Giveaway winner!

So last night, as many of you will have seen on facebook and twitter, we surpassed the 100,000 page view mark!

As promised, now we've reached that mark, I shall announce the winner of the giveaway!

*drumroll*

Aimee C. Mack

Congratulations Aimee. Please can you email me with your mailing address and I'll organise the book to come out to you (probably on payday now, sorry), and as soon as the pendant arrives I'll get that in the post for you too!

100,000 page views giveaway extravaganza!

I'm getting rather excited by the fact that we're inching ever closer to hitting 100,000 page views. And so, I thought I would announce a bit of a giveaway! I'm not only giving away one thing, oh no. Not one thing, but two! You lucky lot!

First of all, I shall be giving away a copy of "The Deadly Sisterhood" by Leonie Frieda - I've recently started reading this brilliant tale of women in the Renaissance and I have to say, it's absolutely brilliant! Frieda concentrates on a handful of women who lived during the Renaissance, all of whom had power and influence - Lucrezia Tournabuoni, The D'Este sisters, Lucrezia Borgia and Caterina Sforza. A fantastic read for anyone interested in the women of Renaissance Italy.

As well as this, I shall also be giving away a beautiful silver plated pendant featuring Lucrezia Borgia and a portion of a love letter written to her from Pietro Bembo. I found this beautiful pendant whilst browsing Etsy, and the person who made this lovely pendant has also made a huge selection of other ones too. Please do check out the shop. Now, I have just ordered this pendant but as it's coming from the United States it may take a while - but as soon as I receive it I shall pop it right back in the post for the lucky winner.

So what do you have to do to be in with a chance of winning? 

All you have to do is like the facebook page here! And once we've rolled over the magic 100,000 pageviews mark, I shall use a random number generator to pick the winner! Good luck!

There's also another very special announcement coming, I hope, very soon. Watch this space for details! I'm absolutely bursting to tell you all what it is but I've been sworn to secrecy!

Girolamo Savonarola - A Novel In The Making

I've always wanted to write a book and when I was younger I would often write little stories. Looking back, they were kind of rubbish but even back then I was telling myself that one day I would write a book that people would read. More recently I've found myself getting smacked in the face over and over again with ideas for novels some of which I've dismissed right off the bat and others which have been written down in my little note book in the hope I'll come back to it later. But then, a couple of weeks ago I was hit with an idea that just wouldn't go away.

And I knew I had to write it.

And so, the idea for my first ever novel was born. Some of you may have seen on my twitter that I've been spending a lot of time talking about Girolamo Savonarola, quoting some of his sermons and tweeting facts about his life (and, rather morbidly, his death) and the reason for this is that I've been spending rather a lot of time researching the mans life. Why? Because Savonarola and his life are the subject of the book I have started to write.

It's my aim to be as accurate as I possibly can when telling his story, but of course there will be parts of it that are fictional. It's a historical fiction work after all. But at the same time I'll be telling Savonarola's story, having him doing what we was doing, predicting the death of various tyrants, his arguments with Pope Alexander VI, his hatred of the vices that plagued Florence, his bonfire of the Vanities, his arrest, his torture and his death. Let's face it, his life is so interesting and I wouldn't really want to make up anything extra because he did so much exciting stuff. His story is exciting enough without adding a ton of embellishments. 

I'm not all that far into his story yet, but I am working away on it and writing whenever I can. It's thoroughly enjoyable and the words are just spilling out onto the page right now - I don't think I've ever been able to write anything with such enthusiasm and it's amazing. Not only is the writing exciting me, but the research too so much so that I am planning a trip to Florence so I can see the places where he lived, worked and died. All in the name of research of course.

I'll be updating here with my progress and I'll be adding a link onto my sidebar about it over the next few weeks or so. Please do keep your eyes peeled, and wish me luck!

A Bit of Bloggy Stuff and Calling All Guest Posters.

