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Goodreads Giveaway!
I'm excited to announce a Goodreads giveaway for my award-winning novel, Lady of Lincoln! Enter now to win a copy and discover the award-winning story of Nicola de la Haye—a woman who commanded in a man's world and changed the course of English history.
Lady of Lincoln Gallops into the Chaucer Awards
I’m delighted to share some wonderful news: Lady of Lincoln has been named a Finalist in the Chanticleer International Chaucer Award for Historical Fiction.
It feels especially fitting to imagine Lady of Lincoln galloping into this space. The novel tells the true story of Nicola de la Haye, a medieval noblewoman who refused to be sidelined in a world designed for men, and who quite literally rode into danger to defend her lands, her people, and her legacy.
The Chaucer Award celebrates historical fiction that brings the past vividly to life, honouring works grounded in strong research, compelling storytelling, and memorable characters. To see Nicola’s story recognised in this way is deeply meaningful.
Thank you to Chanticleer for championing historical fiction, and to every reader who has ridden alongside Nicola on her journey so far. More news to come: the ride is far from over.
The Relic Keeper by Heidi Eljarbo
I’m thrilled today to be spotlighting the late-Renaissance historical novel, The Relic Keeper by Heidi Eljarbo, with Christian themes about hope and love.
Inspired by Gerrit van Honthorst’s masterpiece, The Adoration of the Child, and the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.
Italy, 1620.
Angelo is an orphan, lonely and forgotten. Having been passed on from one family to the next, he ends up as a common thief, subject to and under the thumb of a ruthless robber called Tozzo.
Angelo knows no other life and has lost hope that any chance of providence will ever replace his lonely, misfortunate existence. When he loses his master, his livelihood is shaken. Tozzo’s plunder is hidden in a safe place, but what will happen if someone comes after Angelo to get their hands on the stolen relics? More than that, he feels threatened by words he’s heard too many times; that he’ll always remain unforgiven and doomed.
One day, a priest invites Angelo to help with chores around the church and rectory and, in exchange, offers him room and board. Padre Benedetto’s kindness and respect are unfamiliar and confusing, but Angelo’s safety is still a grave concern. Two older robbers have heard rumors about the hidden treasures and will stop at nothing to attain them.
With literary depictions and imagery, Angelo’s story is a gripping and emotional journey of faint hope and truth in seventeenth-century Italy—an artistic and audacious tale that crosses paths with art collector Vincenzo Giustiniani and the powerful Medici family.
Using invisible threads, Heidi Eljarbo weaves together her fictional stories with historical figures and real events.
Eleanor of Vermandois
In the shadowed corridors of twelfth-century French history stands a woman whose story has been largely forgotten—Eleanor of Vermandois (c. 1148–1213). Born into one of medieval Europe's most controversial families, Eleanor's life was marked by political intrigue, personal tragedy, and remarkable resilience as she navigated a world where powerful men controlled women's destinies.
If you're planning to read my popular, and currently free, historical novella Eleanor's Revenge, the first section of this post is spoiler-free, introducing Eleanor and her family background. Further down, after a clear spoiler warning, I delve into the full dramatic arc of her life.
A Scandalous Beginning
Eleanor's very existence was rooted in scandal. Her parents' marriage in 1142 triggered one of the most notorious affairs of the medieval period. Her father, Raoul I, Count of Vermandois, was the powerful seneschal of France and cousin to King Louis VII. Her mother, Petronilla of Aquitaine, was the younger sister of the legendary Eleanor of Aquitaine, who would become Queen of both France and England.
Their love story began at the French court around 1141, when Petronilla met the much older, married Raoul. With her sister's encouragement and the king's approval, Raoul secured an annulment from his first wife, Eleanor of Blois, on dubious grounds of consanguinity. Three compliant bishops—one of whom was Raoul's own brother—officiated at Raoul and Petronilla's wedding in early 1142.
Book Review: A Brotherly Devotion by Jill Bray
I thoroughly enjoyed this historical whodunnit and would recommend.
It started with action (the murder) and kept going. It took me a chapter or so to get into the writing, but the story was so engaging I was immersed by chapter 2.
I really love stories that contain more than one plot, and where the various plots intertwine. This story, with murders, a love triangle, paternalistic misogyny (when doesn’t that happen in medieval times, me thinks…), the peasants revolting because there isn’t enough food, and out-of-touch, wealthy churchmen and class divides, gave a fun and interesting read.
