I searched for a black british heroine, then created my own

Did you know that Thomas Müntzer, leader of the German Peasants’ War in 1525, used a rainbow flag to rally his followers? It’s an aptly exuberant image for the radical charisma of Müntzer, and for the

What revealed the magic of books for me was The Wind in the Willows. When I was five, I contracted measles, which meant I had to spend my days in bed in a darkened room. My mother sat outside my bedro

Queen of historical fiction Philippa Gregory shares the reads she pulls off her shelves when she needs to begin again

They’d have loved the drama of it – bowing out almost exactly ten years apart. Born in the same year and with the same initials, both queens of the bonkbuster. One was a Hollywood lioness, the other a

Miss Julia White, horsewoman, sailor, farmer and haunter of my own farming life (such as it isn’t) first appeared in my life when I was 17, trying to get myself to agricultural college. Or was it when

This year marks the publication of my eighth novel, The Time Hop Coffee Shop. Eight feels like quite an impressive number, especially when there were times I thought I’d never get a book published. I