Erin Lawless's Blog

Recently, most excellent Tudor Historian and joint chief curator for Historic Royal Palaces, Tracy Borman, was pottering in the National Archives, reviewing the Anne Boleyn trial documents before her new Channel 5 documentary on the subject (life goals or what) when an archivist brought her attention to something he’d uncovered in a warrant book. Tudor warrant books are relatively common in the National Archives, and chock-full of relatively unimportant (boring) detail. However this one, from 15...

JANUARY

It was one of the smash hits of the year, and deservedly so – one of the funniest books I read all year I read right at the start: Zara Stonely’s The Wedding Date. I wanted to be besties with protagonist Samantha because she – and the whole book – were refreshingly delightful and good for the soul. Of course, the hired boyfriend is an old trope, but you don’t care when you love the characters so much you just want them to be happy. I zoomed through the pages, literally LOL-ing (quite...

Great women are hidden behind great men, or so they say, and no man is greater than the king. For centuries, royal aunts, cousins, sisters and mothers have watched history unfold from the shadows, their battlefields the bedchamber or the birthing room, their often short lives remembered only through the lens of others.

But for those who want to hear them, great stories are still there to be told: the medieval princess who was kidnapped by pirates; the duchess found guilty of procuring love po...

JANUARY

I started 2017 with determination. I was four and a half months pregnant and had been absolutely sick as a dog since day one. Reading had taken a serious back seat – and no doubt would be right out of the car once Miniature Meakin made their appearance in May. I started off with something I thought would be a fluffy read, but surprised me with a deep charm. Love Song by Sophia Bennett follows a One Direction-esque boyband called The Point, and protagonist Nina, who is completely immu...

JANUARY

I always hope that I’m going to start the year with a couple of strong books, particularly as I never seem to get as much reading done as I’d like to over the preceding Christmas period. Well, January 2016 was certainly no disappointment; looking back I loved pretty much every book I read that month!

One particular highlight was Truthwitch, the first in a new series by Susan Dennard that I’d heard ALL THE HYPE over during 2015. I’d read and enjoyed the first book in Susan’s first ser...

What I did

So now it’s out in the open I can preface my monthly catch up with the context that one is up le duff, and has been so since early September. One has also been incredibly, incredibly ill (I won’t bore you with the details), and it’s been incredibly hard keeping it secret. Retching in the bread aisle at the supermarket, contemplating throwing up in my wastepaper bin at work, falling asleep when I sat down to take my boots off – none of this particularly lent itself to subtlety.

An...

What I did

So after a pretty non-stop September, I spent most of October suffering under a lingering cold. Feel free to skip this month – it wasn’t particularly exciting! Particularly as I missioned through Sober October (helpfully, feeling dreadful with that headcold helped, as the last thing I wanted was wine).

Back in 2004, when I was a fresh-faced Fresher, my younger sister was only six years old. Next September she’ll be a Fresher herself, and this month my husband and I took her to ou...

What I did

So that’s my favourite month – and the summer – over for another year!

We managed to squeeze one more barbecue in, for all it’s mostly been raining. Husband (Oli) and I invited a close group of friends over to celebrate our second wedding anniversary, a marriage that was severely tested by the having to assemble a picnic bench in the half-light the evening beforehand. It rained basically all day, but thankfully my patio is covered so we at least got to sit outside for a little bi...

What I did

I’m not quite sure where August went.

But it started off in fine fashion. My friends and their incorrigibly cute 2.5 year old daughter came to stay, along with the new addition – Baby Philip who was only about 5 weeks old. I got to steal him for newborn cuddles, while his sister trailed my husband (Oli) around all weekend, making my ovaries explode. We all went to the Cotswold Farm Park – somewhere (rightly, as it turned out) my husband and I had always felt we couldn’t really go...

What I did

Well, I turned (whisper it) 30, that’s what I did. Gah!

I’m only playing up the thirty-dread, I don’t mind at all really! It’s amusing for me because half of my best friends are “a school year”older than me (and my husband and the rest of said best friends are the year below), so I feel a little bit like turning 30 is a bit passe at the moment!

I spent my last twenty-something Saturday cycling in the middle of Cheltenham town centre for the Wiggin Wheelie Big Challenge. A lot of...