The Appeal of Historical Fiction
Recently a good friend of mine said to me “I didn’t know I liked historical fiction until I read Louise’s War.” Fans of my earlier series, about amateur sleuth and historian Simon Shaw, often said much the same thing. They were surprised that history, at least history as the background for a mystery, could be so interesting. And I’m often asked why everything I write, even short stories, contains a historical element.
I’m a right brained person. I don’t find it easy to analyze, I rely on intuition to find my way, and that applies to my writing, too. I can’t answer easily why I am so drawn to the past. I read my first historical novel when I was about ten years old. The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas’ best in my opinion, drew me right in to the fantastic adventures of Edmund Dantes in a way I’d never experienced. I followed it with the Hornblower series of Napoleonic sea-faring tales and the early American historicals of Kenneth Roberts, books I found on my parents’ bookshelves. To me the way people lived in the past is absolutely fascinating. Read more 
