“From my teens I had wanted to write historical adventure/romance fiction and I wanted it to feel real and right for the period…Sharon showed me that it was also possible to write about real people and keep the adventure and romance going without warping the history out of true. Her selfless relationships with others made her beloved by all.”īestselling historical novelist Elizabeth Chadwick also counts Sharon as an influence and a friend. “Because of this, as everyone who knew her can attest, she knew more about us than we did about her, since she was always more interested in hearing what we were doing than telling us what she was doing. “She was always concerned for other people, thinking of them,” George says. Martin, Bernard Cornwell, and Margaret George, all of whom formed friendships with Sharon.

Among her fans are such giants of the industry as George R.R. And I’ll never forget when it was my turn at the table and I introduced myself…and she knew who I was! She remembered me from her forum! I was already a fan of her writing, but now I was a fan of her as a person.Īnd I’m not alone. Then Devil’s Brood was released and a stop on Sharon’s book tour was an hour away from me. And I fell over when Sharon herself answered me. (And thank goodness she did!) I learned that a demon famously inhabited her computer and that she was a dog lover, like me. I learned that her first manuscript for Sunne was stolen and it took years for her to find the heart to rewrite it from scratch. I found her fan forum (back in the days before Facebook). Of course I had to find out more about this amazing writer who could bring the past so vividly to life, who could write novels spanning decades with hundreds of characters and keep me hanging on to every word. And thus began my love affair with Sharon Kay Penman’s books. And then I found The Sunne in Splendour and When Christ and His Saints Slept. The next morning I was at the library when it opened to check out the other books in the trilogy.

I couldn’t pronounce half the names, and I’d never even heard of Llywelyn Fawr, but I was riveted. For sixteen hours, I was thoroughly transported to 12 th– and 13 th-century Wales. I had all my favorite snacks and beverages, I had a fire going in the fireplace, my dogs at my feet, and I settled in to crack open a book I’d picked up from the library called Here Be Dragons. I had the house to myself for the entire weekend.

It was a dark, rainy, cold October Saturday. And possibly the most memorable one of all was when I discovered Sharon Kay Penman. Sharon Kay Penman and Stephanie Churchill LingĮvery once in a while I have what I call a “reading moment.” When the stars align in the right place, at the right time, with the perfect book, and the result is an incredible and memorable reading experience.

Amber by night sharon sala