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Showing posts from February, 2025

#HistFicThursdays - Inspirational Series: Our Flag Means Death

I can’t quite remember what inspired me to watch Our Flag Means Death . I have a vague recollection of watching a trailer on Facebook and then, eventually, picking up my phone and flicking through various streaming platforms, finally settling on that as my pick. What I was expecting was a farcical pirate romp. Maybe elements of The Muppets’ Treasure Island but with a little more adult content. Lots of hopeless pirates attempting swashbuckling tasks with comically poor results. Possibly a bit of Blackadder -esque historical humour. As anyone who has watched the series would be able to tell you, I was a little way off the mark. In fact, it is a delicious, hilarious and touching tribute to Wokeness. And I say this as a good thing: all people are welcome here. For me, watching it straight after finishing (or getting towards the end of, I can’t quite remember) my novel about Alexander the Great, the relationship between Stede and Blackbeard really resonated with me. What begins as a fascin...
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#HistFicThursdays - Three Historical Myths which Genealogy Research has Helped to Bust

 First of all, thank you to everyone who got in touch about the Science Fiction in Historical Fiction blog a few weeks ago. It is great to have such feedback and super to hear that these two genres are rubbing along so well! At the moment, I'm doing very little writing. It's not intentional, it's just other things have been taking me in other directions. I'm truly honoured to have been asked to be a critical reader on a book set in 1490s Florence. I can't even begin to describe how much it means to have been asked! I finished it earlier this week and you can expect a post on it when it hits the bookshelves! I've also been spending time in the Realm of Family Tree. This landscape is justly given its capital letters and, historical writers, I cannot tell you how important this is to your research. It is worth having access to genealogy sites just for the information, whether the people there are your ancestors or not. It's the looking beyond the names which su...
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#MGMonday #BookReview "Blue" by Caroline Allen

Bl u e by Caroline Allen What is the book about? Maisie-Grace lives on the edge of a forest which suits her perfectly as she can talk to trees. Her best friend, Blue, is a Douglas Fir tree. Not only can she talk to trees, but she also has predicting dreams which she hides from her mum. When their landlord has to cut down the forest for logging, Maisie-Grace must try to save the trees. Why this book? Two reasons, really. 1) Environmental issues are important. More books need to be published with this message. 2) The blurb gave the impression of an exciting adventure story, and I do love a good upper middle grade adventure book that I can get my teeth into! My thoughts The book deals with a very important issue, which needs bringing to light around the world. Environmental issues is a theme I can get behind one hundred percent, and I think needs to be included in more children's books.  I feel like the target age for this book is incorrect. Blue  is marketed as a middle grade bo...
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#HistFicThursdays - Inspirational Series: The Tudors

Sir Thomas More by Hals Holbein (Accessed via Wikipedia )  During lockdown, we had Time. Remember that? I was in my probationary year of teaching: almost certainly among the most exhausting years for any profession. All my time had been taken up with school work, and I regularly stayed at school until after 6pm, having arrived there at eight in the morning. Now, children, this is not sustainable and, very soon, I decided I didn’t like working where I was. Then I realised that I didn’t like teaching at all. But, in fact, neither was particularly true: I just needed to be true to myself and to say no, which would give me the ability to manage my work/life balance in a more appropriate way. What does this have to do with historical fiction, I hear you say? Well, during March 2020, we went into lockdown and suddenly I went from working ten-hour-days to ten-hour-weeks. I met up with my class on Google Meet, I put work up for them on a meticulously designed Google Classroom, but I just h...
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#MGMonday: Setting Inspiration

