Anna Mazzola reports from the Alderney Literary Festival 2017 Alderney, the northernmost of the inhabited Channel Islands, has blonde hedgehogs, about two thousand inhabitants, and numerous fortifications. It also has a history and literature festival. Every March, a group of historians, biographers and historical fiction writers are invited to attend the festival to throw fresh […]
Historia Interviews: Antonia Senior
Antonia Senior talks to Elizabeth Fremantle about her new novel The Tyrant’s Shadow. The Tyrant’s Shadow follows on from the events of your previous novel Treason’s Daughter, was it always your intention to write more than one book with these characters? I had intended to write only one book. It was my then editor’s idea […]
Historia Interviews: Samuel Ferrer
Samuel Ferrer wrote his debut novel, The Last Gods of Indochine, in the bars of Bangkok, Saigon, Hanoi, the cafes of Laos, in the mountains of Sapa, and on location throughout Cambodia. Inspired by the real life of explorer, Henri Mouhot (1826-1881), the novel centres around Mouhot’s fictitious granddaughter and uses excerpts from the journal that […]
The Tyrant’s Shadow by Antonia Senior
Revisiting characters from the critically acclaimed Treason’s Daughter, Antonia Senior has set her new novel, The Tyrant’s Shadow, some years later in the wake of the English Civil Wars. This series of brutal conflicts has left no family untouched by tragedy and division. The country is reeling, religious sects await the second coming and power […]
Historia Interviews: Ben Kane
Douglas Jackson chats to Ben Kane about Romans, research and the writing life. I’ve been fortunate to have been asked to interview historical fiction writer Ben Kane to celebrate the publication of his new novel, Eagles in the Storm, set in 15AD as Rome attempts to recover the eagle standards lost in the disastrous battle […]
All Clio’s Children
Sarah Hawkswood, author of the Bradecote and Catchpoll series, on how being an academic historian influences her fiction. I am an historian, and I am also a writer of historical fiction. Being the former influences how I write as the latter, imposes a ‘morality’, but I do not see it as constricting. I also do not […]
March Giveaway!
We’ve a real treat for Roman fans this month, with FOUR new books up for grabs! Win a copy of Eagles in the Storm, the new novel by Ben Kane, Betrayal: The Centurions I, the first in a new series from Anthony Riches, and Earthly Gods, the latest in the Agent of Rome series by Nick […]
Historia Interviews: Margaret George
Historical novelist Margaret George is well-known for her impeccably researched novels about such fascinating characters as Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and Cleopatra. As her latest book, The Confessions of Young Nero, launches in the UK, Catherine Hokin caught up with her to find out more about the eras and people which attract her and the […]