Blog
Strategos – Island in the Storm by Gordon Doherty
Friday, 26th August 1071. A date scorched into history. In the morning, Emperor Romanus Diogenes led his Byzantine armies to battle against the Seljuk Sultan Alp Arslan, intent on securing the Lake Van lands for the empire and firmly defining her borders once more. By...
Historical Fiction – Too Many Elizabeths
My latest novel in progress features a cast of real historical characters most of which have the real name 'Elizabeth.' My main character is not called Elizabeth, but her mother is, and her sister. Records show that her aunts on her mother's and father's side are also...
The #historical word origin of ‘Curfew’
As a novelist fascinated by the past, I love it when I come across words that are linked to interesting historical facts. This week I came across a peculiar sort of fire guard called a 'couvre-feu' (french - cover fire). A little research revealed that this fire-guard...
India Black and the Shadows of Anarchy by Carol K. Carr
I can’t imagine anyone writing historical fiction who doesn’t love history. What most people would consider tedious research is an incredibly pleasurable activity for an author. I’m sure I’m not the only writer who has to drag herself away from the reading part of the...
#LuckySeven – lines from my new novel
I was tagged by Barbara Kyle in a game where you have to reveal the seventh line of the seventh chapter of the book you are working on. So here's mine - from my current work in progress which is based around Pepys's Diary. According to the Diary, John Unthank was...
No Quick Fix – The Inherent Complexity of a Good Novel
Recently I have noticed that there has been a tsunami of 'How to' writing guides published, and that these are selling extremely well. In fact it is probably more profitable, and perhaps easier, to write a book about writing a novel than it is to write a successful...
Throwing mud at a wall – my writer’s process
Charlotte Betts is another fan of the seventeenth century and writes fantastic award-winning romantic novels set in the Restoration period. She invited me to take part in this writing process blog hop and you can find her blog on her writing process here: I have done...
Literature and Sisterly Love
My novel THE GILDED LILY is about the relationship between sisters - one pretty and one plain, when they run away to the gilded streets of London to escape a difficult past. Although the novel is set in 1661, during my research for the novel I looked into the...
Perfiditas by Alison Morton
In PERFIDITAS, Carina is settled six years into her new life in Roma Nova. She’s been kept busy in her military career as a Praetorian - training, going on operations, exercises and exchange visits. She’s still in love with her life partner and they have three...
My main character – Lady Katherine Fanshawe
This post is part of a game begun by Debra Brown and passed to me by Sue Millard who lives relatively near me in Cumbria in the North of England. The posts are designed for readers to gain an insight into what writers are working on at the moment. Because my book is...
The Ming Storytellers by Laura Rahme
The initial spark for The Ming Storytellers, was an intense curiosity for China’s Ming Dynasty. It came in 2006, upon reading Gavin Menzies’ visionary 1421 – The Year China Discovered the World. An image of the Middle Kingdom which I had never once imagined,...
Winter Fire by Kathy Fischer-Brown
Among the literature of seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth century America, “captive narratives” were an extremely popular and sensational genre depicting stories of white settlers — predominantly women— taken in raids by Native Americans. To this day these...
Powerful drama of a King’s Execution – The Crimson Ribbon
Blurb: Based on the real figure of the fascinating Elizabeth Poole, The Crimson Ribbon is the mesmerising story of two women's obsession, superstition and hope. May Day 1646. The Civil War is raging and what should be a rare moment of blessing for the town of...
The Home of 1609
In A Divided Inheritance, Elspet Leviston stands to lose her family’s house and business to a cousin she never knew existed. To recreate the house in my mind I researched the late Elizabethan and Early Jacobean style – a period much overlooked, but with its own...
Ring of Stone by Diane Scott Lewis
A decade ago, when researching my first novel, I traveled to Cornwall, England. After reading so many books on the West Country, and then seeing the countryside for myself, I became interested in the strange rock formations that the Cornish imbue with mystical powers....