It just conjured up an image of the enterprising monks gathering buckets of said ingredient and peddling it on the open market. The added note was that 'monks piss' if you could afford it was the best additive. The key ingredients are ground to a paste, a highly dangerous pastime, however one recipe I found added urine to the mix to keep it moist and avoid embarrassing explosions.

There were so many recipes, often well guarded, and some of the ingredients were highly amusing. Recently research has covered the production of black powder, or gun powder as we generally know it.

Tell us something unexpected you discovered during your research. Currently I am taking these on board and the book is going to be re-launched in 2019 and I am hoping the second edition will tick more boxes for readers.

My first book - A Queen's Spy - has been live for over a year now and this has provided with lots of critical reviews. Making them free or practically free on Amazon seems to do the trick. What have you found to be the best way to raise awareness of your books? Writing is very much like any other process the more you do it the better you become. I have learnt that without a plan I will end up sitting and staring at the screen, but with a plan I can easily achieve the days goals. In general I have a plan for what I'm going to write and then I sit down and fill in the framework. What advice do you have for aspiring writers? Regularly it ends up as five in the morning, but a constant supply of Tassimo coffee keeps me going. Those silent hours are quiet precious, the phone does not ring, facebook is silent and I can get five times as much work produced compared to any other time of day. The setting is Europe and the destination they have in mind is Malta.Īfter my three children and my partner have gone to bed on goes Nickelback and I write usually between midnight and three in the morning when I am trying to get something done. In this book they are attempting to improve their fortunes by selling a lost arms shipment to the highest bidder. Mix in politics and religion and it all makes hopefully for a highly charged read. Richard Fitzwarren, a childhood friend of Elizabeth I, has very fixed loyalties not entirely shared by his older brother Jack. This follows the lives of two very different brothers set in the 1550's. The latest book in the Tudor Mystery Trials Series, A Queen's Mercenary, was released on Amazon on 8th August. I'm pleased to welcome historical fiction author Sam Burnell to my blog today:

A Queen's Spy by Samantha Burnell