The idea for FALLEN GRACE first began with my perhaps slightly odd interest in catacombs, funerals, mausoleums and all the gothic paraphernalia associated with a Victorian death: the glass coffin carriages, the mutes, feathermen and horses with black plumes. I kill two birds: find out stuff and get material for whatever I’m working on. I think one of the reasons for this is because there are history-shaped gaps in my education and doing research for whatever book I happen to be writing helps to fill in those gaps. If I’d have done that with FALLEN GRACE (out this month in the UK in paperback) I wouldn’t have had half the fun, because the research unearthed (sorry!) hearsefuls of fascinating stuff about Victorian funeral practices that I could not only use, but which affected, shaped and developed the plot.įor me, research is absolutely the best part of writing a book. Years ago, when I first started writing, I asked an (unpublished) historical novelist if it was difficult finding out all she needed to know for a book set in, say, the 18th Century, and she answered airily that it wasn’t she just “put the women in long dresses.”
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