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Dinas Brân
Originally, I was going to use a castle which was less of a detour. But this, this was Rhodri’s home.
Austere, bare, standing guard over a desolate craggy part of North Wales, it dragged everyone further into Wales and once there they kept heading west.
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Conwy Castle
My earliest trips to Wales were fleeting at best, visits to the Hay Festival or whipping across the northern coast on my way home to Ireland via Holyhead.
Further explorations of the Welsh countryside gave me many castles to choose from but the sight of this forbidding fortress on the water’s edge makes a lasting impression.
Many of these castles were built to keep the Welsh under the Anglo-Norman heel, but the number and sheer defensive nature of them stand testimony to the ferocity with which the Welsh withstood conquest.
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Anglesey and the Holy Isle
When searching for a place near Conwy to stage an attack on a Druid community, inspiration was easily found.
Anglesey was a sacred place to the Druids and a key target of the Roman conquest of Britain. The Roman attacked it not once but twice, the first recorded by the historian, Tacitus, as the Battle of Mona, an older name for Anglesey, where in 60 AD the Romans under General Gaius Paulinus attacked the Druids here and destroyed their sacred sites.
Recipe: Griddle Cakes aka Welsh Cakes aka Pice ar y maen
A friend’s aunt introduced me to the wonder that is “Welsh Cakes” and her journey back to London after a trip home to Hereford was often accompanied by an ice cream container full of these little beauties.
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Do try them – fresh and warm, they are a treat!
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Auntie Sue’s Welsh Cakes
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225g/8 oz of plain flour
½ tsp of baking powder
110g/4 oz of butter, chilled cubed
85g/3 oz of sugar
2 oz of currants or sultanas
½–1 tsp of mixed spice (nutmeg and cinnamon)
A pinch of salt
1 egg
A dash of milk, if needed
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Rub butter into flour until crumbly.
Stir in dry ingredients
Mix in egg and milk, if still dry, until you get a stiff dough (similar to short crust pastry)
Roll out to ½ cm thickness and cut into rounds 6-7 cm wide.
Fry on each side 2-3 mins until golden.
Sprinkle with caster sugar. Eat hot or cold.
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Thank you, Sue, for sharing the family recipe!
Thank you for reading…
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Dying to know what happens next?
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Treat yourself to the third and final instalment in The Once and Future Queen trilogy by the brilliant Clara O’Connor with the utterly enthralling Legend of the Lakes…
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You will also love…
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Life is made of so many moments that mean nothing. Then one day, a single moment comes along to define every second that comes after.
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You will also fall instantly for Nevernight by Jay Kristoff, the gut-wrenching opening salvo in a bewitching chronicle of salt and honey, iron and blood, eyes the blue of sunsburned skies, and the forever burning in the dark between the stars.
Look now upon the ruins in her wake. As pale light glitters on the waters that drank a city of bridges and bones. As the ashes of the Republic dance in the dark above your head. Stare mute at the broken sky and taste the iron on your tongue and listen as lonely winds whisper her name as if they knew her too.
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Do you think she would laugh or weep to see the world her hand has wrought?
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And don’t miss The City of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty, an unputdownable saga of windswept sands and elemental spirits following the epic quest of a notorious healer-turned-thief on the streets of 18th-century Cairo when she accidentally summons an equally sly djinn warrior to her side.
Greatness takes time, Banu Nahida. Often the mightiest things have the humblest beginnings.
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Happy reading!
About the Author
Clara O’Connor grew up in the west of Ireland where inspiration was on her doorstep; her village was full of legend, a place of druids and banshees and black dogs at crossroads. Clara worked in publishing for many years before her travels set her in the footsteps of Arthurian myth, to Mayans, Maasai, Dervishes and the gods of the Ancients. The world she never expected to explore was the one found in the pages of her debut novel, Secrets of the Starcrossed, which is the first book in the The Once and Future Queen trilogy.
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Clara now works in LA in TV. At weekends, if not scribbling away on her next book, she can be found browsing the markets, hiking in the Hollywood Hills or curled up by the fireside with a red wine deep in an epic YA or fantasy novel.
Books by Clara O’Connor
The Once and Future Queen Series
Secrets of the Starcrossed
Curse of the Celts
Legend of the Lakes
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Curse of the Celts Page 39