I honestly can’t remember what inspired me to write about Alexander the Great. I think it was probably the Horrible Histories song , but I could be wrong about that. I suddenly just wanted to know everything there was to know about him, and to put it into story form. I actually started the story before I knew much about him and his campaigns at all so, still in its first draft condition, the opening chapter of the book has some rather hilarious mistakes and inferences. By the second chapter, I had eased into the story a little more and, by the fourth chapter, the research was there to support it too. This story was unique among my historical fantasy because of the sheer quantity of research which I did for it. I devoured anything and everything I could find about Alexander the Great. There was a wonderful blog called The Second Achilles, and I spent hours poring over archived posts, reading as much as I could about different theories and stories about the great conqueror. The blog disa...
Today, I'm delighted to be shining a spotlight on Helen Hollick's brilliant book, A Meadow Murder , as part of her Coffee Pot Book Club tour! So, let's meet the book... "As delicious as a Devon Cream Tea!" ~ author Elizabeth St John "Every sentence pulls you back into the early 1970s... The Darling Buds of May, only not Kent, but Devon. The countryside itself is a character and Hollick imbues it with plenty of emotion" ~ author Alison Morton *** Make hay while the sun shines? But what happens when a murder is discovered, and country life is disrupted? Summer 1972. Young library assistant Jan Christopher and her fiancé, DS Lawrence Walker, are on holiday in North Devon. There are country walks and a day at the races to enjoy, along with Sunday lunch at the village pub, and the hay to help bring in for the neighbouring farmer. But when a body is found the holiday plans are to change into an investigation of murder, hampered by a resting actor, a wom...