SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ THIS PAGE UNLESS YOU HAVE FIRST READ THE ASSASSIN'S MARK Some time ago, the reviewer Tori Turner asked me to write a "character interview" for her literary blog, Lily Loves Indie, and the result was this (fictitious) transcript of Jack Telford's appearance on Desert Island Discs on Sunday 8th September 1979. This is … [Read more...] about Jack Telford and Desert Island Discs
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Waterloo – The Battlefields Route
I always check out the locations for all of my novels and have never yet failed to make positive changes to the text as a result. So, early in September 2014, I drove to France and Belgium with Ann so that we could travel the routes followed by Marianne Tambour and Liberté Dumont in the novel, though the Waterloo Campaign. While doing so, it … [Read more...] about Waterloo – The Battlefields Route
Waterloo – Ten Things You (Almost Certainly) Didn’t Know
The wars that ended with Waterloo were known as “ The Great War” until 1917 The battles fought in Belgium, during the Waterloo Campaign, over those few brief days in June 1815 brought an end to 22 years of almost continuous fighting between the European powers in what had been, effectively, the first “world war” – and historians estimate that … [Read more...] about Waterloo – Ten Things You (Almost Certainly) Didn’t Know
Waterloo – 200 Years of Waterloo Historical Fiction
The sulphurous stench of gun smoke obscures our view of Waterloo, even two hundred years after the battle. Over this past bicentenary year, the clamour of conflict continues to sometimes deafen us. But that fog of war and the screams of injured outrage are now generally only the result of debate that still ebbs and flows around this turning point … [Read more...] about Waterloo – 200 Years of Waterloo Historical Fiction
Favourite Reads – A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel
I’d read A Place of Greater Safety a couple of years after it was first published in 1992 and, at that time, I’d never heard of Hilary Mantel. Seems strange now, but that’s the way it was! In fact, it was recommended to me as a political novel, rather than a work of historical fiction and, of course, the book fits neatly into both genres. I … [Read more...] about Favourite Reads – A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel