Laura Shepherd-Robinson’s acclaimed second novel, Daughters of Night, is shortlisted for the 2022 Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award. To celebrate this, Historia dragged her away from editing her next book to talk about the award and her writing. Congratulations on being shortlisted! For anyone who hasn’t yet read Daughters of Night, can you sum it […]
Rediscovering Edinburgh’s New Town
Sometimes we can get access to a kind of time machine. Reading good historical fiction can transport us to our social and political past, as Sara Sheridan says. But things like Covid lockdowns, when the streets are stripped of crowds and transport, can also open a time portal – which is how she came to […]
The Chosen by Elizabeth Lowry
One Wednesday morning in November, 1912, the ageing Thomas Hardy, entombed by paper and books and increasingly estranged from his wife Emma, finds her dying in her bedroom. Between his speaking to her and taking her in his arms, she has gone. The day before, he and Emma had exchanged bitter words, leading Hardy to […]
Joan Vaux – child prodigy and lady-in-waiting to four queens
Joanna Hickson writes about the unusual life of Joan Vaux, child prodigy, second-generation immigrant, champion of the Tower ravens and lady-in-waiting to four queens, who is the subject of her latest novel, The Queen’s Lady. When I was researching the history of Joan Vaux I very quickly realised that her character and life were too […]
Imagining Somerville: a research mystery
You have the perfect location for your next book, but it’s not open to the public. Never mind, you’re going to an event there – and then the Covid lockdown happens. How are you going to research it now? This was the puzzle Fiona Veitch Smith faced while writing her latest Poppy Denby mystery, set […]
Historia interviews, 2021 Crown Awards shortlists: Stuart Turton
Stuart Turton, author of The Devil and the Dark Water, talks to Historia for the third in our series of interviews with authors whose books have been shortlisted for HWA Crown Awards. His novel, which is up for the Gold Crown Award, is described by the judges as “Holmes and Watson on a 17th-century Dutch East […]
On the trail of an emperor, a rebel, and a lion
To research his latest book, historian Lindsay Powell set out on the trail of the rebel leader who, in AD132, led an uprising of the Jewish people against the Roman Emperor. Who was Bar Kokhba? And what caused the war? For my latest book I wanted to tell the true story of the consequential clash […]
Should historical authors feel guilt when they write real people as antiheroes?
What responsibility has an author of historical fiction towards real people who they write as antiheroes in a novel? Should authors feel guilty about how they portray them? AJ West, whose debut novel, The Spirit Engineer, takes people who have living descendants as its close inspiration, considers this dilemma. I don’t believe in ghosts, though […]