The Forbidden Queen

General: I immerse myself in the period so that I know how people lived and to some extent thought. I need a sense of place and time for my characters. I have a good selection of reference books—I live near Hay on Wye, a magnificent place for browsing for books—on food and fashion, architecture and gardens, health, sex and witchcraft, so that I can put my characters into a scene. This research tends to be ongoing throughout the time I am writing the novel.

Specific: focusing on the lives of the characters at the centre of the novel as I first envisage it. For the most part these are secondary rather than primary sources, although the opinions of contemporaries are invaluable.

Physical: I visit places associated with the characters, or similar venues to give me an idea of atmosphere. Sometimes I use contemporary music to set a mood. Poetry and literature can help me to visualise the ideas that influenced my characters. When developing my knowledge of Alice Perrers, I resorted to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and the Wife of Bath, who is thought to have been modelled on Alice. She might well have been. I loved her red stockings and large hat and gap-toothed smile—but Alice, unlike the Wife of Bath, did not have five husbands…For Katherine de Valois I read Shakespeare’s Henry V of course:

Henry:

O fair Katherine, if you will love me soundly with your French heart, I will be glad to hear you confess it brokenly with your English tongue. Do you like me, Kate?

Katherine:

Pardonnez-moi

. I cannot tell what is ‘like me.’

Henry:

An angel is like you, Kate, and you are like an angel.

(Kisses her)

You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is more eloquence in a sugar touch of them than in the tongues of the French council…

Truly romantic…

A WRITER’S LIFE

Paper and pen or straight on to the computer?

Straight on to the computer but I also keep a notebook and pen to hand. I write notes on images and scenes, conversations between the characters, anything that comes to mind—they tend to appear at the most inopportune times. Sometimes I rough out whole scenes by hand but only with the bare minimum of detail.

PC or laptop?

PC, but I have recently been won over by the value of a laptop when I am travelling by train. I have no excuse for not continuing my plotting.

Music or silence?

Silence when I’m first putting scenes and plots together. When I’m reviewing or redrafting or polishing towards the end of a novel I listen to music. Baroque choral works for me when I’m writing.

Morning or night?

Definitely morning. I am not a night person.

Coffee or tea?

Tea first thing in the morning—then coffee.

Your guilty reading pleasure?

A book, a glass of wine and music—often choral but might equally be folk or symphonic—before a wood fire in my cottage.

The first book you loved?

The first adult historical novel I remember reading as a young girl was The Passionate Brood by Margaret Campbell Barnes, which focused on the children of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. I recall being drawn into the richness of the period, the emotion of the characters and the drama of the lives of the Plantagenets. It has been re-issued and I was pleased to find that the charm still existed. My pleasure in this genre has stayed with me ever since.

The last book you read?

I have just finished reading Hilary Mantel’s Bringing Up The Bodies. Marvellous!

A DAY IN THE LIFE

I try to write every day, for the sake of continuity, and because I suffer from withdrawal symptoms if I miss more than a few days. What will my characters do without me?

I am a morning writer. In summer when the days are long I can start work at 6.00am—it is harder in winter when the mornings are dark, but I am usually underway by 8.00am. I work until lunchtime, about one o’clock, with a coffee break. I have an office where I can leave all my books and papers around so that I can find them when I start again. If I tidy up I lose things.

In the afternoons when the weather is fine I enjoy my garden, a large, rambling area where I and my husband grow vegetables and soft fruit. The seasons are a delight, with herbaceous flower borders, a wild garden, a small orchard and a formal pond. With an interest in herbs and their uses, I have a herb garden constructed on the pattern of a Tudor knot garden and enjoy cooking with the proceeds. It is a perfect time for me to mentally review what I’ve been doing as I keep the flowerbeds in order and wage war on the weeds.