Mehrangarh Fort - the inspiration for Caer Cleon in Doorway to the Sunset Writing a blog about writing settings is like writing a blog about the length of a piece of string. The fact is: the setting will likely depend on the genre and, as I have said many times, Middle Grade is an age range , not a genre. But, I can at least offer some hopefully-handy tips on how to get ideas for your setting. Firstly, it helps to have some idea of your setting to begin with. Do you want the scene to be in a forest, or perhaps you're looking for some building inspiration. This is where I get really controversial. When to use AI AI gets quite a bad press in the creative world, and for good reason. But to have a blanket ban on using AI to help you with the creative process is to shoot yourself in the foot. There is a time and a place for AI, and one of those times, I would argue, is when looking for inspiration. There are some good picture generators out there, and all you need to do is write a descr...
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#HistFicThursdays - Gothic Horror - The Devil's Servant

 When I was little, we had a few scary books in the house, but none were scarier than Spine Tinglers and In A Dark, Dark Room . These absolutely terrified me, with their creepy rhymes and frankly disturbing illustrations. To be fair Spine Tinglers even included a warning that it might upset some children – and I was that child. As a result, the books were put away in an old wooden chest, which Holly had painted. It didn’t work. My fear transmuted to the chest itself and, since it was kept in my room for some time, that was very far from ideal! In fact, fear of the chest lasted far longer than fear of the books themselves. Now, we keep the spare bedding in it. Not very threatening – but very full! As I approached secondary school age, my fear of the macabre in fiction began to slowly subside. I loved my children’s version of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde ; I wrote a story about a “Warné” – a hideous werewolfesque beast which went around terrorising people; when I was fourteen I took a ...
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#MGMonday: Cover Reveal, and Romance in Middle Grade!

At the end of this blog is the book cover for the upcoming release, Sir Louis Curlewy! For more information, scroll to the bottom and have a peek! Middle Grade Monday: Genres Romance in Middle Grade Valentine's Day is at the end of the week and, throughout several homes, couples are racking their brains on what to get their better halves! Romance is one of the most loved genres of adult fiction, romance authors being the most prolific in writing their books, and the reader community thirsty for their next read. But adult genres don't always translate into middle grade. (Incidentally, this blog comes with a caveat that I am not well-versed in romance, being a devout singleton who would rather keep my very cosy life the way it is than risking changing it for a man!) There is no romance genre in Middle Grade, for the simple reason it just doesn't appeal to people that age. They are still in, or just getting out of, the idealistic romance stories in fairytales, and aren't r...
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#HistFicThursdays - Breaking the Mould: a (very short) argument for combining Historical and Science Fiction

The Gathering Storm ~ the galloping advancement of technology is nothing new  I am privileged enough to be the editor for the Crowvus Hooded journal, which is now advancing into the realms of being a genre-specific anthology. This season's genre is Science Fiction. What does this have to do with Historical Fiction..? Let me explain. A small number of years ago, I read one publisher's definition of science fiction as being about as yet unobtained scientific knowledge set in the future . This, I decided, was rather more restrictive than Science Fiction should be. In fact, I love the premise of having Science Fiction set in the past, like Doctor Who or Chris de Burgh's classic A Spaceman Came Travelling . If time travel became a reality, I suspect most of us would chose a point in history to visit rather than a time in the future. After all, that's why we wrap ourselves up in the historical tales anyway! Inserting a scientific advancement, something we have as yet not dis...
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#MGMonday: The Main Character - A Brutal Guide

Characters in Middle Grade: The Main Character Every story needs one! Main characters in middle grade books follow similar rules, but there are some things worth mentioning that are more specific to this age range. Here’s a (somewhat brutal!) guide to developing middle grade main characters. Age Children generally don’t want to read about adults… they just don’t. Why would they? When I was a child, it was clear that adults got to go on more adventures than I did. They could choose where they went. If they wanted to run away with a magical ring to Mordor, then they could just up sticks and leave. Children don’t have that luxury. But this also goes the other way. Children don’t usually want to read about younger children. A ten year old will be more interested in reading a book about 10-12 year olds that 7-8 year olds. So, when you’re writing a middle grade main character, make sure you age them in the same small bracket as your intended reader. Personally, I liked to age my protagonists...
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