A Good Knight's Kiss

Please welcome author Emily Klein today. Emily is doing a virtual book tour for her historical romance A Good Knight's Kiss, now available from Wallace Publishing. The tour will run from September 30th to October 4th.

Emily will be awarding a $10 Amazon or Barnes&Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter. Please use the following link to place your comment:
http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/28e4345f3160/

Blurb

A Good Knight's Kiss is a romantic coming-of-age story.

John's uncanny cleverness and insight, and his red hair, cause his stepmother to fear him, thinking him a devilish daemon.

He sets off, much to his chagrin, to start his new life as page, squire, and then knight to his uncle-by-marriage. As often happens, he falls in love. But it is with his lord's daughter, no less.

John is sensitive, astute and fiery, and his conflicting loyalties and desires are what drive him onwards.

When he's faced with a choice between heeding his father’s decree for a simple life, and his oath to his brother on one hand, and the love of his life on the other, how will he choose? Simplicity or love, honour or happiness?

Excerpt

Matilda was shivering. She was feeling cold one moment, and hot the next. Her covers were tightened and loosened about her. Her maid and housekeeper were desperate. She was lapsing in and out of consciousness. Salves were rubbed on her temple; hot and cold compresses laid on her brow, even doused in vinegar, or smeared with mustard.

But the lady would not come to. She lapsed in and out of delirium, crying for John, one moment meaning to call on her babe, and the next-her beloved Baron.

Her young babe was taken away, unbeknownst to her, to a wet nurse. Had the lady been sentient, it would have sent her into a fuming rage. She was a veritable zealot when it came to her wee darling. He was her one solace, and, she thought, her insurance against starvation and doom. Her John would not turn her out, and when her son was cared for as the bastard son of a baron, she too would be cared for. She was, in her ailment, beginning to doubt ever being married to Lord John, his promises to her notwithstanding. Or perhaps they would be wed and her son legitimised? She hardly deigned to hope.

Author bio and links

Emily Klein is an author of historical romance novels set in medieval times. She is a staunch anglophile, with a keen interest in anything and everything British, and a fierce love for the English language and all its dialects. She also has an interest in history, including, but not limited, to medieval history. Emily also enjoys antiques and vintage clothing. In short, if it's part of history, Emily Klein will find it interesting.

In her novels, Emily Klein strives to delve into her characters' thoughts, feelings, and true psychological motives, based on their personalities, pasts, and the societies in which they operate. Finding motives and helping people as they strive to solve their life issues is no strange matter to Emily, who is also a trained social worker.

Emily Klein lives in Israel, with her husband, two young daughters, and her little dog named Tofu.

I asked Emily where her interest in history comes from? Here's her answer:

I was always a bookish girl, and some of my favourite books as a young lass took place and/or were written in historical times. Jane Eyre, Anne Shirley, The Wind in the Willows, Oliver Twist, Heart by de Amicis, etc. So as a young lass, I used to look in encyclopedias we had (no Google back then, I'm nearly 40) and look up concept and happenings from times past to supplement the knowledge I got from books. 

As a teen, I was into the 1960s and often felt like I was born in the wrong decade. I tried to emulate the clothes of the time in my dress, and that sparked a love for vintage fashion, which started with a fascination with hippies and now extends to medieval attire. I was also into music of the time, and then gradually got into folk music, then balladry, and since ballads have historical settings, often medievalesque, I got into medieval history and literature, and that is what I'm currently studying on my MA.

Links

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Folktalesimagination/

Twitter: @Ekleinfolktales

Blog: https://writteninlonghand.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/73792713-emily-klein

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LY8XQV8

Weekly markets

In the old days, markets were something special to most people. Especially here in Flanders, they lived in rural villages, where not much was going on - a church, a pub, a butcher and a baker would be what to expect. Entertainment was practically non-existent. So the weekly market was a time in the week to look out for, and everybody went there.

Dendermonde, my home town, also has such a weekly market. In fact, it's one of the biggest in the region, as the market stalls are lined up along the streets of the center.

