Historic Fiction

My cat is snoring. Well, actually, it's my son's cat, as he'll be quick to point out. But as I'm the one who buys the cat food, and is sat upon by the cat when he's not home, I think I can claim a fair share in her felinity. Cat snores are cute, sort of soft and hardly there. Just enough to give you the feeling you're not alone in the room, without having the fingernails-on-blackboard effect that human snoring can generate.

Today is another one of those days where I don't really have a lot to say. But, to make up for it, here is an interview with one of my favourite writers, Carola Dunn. She used to write Regency Romances, after the model of Georgette Heyer, and now she writes extremely well-researched 1920's Murder Mysteries with a sleuth called Daisy Dalrymple. I believe Carola Dunn's Regencies were what sucked me into the historic fiction genre in the first place, Lavender Lady being the first I read. Then a friendly librarian said "If you like those, you'd like Georgette Heyer!" and the rest is history. Early 19th-century history, to be precise.

And, actually (this might shock some of you; just don't say you haven't been warned), I started reading Jane Austen after I read Dunn and Heyer. I liked Dunn, then I got into the inventor of Regencies, then I got into the real thing. And then into all those non-fiction history books, because I wanted to know what really happened. And now I know all sorts of trivia about English history (I can recite all the monarchs of England from at least Henry VII downwards - really! Whaddaya mean, "So what?"), and it all started with a reading Regency Romances. Which just goes to show that historic novels can be extremely educational.

Incidentally, Carola Dunn's newest book, Gone West, is about to come out next month. I can't wait to find out what Daisy Dalrymple has got up to this time.
Oh, and the cat doesn't read historic fiction; they haven't yet put it out in feline format.

Life, the Universe, and Historic Fiction. Don't turn up your nose at it, you never know what you'll learn.