Book Launch in Chicago is Terrific! and HOT!

Naturally, this particular August in Chicago has to be the Hottest on record for umpty-up years (that's what they say in Chicago) but at least they have perfected the engineering art of Air Conditioning, so the Borders bookstores were cool and dry. Sunday was at Oak Brook, a western suburb in the lazy afternoon, but had a decent crowd with good questions.  Tonight was in my home-town of LaGrange, another Borders, and we sold out all the books they had; great group of people with really good questions. And afterwards...burritos and margaritas at Chipotle! yay! I had decided to launch my book tour in Chicago once my hometown relatives decided there was going to be a family reunion (my mom's side, Croation -- check out www.matkovichfamilyreunion.com (a website I created/designed) for more info -- and it coincided nicely with my book's publication date in July. So it's going well, but I sure am looking forward to being back in the cool, very cool (so I hear) foggy summer of San Francisco -- leaving Thursday for the Coast. Yes. Just one more gig tomorrow, at Women & Children First on N. Clark Street in Chicago - looking forward to being there!

Glastonbury Abbey, King Arthur and Gregorian Chant

I'm starting research for my next historical novel and I've been musing on things medieval. A friend dropped by the other day with a book about the Glastonbury Abbey, a most holy and beautiful place of ruins (blast you, Henry VIII and your greedy minions!). Way back in pre-history, apparently, there were settlements in the area, and it is thought that Druids held ceremonies there in the centuries before the Common Era. By the time the Romans came and went, and Christianity took over, there were hermits and holy folk assembled in small huts on the Glastonbury Plain, which eventually grew into a huge monastic community that lasted well into the 1500's. Absolutely fascinating reading. Sometime in the 1200's, a gravesite was dug up and the remains of a tall man and a blonde woman were unearthed - determined by the abbot at that time to be King Arthur and Guinevere. They were reverently re-buried, but then that darn Henry VIII 'reformed' everything and the grave was despoiled. There's only a plaque there now. Another section of the book talks about the music at the Abbey, and how one of the abbots tried to replace the popular Gregorian chant with "new" music of the day, and wasn't very successful. I'm going to have to dig up my old chant CD's and play it as background while I attempt to start a new novel.