Back in the days before I was published and I was trying to peddle my own brand of medieval mysteries to agents, I came upon an astonishing bias. One agent rejected my manuscript because she couldn’t get past the notion that my protagonist would be intimate with someone with all that “lack of hygiene.” She … Read more
Do you know what I like about researching the late Victorian period for my An Irregular Detective Mystery series, my Sherlockian pastiche? It’s the stuff I can come across easily in antique shops, things that I can touch. Things that I can buy. And one of the most ubiquitous items that most people don’t even … Read more
As I was researching my King’s Fool Mystery series, where Henry VIII’s real court jester Will Somers is the reluctant sleuth, I couldn’t help but notice some parallels with what was happening today. My series focuses on Will Somers and is told through his eyes, so there may be a little softening of the view … Read more
In the third of my King’s Fool Mystery series, REBELLIOUS GRACE, Will Somers, Henry VIII’s real court jester, finds himself called upon to use his skills to solve murders during Jane Seymour’s reign. But this was my conceit, because solving murders is not something that a jester ever would have done. So what do jesters … Read more
It’s Valentine’s Day, and though it has become a secular holiday in the most banal of ways, let us not forget that its roots are in the Catholic calendar of the communion of saints. It is the feast day of Saint Valentine, though which Saint Valentine exactly are we talking about is the big question. … Read more