LIVELY FULL ATTENDANCE AND GOOD QUESTIONS AT MY IN-PERSON BOOK TALK, AND A CHALLEGE ANSWERED.

Finally, a challenge I offer at all my talks on The Reversible Mask is being answered. Read on and stay tuned!

Betwen the live audience and others watching remotely, I had a fantastic time at Chester Village West doing my slide show and book excerpts. I was thrilled to sell 8 paperbacks, and was moved by the perceptive questions.

Now, the challenge: Part of my talk and slides are about the siege of Antwerp, 1584-5, at which my protagonist is a shocked observer. The besieged Dutch Protestants invented several weapons that appalled their Spanish attackers. Well-illustrated are the two Hellburner bomb ships, and an artillery ship four times the normal size, called War’s End. But one invention has been described by contemporaries but not drawn. The Dutch built two bomb ships with only an UNDErWATER sail. They were propelled purely by the ebb tide to theSpaniards’ siege bridge across the River Scheldt, that had sealed in Antwerp from sea access. One of these ships had hooks and four thousand pounds of explosive powder. I ask my audiences to draw one, sixteenth-century appropriate. For the first time, one of the audience members at this event has drawn one, and is on the second version. I can’t wait to share it with you in a separate blog.

Be well and safe.