Author Guest Post + GIVEAWAY: The Lady's Slipper by Deborah Swift

I am so pleased to bring we a guest post written by Deborah Swift, author of The Lady's Slipper, who is here today to speak about a topic tighten to my heart, researching chronological fiction. The Lady's Slipper was just released upon November 23rd as well as is set during a power of a single of my a one preferred monarchs, King Charles II.
Passages to a Past has been sent a copy of The Lady's Slipper to give divided to a single lucky winner (US/Canada ONLY), so have sure to come in during a finish of this post!
Take it divided Deborah...
Research as well as Historical Fiction
Many people have asked me about how we do my investigate as well as how most time it takes to write a chronological novel. So in this post we will take a little about my process, as well as additionally discuss it we about a little of a a little of a books we found invaluable in my investigate for The Ladys Slipper.
My proceed was not to try to know everything, yet to review a little ubiquitous books upon a 17th Century to get a broad picture, as well as afterwards to begin to write a book, stuffing in a gaps in my knowledge later. we keep a large notebook which is full of questions, for example, How most was a fritter of bread in 1660? In a tiny encampment would there have been a bakery, or did people bake during home? What sort of bread? Millet? Wheat? Rye? The answer to a final question was which in Westmorland where a book is set bread was called clapbread as well as was a flat baked sweat bread made of oats, as well as it would keep for nearly a month! They had special oak cupboards built in to their cottages to keep it in over winter often a answers have been not what we design ! yet even some-more interesting.
So after getting a general outlook we write my story, yet we am left with a prominent as well as quite daunting note book full of questions. we take a deep breath, begin during a beginning again as well as find out a answers as well as facts as well as decide if they assistance or impede a story. we consider we suffer a detective element of finding out a answers to problematic questions! we review a lot of non-fiction as well as we am evermore grateful to a real historians who supply me with a answers. Books such as The Weaker Vessel by Antonia Fraser which gives a jot down of womens lives in a Civil War in their own voices, as well as Restoration London by Liza Picard which was indispensable for report about daily life. Another prime was Birth, Marriage as well as Death by David Cressy, which was regularly upon my desk.
When we began essay The Ladys Slipper we had no thought which my characters were starting to finish up upon a ship, as well as of course we knew zero during all about sailing ships, not even complicated ones. No matter how many books we had review upon a 17th century beforehand, it was unlikely we would have found out what we needed to know about Dutch Flute sailing ships but doing a little really specific research. So we forced myself to review Patrick OBrians books which have been all set during sea, as well as what he doesnt know about high ships would probably fit upon a postage stamp. They have been a sort of chronological novella we would never routinely collect up, yet they have been excellent. we additionally found out by emailing The Maritime Museum which a cow was stabled aft, as well as which foodstuffs were often sealed in dried sand to keep them fresh upon b! oard.
Levens HallTo write about peoples homes we spent time during a series of old houses including Levens Hall, which helped me to create Fisk Manor, a home of Geoffrey Fisk in a novel. There is zero identical to walking down a 17th century staircase as well as feeling a polished wooden banisters as well as saying a light flow in by mullioned windows. At Swarthmoor Hall we sat as well as wrote a stage during a disfigured as well as polished oak list where George Fox a Quaker leader may have sat when he lived there with Margaret Fell. After such an soak in a past it feels really bizarre afterwards to get in my car as well as zoom away!
The botanical facts about a orchid we researched by interviewing members of a Cypripedium Committee, a sort of plant mafia set up to strengthen a Ladys Slipper. They encounter at a back of closed doors as well as a location of a final remaining plant in Britain is a closely guarded secret even today. The single-minded unrestrained of these men, as well as their loyalty to preserving a plant for future generations gave me certainty in my heroine, Alice Ibbetsons mania with it. But we additionally review novels such as The Orchid ThiefTulip Fever and, which treat identical themes.

Being a dress engineer we could not conflict a Northampton Shoe Museum where there have been many shoes upon display. In The Ladys Slipper Ella a maid is envious of her mistresss slippers, as well as next we can see a pair from a notable relic which we used as anxiety whilst writing.

Often a investigate throws up new plotlines as well as afterwards we will re-write scen! es or ch unks of a book to soak up little-known or exciting research. we consider to write chronological novella we have to suffer this aspect of it since we have been starting to do an horrible lot of it. When people ask me how prolonged it takes to investigate a novel they have been thinking in conditions of a finite time, yet essentially we am researching all a time, my vital room regularly has a raise of ten or twelve current books we am dipping into, not to mention photocopies as well as print-outs such as pieces of a diaries of Pepys as well as George Fox as well as alternative beneficial 17th century scribblers. Did we forget to mention a internet? The phone rings, as well as we half design my father to say, Hang on, shes googling.
Thanks to Amy for hosting me, we can find out some-more upon my website www.deborahswift.co.uk or my blog The Riddle of Writing www.deborahswift.blogspot.com
Fantastic post Deborah, appreciate we so most for taking a time to give us insight in to a work which went upon to investigate The Lady's Slipper!
ABOUT THE BOOK
SYNOPSIS: 1660. King Charles II has returned from exile, yet memories of a English Civil War still rankle. There have been old scores to settle, as well as religious differences threaten to overturn a fragile peace. When Alice Ibbetson discovers a singular orchid, a Ladys Slipper, growing in a timber belonging to Richard Wheeler, she is captivated by a beauty yet Wheeler, a Quaker, is determined to keep a flowering plant where God dictated it to grow. Knowing which a orchid is a final of a kind, she steals a flower, little forgetful which her clearly elementary action will set off a sequence of events which will lead to murder as well as exile, as well as change her life forever
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DEBORAH SWIFT, a set as well as dress engineer for theBBC, live! s in Win dermere, England. The Ladys Slipper,shortlisted for The Impress Novelists Prize in 2007, wasinspired byherowndiscovery of a singular orchid during a summer walk.
GIVEAWAY RULES

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GOOD LUCK TO YOU ALL!!

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