The sky was a sparkling succession of black diamonds on black velvet made crystal clear by the blackout.
~ Sara Sheridan
New technologies and resources offer exciting opportunities. They democratise access to information.
Sometimes a person’s first assumption was very telling. It revealed how they perceived the situation.
People see what they expect to see.
I didn’t want to give up my job and join the ranks of the Doing Fuck All brigade no matter how much money I had in the bank.
I care about a lot of issues. I care about libraries, I care about healthcare, I care about homelessness and unemployment. I care about net neutrality and the steady erosion of our liberties both online and off. I care about the rich/poor divide and the rise of corporate business.
The smell of tobacco usually reminded Mirabelle of being a child – coming downstairs in the morning when the dinner party her parents had hosted the night before was cleared away, but the scent of cigars still lingered.
The law don’t like jazz clubs. No one wants anything to do with that kind of trouble.
One of my favourite parts of writing is doing the research. It's the door into that magical reading/writing state - the raw material for making the story real.
You've got to make an effort to get the details right, because even through someone picks it up and knows it's a novel, they know someone's made it up and they know it's not real, if you make a small mistake they will cease to imaginatively engage with the story.
The hard fact is that writing is available to readers because of market factors as much as particular writing talent.
This is the cusp of an age at least as exciting and as brimful of potential as the early days of the printing press.
We are in the middle of the biggest revolution in reading and writing since the advent of the Gutenberg press.
History was my favourite subject at school and in my spare time I read historical novels voraciously from Heidi to the Scarlet Pimpernel and from Georgette Heyer to Agatha Christie.
The fifties is a decade when every year is markedly different from the one before and after. That doesn't happen every decade. 1983 isn't that much different from 1986. But 1953 is very different from 1956.
I thought of myself mixing the fragrance of a certain day – the heavy musk of the hillside after the rain with the lightness of fresh blossoms doused in the downpour. I thought of each little bottle as the essence of a happy day or a sad one. I mixed the scent of a lonely moment – sandalwood and bergamot lingering over a rich, peppery base.
Cases fired by emotion rather than money were dangerous.
People who inspire such contradictory emotions must be worthwhile, I reasoned.
Parisians were not easy to engage in conversation. Perhaps that was why the Resistance had been so successful.
An aunt is a safe haven for a child. Someone who will keep your secrets and is always on your side.
Mrs Beaumont shrugged. ‘Dougie travelled light in life,’ she said. ‘He knew it was people who were important.
The smog curled between the streetlamps and the spokes of the wrought iron framework. It seemed through your body and into your bones.
I have a very strong sense that we only know where we are by looking clearly at where we've come from.
Everyone was important during the war. Everyone. We worked together and we won.
Once they have dedicated themselves to a cause, women will fight to the end for it.
I find it inspiring to actively choose which traditions to celebrate and also come up with new ideas for traditions of my own.
No one's book is perfect.
If peace came it would have to do so when there had been time to allow the hatred to grow out of people’s thinking.
The writing talent of Edinburgh is textured - we have poets, novelists, non-fiction writers, dramatists and more.
Having instant feedback on twitter to research material I'm considering is an enormous help.
If there’s one shade a woman of colour can’t wear it’s got to be the one everyone expects, hasn’t it?
Like most little girls, I found the lure of grown-up accessories astonishing - lipstick, perfume, hats and gloves. When I write female characters in my historical novels, getting these details right is vital.
Once you’re on the pleasure express, it’s hard to get off and switch to another, slower service.
Muscat is like a mind-altering drug. A stroll in its streets is like getting drunk for the first time
The devil was always in the detail. And here the detail was certainly devilish.
There was something about Maria Graham that you could believe in – a slice of home. If not unique in her travelling, she was at least extraordinary.
When she first moved to Brighton, the flat on the Lawns had felt luxurious and it had seemed as if she was settling down, sleeping in the same bed every night, the darkness uninterrupted by any hint of emergency. It had felt as if all her difficulties were over.
Readership is highly dependent upon format and distribution as much as it is on content.
The old London was fading from her memory. She no longer expected to see the shops that had been bombed when she passed familiar streets. In many places the sites were being redeveloped. That’s what seemed real now – the new buildings and the flats above them. As she hit her stride, Mirabelle smiled. It felt good to be in the big city again and on her way.
Britain wouldn’t have won the war without its eccentric geniuses.
