Who Needs the Aegean?


Brilliant sunshine, lake a deep turquoise; all the characteristics of a nice winter holiday in Croatia. Except that this is East Anglia and the sparkling expanse is not exactly fluid...

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Nuns, monks, priests and believers: writing about spiritual matters in English historical fiction

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I once told a friend that it was impossible for me to write a novel without a nun or a priest in it. In my household this has become a bit of a joke; my husband likes to say, “Oh you wouldn’t like this book or movie! No one’s searching for God!” Well, sometimes it is true. I am myself a church mouse; I can hardly pass an old church or chapel in England without slipping inside. Oh the history! Sometimes a thousand years or more in one church. Women were praying for families seven hundred years ago in the very spot where you stand. Roughly I can put the nuns, priests and devout characters in novels in three categories: sleuth, spiritual seekers, and secondary characters who slip in and out of pages baptizing and burying (in the many periods of historical fiction, religion was a major part of one’s life.)   And of course the first two categories intermingle. There are so many such novels or series that I can mention only a few. The sleuth nuns in both THE CROWN by Nancy Bilyeau and th...
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Let's Go A' Barbering

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