What drew you to writing The Bells of Westminster?
As every writer does, I was looking for a new idea and spent Christmas and New Year of 2023 reading around the Romantic poets, who were the original reason I was drawn to the period I write in.
In an old biography of William Blake I came across the story of Blake working in Westminster Abbey as a teenager and being present at the opening of Edward I’s tomb. I was electrified and knew I had to write a book about it! It was a really exciting moment!
Following the success of your previous historical thrillers Black Drop, Blue Water and Scarlet Town, how did you find writing a book outside of this Laurence Jago series?
Having found this story idea (which didn’t work for the Jago series, being set twenty years earlier than Black Drop) I was delighted when my editor suggested I write a standalone novel. It was scary to leave Laurence behind at first, but when I found Susan Bell everything went swimmingly after that. For me, it’s all about voice.
How did you go about researching The Bells of Westminster?
I read copiously in old accounts of the abbey at that time. Guidebooks written then were brilliant, as Westminster Abbey was always a tourist attraction and the vergers would show you round for a small pecuniary reward! After that, I spent hours in the abbey, as the present-day tourists shuffled round and departed again. I knew the whole novel would be set inside the abbey so I needed to commit every nook and cranny to memory. Finally, I met the Keeper of the Muniments, Matthew Payne, who showed me the account books for 1774 with all the names of the abbey staff listed. He also showed me nooks and crannies invisible to the visiting public which became part of the novel too!
What appeals to you about historical fiction?
I live in a seventeenth-century farmhouse where generations of families have lived before me, sitting in front of the same inglenook fireplace and lolling against the same garden wall soaking up the sun. Past and present coexist and that’s what I love to recreate in my historical fiction.
What’s a historical thriller you have recently enjoyed reading?
I was deeply impressed by Robert Harris’s Act of Oblivion. He doesn’t shy away from the strangeness and of the seventeenth century puritans which I thought was very admirable and brave. And entertaining too!
What’s your writing process and do you have any tips for aspiring authors?
My process has improved vastly since I began the first drafts of Black Drop. Then, I was too in love with the period and characters to remember I needed a plot! Now I put plot front and centre, as if you don’t have a good story to tell no one else is going to care enough to read all the bits you particularly love and are proud of.
What are you working on next?
I’ve just completed a sequel to The Bells of Westminster, since none of us were quite ready to say goodbye to Susan and Lindley Bell just yet. It took a while to find a true story as strange and surprising as the opening of Edward’s tomb, but finally I got it. Who knew that King Lear was a real person, or that his grave is under a river in Leicestershire? I certainly didn’t!
