When RN Morris went to St Petersburg to research his second 19th-century crime novel it felt as if he was revisiting the city he’d imagined so vividly: so much that his guide, a native St Petersburger, said his book had an “authentic atmosphere”. One day – who knows when – he’d like to be able […]
Extreme research: how far should a writer go?
What lengths will writers go to in order to research their books? For some, it’s quite far. Like drinking buffalo blood, or going to the Amazon jungle or the South Pole. For Louise Morrish, author of Operation Moonlight, it was grabbing her horror of heights in both hands and jumping out of a plane. She […]
Historia interviews: Fiona Forsyth and Eleanor Swift-Hook
Fiona Forsyth speaks to fellow author Eleanor Swift-Hook for Historia: After reading The Devil’s Command by chance, I found myself hooked (sorry, Eleanor!) and I have just finished The Physician’s Fate, the latest in the Lord’s Legacy series. I asked its author, Eleanor Swift-Hook, about the series. FF: The mess that is the English Civil […]
Invasion, inoculation and publication: when your book becomes unexpectedly topical
By the time Lucy Ward’s first book, about Catherine II (‘the Great’) of Russia and the fight for inoculation against smallpox, was published, her subject had become unexpectedly topical. Covid and the invasion of Ukraine had turned it from a slightly niche story to one which resonated strongly with our own times. And the echoes […]
Historia interviews: 2022 Debut Crown Award winner AJ West
AJ West’s The Spirit Engineer won the 2022 HWA Debut Crown award for the best first novel by a historical fiction writer. Praised by the judges as “haunting, deeply moving and witty”, it looks at the subject of spiritualism during the Edwardian age through the experiences of a deeply troubled man. We’re delighted to begin […]
My voyage discovering Charles Darwin
The historian Diana Preston travelled around the world to retrace Charles Darwin’s momentous voyage aboard the HMS Beagle for her new book, The Evolution of Charles Darwin. She tells Historia about her own voyage of discovery in his wake. After months of planning, I finally arrived on the densely-forested island of Chiloe, off Chile’s south-western […]
Adding the ‘little’ bits to enrich a story of Saxon historical fiction
The stomach-growling smell of roast meat, the hit of mead, the arm-ache from embroidery; wind, rain, fruit in the hedgerows: details like these are the ‘little’ extras that add more period and atmosphere to your story, says MJ Porter, author of Anglo-Saxon period historical fiction. In Warrior of Mercia, the third book in the Eagle […]
The book that tells 60,000 stories
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is a great – and little-known – resource for historical novelists. Frances Quinn found the idea for her new book, That Bonesetter Woman, there. As anyone who’s had dealings with the publishing industry will know, one of the things it loves best is ‘the same, but different’; in other […]