LADY OF LINCOLN scoops up another Gold Medal Award!
Lady of Lincoln, the historical novel about Nicola de la Haye, has won the Reader’s Choice Gold Medal Award
Herstory Refuses to Be Forgotten!
ady of Lincoln opens in 1168, when a fourteen-year-old Nicola de la Haye stood in the barracks of Lincoln Castle, a young girl surrounded by sleeping soldiers, determined to help a boy who didn't belong. It was a small act of defiance in a world that would soon demand much larger ones.
I'm honoured to share that Lady of Lincoln has been named a semi-finalist in the 2025 Chanticleer Chaucer Awards for Early Historical Fiction.
The novel has already won awards, and this is a highly prestigious one. Chuffed as I am, it’s not really about awards and recognition that I can weave a good tale (although I’m thrilled about that!). It's about what Nicola's story represents—a woman who inherited a barony and a castle in her own right, who found herself caught between impossible loyalties when her husband joined the Great Rebellion of 1173-4, and who chose to defend what was hers.
That’s what inspired me to write about her in the first place.
A New Book Award for Lady of Lincoln!
I’m absolutely thrilled to announce that LADY OF LINCOLN has won another award—the Bronte Award (for UK and Commonwealth Historical Fiction).
I’m so pleased that my story about the real-life medieval heroine, Nicola' de la Haye, is being recognised.
More about the novel here.
Universal purchase link here.
Medieval New Year's Eve: When Chaos Was the Point
Forget champagne at midnight and awkward renditions of "Auld Lang Syne." Medieval New Year's was an entirely different beast, and honestly? It sounds way more fun.
Across Europe, the turning of the year wasn't just a date on the calendar. It was a full-blown excuse to flip everyday life on its head, stuff your face with roasted meat, and generally behave in ways that would make your local priest extremely nervous.
The Feast of Fools: Your Annually Scheduled Revolution
The Festival of Fools
Picture this: It's January 1st in a medieval town. The lowly church clerks and regular townsfolk have just elected a "Pope of Fools." They're parading through the streets in ridiculous costumes, possibly drunk, definitely making a mockery of sacred rituals. There's dancing. There's dice rolling during church services. Someone's definitely cross-dressing. It's absolute pandemonium.
Welcome to the Festum Fatuorum—the Feast of Fools.
What started as cheeky bits of playacting during Christmas church services eventually spiraled into something gloriously unhinged. By the later Middle Ages, you had masked dances, muddy street parades, and the kind of irreverent chaos that eventually made church authorities say "okay, that's ENOUGH" and ban the whole thing in the 15th century. (Though, naturally, people kept doing versions of it anyway because people have always been delightfully stubborn about their fun.)
Think of it as medieval Mardi Gras meets The Office Christmas party, but with more livestock in the streets.
Fastrada: Charlemagne’s Queen History Tried to Forget
Charlemagne is usually thought of as the iron-willed king, crowned Emperor of the Romans in 800, architect of a European empire and champion of learning and reform. What we never hear about, however, are the women who stood beside him: women whose influence shaped politics, justice, and the fragile stability of his realm.
One of the most controversial of these women was Fastrada, Charlemagne’s fourth wife and queen, a woman remembered less for what she did than for how male chroniclers chose to describe her.
A Frankish Noblewoman in a Dangerous Court
Fastrada was born into the high Frankish nobility around the mid-8th century, the daughter of Count Radulf. Her marriage to Charlemagne in 783 was not a romantic match but a strategic one, strengthening ties between powerful families within the Frankish heartlands. This was a period when Charlemagne’s empire was expanding rapidly through conquest, forced conversion, and ruthless suppression of revolt.
Queens in the Carolingian world were not crowned consorts in the later medieval sense, but they were far from ornamental. They managed households, acted as intermediaries, dispensed patronage, and, crucially, advised the king. Fastrada arrived at court at a moment when Charlemagne’s rule was under strain from internal rebellion, particularly in Saxony.
“Cruel” Queen or Convenient Scapegoat?
Our surviving sources paint Fastrada in dark colours. Einhard, Charlemagne’s biographer, describes her as harsh and cruel, claiming that her influence made the king more severe in judgement. Later chroniclers echoed this, blaming her for brutal punishments meted out against rebels and dissenters.
