On the ninth day of Christmas On the Tudor Trail gave to me the chance to win a copy of The Memory of Midnight by Pamela Hartshorne.

To be in the running to win this book, leave a comment after this post.

Conditions of Entry

For your chance to win a copy of The Memory of Midnight, you must be subscribed to On the Tudor Trail’s newsletter (if you are not already, sign up on our homepage where it says ‘Free Enewsletter Subscription’).

Then simply leave a comment after this post between now and 31 December 2017. Don’t forget to leave your name and a contact email. Please note that I have comment moderation activated and need to ‘approve’ comments before they appear. There is no need to submit your comment twice.

This giveaway is open internationally.

One winner will be randomly selected and contacted by email shortly after the competition closes. Please ensure you’ve added natalie@onthetudortrail.com to your address book to avoid missing my email.

Good luck!

Find Out More

Author bio

After a haphazard career working and travelling around the world, Pamela first stumbled into writing as a way to fund a Ph.D. in Medieval Studies at the University of York. Twenty years, 60 romances and one Ph.D. later, she stepped out of her comfort zone and began writing ‘time slip’ novels that drew on her research into the streets of Elizabethan York.

Time’s Echo, published by Pan Macmillan in 2012, was her first mainstream novel. It was followed by The Memory of Midnight, The Edge of Dark and House of Shadows.  Her next book, The Cursed Wife, will be out in March 2018.

Pam lives in York and continues to juggle historical fact with historical fiction in her novels. She is also a freelance writer and project editor.

Pam is always delighted to make contact with readers and fellow history enthusiasts. You can find out more about her on her website (www.pamelahartshorne.com) or get in touch on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/PamelaHartshorneAuthor  or Twitter @PamHartshorne – she’d love to hear from you!

Brief blog

The Memory of Midnight is set partly in the present and partly in 16th-century York.  It’s the story of Tess, who comes back to York with her small son to escape her controlling husband, and finds herself drawn back into the life of Nell, who lived in the city 400 years earlier, and whose life has some horrifying parallels with Tess’s own.

The book is based on my research into Elizabethan York, and was inspired by imagining the lives of the people I encountered in the records when I was researching my PhD.  The Memory of Midnight in particular draws on many of the places that still exist in York.  If you’ve been to York you will probably have walked down Stonegate, where I imagined Nell lived in the 16^th century, and if you’ve ever been to the wonderful Merchant Adventurers’ Hall you might have seen the great evidence chest which is just the right size for a little girl to hide in …

I’m fascinated by the relationship between the past and the present, by how much we share with our ancestors – and by how different their lives were at the same time.  Tess and Nell face very similar problems.  Tess has more options than Nell – but does that make her life easier or more difficult?

I’ve always enjoyed the way ‘time slips’ explore the possibility that it might be possible to go back in time and see what life in the past was ‘really like’. As a trained historian, I know that could never be possible, but as a storyteller, I find the premise irresistible …

THE MEMORY OF MIDNIGHT – blurb

Prisoners of the past, bound by love and fear

One hot day in Elizabethan York, young Nell Appleby is trapped in a wooden chest.  The horror of the stifling dark – and of the man who trapped her – haunts her for the rest of her life. Years later, wed to the sadistic Ralph Maskewe, Nell must find joy where she can. But when her childhood sweetheart returns and offers a chance of flight to the New World, Nell is faced with a dangerous decision. Will she risk all to escape the dark at last?

Four and a half centuries later, Tess and her small son Oscar move to York. Eager to start a new life away from her overbearing and manipulative husband Martin, Tess tries to put her marriage behind her. But time in York has a way of shifting strangely, and memories of a past that is not her own begin to surface with disturbing effect. Living two lives, torn between two worlds, Tess must unlock the secrets of the past before she can free herself – and Nell – once and for all.