We’re happy to announce that we’ve made some “Fall of Anne Boleyn” themed merchandise available – and they all look amazing!
See the range here: http://www.zazzle.co.uk/the_fall_of_anne_boleyn_mug-168043197039765977
For the second month running, I’m in the list of IReaderReview.com’s Top 100 Indie Authors! It is an honour to have my name listed with some of my favourite authors and also to be one of only two non-fiction authors on the list.
The list is based on the previous months’ book sales, so a big thank you to those who have bought copies of The Anne Boleyn Collection and The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown and who have spread the word – thank you!
I have been blown away by the support I have received and please know that I am eternally grateful. I feel truly blessed to be able to research the Boleyns and Tudor history on a full-time basis.
You can see the Top 100 list at Top 100 Indie Authors for July 2012. I’m at 77!
Thank you so much to Arleigh Johnson of historical-fiction.com for reviewing The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown – see Review: The Fall of Anne Boleyn by Claire Ridgway.
Arleigh concludes:
“Claire, from The Anne Boleyn Files blog, deftly walks readers through the final days of this fallen queen, giving every possible detail and bringing her dissertation to a satisfying conclusion. This is clearly the product of exhaustive research and a labor of love, and should be a staple among Tudor enthusiasts.”
I had so much fun hopping from blog to blog on my virtual book tour for The Anne Boleyn Collection – and I know that many of you enjoyed it too – that I have decided to do a two week tour for The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown.
“What is a virtual book tour?”, some of you may be asking; well, it’s an online book tour. I will be visiting ten Tudor themed blogs over the next two weeks, writing guest articles or being interviewed, and giving away prizes too. It’s a great way of thanking blogs for the support they’ve given me and introducing people.
Here’s the schedule:
Week One – 28th May to 1st June
To mark the anniversary of Anne Boleyn’s execution on the 19th May, we have created an animated E-card which you can send to people. The card features Anne Boleyn and the Tower of London, along with an account of Anne’s execution.
It’s perfect for sending to Tudor history lovers or for spreading the message about Anne Boleyn. It’s free too!
Click on the image to be taken to the card and to send it to friends.
Thank you so much to author Sandra Byrd for interviewing me on her “To Be Read” blog. It was such an honour to be interviewed on such a wonderful blog and in the company of authors I admire.
You can check out my interview at http://sandrabyrd.com/toberead/the-anne-boleyn-collection/
Sandra is the author of one of my favourite Anne Boleyn novels – To Die For – and the upcoming The Secret Keeper: A Novel of Kateryn Parr which is due out on 5th June 2012.
Two wonderful bits of good news:
In the video, I talk about my aim in writing the book and what the book’s about. I hope you enjoy it!
The paperback can be purchased at Amazon.com – click here. It will also soon be available on Amazon UK.
I’ve had lots of comments about the cover of The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown, and all of them complimentary (thank you!), so I thought I’d share the story behind the cover.
The majority of books out there on Anne Boleyn have a portrait of Anne as a cover and as my book is not a full biography of her life I didn’t think a portrait was appropriate. I wanted the cover to symbolise the subject matter of my book, i.e. Anne Boleyn’s fall and execution, and I wanted it to be different and eye-catching. I chose the B necklace because it is linked to Anne Boleyn, she is wearing it in most of the portraits we have of her, and it was obviously something she wore on that “little neck” of hers. I also wanted the image to symbolise the brutality of Anne’s end – the horror and the violence – so I picked an execution sword. I had photos of 16th century German execution swords and I figured that the French executioner’s sword would have been similar.
I gave a graphic artist friend a B necklace and my photos of the execution sword and explained what I wanted. He then played around with the concept and sent me different ideas until I was happy (I’m not too hard to please). Tim, my amazing, multi-talented husband (must suck up to him!), then took the image, added a background and made the cover. I had used John Stow’s “Annals of England to 1603″, which was published in 1603, in my research and the script used was beautiful. Tim had the idea of using the account of Anne’s execution from Stow’s book as the background for the sword and necklace image, and I agreed. I was really pleased with the finished cover image.
You can click on the image here to see a larger image and do let me know your thoughts. Do you like it?
The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown is available now from Amazon. See Buy the Book for further details.
Cover design: David Leppenwell, Tim Ridgway and Claire Ridgway
I’m so excited! The Kindle version of The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown is now available to download on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.es, Amazon.de and Amazon.fr – yay!
Here are the Amazon US and UK links:-
The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown – The Kindle version from Amazon.com
The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown – The Kindle version from Amazon.co.uk
I’m more than happy to ‘virtually’ sign and add a message to your Kindle copy. You can request this through http://www.kindlegraph.com/authors/AnneBoleynFiles
The paperback version is not yet available but it will be out shortly and I’ll let you know as soon as it is.
Once you’ve read The Fall of Anne Boleyn it would be wonderful if you could spare a moment and leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads. Reviews are so important to new authors and it only has to be brief – every little helps! I read every single review and really appreciate the effort.
You can also help by clicking “like” on the book’s Amazon page. Thank you so much!
Thank you for all the support you gave me with my first book, The Anne Boleyn Collection, and I hope you like The Fall of Anne Boleyn as much.
Here’s a sneak peak of the cover for The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown.
As you can see, it features an execution sword and Anne Boleyn’s B necklace as its main image, and the background text is John Stow’s account of Anne Boleyn’s execution from his book Annals of England to 1603.
I wanted to keep the same style as The Anne Boleyn Collection and also the tagline “The real truth about the Tudors” as that is always uppermost in my mind when I’m researching and writing.
The Anne Boleyn Files