Do we still like ‘Ruritania’?

Frontispiece to The Prisoner of Zenda, Charles Dana Gibson

Rudolf Rassendyll (Sigh) Princess Flavia (Aaah!) Duke Michael (Grrrr!) Rupert of Hentzau (Wow but grr!)

When I picked up The Prisoner of Zenda at age 12, I was enraptured. It was a torch under the bedclothes job. When it ended I cried, partly from […]

J J Marsh - Love me, love my character

It’s my great pleasure to welcome back crime writer J J Marsh. We met a while ago in a distanced way on Facebook – the two of us belong to the Alliance of Independent Authors – but when she and I were both selected as indie Editor’s Choices in prestigious UK publishing trade magazine ‘The […]

Jenny Harper Love me, love my character

I am utterly delighted to welcome fellow Romantic Novelists’ Association colleague Jenny Harper to my writing blog today! Jenny lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, though she was born in India and grew up in England. She has been a non-fiction editor, a journalist and a businesswoman and has written a children’s novel and several books about […]

Fenella Forster - Love me, love my character

Today is the start of a new, possibly disruptive series, ‘Love me, love my character’. I’m inviting authors and their characters to give us their separate views. Hopefully, we may get some unexpected results.

Fenella Forster (the writing name of Denise Barnes) writes sagas with a difference: all involve ‘voyages’, physical as well as emotional […]

Kate Quinn and the Lady of the Eternal City

Today, I’m delighted to welcome historical novelist Kate Quinn. A native of southern California, Kate graduated from Boston University with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Classical Voice. A lifelong history buff, she has written four novels in the Empress of Rome Saga and two set in the Italian Renaissance about the early years of the […]