For this week's #HistFicThursdays blog, I'm delighted to be welcoming Rosemary Hayward to the blog with a guest post about her new release Strait Lace , as part of her Coffee Pot Book Club tour. Read on to discover the history surrounding this fabulous book. But first, let's meet the book... Blurb It is 1905. Edwardian England. Harriet Loxley, the daughter of a vicar and niece to a prominent Nottingham lace manufacturer, spends her days playing cricket with her brother, scouring the countryside for botanical specimens, and never missing an opportunity to argue the case for political power for women. Given the chance to visit the House of Commons, Harriet witnesses the failure of a historic bill for women’s voting rights. She also meets the formidable Pankhurst women. When Harriet gets the chance to study biology at Bedford College, London, she finds her opportunity to be at the heart of the fight. From marching in the street, to speaking to hostile c...
Well, I won NaNoWriMo, actually with three days still on the clock to complete. That means I’m being inventive with writing my words if I want to get all my badges and, in turn, that means that I’m getting this blog written. I’ve been meaning to write a NaNoWriMo blog all month (Virginia wrote one which is available here ) but I’m only just getting round to it on 28th November. I can’t share great words of wisdom, because I’m not a great researcher like Ginny is, but I can tell you that this is the first time I have ever – ever, mark you – completely pantsed a novel. Here’s how it happened… Before NaNoWriMo comes Preptober, and I took it seriously this year. I came up with this idea of “Me: A 50 Piece Jigsaw”. This would be the story of a girl whose dad dies and so she joins the circus (or, more precisely, the fairground) whilst realising that she’s actually psychic. Oh, and there’s this villainous doctor in the shadows who is trying to “cure” people of psychic-ness and her friend...