Publisher's Synopsis
I must acknowledge that my research evidences my extended family may be firmly founded on the five strong pillars of murder, betrayal, greed, lust and incest and has far more than its fair share of family secrets. There is a secret library in the Strickland manor where Catherine Parr, Queen of England locked prohibited books in order to keep her head from being chopped off. Book 1 Vikings' Secret leads to Book 2 Elizabeth d'Eyncourt's Secrets of Sizergh Castle built by Vikings that became the seat of my extended family for over a thousand years. The family arrived in England as part of the Norman Conquest, and received granted land in Cumbria. Sizergh Castle came into their hands through marriage. Thomas de Strickland (Sir) DOB about 1367 DOD July 30, 1455 spent his life attending to Parliamentary duties and in his country's wars. Thomas de Strickland first came to prominence during the Battle of Agincourt in 1415CE, carrying the flag of St. George (a great honor apparently). Thomas de Strickland brought with him a complement of archers. The Bowmen of Kendal with Thomas Strickland were instrumental in the English victory against overwhelming French odds.
You will discover a pregnant nun whom one of my forebears persuaded he had no involvement in her "immaculate conception" but she could move into his home at Sevenoaks when the criticism of the Abbess became unbearable for the Sister, neglecting to mention he was already married with a toddler to babysit while living there. Eadgar invited his best friend to join him for a day of hunting, resulting in a hunting accident with Eadgar's steel javelin thrust between his friend's shoulder blades. Fourteen days later Eadgar married his best friend's gorgeous wife. Readers may wish to communicate their most favorite terms for Eadgar's hunting accident. So far readers have contributed scoundrel, villain, criminal, louse, despicable man, miserable creature, offensive lawbreaker, outlaw, rogue, beast, unprincipled man, villain, scoundrel, dishonest creep, unscrupulous person, disreputable rascal, a person responsible for unhappiness, harm and damage, a wretch, a lustful and greedy pig, inhumanely cruel, good-for-nothing, snake-in-the-grass, creep and stinkpot, scumbag, weasel, heel, skunk, utterly ungentlemanly cad. My extended family includes, as well, the kind of evil stepmother usually found only in a frightening children's fairy tale. This one invited her trusting boy king stepson to Corfe Castle to drink some poisoned mead, thereby paving the way for her own son to become a king.
As if regicide of a boy king by his stepmother were not enough; a coronation feast for another family member slid off the rails a bit when the presiding bishop noticed that my family member was no longer sitting in his place of honor; nor was his new bride; nor, indeed, was… oh, my goodness, his new mother-in-law also is missing from her seat at the coronation feast table. Bishop Dunstan might have uttered a more polite term "polyamory" to describe to guests the domestic arrangement he discovered then occupying the bedchamber. A mé nage à trois is what he reported; and he was not even French. Yes, the artists confirm a mé nage a trois during a coronation dinner with the youthful king in bed with both his new bride and his mother-in-law.
Abduction of my two-day-old maternal great-great-grandmother during a Comanche raid and saga of her escape from slavery led to unfortunate notions of incest, technically true, legally accurate, but not biological, that my brave maternal grand-mother Dollie puzzled about for seventy years as her family's shame, burning the evidence of her maternal grandmother's romance while enslaved. During my brief time at The Law School University of Western Australia (Perth) my secretary Emily vacationed on Strickland River every July, which I have related in Emily's Secret Emily's Cargo Cult of 40 Mates on Strickland River Irian Jaya Historical Novel