I've just spent the past two hours contemplating moving this blog over to wordpress, even going so far as to create an account and export every single one of my blog posts and comments over to said new account. Then I realised "hang on a minute, I have a domain" and proceeded to try and move said domain name over to the new wordpress account only to really mess things up. There's also the fact that wordpress wanted to charge me an arm and a leg for the ability to use the domain name I'd already purchased through blogger. So after two hours of wrestling with complicated internet stuff I called it a day and deleted the new account and came slinking back to blogger.I'm not going to lie, I felt like a bit of a traitor when I started to build the new blog and I'm glad I realised before I hit the delete button on blogger how much I loved this blog. 

Plus, starting from scratch when I've had nearly 60,000 visitors just seems a bit rubbish.

So, in celebration I've decided to completely do over the design of this blog. I'm staying right here and you can expect lots more historical posts in the future and I've got loads and loads of ideas.

I'd also like to extend an invitation to anyone who wants to do a guest post for me. If you're interested then please do drop me an email at samantha@loyaltybindsme.org - you'll all know by now that this blog is primarilly an Italian Renaissance/Seventeenth Century England blog but I will accept pretty much anything as long as it's historical.

There will also shortly be an announcement regarding a project I've got in the works. I really want to tell you all about it RIGHT now but it's gonna have to wait a little while. Keep your eyes peeled though and all will be revealed soon enough.

And The Winner Is

We've done it! The facebook page has hit the magic 100 likes! I'm sure you'll all remember that I said I'd be giving away a copy of Christopher Hibbert's "The Borgias" as soon as we hit it.

And the winner is...April Renn! Now I have already announced this on facebook, but I wanted to do a quick post about it too! Please email me at talkingbloodglucose@yahoo.co.uk to claim your prize, and I'll pop it in the post.

The next giveaway will be when the facebook page hits 300 likes! So do get sharing guys :D

Happy Christmas

Even Cesare Borgia is trying to get in on the Christmas Spirit

So, it's Christmas Eve and things are getting rather busy as I try and remember all the last minute bits and pieces that we need for the big day tomorrow. I just wanted to write a quick post to all of you to thank you for your support since I started this blog, and to thank each and every one of my facebook followers. You are all fantastic, and have made my first few months of history blogging absolutely awesome.

I hope each and every one of you have a fantastic Christmas and enjoy every minute of it. I shall return in a couple of days with new blog posts and discussions (around the Borgia's mainly, my obsession with them has gotten a little er...intense!) as well as guest posts and posts on some areas of history I wouldn't normally go for, but have developed in interest in anyway.

Happy Christmas everyone! Now, I have last minute gifts to wrap and baking to do...oh and a bottle of Christmas spiced mead to crack open!

A post from the author

I've been thinking all day of what I would write here on this blog when I got home from work. You may have noticed over the past couple of days that this blog has been MIA with a little message that said it had been removed. It's true, I hit the delete button. And there are many reasons for this stemming from issues that are going on in my personal life. I don't want to go into too much detail because a lot of it is rather personal.

When I started this blog, I had no idea that it would pick up so soon and I'm seeing more and more people comment on my posts and join the facebook page which is great. But it was very hard for me to come to terms with the fact that when you start doing things like this you can end up taking criticism, and that stops you from concentrating on the lessons you are trying to learn. It's even harder when you come up with stumbling blocks not only from criticism but also from past incidents too. I started this blog for people to learn from my knowledge, and I enjoy writing about the parts of history that I adore, and it is here for everyone. With everything that has happened recently though I have taken alot of what has happened to heart and for a while I wanted nothing more to do with it. For a while, my love of history took a back seat and I began to hate it all because of the blocks that had presented themselves in front of me. Obviously we benefit from positive feedback, but when things start getting intense and you notice things it can get very upsetting. As I said I'm not going into it in too much detail and it is my hope that I never need to do so.

This blog is here for everyone, and it is my hope that it will be for many years to come. It's a matter of ignoring the haters because you're always going to get hate when you start doing something like this, and rising above it. This has been a learning curve for me and I'm not going to let anything stop me from doing what I love. My readers know that it is my aspiration to become a published historian one day, and I plan on going back to University within the next couple of years to complete my Masters and eventually my PhD. This blog is a stepping stone, a place for me to share my own journey as well as providing all of you with posts that will interest and inspire.

I want to thank those of you who have left me nice comments on these posts and on facebook, you guys are all amazing and because of you I have realised that this blog is a place that people enjoy. May it never change.