With the closure of our theatres, it only seems fair to bring a little old-fashioned footlights-and-greasepaint magic to Historia. So, ladies and gentlemen, I present for your especial enjoyment… the effervescent, the estimable, the essential Essie Fox! There has been quite an upsurge in Victorian-era novels published over the past few years. As a writer […]
The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal
London. 1850. On a crowded street, the dollmaker Iris Whittle meets the artist Louis Frost. Louis is a Pre-Raphaelite painter who yearns to have his work displayed in the Royal Academy, and he is desperate for Iris to be his model. Iris agrees, on the condition that he teaches her to paint. Dreaming of freedom, […]
Castrati: did the end justify the means?
Marilyn Pemberton tells Historia about the history behind her latest novel: the lives of castrati, the choristers and opera stars with the voices of boys and the lungs of men. As all writers know, inspiration for a novel can come in many guises. The seed for what became my second historical novel, Song of the […]
Kitty Peck and the Parliament of Shadows by Kate Griffin
When Kitty Peck took over Paradise – her grandmother’s East End criminal empire – she thought she would be able to run it her own way. What Kitty didn’t know was that her grandmother had also left her violently entwined with the Barons of London. This coterie of fiends will stop at nothing to gain […]
The Darker Quacks – Between folklore and science
Oscar de Muriel found the Victorian clash between science and superstition an irresistible background for his Frey and McGray spooky Scottish whodunits, he tells Historia. A man sets up a box amidst a busy market, jumps on top of it cradling a boxful of tiny glass vials, and begins his chant. His new miraculous tonic […]
The Darker Arts by Oscar de Muriel
The Darker Arts, the fifth in the Frey and McGray series of spooky whodunits written by Oscar de Muriel
Review: Year of the Rabbit
Having written four books set in the East End of London in the 1880s I like to think I know a trope when I see one, and Year of the Rabbit has them in spades. In fact, they come so thick and fast in the first episode of Channel 4’s new crime comedy it’s as […]
Dark Water by Elizabeth Lowry
Dark Water, Elizabeth Lowry’s dark psychological novel set in the early 19th century