AUTHOR GUEST POST - PHILLIPA ASHLEY, ROMANTIC ADVENTURES

Phillipa Ashley is my guest today with a lovely post about romantic adventures, castles and pirates. I love the setting of her latest romance, Miranda's Mount. It's a very special place I just happened to visit  last summer, it's in Cornwall and ... unforgettable. Discover more, read Phillipa's post!

As long as I can remember, I’ve loved romantic historical adventure stories such as The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Three Musketeers and I’m an addict for period dramas in this vein. In fact I think that the BBC’s version of Lorna Doone with Richard Coyle as John Ridd is probably my favourite of period drama of all time (alongside N&S of course!) I love the drama, the passion and the sheeer thrilling adventure of these wonderful books and productions.

Even now, if I’m not careful, I’ll find myself hooked on an old Errol Flynn Robin Hood movie, or Elizabeth & Essex... and The Wicked Lady would be my desert island movie. It may be in black & white but I love it so much I ordered a copy on DVD. Even my daughter, who saw it while at home ill with glandular fever, is now hooked.

Lorna Doone - BBC 

CORNWALL - THE BEAUTIFUL LAND OF KING ARTHUR, POLDARK AND DOC MARTIN

Land's End

My latest trip to the UK was a one-week tour in the South - West of the country with friends. We went from Somerset to Dorset (see my travelog Visiting Bath and Lyme Regis at My Jane Austen Book Club), then Devon and Cornwall.
The first thing that comes to anyone's  mind thinking of Cornwall is King Arthur, Camelot,  the Knights of the Round Table but my friends and I,  while travelling all over the beautiful coasts,  had in ours mainly  the  memories of handsome Ross Poldark living near Truro and his dashing 18th century look . This doesn't mean we neglected visiting great Arthurian sites. Apart from the stunning cliffs at Land's End, our trip to Mount St. Michael, the ancient charm of Tintagel Castle, our exciting night at the Minack Theatre,  we'll never forget the thrill of driving  an incredibly huge rented car  along the most incredibly narrow roads and paths.  If you've driven in Cornwall or seen at least one episode of Doc Martin on TV, you know what I mean! But our dauntless driver  Lou  and  her inseparable satnav Chiara were not scared a bit and drove us everywhere we had planned to go: "Always heading toward new adventures and beyond", acrobatic  manoeuvres included.