A handful of little things:
1) Something's gone wrong with the Comment form at the bottom of each post - at least in my browser - so the 'post' and 'preview' buttons are greyed out. Sorry if you'd like to leave a comment (I have one all drafted in response to everyone's insteresting ideas on Conditional Validation, but can't post it either, grrrr....), but I hope TypePad are sorting it out even as I write.
2) Like all of us, when I read a book which really changes how I think, I'm always dying to tell others about it, but it's not often you get that chance to do it at national newspaper scale. So it was a real treat to be asked to write a piece for The Independent's Book of a Lifetime slot, and it's published today, in print and here.
3) A couple of days ago the Edinburgh Evening News gave A Secret Alchemy a lovely review: "beautifully paints the world surrounding the princes in the Tower... a love story which moves effortlessly between the past to the present." Full review here.
4) Just in case I wasn't feeling benign enough towards the press, this morning the Daily Mail has sealed the deal by describing A Secret Alchemy as: "...a powerful and utterly convincing depiction of 15th century court life." Full review, under 'Historical' here.
Have a lovely weekend!
------------------------------------------
STOP PRESS: Saturday 13th December
5) Four pleasures now, (and the frustration's been solved as well - thank you, TypePad):
"There is historical fiction - and there is historical fiction. Anyone can dust down a set of fusty old names, chuck in a few mead-fuelled brawls and the odd syphilitic courtesan and be done with it. It takes real skill - and devotion - to bring characters blurred by the passage of time into focus, to breathe real life into them, to make their existence tangible to the 21st-century mind. In A Secret Alchemy, Emma Darwin has managed such sorcery... Passion is also the key to the success of this book. Not your standard, cinematic carnal passion (although there is enough of that: the scene in which Edward proposes to Elizabeth is worthy of the steamiest Andrew Davies bodice-ripper); rather Darwin's evident and genuine passion for her subject: history. There are several great love affairs to be found in these pages - but perhaps the greatest is the author's own with the past: the gossamer-thin threads of memory, real and imagined - and the shimmering web that they weave.
"Slowly, meticulously... Darwin builds an intensely atmospheric narrative. Her characters emerge from the rough marble of time into beautifully rounded, polished figures. It takes a while for the reader to get to know them; but when you do, the depth of the acquaintance is such that you feel their fates all the more acutely. There are many twists and turns in this tale, some of them real, some of them not; together they add up to a spellbinding whole." - The Times
