It’s been full steam ahead this month, after changing track to start work on a new book. The spy thriller is on hold while I work on the next in my Marjorie Swallow 1920s mystery series. I’d long wanted to write a Christmas mystery for the series, which meant a June start if I was to hit that pre-Christmas deadline.
So while we sweltered through the hottest June days on record I busied myself in researching Christmas in 1920s Northumberland. It’s rather disconcerting to emerge from a mental picture of a midwinter night, the moon glinting off the frost and the Salvation Army band cranking out Good King Wenceslas, to find sunbathers stretched out on the beach and the sun blazing down!
I also took time out to visit the Walmer Castle Book Fair, where I gave a short talk about how I write and research my murder mysteries. Thanks to everyone who came along. You can see what I talked about in this post below.
My first research challenge for the new book was to get Marjorie to Northumberland, which involved a deep dive into the Flying Scotsman. If you missed it, you can read about it here.
Research stories
All aboard the Flying Scotsman for cocktails, movies and dinner!
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Jun 25
I had a plot (family secrets), a setting (a castle in Northumberland) and all I needed was to transport my sleuth there from her usual setting of Bloomsbury in London. I began with a search query: how would I get from London to Newcastle in 1925? And before I knew it, I was aboard the runaway train of research into the Flying Scotsman, probably the most…
In other transport news, I came across this rather fetching Rolls Royce at the Walmer Classic Car Show, which takes place handily close to my flat. The car dates from 1930, so only five years after the new book is set. The owners let me have a good look around. I didn’t tell them I was thinking about how you might sabotage it in order to surreptitiously bump off a nosy sleuth.
While you’re reading this, I’ll be on yet another type of transport: Shanks Pony. July sees the 11th annual Refugee Tales summer walk. I’ve been involved with the walking team since 2017. This year we will be walking with a big group of friends, supporters and people with experience of the immigration and asylum system, from Angmering in Sussex to Portsmouth in Hampshire, approximately 60 miles over five days.
As usual, we will be stopping and putting on a mini arts festival every evening, with music and stories from our refugee family. This year includes appearances by our patron Ali Smith, supporters Bidisha, Kamila Shamsie, and Nobel Prize winning author Abdulrazak Gurnah, as well as music (and musicians) from around the globe.
In the years I’ve been involved, the public discourse around immigration and asylum has worsened notably. That’s why I feel so strongly about the importance of uplifting, community-led projects like Refugee Tales. If you’d like to find out more, please do look at their website. And if you live in or near Arundel, Bognor Regis, Chichester or Emsworth, do check out the evening events - we’d love to see you!
One of the pleasures of June was meeting fellow authors at the Self Publishing Show Live conference in London. It was particularly fun to meet author Rosie Hunt, who has been an online friend since I started writing the Marjorie Swallow mysteries. We enjoyed a good catch-up over tea, and I enjoyed hearing what she has in store for her 1920s sleuth Lady Felicity Quick.
If you’ve yet to meet Lady Felicity, here’s a good place to start: her first adventure, Murder At Afternoon Tea. It’s free when you sign up to Rosie’s newsletter.
Rosie kindly answered my questions about her historical novel research process last year - you can catch up on her answers here.
I also caught up with JF Penn, a best-selling author of dark thrillers who has long been a legend on the indie author scene. I published my interview with her last week.
And I’ve also lined up a couple of historical mystery novelists I’m sure you’ll love, Benedict Brown and Lynn Morrison, to interview soon.
A couple of quick recommendations to round the month off. I’m:
Revelling in Simon Haisell’s Footnotes and Tangents for his slow read of Treacle Walker, by Alan Garner. Honestly, it’s worth reading the notes for the social history and the story of Garner’s house, even if you’re not reading Treacle Walker. But you should read Treacle Walker, because it’s completely magical.
Watching A Spy Among Friends, the ITV series that dramatised the defection of Kim Philby, on ITVX. The trio of leads (Guy Pearce, Damian Lewis and Anna Maxwell Martin) is top-notch. Pearce in particular is mesmerising as Philby, the oh-so-English spy who fooled the British establishment for decades before fleeing to Moscow when he was exposed as a spy.
Enjoying Dorothy Brande’s Becoming A Writer, recommended again by Simon Haisell, on the grounds that it was Hilary Mantel’s favourite book about writing. If it’s good enough for Hilary, it’s more than good enough for me. It’s packed with good sense.
Loving LC Winter’s creepy Spider, Spider, a gothic Victorian story of witchcraft and revenge. I had the pleasure of meeting author Libby (of this parish) at an Arvon course a couple of years ago, and I was so excited to come across the beautiful bookshop edition of her first novel in the British Library bookshop. I devoured the story in a couple of days.
Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed the post, do give it a heart. I write about writing, books, research and being an indie author every week. This Writing Life and The Stories Behind The Story are free to read. Why not subscribe now?
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