Deborah Swift's Blog, page 24

The East India Company – The Palace of Lost Dreams

I’m delighted to welcome historical novelist Charlotte Betts today, to tell us the history of the East India Company. My review of Charlotte’s most recent novel, The Palace of Lost Dreams is at the bottom of this article. THE EAST INDIA COMPANY The Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies (The Company) […]

Secrets of Historical Fiction versus Non-Fiction by Annie Whitehead

I’m delighted to welcome Annie Whitehead to my blog today. Annie is both a historical novelist and a historian, and here she lets us into her writing secrets. Over to Annie: September 15 2018 saw the publication of my first full-length nonfiction book. I’m incredibly proud of it, and sometimes look at the pages and […]

Shades of Historical Fiction – finding the right tone

The website Writers Write gives us 155 words to describe a writer’s tone.  There are probably many more than this, as each writer’s tone also conveys what we call ‘voice’. Tone conveys your attitude towards your subject, your audience, and your personal perspective on life. It is expressed through the structure and length of your sentences, […]

Author update Summer 2018

My blog has been somewhat neglected for the last couple of months because I have become involved in two exciting new projects, at the same time as releasing my second book in the Pepys Trilogy. The Black Death I am collaborating with a group of historical fiction authors to bring you tales from around the […]

Historical Fiction – The Ending is in the Beginning

How many of you have found a book has been ruined by its ending? Me too. Turns out that in fact we are hard-wired to wait for that pay-off, that final few moments of the story when it gives us its meaning. Here’s what a scientific experiment told us about endings: The Peak-end Rule The […]

Of Camels and Napoleon – Burke and The Bedouin

My guest today is Tom Williams When Deborah suggested I write about an object associated with Burke and the Bedouin (published by Endeavour Press), I really struggled to think of one. The story does feature the odd camel (there’s a clue on the cover) but I felt that an olivewood carving dating from a trip […]

In praise of the omnivorous reader

I have always been a voracious reader. I read anything and everything, and don’t care about genre as long as the book is well-written and appeals to me. So since the advent of e-books I am baffled by the idea that readers want to read the same book over and over. I’m also baffled by […]

The Silsden Hoard: West Yorkshire’s Mysterious Treasure

by Katherine Clements   One coin marks the first to go A second bodes the fall The third will seal a sinner’s fate The Devil take them all… So recites Mercy Booth, the protagonist of my latest novel, recalling an old folkloric rhyme, remembered from her childhood. The ancient coins she refers to, with their […]

Fort Howe, protection during the American War of Independence.

I know I have many readers from Canada, so today  I welcome Diane Parkinson to share her research for her new book  ‘On a Stormy Primeval Shore‘. Over to Diane. In researching my novel set in New Brunswick, Canada, in the eighteenth century, I needed a fort for my heroine’s father to be stationed. Several […]

Historical Fiction 10 Editing Tips: No 10 Feigning Accuracy

I’ve had a reader take me to task – rightly – over an incorrect detail of clothing worn by the hero of my books, the 16th-century Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno, even while they seemed quite happy to accept the much more flagrant invention of turning him into a spy who solves murders. Stephanie Merritt (SJ Parris) […]