There are so many wonderful sites around the world that serve as a constant reminder of our past. Such sites can also stimulate the imaginations of writers of historical fiction and, in many novels, form the backdrop against which the characters can play out their tales.

I’ve even visited a few such places myself. I’ve stood with the rest of a tour group and goggled at Egyptian and Greek temples, the Bronze Age ruins at Knossos, and the remains of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Carthage. The splendours of these places will stay with me forever: they are locked inside my head. The colours, sounds and smells, and the clamour of the local people at any one of these places can spring to life again in an instant if I should just close my eyes…

I suppose I’m lucky to live in a country where every city, town, or village can boast some structure or crumbling ruin that owes its origins to a bygone age. In Britain we have everything from prehistoric stone circles, tumuli and hill forts, to Roman walls, villas and bath-houses and medieval castles and cathedrals.

And so it continues throughout the centuries, through Tudor and Stuart times to the period of the great Victorian architects and builders. And side by side with those great structures stand the simpler, quaint old cottages and farmhouses.

Writers of historical fiction, or rather, good writers of historical fiction, have the knack of making those bygone times seem like now. They bring the action alive, so that we see, hear, smell, feel or even taste whatever the characters in the story are experiencing. And that is a commendable skill, one that I kept firmly in mind whilst I was writing my own first book, Shadow of the Raven.

I’ll finish off with these thought-provoking  quotes:

‘I think that all of us who write about the past feel a deep and haunting connection with it. Socrates said that all knowledge is possessed by the soul and it’s just a matter of remembering it. I believe that to be true.’

(Karen Essex)

‘The truth of it is that it is simply not possible to create an accurate portrait of the past. No one can faithfully reproduce the reality of the 1970’s, let alone the 1570’s.’

(Tim Wilcox)

‘History never looks like history when you are living through it.’

(Samuel Butler)

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