Historical fiction of course is particularly research-heavy. The details of everyday life are there to trip you up. Things that we take for granted, indeed, hardly think about, can lead to tremendous mistakes.

People make interesting assumptions about the profession. The writer is a mysterious figure, wandering lonely as a cloud, fired by inspiration, or perhaps a cocktail or two.

Copywriters, journalists, mainstream authors, ghostwriters, bloggers and advertising creatives have as much right to think of themselves as good writers as academics, poets, or literary novelists.

I've always had a keen sense of history. My father was an antiques dealer and he used to bring home boxes full of treasures, and each item always had a tale attached.

I had loved poetry and the theatre. Now I loved adventure more.

History is full of blank spaces, but good stories, invariably, are not.

While I'm frustrated at the amount I'm expected to take on in the present, the 1950s woman was frustrated by being excluded - not being allowed to take things on at all.