When I was a kid, my grandmother took me to the market on Monday mornings. She bought fresh fruit and vegetables there, and also linnen for the beds, just name it. That was a time when supermarkets were few or not present in a town or village. The market was crowded, especally after ten a.m. and business was good. Also the local pubs were quite busy.

Nowadays only old people go to the weekly market, which has already been reduced in size. Years ago, the whole of Brusselse straat (the throughfare from railway station to grand place) was full of market stalls - now it's only half of it. Young people are no longer interested in markets. They buy their stuff online or in the big supermarkets. I must say I also do. It's been years since I dwelled along the markets stalls.

I guess that these markets won't exist any longer in the future.

Hair salon Nickie

Today it's the time once more: this afternoon I'll have to cut my sister's hair. Luckily she doesn't need a haircut every six weeks! What a girl must learn in her old age!

As I'm a linguist, hair cutting isn't really my thing. The only thing I've got going for myself is the fact that I can follow a straight line without help. My sister has an easy coupe. I just have to cut some centimeters off and see that the hair falls even all around. Easier said than done...

But up to now I've managed every time and she can leave the house with a decent hair cut on Monday.

In return, my sister cuts my hair. Since my cancer my hair is quite impossible to manage and I don't see the reason in spending 60 € or more in a hair salon, to come home with hair that doesn't look like anything. What Chris has done, is cut my hair very short, again and again, until it began to grow a bit more in sync. Now it's still short, but a decent short and it begins to look like a cut from a salon.

Are there others around here who cut their own hair? We don't do it to save money, though. In my sister's case it's because she has a very busy schedule at work and while there is a hair salon at one of the schools she works for, she doesn't like students messing with her hair (which is a sort of compliment to me, I suppose). And for me, it's the above mentioned.

Here comes the rain

It's raining (well, to be exact: pouring) at the moment, and it has been like this since I awoke this morning. Yesterday and the days before it rained as well.

Now I know this is supposed to be good. We haven't had too much rain before and the soil needs it. The water reserves are very low because of two relatively dry years in sequence. So nature needs a lot of rain to help replenish those reserves.

But should this be so depressing??? Rain gets to me. I'm cold (even when the inside temperature is 21° Celsius) and the house looks so dark with all those clouds. You get a feeling as if it's never going to be sunny again.

Most likely there are people who love the rain, but I'm not! Rain means getting wet when you're having to run errands, as we don't have a car anymore. And often there's so much wind you can't even hold an umbrella. Rain means less open windows to air the house, as we always do in the morning, even when it's freezing.

What about you?

Drama galore

The last two days, the media only mention one item: Thomas Cook. The oldest travel agency in the world is bankrupt. Thousand of travelers can't leave or come back. Drama galore!

Travel agencies are succesful because most people don't like to plan their travels. They just go to the travel bureau and pick a trip. The agency takes care of the rest. These agencies claim they can get you the best price for the trip - but is that actually true? I wouldn't know.

In our family, we've never been to a travel agency. When we make a trip, it's all self-arranged. When we were kids, our dad took care of the planning. Together with his best friend he arranged train journeys and booked hotels (mostly in Europe). When I was in my twenties and spoke German rather fluently, I was asked to make phone calls to hotels in Switzerland or Austria to book rooms (not only for us, but for a whole group of friends). That way I got into planning. When my sister was older, she also took her pleasure in it.

For us, planning is half of the pleasure of travelling. In the old days, we had to write letters and use the phone to make international calls. Nowadays we have the internet, which is a blessing. We are rather faithful to one brand of hotels, but when there is no hotel of theirs in the place we want to be, I check Booking.com to see which hotels get good comments. I don't book through Booking.com though, don't trust them. Always go directly via the hotel website. And plane tickets can be cheap enough if you book in advance and on certain days.

So no problems for us. I pity all those people who now see their vacation plans cancelled. I suspect also Brussels Airlines will feel the bankrupcy of Thomas Cook, as they carried a lot of their passengers. Btw, that was already a first sign that things weren't going well, when Thomas Cook sold all their Belgian fleet to Brussels Airlines...

