More about Locations

I discovered a fabulous website for maps held at the National Library of Scotland: http://maps.nls.uk/towns/ I used it for the historical novels set in Edinburgh and Stirling in the mid 1540s. The magnification on most of the maps allowed me to see individual buildings on the old High Street most clearly.

Right now I am going through a third or fourth edit - yes, I've lost count - of my FOURTH book about Matho Spirston. I really did not know that the lowly guard captain who helps the hero escape death in FAIR BORDER BRIDE would stay with me as long as he has, but once I'd finished writing FBB, the critique group I belonged to suggested that Matho was character with potential and why didn't I make him the focus of my next book. So I did.

Since then he has survived being captured during a kidnap attempt on the infant Mary Queen of Scots in ABDUCTION and started a new career as courier to Sir Thomas Wharton in QUEEN'S COURIER. By the end of the book, the Dowager Queen, has decided he can be of value to her.

At the present time he is riding through France with two young people he has befriended, trying to discover who has disrupted the Dowager's correspondence and how he can put it right for her. So far, the title is COURIER EN FRANCE, but that may very well change. Will he stay with me? I have no idea; but there are times when I begin to think he was a real 16^th century person. There was a Matho Spirston – the name appears in the rotas for guard duty in Corbridge when Scots attacks were expected daily, or rather, nightly; but I never found anything more than the name. So in a way, he was real.

Apologies to anyone who tried to read this  and found the formatting somewhat crazy. I only discovered how odd it looked by chance, and have now re-loaded it. Hope it reads OK now!