It is my great pleasure to turn my blog over today to Deborah Swift who is here to take us back to 17th century Italy to discuss the noblewoman in the Renaissance. Deborah is a historical fiction author whom I greatly admire, and she shares a love of the 17th century. Her latest release is the Poison Keeper, a book I have been eagerly looking forward to since first hearing about it! Over to you, Deborah!
In “Honour of Thieves”, one of the stories in the historical anthology Betrayed, highwayman James Hart plans a heist and has to break into Warwick Castle. During the English Civil War, the castle served as a Parliamentarian garrison, so it’s imperative that James doesn’t get caught. He’s a staunch Royalist with a price on his head. I love heist movies like The Italian Job and Ocean’s Eleven. They’re like a clever puzzle where you don’t see the full picture until the last piece is snapped into place. A proper heist involves meticulous planning and requires the ability to find vulnerabilities…
One of the things I love most about history is the stories of people who lived in the past, particularly those who don’t have a historical event attached to their names. We find them in diaries, in footnotes, and in anecdotes. I often wonder what they must think if they were suddenly transported to the present and shown proof that their name and their story has been somehow preserved hundreds of years later. I’m reminded of the young man who went courting but ended up embroiled in a skirmish (“Young” Cambusnethen), or the mayor of a small Midlands town who…
In the course of researching day to day life in 17th century Ireland, I came across an interesting little volume called Teague Land or A Merry Ramble to the Wild Irish (1698). It’s a series of letters by John Dunton, written during his travels through Ireland, or as he liked to call them, rambles. The letters were eventually published when he returned to London. Dunton was a London bookseller who enjoyed travelling and often combined both passions. Before hitting Ireland, he travelled to the New England states where he auctioned off a huge stack of books and made quite a…
I’m convinced that writers straddle the fine line between being creative and slightly delusional. Our characters are real to us, we’re not above having exasperating discussions with them, and we take great delight in their little quirks. All this is true for my character Nathaniel Lewis, barrister of Lincoln’s Inn, a title he never fails to add as though it were a suit of armour. I suspect it is to him. He appeared on my doorstep one day, legal brief in hand, offering his services to the heroine of the first draft of my first book, who was at her…