Indian Summer

What a wonderful weekend we're having! Already on Friday the sun was out in full glory and the temperature reached an enjoyable 21° Celsius. Yesterday, the same scenario but it became already 24°. We could spend all day outdoors.

Today looks to be going to same way - there's already some washing on the line (when you have the roof terrace, there's opportunity to dry outdoors). Don't know yet what we'll be doing, but it'll be fun for sure.

It's so nice and unexpected to have a late summer weekend in the beginning of autumn. The weeks before we not too bad, but the temperatures weren't up to much.

Such a sunny weekend gives you energy to continue. Five more weeks to go and then the autumn break starts. We're heading to London and Leeds in that period. In London we're going to see the all-star show of Les Misérables, and in Leeds the concert of Andrea Bocelli.

Also the good result of my scan on Thursday gives me energy and pleasure.

Good weekend to all of you!

Latest scan: OK!

Three times a year (in January, May and September) I have to go under the CT-scanner to see what happens in my abdomen. This since my op two years ago, when my right kidney (along with a big tumor) was removed.

It's always a bit of anxiousness to await the results. Are there new cancer cells present or not? Up to now all scans showed a negative result - just as that of yesterday morning. So I'm happy once more because the medication I take (I call it my daily poison - and it really is poison, because you can't touch it with your hands, if you do you need to wash them carefully) works. And that with half the dose! I got too sick with the full dose (800 mg), so the oncologist had my take only 400 mg a day. Since then the nausea and other ill effects have mostly gone away.

So I'm looking out to a splendid weekend here at the coast! The sun is already shining and it promises to be a beautiful sunny weekend with high temperatures, probably the last good one for the season. I'm already here at the flat, my sister comes later this afternoon to have her first weekend without work waiting to be done.

Happy weekend to all of  you!

#TeamPia

People in Belgium are compassionate - especially when it concerns someone who was born here.

What is this about? Well, it's about a 9-month-old baby girl, Pia. She suffers from a rare (and deadly) muscle disease which can only be cured (more or less) by the most expensive medicine in the world, sold by the Swiss company Novartis. The cost of it is 1,9 million euro.

Baby Pia's diagnose was stated just days after a trial with this new medicine started (for free). She's helped with another medicine but this doesn't cure the disease, only lessens the symptoms. The other medicine is not available in Belgium so if she wants it, her parents need to come up with that huge sum of money by themselves. Pia's parents are just ordinary people. They don't own a capital. But they are desperate and want to fight for their daughter. So they came up with the idea of starting a SMS-campaign, asking people to send a short message (cost: 2 euro) to the numer 4666. First only family and friends were aware of it, but the campaign was soon picked up by the media. In just two days' time, the 1,9 was already raised and the sum is still growing.

Good news for Pia and her parents and I guess everybody is happy for them.

At the same time, this raises questions. Does the pharmaceutical industry have the right to ask for millions for a medicine because it can save a life? Novartis asks 1,9 million but tomorrow another company can ask 2 or 3 million. Something needs to be done about this.

And the people? Will they continue donating, when new cases of desperate parents pop up day after day? I guess not...

Azalea, azalea...

Thirty years ago, an organisation was formed to fight against cancer. In those days, cancer was a killer disease. Most of the people diagnosed with it, died within a short (or a bit longer) time. Thanks to organisations such as Kom Op Tegen Kanker (=fight against cancer) enough money is raised yearly to pay for new research and such. Thanks to it, new treatments are introduced and most of them don't cost a lot to the cancer patient. If my kidney cancer had been diagnosed just ten years ago, there wouldn't have been a treatment available. Now there is, and I'm very glad I can take this medicine.

Kom Op Tegen Kanker organises a couple of main events throughout the year. One of them was last weekend. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday volunteers all over the country sold azalea's for 7€ each. They raised around 2,7 million euro this year, a bit more than last year. Lots of people buy the plants, because nearly everyone knows someone who suffers from cancer.

