Jennifer Anton on Mussolini’s Impact on Women and the Danger of History Repeating Itself

In 2006, when I started researching my grandmother’s life in Italy, I knew almost nothing about Benito Mussolini. Fascism was a dusty word that never made it in... Read More...

The real Bond Girls – was the character of James Bond inspired by a real female spy?

I was brought up on the idea that there was an alpha male spy, James Bond, and then there were his accessories, the Bond girls, usually decorative nobodies. Tha... Read More...

Damien Lewis on the inspiration behind SAS Band of Brothers

Sometimes, a book subject comes to you serendipitously, out of the blue. The wartime story embodied in SAS Band of Brothers is one of those. About two years ... Read More...

James Wilson on the inspiration and research behind his thriller Coyote Fork

Hands up if you’ve heard of Ray Kurzweil. If you haven’t heard of him, you’re in good company. I recently asked a conference of forty or so American Studies ... Read More...

Clare Whitfield on the idea behind her dark historical crime novel People of Abandoned Character

The idea for the story, a woman who thinks she might be married to the Ripper, came from an adult education class. We were given real newspapers about the murde... Read More...

Francine Toon on the Halloween traditions that inspired her debut novel Pine

For many people, especially in England, where I now live, Halloween is just another commercial holiday, imported from America. The idea of kids on a sugar high,... Read More...

Stacey Halls on the Bloomsbury children’s hospital that inspired The Foundling

In March 2016 I’d just finished writing the first draft of The Familiars. With an afternoon to myself in London, I decided to tick off one of the things I’d mea... Read More...

Victoria Hislop on Makronisos – the Greek island that inspired Those Who Are Loved

For me inspiration for a story always arrives at a very specific moment when I see a place that literally makes my hairs stand on end. It’s quite useful to have... Read More...

Sophie Cousens’ Top Ten Rom Coms

There’s something timeless about a good romantic comedy – they cheer us when we’re down, their worldview is generally optimistic, and they make us believe in lo... Read More...

Alison Weir: Ramping up the proclamations – how Henry VIII dealt with epidemics

Forget one metre. Henry VIII’s idea of social distancing was seven miles. When he married his fifth wife, Katheryn Howard, in the hot, dry summer of 1540, there... Read More...

Silvia Moreno-Garcia on the real life town that inspired Mexican Gothic

One time I was asked during an interview whether it really rained in Mexico City as much as I said it did in one of my novels. It does rain and in fact parts of... Read More...

Three cards from The Deck of Omens that didn’t make it into the book

From the beginning, I knew I wanted there to be a deck of tarot-esque cards in The Devouring Gray duology, and I also knew that I wanted them to be a major worl... Read More...