#EHFA Celebrates Our Fifth Anniversary!

by Debra Brown

Thank you all for still being with us! The EHFA community is pleased to have posted five years of fascinating British history and introduced many historical fiction authors and historians (and their books) to time travelers everywhere.

There were changes afoot this year. I left off full time management of the blog and related work thanks to the assistance of a team of editors, Annie Whitehead, Anna Belfrage, EM Powell, Char Newcomb, and Cryssa Bazos. They have put many hours into keeping things going, for which the rest of us are most grateful. All but Annie and I met up at the HNS Conference in Oxford to deal with the stress....

Warrior in the woods
Copyright Matthew Harffy

Our most popular new post of 2016 was Swords, Seaxes and Saxons by Matthew Harffy. Do read it if you have not already, assuming you are intrigued by seventh century battle gear.

Our all time most popular post has not changed in three years. Seven Surprising Facts About Anne of Cleves by Nancy Bilyeau has had 51,950 views, far surpassing the second, Little Ease and the Tower of London, also by Ms. Bilyeau with 11,529. Other hot topics include Who Placed the Earliest Roman Footprint in Scotland? by Nancy Jardine, Stand And Deliver ... Your Tolls? The Rise and Fall of the Turnpikes by J.A. Beard, Victorian Violence: Repelling Ruffians by Terry Kroenung, and Tudor England's Most Infamous Villain: Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich of Leez by Beth von Staats. Nancy Bilyeau has two more posts in the top ten, both Tudor tales. I'm seeing a definite lust, here, for Tudors and violence. And Nancy Bilyeau.

When I think back over the years, the post that stands out most in my mind is Old English - The Language of the Anglo Saxons by Richard Denning, mainly for the eerie video of the Lord's Prayer in Old English (yup, I just had to go play it again), but also because I learned something about the meaning of the names of English towns and locations. Fascinating!


Thank you to those who have bought Volumes One and/or Two of our anthology, Castles, Customs, and Kings: True Tales by English Historical Fiction Authors, published by Madison Street Publishing. Both volumes are now also available as lengthy audio books narrated by Ruth Golding. To quote Steven A. McKay, "Talk about value for money!" These are 25+ hours of fascinating listening while you do the laundry or commute.

Please join in the celebration of our five years by leaving a comment telling us what posts you remember, what authors you have discovered and loved, or anything. We'd like to hear from you and chat about your experiences with EHFA. And we are giving away two free audio books of Volume Two, names to be drawn in one week from those who comment below by a very disinterested party.

Thanks, and join us for another great year!

Celebrating the 4th Anniversary of the EHFA Blog!

by Debra Brown

Thank you for joining us for this anniversary today, and of course, for joining us for the daily posts, many of you for four years now. At this writing, the little knights at the bottom of the blog have admitted nearly 685,000 unique visitors, and we appreciate every one of you who have brought us to our nearly 2,700,000 page views.

This year has seen many interesting topics. Did you miss:

(Probably) Charles, the Spare

The Spare Child of James I of England: a Tragedy in the Making by Linda Root?

Death by Quill, the Parliamentary Act of Attainder (another tragedy) by Beth von Staats, our not-so-much-Henry but equally fascinating 'lesser known Tudor matters' expert? or

Social Mobility in Medieval England by Helena P. Schrader?

(One author is a self-taught history buff, one is a diplomat in a far-away country, and another is a professional in another field. You can get acquainted with these authors in our Facebook group and find out which is which!)

Perhaps you knew all this history, but there are 362 other posts..... besides the ones from the years before.

And neatly packaged in one beautiful new book are 186 essays from the second year, Castles, Customs, and Kings: True Tales by English Historical Fiction Authors Volume II, to be released on September 30, 2015.

In 2013, we launched Volume I with a Castles themed blog hop. On the 30th of this year we will have a Customs themed hop. Come by and follow links to blogs that will discuss the sometimes laughable (now), sometimes strange (to us), and sometimes saddening customs of the British past.

Comments on Volume I included:

"I think this will appeal to people across the board.  It’ll make a perfect stocking filler for history buffs for Christmas.  It’s companionable to read with a variety of different subjects, writing styles and approaches to history and historical research and can be dipped in and out of at leisure." – Elizabeth Chadwick

"This is an  'I didn’t know that' book,  guaranteed to inspire and intrigue - you’ll find yourself absorbed in the fountain of knowledge penned by wordsmiths who have a passion for the past.” – Helen Hollick

"It's an amusing trot through British history and excellent bedtime reading.... It was literary comfort food – a recollection of childhood, warm and satisfying." – Tom Williams.

Volume I is available in print, digital formats, and audio book.

Our Most Popular Posts

Unfortunately, our Blogger statistics don't give us a breakdown on the most popular posts for one year. However, our all-time most popular posts include:

Seven Surprising Facts About Anne of Cleves by Nancy Bilyeau. Interestingly, we receive far more Google search hits asking about Anne of Cleves than any of our other fascinating topics. A hint to authors!

Little Ease and the Tower of London by Nancy Bilyeau. A torture post. Brrr.

Who Placed the Earliest Roman Footprint in Scotland? by Nancy Jardine. Certainly one to rouse curiosity.

And, curiouser and curiouser, even the author cannot explain the intense interest in this topic:
Stand And Deliver ... Your Tolls? The Rise and Fall of the Turnpikes by J.A. Beard. When it came out, I blamed the interest on the UK Olympics being held about that time. I thought perhaps people, in their concern about tangled traffic, were looking into such things. But no, the post continues to attract attention. If you can explain it, please do.

Our visitors? The largest numbers come from, in this order, the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, Germany, France, Canada, Ukraine, Australia, Spain, and China. Thanks to you all, and if you are from another land, welcome!

I really want to thank those who promote the blog. There are a number who do so regularly, and many, too, who retweet or Google share for us on occasion.

Please stay with us for another wonderful year, and invite your history loving friends who have not yet cut across our path. We love to hear from you in the comments section of every post, and don't forget to join us on Facebook to share your thoughts there.

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