The Third Anniversary of #EHFA

by Debra Brown

Thank you! We have enjoyed your visits to the blog for a full three years. Your comments, Google plusing, and help with sending out links has been very much appreciated. At this writing we have had 1,759,084 pageviews since Day One, September 23, 2011.

Lindisfarne Castle, Holy Island*

Our all-time most visited posts, counting down, have been:

#10) Playing Doctor with the Queen by Anna Belfrage
#9) Samuel Leech's Account of War at Sea by Wanda Luce
#8) The Real Identities Behind the Books we Love by Karen V. Wasylowski
#7) Victorian Violence: Repelling Ruffians (Part Three) by Terry Kroenung
#6) Tudor England's Most Infamous Villain: Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich of Leez by Beth von Staats
#5) Stand And Deliver ... Your Tolls? The Rise and Fall of the Turnpikes by J.A. Beard
#4) Who Placed the Earliest Roman Footprint in Scotland? by Nancy Jardine
#3) Greeting Nobility by Marie Higgins
#2) Little Ease: Torture and the Tudors by Nancy Bilyeau
#1) Seven Surprising Facts About Anne of Cleves by Nancy Bilyeau

Congratulations to all of the authors above, and especially to Nancy with the #1 and 2 posts.

There are ever so many other wonderful posts by regularly contributing authors. We have several by Linda Root on the topic of Mary, Queen of Scots and the people and events surrounding her. Beth von Staats who runs the Queen Anne Boleyn blog focuses on the ministers of and people living during the time of Henry VIII. Helena P. Schrader is currently discussing people and events surrounding the Crusades, and Octavia Randolph takes us back to Anglo-Saxon times. Mark Patton shares information on Roman and pre-Roman Britain.

One of my favorite all-time posts remains that of Richard Denning with his haunting video of the Lord's Prayer in Old English.

I am seriously neglecting many other outstanding authors whose posts fill the pages of this blog, and I apologize that I cannot name them all. If you have not followed them here for long, please take a good look through for true tales from your favorite eras and authors. Please use the blog's search function. On social media sites, watch for our hashtag, #EHFA. It will take you to our group posts and projects as well as those of some of our members individually. And we'd love to have you join our Facebook group where we actively discuss history and historical fiction topics.

Mistletoe at Hampton Court Palace**

Last year at this date we released our anthology of selected posts from the first year of this blog titled Castles, Customs, and Kings: True takes by English Historical Fiction Authors edited by myself and M.M. Bennetts and published by Madison Street Publishing. CC&K has done well and continues to sell. Volume II is in the works.

We had at one time planned to announce the release of CC&K Volume II today, but tragedy cut into our path with the illness and death of M.M. Bennetts, one of the blog's beloved member-authors and a co-editor of the book. Her death has keenly saddened the group and the historical fiction community. Her witty posts and the extensive knowledge she imparted when we had questions on historical topics will be greatly missed. What more might she have taught us? Please browse these EHFA posts, most of which are her writing. I am sure you would also enjoy her own blog focusing mainly on Regency and Napoleonic (she hated him--that will clearly and amusingly come through) history.

If you have not read M.M.'s books, you are missing a treat. They can be found on Amazon US and UK.

Plans for a distinguished, annual M.M. Bennetts Historical Fiction Award at EHFA is in the works with Katherine Ashe as Chairman of the Board.

The following post is a tribute to M.M. Bennetts by her good friend, Nancy Bilyeau. Please read on.

Thank you for being a part of our lives, and I hope we will be invited to join you at tea every day!

Photo Attributions
*"LindisfarneCastleHolyIsland" by matthew Hunt - originally posted to Flickr as Holly Island 11. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LindisfarneCastleHolyIsland.jpg#mediaviewer/File:LindisfarneCastleHolyIsland.jpg
**"Mistletoe at Hampton Court Palace" by Jonathan Cardy - Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mistletoe_at_Hampton_Court_Palace.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Mistletoe_at_Hampton_Court_Palace.jpg