I was fortunate enough to have been sent an ARC of Posie Graeme Evans’ new book, Wild Wood, over the summer and sat in my little coastal eyrie having one of those experiences that I love with reading. You know the one – where you can’t wait to go to bed at night to read the next chapter and the next?…
Posie Graeme-Evans is a rather special person to me – one of Australia’s top TV drama producers, her largest claim to fame is a much-loved TV drama based around a family of farmers who just happened to be women. Everyone in Australia knew McLeods’ Daughters and waited with baited breath for each episode.
As a reader, I love descriptive narrative. I welcome the chance to create an image in my mind with the author’s words.
Rosamunde Pilcher springs to mind:
‘As usual, Elfrida was the first downstairs. At the turn of the stair she threw back the curtains (a marvellously grand threadbare pair she had bought in the market in Buckly) and gazed out at the day. Actually it was night because it was still dark, but it had stopped snowing and by the light of the street lamp she could see the garden, all shape and form obliterated. Bushes and trees dropped under the weight of the snow and shrubs, pillowed, had lost all identity. It was still and quiet.’ Winter Solstice. The description is so plain, so perfectly understated, so very comforting. It is why Pilcher will always be a number one favourite.
Writing a novel in a historical timeframe that is acceptable to readers is perhaps one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But even harder, both in my fantasy writing and in my hist.fict/hist romance writing, is the narrating of a credible love scene.
I went to a book-launch tonight. Given that I live in an island region of Australia, in a little town, it was so rewarding to attend the launch of new historical fiction title by internationally acclaimed writer, Posie Graeme-Evans. And the book is The Dressmaker. 
Niccolo Rising
For some reason this year, I’ve had an insatiable desire for historical fiction. I’ve always loved the genre, ever since I was a school reader. But the devil they say, is in the detail, and it’s the more intellectual detail I love, especially from writers of the calibre of the late and most wonderfully great Dorothy Dunnett and the most current and thoroughly popular Phillipa Gregory. I have also enjoyed Sharon Penman, SJA Turney and Posie Graeme Evans amongst many others. Eleanor Of Aquitaine and Henry I sit comfortably with Caesar, with Claes van der Poele and with Francis Crawford of Lymond. Apart from the unique plots, the height and breadth of research is what thrills me. I try and soak up just a little bit more information each time I open the books.
