Newsletter, September, 2016
Goodness me, it’s September!
Outside it’s raining and I’m
wearing a long-sleeved top. Tonight the new series of Strictly Come
Dancing starts (don’t judge me!) so I know it’s autumn. I’ve
still have obligations to fulfill from my trip to America in April – a
couple of novellas, which I’m looking forward to writing.
I sit here with my computer
which is now a year old, and try not to panic. At least I don’t have
school age children any more. If I did, they’d be back at school
already.
I went back to my home town of
Leicester recently, to visit my mother and my sister, who had a health
problem. But I did get a chance to nip into the cathedral and see the
tomb of Richard
III. They did a beautiful job. Richard has his own chapel, and the tomb
has a deep cross carved into it, with his name around the plinth in
gold. Very simple. I’m a bit of a Ricardian, tempered with commonsense. I
don’t
think he killed the princes, I think that opportunist Buckingham did it
in order to foment (fabulous word!) rebellion. But I don’t think Richard
was incapable of the deed. His yearning for order, everything in its
place,
speaks to us, though dimly, because of the destruction of the evidence
that came later. However Richard did start the reform of the law that
his successor continued. Buckingham’s rebellion failed, but two years
later,
the future Henry VII succeeded. Someone said that if it wasn’t for
Shakespeare, Richard would probably be viewed as a minor king, one
people barely remembered. So is it better to be remembered as a villain,
or not at
all?
I remember Leicester as a gray
place, one with a lot of industry but not much leisure. That’s changed
completely. It’s now a wonderfully multicultural city, full of colour
and
sound. I’d go back to live there in a heartbeat, if I could. But my
heart was never there. That belongs to Manchester. I stepped off the
train for an interview at the Polytechnic, and fell in love with the
place. I stayed
there, did my degree, and then crossed the road to Manchester University
to do another one, and just stayed.
Once, most people rarely left
the vicinity of their homes. They would live and die in the space of
around 20 square miles, or even less, and never see anywhere else. We
forget how small
the world has become.
My, aren’t I philosophical? That
probably comes from writing historicals. When I research, it’s like
visiting another country, another place that is familiar but not. The
time
it took to go any distance, the lack of instant communication are things
that are easily forgotten, as is the size of the social groups most
people moved in. Very small. I’ve written the first book in a new
trilogy for
Kensington, about the Shaw family, and I had to recall how long journeys
took and what a huge undertaking they were.
In “Dilemma in Yellow Silk”
(which hit number 12 in Amazon this month, yay!) the hero and heroine
travel from Yorkshire to London, getting away from their pursuers, who
want
to kill her. That part took a lot of the book, which only seemed fair
because the journey would have taken so long! The following book,
“Reckless In Pink” is, by contrast, set mostly in London, and has
Claudia
Shaw, the well born heroine, inheriting a house that turns out to be a
brothel! Claudia wants to see it before her family makes her sell it and
add the sum to her dowry, and that’s where her adventure starts. Doing
the
research for that one reminded me how close the classes of society
lived. In retracing Claudia’s steps on a visit to London this year, it
is fascinating to see the houses she would have seen still standing, and
mark
the differences between the houses in the West End, and the
crammed-together, ramshackle ones crowding around Covent Garden.
I did pick a house for Claudia
to inherit. That’s the beauty of personal research. That and the
shopping, because most of the houses around the Garden are lovely little
boutiques,
and I had to see the inside of them, didn’t I?
“Reckless In Pink” is 99 cents
this month, as we’re building up to the release of the next Emperor
book, which features Julius and the woman he falls head over heels for!
So pick up “Reckless In Pink,” and if you like it, preorder “Veiled In Blue” to continue the story!
Oh yes, and we had a cover
reveal for the last in the series, “Wild Lavender,” which I’ve put above
this post. What do you think? Me, I'm in love with the image!
