Books and Background #1

While researching my forthcoming Victorian novel, Saving Grace, I discovered this Christmas card, which dates from the 1870s. It is so beautiful I felt that I should share it with you.

Saving Grace is set in 1876, the year Mata Hari, the famous spy and exotic dancer, was born. Other notable events that year included the premiere of the stage production of the verse-play Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen with incidental music by Edvard Grieg, Elisha Gray (pictured) and Alexander Graham Bell’s application for a patent for the telephone while Wyatt Earp (also pictured) started work in Dodge City, Kansas, serving under Marshal Larry Deger.

The inquest into the poisoning of Charles Petrie, the centrepiece of my forthcoming novel Saving Grace, takes place at the Seabank Hotel, Porthcawl. The Seabank began life in 1860 and was redeveloped ten years later. The building is still in use as a hotel, though much changed from this Victorian photograph.

I am a big fan of 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s movies and for Christmas this year I received a number of DVDs from those decades, including this classic

And a reminder that Betrayal, story number one in my 1944-5 mini-series is currently available free