The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
The Queen and the Countess is Anne O’Brien’s latest medieval historical fiction, following two women on opposing sides of the Wars of the Roses. Set between the 1450s and 1480s, this novel centres on Margaret of Anjou (Queen of England and wife of Lancaster King Henry...
Your novel Blood Caste is a historical crime thriller set in 1895 India, featuring two detectives Soob and Wilberforce, who investigate three murders that bear a distinct resemblance to those committed by Jack the Ripper. What drew you to the idea of transplanting...
What has been the reaction to Ovid as a character? People think he makes a great main character – but I think many are surprised by how miserable he is in Poetic Justice. If anyone has read him, in Latin or translation, it tends to be extracts from his great work on...
The goddess Hecate plays a crucial role in my murder mystery Poetic Justice, something I did not expect when I embarked upon my research of the poet Ovid and his life in exile. It all started when I read a pamphlet from the Museum of History and Archaeology in...
Books of 2025 from Aspects of HistoryZeb Baker-Smith Editor of Aspects of HistorySeven Rivers by Vanessa Taylor explores how humanity and waterways have shaped one another across millennia, offering vivid historical portraits of the Nile, Danube, Ganges, Thames,...
Welcome, Natalie, and thank you for talking to us today. My first question is – why do you think there is such an appetite nowadays for fiction set in the ancient world? I think it’s just having a moment, isn’t it? And some of that will probably just be a trend, I...
This is the second book in the ‘Men-at-Arms’ series. What was your previous book about and how did it lead into this one? The first book Men-At-Arms: Crecy centers around the famous battle and introduces us to the characters of William Gower (a seasoned man-at-arms)...
A Fairytale for Christmas - Review Irish - and English - eyes were smiling at the Dominion Theatre on Sunday evening as the venue hosted Fairytale For Christmas, a celebratory show featuring Irish standards and festive hits. There may have been no discernible plot to...
Hunter Class is the second novel in your Daniel Nichols Spy Thrillers series. What has happened to Nichols since the end of Rising Tide and the beginning of the new book? Nichols has been recruited into 30 Commando by Ian Fleming, a unit the Bond creator formed to...
Shadow of A Queen As I am by no means the first to observe, history, like hindsight, tends to be 20/20 vision. We know how things turned out in the end and we often assume that this was the way they were meant to be - whereas of course the men and women actually...
