The other day at Crowvus HQ, we were discussing our favourite Jane Austen novels. Amazingly, for saying there were four of us with a positive opinion, each person had a different favourite. Jane Austen's books, of course, are not historical fiction, but books written contemporaneously to what is now an historical era. But! All the multitude of spinoffs which her books have invoked are historical fiction. Pride and Prejudice is not my favourite Austen story, nor my second or third, but I absolutely love the series Lost in Austen . People hear the phrase "fan fiction" and immediately think lesser of it, but this is a little unfair. Fan fiction is not a new thing, it is how folk stories grew into legends, adventures becoming more daring with every telling. But what has changed is the way in which these stories are retold and the care which is now (quite rightly!) taken to preserve and protect the rights of the original author. In the case of Lost in Austen , this is not t...
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...