Authors Electric

As a writer of books for children, you might expect me also to be a regular reader of them. But how many other adults are? And what types of children’s books do adults tend to read? I remember a beta reader of my first completed (as yet unpublished) novel ‘Time out of Time’ saying she thought lots of adults might enjoy it as a ‘cross-over’ book, owing to the copious references to my 1970s’ childhood. It was the first time I’d really thought about whether my books could be classed as ‘cross-over’. A quick Google search suggests the term might more readily be applied to books enjoyed by both adults and teenagers, rather than children (e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2007/sep/19/thegrandtraditionofcrossov ), drawing on ‘coming-of-age’ themes instead of aiming squarely at pre-teens as my books do. But ultimately, after publishing my first two books, The Order of the White Boar and The King’s Man , conversations with buyers and readers (both face to face and ...

With the holidays fast approaching, I thought it would be apt to offer a little festive post. A year or two back I was asked by a fellow blogger to write a Christmassy guest blog for her. As her blog covers mostly historical fiction, she asked me to take the theme of 'Christmas during the reign of King Richard III', King Richard of course being the focus of my two books to date (four if one counts the  two  charity  anthologies  I’ve edited!) King Richard Christmas tree ornament! Given that only two Christmas seasons were celebrated during Richard’s short reign, it seemed a slightly tricky prospect and I fell back on the idea of the ‘topsy-turvy Christmas’ of the medieval period, which features in  The King’s Man   – when a Lord of Misrule is elected and servants are waited upon by their masters, etc. (See  https://alexmarchantblog.wordpress.com/2017/12/18/topsy-turvy-christmas/ ).               ...

Last month I blogged about facing an ‘empty nest’, with both daughters now at university. But to be honest, it’s not empty at all. Not only is it occupied by myself and my partner, but there are also the pets, so it doesn’t seem particularly empty at any time, even if the elderly cat spends most of her time asleep, curled up near a radiator. Gunner, the dog, more than fills any space that’s left. We rehomed Gunner in February this year, our second adoption. It was a very deliberate decision each time to offer an older dog a new home, rather than opt for a puppy, but I’m not looking for any credit for it. I simply didn’t want to face all the time and effort needed to train a puppy – however cute – in all the basic necessities, like house-training. I am, it has to be said, rather a lazy dog owner. One can, of course, feel good about offering a dog a new home. There can be many reasons why a dog needs rehoming and the word ‘rescue’, while often used, in our cases certainly hasn’...

I’m sitting here today contemplating the desolation of an empty nest. That may be something of an exaggeration, if I’m being honest. For my elder sister, it perhaps isn’t: she’s been a parent for thirty years, and this summer saw the last of her three children leaving home (to move 500 miles away), along with both his wedding and that of his sister, only six weeks apart. Months of frenetic preparations, book-ended by major family celebrations (and with the arrival of a new grandchild to the third sibling in the midst of everything), and then she and her husband find themselves alone in the anti-climactic aftermath, in the now-too-big family home, waiting for the next time the loved-up newlyweds deign to think of calling in… In my case, it will only be a part-time empty nest, a transitional stage that hopefully will prepare me gradually for what is to come later – that time when it’s just me, my partner and the dog (and maybe still the elderly cat) in the house. Ev...

In nine days’ time it will be the 534th anniversary of the Battle of Bosworth, often viewed as a turning point in English history. It’s when the medieval period is deemed to have ended and the early modern age begun – with the fall of the last Plantagenet king, Richard III, and the victory of Henry Tudor, first in the dynasty that bore his name. King Richard III of England Of course, history is never quite that simple, but it’s handy to focus on a specific date marked by a climactic battle, such as 22 August 1485, rather than have to chart the decades-long transition between medieval and modern to be found in religious changes or the gradual move from rule based on personal loyalty to a more modern, bureaucratic state. Either way, this coming weekend, the event will be commemorated in the annual Bosworth Medieval Festival on the fields of Leicestershire, with its re-enactment of the battle itself by hundreds of modern-day ‘knights in shining armour’. [The alternat...