But this raises an uncomfortable question: Was Fastrada truly cruel, or was she blamed for decisions Charlemagne himself made?
Early medieval queens were often held responsible when kings ruled harshly. Advising firmness could easily be reframed as bloodthirstiness, especially when the adviser was a woman. Fastrada’s reputation may tell us more about medieval anxieties over female influence than about her actual character.
It is worth noting that Charlemagne’s most notorious acts of brutality, including the mass executions of Saxons, predated and outlasted Fastrada’s life. Yet only she became a symbol of excessive severity.
Feasts, Folklore & Boar: A Medieval Christmas with a Dash of Wild Hunt Magic
Christmas is coming; and if you think today’s festive spread is decadent, just imagine what a medieval English banquet looked like! Long before turkeys were discovered in America, people from monks to monarchs gathered round a banquet table groaning with pies, ale, spiced wine, and one very impressive centrepiece: the boar’s head.
Richard the Lionheart at Sixteen: the Making of a Warrior Duke
In 1173, a boy of sixteen took his first step onto the stage of war. His name was Richard, Duke of Aquitaine, though he had yet to earn the epithet Lionheart.
Before he became the crusader-king of legend, before his songs and sieges, Richard was a restless teenager thrust into the most dangerous political storm of the twelfth century: the Great Rebellion against his father, King Henry II.
It was a rebellion born of pride, family betrayal, and the impossible weight of expectation. And it was here — amid defeat, shame, and fire — that the making of a warrior began.
A Son in His Mother’s Shadow
Richard was Eleanor of Aquitaine’s favourite son, and in many ways her reflection: intelligent, impulsive, proud. Born in Oxford but raised in the cultured courts of Poitiers and Bordeaux, he was steeped in his mother’s world of poetry and politics. By his mid-teens he could compose in Occitan, debate theology in Latin, and command a hall full of barons — yet he was still a boy in a man’s game.
In 1172, Henry II had forced Eleanor to surrender the duchy of Aquitaine to her teenage son, intending to bind the region more tightly to the English crown. But Aquitaine was Eleanor’s inheritance, her life’s work, and Richard was fiercely loyal to her. The gift was both a promotion and a trap: the young duke found himself governing a proud and fractious land, surrounded by lords twice his age and loyalty only thinly pledged.
When the rebellion of 1173 began, Richard stood between two worlds — son of a king, heir to a duchy, and caught between the two towering figures who defined his destiny.
BookLife for Publishers Weekly Review of LADY OF LINCOLN
Joyce’s historical fiction debut vividly portrays Nicola de la Haye, a 12th-century noblewoman who defied societal norms to protect her legacy, family, and lands, during a time when women were largely regarded as inconsequential. Beginning in 1168, Nicola’s story emerges as one of courage and conviction, as she steps into the role of protector of her father’s Lincoln Castle, defends those who are vulnerable, and transforms from a naive girl into a formidable leader. When her father dies unexpectedly, Nicola is left to manage her own fate. Her first step on that tentative path is to wed William FitzErneis (Fitz), a match she believes is made from passion—though it’s decidedly below her station. But Nicola soon discovers that, despite her determination, the world of 12th-century England won’t make life easy for a strong, resilient woman.
Joyce intricately blends Nicola’s personal struggles—including her marriage to Fitz and later union, after his death, to Gerard de Camville—with historical events like Henry the Young King’s Great Rebellion and the martyrdom of Thomas Becket, showcasing Nicola’s resilience and leadership in a male-dominated world. She is portrayed as a multifaceted protagonist, melding vulnerability with unyielding strength, and her resourcefulness highlights the tenacity of women throughout history. Nicola’s relationships, particularly with her husbands, are nuanced and emotionally charged, reflecting the complexities of love and duty in medieval times.
The historical setting is meticulously researched, with vivid descriptions of Lincoln Castle, the surrounding countryside, and the brutal realities of medieval warfare. Joyce’s attention to detail immerses readers in the period while providing authenticity, and real historical figures like King Henry II and Prince John add depth, their interactions set against political chaos and dynastic maneuverings. Lady of Lincoln is a captivating exploration of history—depicted through the lens of a remarkable female protagonist—that explores themes of love, loss, loyalty, and resilience against a richly detailed medieval backdrop.
