Blog | Lucienne Boyce

The Contraband Killings Blog Tour 5 – 11 December 2022

The Contraband Killings: A Dan Foster Mystery is on a blog tour this week (5-11 December 2022). The tour will feature unique extracts, reviews and guest blogs. The schedule is …

Gallows Wake: The Sixth Voyage of Jesamiah Acorne by Helen Hollick

Gallows Wake: The Sixth Voyage of Jesamiah Acorne by Helen Hollick Earlier this month, Gallows Wake dropped anchor at Scriblerus as part of a blog tour. In a guest blog, …

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 …