That's a fact. When I was younger, not so many people had cancer. It was relatively rare. But now... I never thought I'd get it, but see. And my neighbor on the right had it (she died last year September) and several colleagues from my former school. Also my other neighbor on the left now suffers from it.

And people are more willing to spend money on something they know then for a cause far away. Floodings and earthquakes in far away places don't raise the amounts of money that Kom Op Tegen Kanker does.

Both my sister and I donate a (small) amount every month. And when we're  no longer there, our belongings will go entirely to the organisation.

Kimback

No bigger surprise earlier this week then the announcement of the (3rd) comeback of tennis idol Kim Clijsters!

Now a young woman of 3 and mother of three children, Kim longs to play tennis once more. According to her sister Elke, Kim needs tennis to give her life fulfilment.

Will it work? I suppose we all hope so. It's a fact that Kim still has all her capacities and technique in tennis. The big question will be if her body will allow tennis on the highest level. Because Kim surely doesn't want to play a first round in the big slams but she'll targets the final.

Wouldn't it be great, once again a match Williams-Clijsters? Also Serena is in her thirties (37) and a mother. But she stills manages to play the finals against all those young girls who know head the charts. Ten different winners in 12 grand slams, that says something.

Euro Millions jackpot amounts to 162 million

Can you believe it? Just imagine you'd win such a jackpot!

But is winning really that great? For most people, assuredly not. It's a fact that big lottery winners aren't always careful. Most of them have gone through their millions in a short time and then end up just as poor as they were before.

The trick is to be completely annonymous. Hard, but it can be done. One way already is playing online. That way you avoid going to the newspaper shop and handing over your winning ticket - well viewed by all other clients, and the shopkeeper who will tell anyone that he/she had a big winner. When you play online, you'll get a phonecall as the Lottery has your personal data. And next you have to keep quiet about it. Don't tell anyone, especially not your best friend.

In our case, this would be easy. If my sister and I would be a winner, we'd make sure nobody knew about it. I'm already pensioned and my sister is nearing that age. We'd simply announce we'd be moving to live permanently at the coast - we've been doing that for a while, because it really is our plan. In our street, noboby has any notion how old my sister actually is. When we say she's got her pension, everyone will believe it. And once at the coast, who there knows how much money we have? We could easily buy something new - a bigger flat. And when we travel (as we do frequently now, as well) who know we'd fly first class or premium on the train and book a suite instead of a standard room?

We'd most likely wouldn't spend too much of a big win. We really don't need that much. But it would make life somewhat easier - and after our death, the money would go to several good causes.

What would you do?

Treasure hunt

I suppose all of us like - deep down - to hunt for a treasure? I gladly recall the times when I was a kid and we were having our holidays at the Belgian coast. One of my favorite passtimes then was to go digging for coins which fell out of pockets of unsuspecting 'victims'. Some day, you could collect enough coins to buy a bag of sweets or an icecream!

Now someone's cashing in on that sentiment. Born in Liege, Vincenzo Bianca, always dreamed of treasure hunting. At long last, he developed a board game named Guardian of Legends. It consists of 24 islands and each player has to find the treasures of other players on these islands. They get hints, but they can also go looking for real. Somewhere in the world, a real treasure is buried: a golden egg (worth 219,000 Euro) that is a creation of two jewellers in Liege. The one who finds it, can sell it or keep it - and all travel costs are compensated as well.

The game became available in April past and is available in 10 languages. Thousands of copies have already been sold and people from all over the world are looking for the treasure.

Vincenzo Bianca assumes it might take a long as three years before someone actually finds the treasure.

Baking moments

In the weekends, we often spend some time on baking. I suppose we have our grandma to thank for it. She was so good at it!

When we were kids, we were always treated to something she had baked that day - be it waffles, or pancakes, or a pie or cake. And there was always more than enough, so we could bring our friends and sit around the big kitchen table enjoying it and savoring hot chocolate she made in a big pot.

Those moments are long gone. Grandma died in 1986. Our own mother was not much of a cook, that task went to our dad. But he was better in preparing gourmet meals than baking.

