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Five New Historical Novels for Young People Sheena Wilkinson
Five years ago this week my first historical novel, Name upon Name, was published, thus fulfilling a long-held dream. If I’d known then that it would be the first in a trio of books about young women...
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Phoebe Anna Traquair by Adèle Geras
This is a self -portrait of the Scottish artist, Phoebe Anna Traquair. Until about eighteen years ago, I had never heard of her and when I mention her name, very few people in England know who she...
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'Tearing down the Past' by Karen Maitland
Bishop Absolon topples the statue of the god Svantevit in 1169Painter: Laurits Tuxen 1853-1927, Ferederiksborg Hillerod Museum, DenmarkEver since kingdoms first began waging war on others, conquerors...
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Procrastination Jelly by Janie Hampton
Procrastination helped me create a way to look at my goldfish above water.In theory the lock-down of 2020 has been good for thinking and writing. But many of us have found concentrating on anything...
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A Latin Lexicon by Caroline K. Mackenzie
Caroline K. Mackenzie discusses the concepts behind her illustrated compendium of Latin words and English derivatives 'vinum’ (wine) - vine, vinegar, vineyard, vintage I have always been fascinated by...
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September 1939: the Polish perspective
by Antonia SeniorIn late August 1939, the Polish Ambassador in London visited Bognor with his wife and children for the weekend. Count Edward Raczynski writes in his 1962 memoir, In Allied London, that...
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Surviving the Edinburgh Plague of 1645
by Deborah SwiftThis is a wheel charm, in 16th Century Gaelic, to be used as a protection against death by poison and demons of the air, which were thought to spread the plague. (National Library of...
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Along the Silk Road to Bukhara - by Lesley Downer
The sands of Oxus, toilsome though they be,Beneath my feet were soft as silk to me. Glad at the friend's return, the Oxus deep Up to our girths in laughing waves shall leap. Long live Bukhara! Be thou...
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Nostalgia, or, Be careful what you wish for
by Susan VincentI often find myself yearning for the past. Not for a time of personal recollection and experience, but for The Past, a lost time of history. As a child I read voraciously, historical...
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Brunel and his family - by Sue Purkiss
I've mentioned before that I volunteer on the SS Great Britain, which sits in the dry dock where it was originally built on Bristol Harbourside. (I've also written a children's book set on the ship,...
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Mr KEYNES REVOLUTION, a novel by E.J.Barnes. Interview by Penny Dolan
I am delighted to welcome Emma Barnes, aka E.J. Barnes, the author of MR KEYNES REVOLUTION, to the History Girls blog today. Emma's newly published historical novel, which I very much enjoyed, is...
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Food, Glorious Food! - Celia Rees
My last post magically coincided with the publication of my first adult novel, Miss Graham's Cold War Cookbook. That novel began with this cookery book. The kernel of the idea was sown when I found...
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Fabulous Roman Facts By L.J. Trafford
Back in 2018, a very different world to the one we are living in now, a publisher asked me whether I would like to write a non-fiction survival manual about living in Ancient Rome. Part travel guide,...
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Pandemic then and now (part 2)...
My current series of historical novels is set in the middle of the 14th century, a period (in)famous for its devastating plague. The events of the first novel occur just after the Black Death has...
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The Lost Tomb: Etruscan a la Baroque by Elisabeth Storrs
Visiting the Italian city of Tarquinia is an experience I’ll never forget. Not just for the beauty of its medieval fortress but because of the Etruscan frescoes of the Monterozzi necropolis – a city...
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Fighting To Be Free, by Pippa Goodhart
We have a guest to start off December for us. Pippa Goodhart was born in Cambridge, but moved to Leicester more than twenty years ago. She has worked in bookselling and publishing, and now combines...
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Parlour Games for Christmas by Judith Allnatt
Like many people in these difficult times, I've turned to light reading as a bit of escapism and my most recent choice has been to reread The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith,...
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IF IT'S CHRISTMAS IT MUST BE WESTMINSTER
Some years ago I wrote up the peripatetic wanderings of King Henry II for The History Girls blog and it proved to be popular. You can read it here If it's Christmas it must be ChinonAt the moment I am...
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Christmas Day 2020 by Miranda Miller
Victorian greeting card from the 1880s. A dead robin was regarded as a symbol of good luck in late 19th Century England. Whatever you’re going today, it probably isn’t what you’d normally be doing...
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Saving lives in the French Alps. An Act of Love, by Carol Drinkwater
An Act of Love will be published on 29th April 2021 by Penguin UK. How do we find the stories, the ideas for our novels or how do they find us?I am always on the...
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