Unusual Historicals: Unlikely Romances: Pepin and Bertrada

Okay...I'm an historical romance writer. I'm a sucker for them. Really. I'll read almost any period in history. Right now I'm collecting research for my next novel, set at the dawn of what you probably know as The Dark Ages. (It's really called the Early Medieval Period.) I love the premise. It involves a fellow who made a promise to a girl's father. He didn't count on falling in love with her. Kings didn't.....

I hope you'll enjoy this very short story by a really great historical author, Kim Renfield.

Unusual Historicals: Unlikely Romances: Pepin and Bertrada: By  Kim Rendfeld A man seeks a divorce and, when told he cannot remarry, he stays with Bertrada for the rest of his life...

Sound interesting? Just follow the link. And happy reading!

~Cate

I'm Cate

Hey Everyone!

Don't you just love the font at the top of the blog that Deanie chose? It really intrigues me. It's the way people actually wrote oh-h, a few years back. Like 300 years back.
Anyway, I love it. Great choice, Deanie!


I'm an historical romance author, in case you couldn't tell by my book covers. So you'll be surprised to know that my current work in progress (or WIP) is a contemporary. It will be a long sort of epilogue to the three books already written. My heroine, Alex Campbell, meets a man and falls in love with him and her life will never be the same again. (Duh-h.... I'm a romance author, I'm sure you recall.) There will be references to her ancestors at Oakhurst (the magnificent South Carolina plantation they built and owned). There will also be references to ancient ancestors--as in VERY ancient--ancestors from 6th century England. If you allow about 30 years to the period of time a man who fathers children actually fathers those children and do the math, that makes it about 49-50 generations ago. That's a long time by anyone's reckoning. Anyway, I'm researching for that story. I just can't write it yet--at least not entirely--because there is a LOT of research to amass. I never dreamed there was quite so much.


Our house

I grew up Albuquerque, New Mexico, but I married this really great guy and he took me away from all that not even a week after we married. He was in the Navy, you see. He finally retired several years ago and we moved to Northeast Tennessee where we'd built our house. No. We aren't from here. And we never lived here before, either. But it's really beautiful. And the local folks are lovely.  Anyway, after years and years of living in Navy quarters and dealing with what can  only be thought of as old houses (post WWII era), and watching This Old House and Hometime for half of forever, we knew what we wanted when we finally built a house. A lot of the wood in our house came from huge old oaks that once stood on our property. That's pretty cool. (At least, I think it is.)

I'm a nurse. I would say that, in my day job I'm a nurse, but my day job has sort of devolved into a really part-time job. In the nursing (medical) world, it's called prn. It means--sort of--as needed. So I work 4 days each month and that's certainly as much as I need! I love nursing, though. I practiced pediatric nursing during the "active" part of my career. That means, "during the years prior to my end-of-career job." No matter. I still love it.




Gaius Germanicus Catullus--or just Gaius (at least, when he's not in trouble)

In addition to the humans in my family, including husband, daughter and grandson, we have a lot of wildlife we live with, too. (Just not inside the house.) We have deer, squirrels, chipmunks, all kinds of birds--like woodpeckers and cardinals and goldfinches, and Carolina chickadees and house wrens and...well, you name it. We also have a sizey flock of wild turkeys that roost in our trees. We even had two peacocks that visited our house for a while--but that's another story. We have a very aggravating raccoon. But I can' say I've ever met with a raccoon that was un-aggravating. Foxes and the occasional skunk join the crowd, too. We also have a Siamese cat named Gaius Germanicus Catullus. He actually lives in the house. He would like to think of himself as a great catly hunter, but really he's little more than a genuine wimp. He let a little field mouse in recently (oh...fun!) and all he wanted to do was play with it. Eat it??? Not him.
Gaius fancies himself a writer, too. He started early. Nothing he writes makes ever much sense, however. Everything tends to end up like this!




This is what I lovingly call FRUSTRATION!


He may not be a great writer, but he's a terrific critic.



In case you're wondering, that's me a few years ago.






Deanie and I have been friends for a long time. Many of you are already familiar with her from her previous blog, about growing up Northside. Sorry, Deanie,  I love ya, but I can't imitate the way you say it.  Some of you may be familiar with one or two of my posts. You can find them at http://www.cateparkeauthor.com/tuesdays-child. It's one of the other places I "live," so to speak. Come visit me--I'd love to have you. Right now? I'm closing this to go prep for supper. (Writers lead such glamorous lives.)

Thanks for visiting. Y'all come again soon!
~Cate