Crowvus Book Blog

Today for the #HistFicThursdays blog, it is my absolute pleasure to welcome Angela Sims. Her book,  The Rose of Florence , is being published next year, and here Angela shares the inspiration the city has given her. Read on to discover the world of the Renaissance in what was arguably its birthplace... The priest raised the host, and the communion bell rang through the cathedral… Anyone who has visited Florence, the capital city of the Tuscan region of Italy, will know that it is teeming…teeming with tourists and teeming with history. Some years ago, I was one of those tourists (I now consider myself a regular visitor!), and even while jostling with crowds, you can’t fail to be moved by the city, the architecture, the art and the stories that surround you.  One of the stories that captured my imagination was of the murder in the cathedral, The Pazzi Conspiracy. At the time of this event (1478), Florence was a republic, with the Medici family holding the majority of power....

During this coronavirus craziness, it can seem almost impossible to remember the places we've been to. We have a slideshow of photographs which come up on our computer and looking at them now is like seeing a different world. Isn't that how it is with writing anyway? We find a place which speaks to us and, not only while we're there but every time our imagination transports us back, we move into another world. Invariably, because of the genre I write, I head back to another time, too. Bear with me as I take you on a little journey through a few of the places which have brought me great inspiration... 1 - The Big Burn, Golspie I don't know how many times we'd driven past the little sign for The Big Burn. It's an oddly insignificant little walk, but there is a waterfall there which you can walk up and over. Standing back a little bit, on that first walk we took there, I was struck by how strangely human it looked. The picture above was how I first met t...

Monday 4 th November 2019 – Settings and Locations: Part One - Buildings A sense of place is imperative in a story.   After all, we all love to belong.   This is the first of three blogs on the theme of Settings and Locations, and this one will be looking at buildings. This is the trickiest blog I’ve written so far, mostly because this is an enormous topic, and there’s so much to cram into one blog! Wanderford Hall was an ancient building of stone, lined internally with brightly polished wooden panels. The floor was made of thick wooden boards that had been reclaimed from the destruction of the Catholic church in the village some two hundred years earlier. The entrance hall was overlooked by an enormous painting of the Battle of Bosworth Field, in which his ancestor had fought. Its very presence stood contrary to his father’s puritanical beliefs, but he had been unwilling to paint over it and lose a part of his heritage. The wooden staircase radiated with th...