Category: Historical Fiction

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Tailored Truths Launches on the 12th September 2025!

Nancy Jardine is delighted to announce that Tailored Truths, Book 2 of her Silver Sampler Series, set in Victorian Era Scotland, will launch in eBook format on the 12th September 2025. eBook copies can be Pre-Ordered from Amazon before the launch date at the special bargain price of £1.99! (Since this second part of Margaret Law’s life story is a lovely long read, the price after the launch will normally be much higher.)

Tailored Truths, Book 2, follows on from when Margaret’s job as a private tutor in Edinburgh tragically ends, different traumas having lately occurred which have left the almost sixteen-year-old Margaret reeling. Little Rachel Duncan, whom Margaret had been tutoring for more than three years, has died but so has Margaret’s mother in Perth, a mother she hasn’t seen much of since she moved to Edinburgh as a twelve-year-old, to work in the Duncan house.

Tailored Truths, Book 2, unfolds with Margaret in Dundee , Scotland, staying in the same lodging house as her best friend Jessie. Jessie has moved to Dundee to locate her degenerate father and since she can no longer work as a kitchen maid at the Duncan House in Edinburgh, Jessie has decided to remain in Dundee and seek employment.

Margaret needs to find a new job, quite desperately, since her savings are meagre. Another tutoring job will be ideal but can she secure such a wonderful post as she had before? If not tutoring again, what kind of job can she find – because her survival depends on her earning her own money?

Tailored Truths meanders through Margaret’s next decade as she forges a life of self-sufficiency relying on her own initiatives since she has no parents to fall back on, and no family home to live in. Sometimes her educational aspirations are almost fulfilled but at other times she falls back on other practical skills to survive.

Does Margaret remain in Dundee? Can she shed her reticence to trust in a personal relationship with a potential husband, since her upbringing hasn’t exactly given her confidence regarding loving adult partnerships? And how can she maintain her sisterly bond with Jessie if they are not living near each other?

Readers of Book 2 will find answers to the above… and a whole lot more!

Copies of Tailored Truths can be Pre-ordered using the link HERE

Wishing you happy reading!

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The Silver Sampler Series is launching soon!

The first book of a brand new series- The Silver Sampler Series – is coming soon from the pen of Ocelot Press author Nancy Jardine!

Look out for the eBook launch of Novice Threads on May 15th 2024. The novel is currently on Pre-Order at Amazon and can be ordered at the special launch price of £1,99 (equiv.) using this link HERE

[paperback details to follow]

The setting for Nancy’s new Silver Sampler Series is Scotland, during the Victorian period. This is quite a departure from her Celtic Fervour Series set in 1st Century Roman Britain. Researching the Victorian era has been a joy and Nancy has also had the satisfaction of writing in a slightly different style. The Celtic Fervour Series is largely historical adventure fiction, whereas the new Silver Sampler Series is historical saga fiction, with Book 1 also being a coming of age novel.

Meet Margaret Law.

A thirst for education.  Shattered dreams. Fragile relations.

1840s Scotland

Being sent to school is the most exhilarating thing that’s ever happened to young Margaret Law. She sharpens her newly-acquired education on her best friend, Jessie Morison, till Jessie is spirited away to become a scullery maid. But how can Margaret fulfil her visions of becoming a schoolteacher when her parents’ tailoring and drapery business suddenly collapses and she must find a job?

Salvation from domestic drudgery – or never-ending seamstress work – comes via Jessie whose employer seeks a tutor for his daughter. Free time exploring Edinburgh with Jessie is great fun, but increasing tension in the household claws at Margaret’s nerves.

Margaret also worries about her parents’ estrangement, and the mystery of Jessie’s unknown father. When tragedy befalls the household in Edinburgh, Margaret must forge a new pathway for the future – though where will that be?

***

Nancy is absolutely delighted with the cover for Novice Threads and hopes you love it, too!

by Nancy Jardine

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That’s Not Me! Vanessa Couchman Talks About Her Characters

Ocelot author Miriam Drori has started a super series on her blog, in which authors discuss whether (or not) their characters are based on them or on people they know.

Fellow Ocelot Vanessa Couchman appears today, talking about her historical fiction, how she finds and develops her characters and why readers she knows sometimes see her in them

Read more here:

That’s Not Me – Vanessa Couchman

More Ocelot authors will be appearing on Miriam’s blog over the next few weeks.

Copyright © Vanessa Couchman, Miriam Drori, Ocelot Press 2023. All rights reserved.

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April A to Z!

This post is by Nancy Jardine

April is the Cruellest Month according to the poet T S Elliot, but it doesn’t need to be!

Approaching April is a time that reminds me of an event that I didn’t think I’d be engaging in ever again…since the last time I did an April A to Z Blogging Challenge in 2019!

When I did my first April Blog A to Z Challenge, a decade ago, I officially joined hundreds of other bloggers who had also signed up. The plan back then (2013) was to make each April blog post visible to the other participants, but also to the wider community. The ethos was very much read as many other blog posts as possible and share the URLs widely as much as you could. The idea was to post a blog item each day in April, bar most Sundays, the title of the first one beginning with A, and so on…covering the English alphabet. Many bloggers chose a particular theme to centre the posts around, though other writers posted random articles.

Since those first years, when the April A to Z Challenge was an activity that was an extremely active one in the Indie author world, I’ve challenged myself without signing up to anything formal. This year is yet again a personal challenge, mainly intended to resurrect my blog which has been withering for many, many months.

Most of my April Challenges to date have been Roman themed, a reflection of my Celtic Fervour Series research. However, since my current ‘Writing In Progress’ is set in the Victorian era, my theme is unsurprisingly Victorian Scotland – the location of my current work.

Short items should appear on my blog every single day beginning with an ‘A’ post on Saturday 1st April 2023 and ending with a ‘Z’ post on the 26th April. This should give me time at the end of the month to do a round-up of progress, and/or add any other research themes I’ve been tackling as I write.

If interested, look out for those posts on my BLOG

Enjoy April, and especially if you’re reading the excellent book selections offered by Ocelot Press.  

Best Regards,

Nancy Jardine

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A New Historical Romance Forthcoming from Jennifer C. Wilson

We’re excited to announce a new border reiver historical romance from Jennifer C. Wilson. The Warriors’ Prize will be launched in June and is available for pre-order on Amazon Kindle.

Stirling Castle, 1498
Visiting court for the first time since her father’s death, Lady Avelina Gordon finds herself drawn to the handsome warrior, Sir Lachlan MacNair. But as a woman who has seen too many of her friends lose everything for ‘love’, she keeps her heart guarded.

Castle Berradane, 1502
Lady Avelina is unceremoniously told to expect her new husband within the month. The man in question: Sir Lachlan.

Lachlan arrives in Berradane carrying his own secret, and a determination to control his heart. As attraction builds between the couple, they find themselves under attack and fearful of a traitor in their midst.

Can the teamwork they’ve shown in adversity so far pull them through one final test, and will they find the strength to risk their hearts, as well as their lives?

You can pre-order the Kindle edition now, and it will download automatically onto your e-reader on publication day, 16th June. Nothing to pay until then!

Pre-order The Warriors’ Prize on Amazon

And, if you haven’t already read Jennifer’s earlier border reiver romance, set in 1470s Northumberland, The Raided Heart, you’ll find that on Amazon, too, in Kindle and paperback editions.