pages.