Blog | Lucienne Boyce

Forcible feeding the kind way: Dr Helby of Winson Green Prison

Many suffragettes went on hunger strike in prison and were forcibly fed by prison doctors. A number of the hunger strikers published descriptions of their experiences in horrifying detail: the …

The Clichéd Stereotype? by Helen Hollick

In this guest blog, Helen Hollick asks what makes a good hero, a good heroine or even a good (bad?) villain? Cliché? Stereotype? Or something original? Is the clichéd, stereotypical …

Mrs Fischer’s War, Henrietta Leslie (Jarrolds, 1930) (Gladys Schütze)

Mrs Fischer’s War tells the story of a married couple, Carl and Janet Fischer, during the First World War. Carl was born in Germany but to escape a stern father …

The Ben the Tramp Novels of J Jefferson Farjeon

I took plenty of books on holiday with me this summer and enjoyed them all. Even so, I couldn’t resist looking at the small library at the property we stayed …

Bitten by the writing bug: Alison Morton, Romans and Me

In my last blog, I reviewed Alison Morton’s exciting new novel, Julia Prima. (You can read the review here.) I’m delighted that Alison was able to join us today to …

Julia Prima by Alison Morton: Pagans v Christians

Julia Prima, Alison Morton (Pulcheria Press, 2022) Alison Morton is the inventor of Roma Nova, a small but influential state (about the size of Luxembourg) founded in AD395 by 400 …

Fanny Fields, the Bristol Favourite: Dutch Girls, Suffragettes and Music Hall

My postcard collection includes this picture of Fanny Fields, a music hall star whose song The Suffragette was one of many music-hall references to the militant suffrage campaign of the …

My Month in Books: June 2022

The only thing the books I’ve written about this month have in common is that I loved them both! So from epic fantasy to grounded-in-gritty reality historical fiction, here are …

My Month in Books May 2022

The books I’ve selected this month are The Writer’s Tale, a “tell-all” discussion of Russell T Davies’s creative life, with lots of fascinating insights into how Dr Who is made. …

The Victorian Origins of Crime Writing – A talk given at HULF, 30 April 2022

This is an extended version of a talk given at the Crime, Thriller and Mystery Books event, Hawkesbury Upton Literary Festival, 30 April 2022 (a “long read”). “How are …

My Month in Books: April 2022

The Widows of Malabar Hill, Sujata Massey (Soho Crime, 2018) The Widows of Malabar Hill is the first book in the 1920s mystery series featuring Perveen Mistry, Bombay’s first and …

People and Places: Writing with the senses, mood and atmosphere

Is there such a thing as a sense of place? Do places have atmospheres that we can sense? And how can historical novelists harness these responses in their fiction? I …