Women in History – Adventures of a Tudor Nerd

Today, I am pleased to welcome Arianwen Nunn to my blog to share the blurb for her book “The Welsh Warrior’s Inheritance.” I want to thank The Coffee Pot Book Club and Arianwen Nunn for allowing me to participate in this book tour.

Blurb:

It is 1109, and the Welsh warrior and firebrand Owain ap Cadwgan abducts Princess Nest from the castle she shares with her children and her husband, Gerald of Windsor. King Henry of England, furious that Nest, also his lover and mother of his son, begins a manhunt to find Owain and return Nest to her husband. In Gwynydd, King Gruffydd ap Cynan and his wife risk everything to hide them and get them to safety in Ireland despite the efforts of Gronwy ap Owain, Angharad’s vicious brother, who would like to see Gruffydd and Owain dead.

King Henry uses Bishop Richard to start kinship warfare in Wales, then declares war against the Welsh, determining to exterminate them all. Can Gruffydd and his family survive the greatest army ever led against Wales?

Buy Link:

Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/u/bWkZq7

Author Bio:

Arianwen Nunn was born in Wales but now lives in Australia and writes historical fiction based on the Welsh kingdoms in the Middle Ages.

Arianwen has written a series of three books, ‘The Welsh Traitor’s Daughter’, ‘The Welsh Warrior’s Inheritance’, and ‘Bards Sing of Love and War’, which follow the lives of King Gruffydd ap Cynan, his wife Angharad, and their family.

She has also written two children’s books, ‘The Welsh Warrior’s Wonder’ and ‘Where Dragons Still Roar’.

Author Links:

Website: www.arianwennunn.com

Twitter: https://x.com/Arianwen_Nunn

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100091729185630

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arianwen_nunn

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Arianwen-Nunn/author/B0C69H8RFN

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/35601482.Arianwen_Nunn

I am pleased to welcome MJ Porter to my blog to share an excerpt from her nonfiction book, “The Royal Women Who Made England.” I would like to thank MJ Porter and The Coffee Pot Book Club for allowing me to be part of this blog tour.

Ælfthryth, the daughter of King Alfred and Lady Ealhswith – The Continental Connection

The union between Ælfthryth and Count Baldwin II is believed to have taken place sometime between Asser’s writing [of Alfred’s life] and the death of Alfred in 899. As Æthelweard’s Chronicon informs, Ælfthryth was married to Count Baldwin II of Flanders (879–918). Count Baldwin II was the son of Alfred’s stepmother, Judith, through her third marriage to Baldwin, Count of Flanders, with whom she eloped in 860, against her father’s wishes. Perhaps this was a love match that had been denied her before. Judith had previously been married to Æthelwulf, King of Wessex, Alfred’s father, and also to Æthelbald, King of Wessex, Alfred’s brother. There is no record of children born to these unions.

Judith was a daughter of Charles the Bald (823–877), who in turn was the son of Louis the Pious (773–840), a son of Charlemagne (c.742–814). Charles the Bald was king of the Franks from 840–877 and emperor from 875–877.

Blurb:

Throughout the tenth century, England, as it would be recognized today, formed. No longer many Saxon kingdoms, but rather, just England. Yet, this development masks much in the century in which the Viking raiders were seemingly driven from England’s shores by Alfred, his children, and grandchildren, only to return during the reign of his great, great-grandson, the much-maligned Æthelred II.

Not one but two kings would be murdered, others would die at a young age, and a child would be named king on four occasions. Two kings would never marry, and a third would be forcefully divorced from his wife. Yet, the development of ‘England’ did not stop. At no point did it truly fracture back into its constituent parts. Who then ensured this stability? To whom did the witan turn when kings died, and children were raised to the kingship?

The royal woman of the House of Wessex came into prominence during the century, perhaps the most well-known being Æthelflæd, daughter of King Alfred. Perhaps the most maligned being Ælfthryth (Elfrida), accused of murdering her stepson to clear the path to the kingdom for her son, Æthelred II, but there were many more women, rich and powerful in their own right, where their names and landholdings can be traced in the scant historical record.

Using contemporary source material, The Royal Women Who Made England can be plucked from the obscurity that has seen their names and deeds lost, even within a generation of their own lives.

Buy Links:

Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/TheRoyalWomenWhoMadeEngland

Publisher Link: https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-Royal-Women-Who-Made-England-Hardback/p/24395

Author Bio:

MJ Porter is the author of over fifty fiction titles set in Saxon England and the era before the tumultuous events 1066. Raised in the shadow of a strange little building and told from a young age that it housed the long-dead bones of Saxon kings, it’s little wonder that the study of the era was undertaken at both undergraduate and graduate levels.

The Royal Women of the Tenth Century is the first non-fiction title. It explores this period’s ‘lost’ women through the surviving contemporary source material. It stemmed from a frustration with how difficult it was to find a single volume dedicated to these ‘lost’ women and hopes to make it much easier for others to understand the prestige, wealth, and influence of the women of the royal House of Wessex.

Author Links:

Website: www.mjporterauthor.com/ or www.mjporterauthor.blog

Twitter: www.twitter.com/coloursofunison

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

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mj-porterauthor/

Instagram: instagram.com/m_j_porter/

Threads: https://www.threads.net/@m_j_porter

Bluesky: mjporterauthor.bsky.social

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/coloursofunison/

Book Bub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/mj-porter

Amazon Author Page: www.amazon.com/MJ-Porter/e/B006N8K6X4

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7163404.M_J_Porter