When: Thursday May 7th at 10 AM
Where: Zoom - https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81387037522
Open to: Members and volunteers
Discovering Emma of Normandy,
Twice Crowned Queen of England -
Book Reading by Patricia Bracewell
Emma of Normandy was a significant figure in the politics of early 11th century England as queen, dowager queen, and queen mother over the course of a career that spanned fifty years. She was the daughter of a Norman duke, the wife of two kings of England and the mother of two English kings. She lived through a perilous time in English history, when the kingdom was beset by disloyal enemies within its borders and by ravaging Vikings without. Novelist Patricia Bracewell, who spent fourteen years researching this remarkable queen and traveled to England, France and Denmark to uncover her story, has based three historical novels—Shadow on the Crown, The Price of Blood, and the upcoming The Steel Beneath the Silk, on what she learned.
Join her on a Zoom journey as she re-visits Queen Emma’s life through words and pictures, from her birth in Normandy to her final days in Winchester. Step back a thousand years and discover England’s only twice-crowned queen.
Patricia Bracewell’s debut historical novel, Shadow on the Crown, was published in 2013 in the U.S. and Britain, and has been translated into Italian, German, Portuguese and Russian. Its sequel, The Price of Blood, continues the gripping tale of the 11th century queen of England, Emma of Normandy, during a time when England was under near-constant siege by Viking armies. Her research has taken her to France, Denmark and Britain, including a summer course on Anglo-Saxon history at Downing College, Cambridge, as well as academic conferences on medieval studies in the U.S. and the U.K. Patricia has served as Writer-in-Residence at Gladstone’s Library in Wales, has been a panelist at Historical Novel Society conferences in the U.S. and Britain, and has spoken to numerous book groups and school groups about her novels and the history that infuses them. She is currently working on The Steel Beneath the Silk, her third novel about Emma of Normandy, the twice-crowned queen of England.