This week, 26 April to 2 May 2021, To The Fair Land is on a blog tour, covering twenty one blogs in seven days with a mix of articles, author q and as, extracts and reviews.   You can follow the tour here:- 26 April 2021 Quirky Book Reads - Review Kellyschuknecht.com - Meet the Author Proud Book Reviews   - Review    27 April 2021 Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers - Excerpt Cup of Toast - Interview 33 South Textworks - Review  28 April 2021 Chez Maximka - Review B for BookReview - Author Q and A Everywhere & Nowhere - Excerpt  29 April 2021 What Cathy Read Next - Review Historical Fiction With Spirit - Guest Blog - The Burney Family and To The Fair Land The Story Scribbler - Review (Instagram) 30 April 2021 Northern Reader - Review The Magic of Wor(l)ds - Q and A @theb00kreader - Instagram 1 May 2021 Rev Rebecca Writes: Eat, Write, Pray - Review Jess Bookish Life - Review Bibliostatic 2 May 2021 Bookwormsina - Revi...

In August 2018 I saw the British Library exhibition “Captain Cook: The Voyages”. I was particularly interested in it because Cook’s voyages were one of the inspirations behind my first historical novel, To The Fair Land . It was 250 years since Captain Cook set sail from Plymouth on HMS Endeavour on 26 August 1768. The voyage lasted until 1771, and was followed by two further expeditions from 1772 to 1775 and 1776 to 1780. Cook was killed in a skirmish on Hawaii on 14 February 1779.   The voyages were motivated by a combination of scientific curiosity and expansionism. The goal of the first voyage was to observe the Transit of Venus at Tahiti, though it also had another, secret motive. This was the search for the Great Southern Continent, a land mass which was believed to exist in the southern hemisphere. By the end of the second voyage, Cook had proved that the continent did not exist. Though that was disappointing for a Britain looking to extend its empire, there were pl...

Some of you may remember Pythagoras and his theorem from maths lessons at school – and if like me you weren’t keen on maths, then I’m sure he didn’t endear himself to you. Pythagoras, who lived in the fifth century BC, had other ideas too. He believed that a great land mass lay in the southern hemisphere – the Great Southern Continent, the Great South Land, or Terra Australis Incognita. It had to exist, he argued, in order to balance the land masses of the north.    For the next 2,000 years, men dreamed of the Great Southern Continent. They drew maps of it and they speculated about the people who lived there. One theory was that the inhabitants would have feet opposite to our own – antipodes. Others thought they had one huge foot and when they were sitting down they were able to raise the foot over their heads to keep the sun off their faces.    Tantalised by tales of the Great Southern Continent, explorers from many nations went looking for it – Dutch, Frenc...