Now it's my sister especially who tries out the recipies of grandma. You have to be creative though, because in my grandma's time they didn't work with measures. It's just: take 'a bit' of this and 'a bit of that'. We had to try out a couple of times before we got it right!

Right now there's a breadpudding in the oven (or rather a variation on bread pudding). Later on we are going to make a quiche with salmon.

Sometimes Chris also bakes raisin bread or muffins. Pies not so much, because they're too big to eat with only two! I suppose I'll have to learn how to bake should my sister not be there anymore. I can cook, but I don't do it very often. Funny how I loved to do it when I was a twenty-something... Then I cooked for a whole bunch of friends - and they loved it. The grandma of my Swiss friend Christina even told her she'd better learn to cook like it did.

Do you like/love cooking and baking?

Keeping the tradition alive

In our home town, Dendermonde, they strive to keep old traditions alive. That's why yearly the giants march around the town center, and every ten years the well-loved Horse Bayard comes out of its stable and parades around.

As I've told before, this wooden horse is carried by a team of twelve strong men, who make it walk, run and even rear. On top of the horse sit four boys, the sons of Aymon, lord of Dendermonde. It's quite an honor to be one of those boys.

Mind, the sons of Aymon are also part of the tradition. Therefore, they need to be four brothers in consequece (no sister between them), between the ages of 7 and 17. Up to now, the town council always found a family who could fill the demand.

You'd think it would become more difficult as in modern times, not many families have four kids anymore, let alone four sons. But still, when it was announced that the search for Aymon's sons was starting anew (there is a Bayard event next year in May), five families came forward!

The ones with the oldest ancestry will sit on Bayard. First, the boys needs to be born in Dendermonde. Then they check the parents, next the grandparents, then the next generation.

The winners will be announced later this autumn.

Autumn is coming

Right now, the sun is still shining. But at the coast (about 88 km from Dendermonde) it's already raining and we may expect the same in an hour or so. The temperature is going to drop as well. So the coming days will very much look like autumn!

Well, autumn has its charms of course. When it's not too windy or raining, it's fun to walk into nature to see how the season changes. The trees get different colors and the leaves begin to fall. In the evening, night falls sooner and when it's dark it's cozy to curl up into the sofa and watch some TV, with a glass of good wine in hand. (And something to put between the teeth...)

Each season has its charm. But unfortunately, with the change in climate, the seasons are not always like they should be. Sometimes you get winter in summer, or summer in autumn. Remember, this past year it was already high summer during the Easter break! And we didn't get much of winter too. But then I also remember a year in which we had to put on a fire in July and August, when it kept raining days at an end (21 to be exact) and it was cold as in winter...

I don't have a favorite season. I love summer, when the sun is out and you can do all kind of things outside. I love winter, when there is snow and ice. Spring brings the promise of new life, and in autums the color scheme is at its most beautiful.

Do you have a favorite?

Problems!

If you live in an old house, you may be assured that one day or other you'll be faced with problems... The first time it happened, it was the roof - in those days I slept at what used to be the attic, and one night I was awoke rudely by rain dripping into my bed. Roof need fixing and it cost me a nice sum.

Then a couple of years later, we noticed the floor in the living room appeared to be sinking (must tell here that we have a sort of cellar underneath it, a creeping space). My dad, who was still alive then, got in the creeping space and noticed that indeed the old beams were giving away. So needed a solution, which was found but it cost at lot once more. We now have a floor which is put onto steel beams that can bear a couple of elephants.

Next was a water leak under the floor of the bathroom. Conclusion? New fittings, new bathroom (insurance paid quite a lot).

The newest problems is another leak. This time I suppose it's between the kitchen floor and the cellar
underneath. I've made the call to the insurance and am now waiting for the company who's gonna find the leak and repair it. More costs! The searching for and reparation will be paid by the insurance, of course, but it will depend what kind of damage they bring on if they have to break up the floor.

These are the pleasures of living in a house that's nearly 100 year old!