The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
With Americans celebrating Thanksgiving at the end of the month, November seems a good time to consider the Pilgrims who sailed on the Mayflower from Europe in 1620. Whilst researching my Alexander Baxby mystery Paying in Blood, I learnt more about their roots in...
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...
Emma Sergeant’s ‘La Selva Oscura’ - Review Emma Sergeant’s newest exhibition, titled ‘La Selva Oscura’ at the Lavery Studio in South Kensington, explores the themes of Dante’s Inferno, as well as being inspired by her home in Poland. Sergeant is one of our most...
From Fact into Fiction: The Origins of The Devils of Cardona As every historian knows, the past is another country, and documents are the indispensable tools that we use to find our way into it. Wander too far from the paper trail, and history can easily drift into...
The Other Conquest: England’s Forgotten King Though obviously not as well-known as the events of 1066, many people will have heard of King Knut (also rendered as Cnut or Canute), who became King of England in 1016, if only to the extent of knowing him to be the fellow...
Elizabeth Linley at the age of seventeen is England’s most celebrated singer. Her beauty and voice can captivate the King, or send an audience into a state of wild infectious hysteria, but suddenly and mysteriously she disappears during the night of March the 18th...
Santa, your latest book, Secrets of the Starlit Sea, has recently been published. By our calculations that makes it your 32nd book since Meet Me Under the Ombu Tree back in 2001. Do you have a favourite? It’s very hard to choose a favourite because at the time of...
The History behind The Bratinsky Affair "It is not the wimpled version of history that is interesting but its brutality." - Hilary Mantel The story of Countess Irina Bratinsky, née O’Rourke de Breffny, has its roots in the religious wars of 17th-century Ireland and...
Historical Heroes: Chiune Sugihara Chiune Sugihara is the little-known Japanese World War 2 hero who saved thousands of refugees with his pen. Through his quiet defiance, he issued what became known as ‘Visas for Life’, helping an estimated 6,000 Jewish refugees...
Strictly Murder - Review Should you be in the mood for a taut, theatrical thriller then Strictly Murder at The Questors Theatre in Ealing should satisfy your appetite. Set on the cusp of the Second World War, the two-act play, located in a cottage in Provence, is...
