New Books in the pipeline news
I've been a little quiet on my blog recently, but that's because I've been busy writing and working on another two books, which I hope will be coming out over the course of the next couple of years. It's a little early to give too much away, but the first, another time travel novel, is inspired by Jane Austen's wonderful book
Northanger Abbey, and like
Searching for Captain Wentworth is set partly in Bath with heroines and their heroes living in both the past and present. I've enjoyed spending time researching this book so much - one of the joys of writing for me is the time spent in another time period reading up on history, and also visiting places for inspiration. It's never a hardship to visit places like Bath where Jane Austen visited and spent some time living in the city or Kent where she spent time visiting her relatives. I love the fact there are always fresh opportunities to learn new things, and it's so easy in such atmospheric and inspiring settings to find you can lose yourself in another time.
The second book will have to be kept a complete secret just at the moment, as I'm always a little superstitious before a novel is finished and in the editing stage, but it's a little sidestep departure from the kind of book I normally do and I'm loving writing it.
I've been following Ellie Bennet's blog on
Jane Austen portraits - her research is impeccable and her findings fascinating. Here's a taster of her latest blog, and a
link so you can read the whole article.
“A mistake repeated more
than once is a decision” Paulo Coelho
Is the Rice Portrait
truly a portrait of a young Jane Austen?
It is a question which
has been the subject of intense debate and disagreement between its supporters
and detractors, a debate which has raged on for decades.
In
recent years a steady
flow of evidence has emerged supporting the long held belief of the
portrait’s
owners that the Rice Portrait is genuine. And yet the National Portrait
Gallery (NPG) continues to deny that
the portrait is either of Jane Austen or by Ozias Humphry, insisting
that it
dates from the early nineteenth century. They justify this on the
grounds of the dating of the costume and the stamp on the back of the
canvas, notwithstanding the evidence that has been produced
demonstrating that both dress and stamp could potentially date to before
1800. Why is there such reluctance on the part of the NPG to accept any
of this new evidence?
To read more of the article, please click here.
