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The Inspiration Behind my Novels
by Clare Marchant
To be asked what inspires my writing is probably the best question in the world - It means I can wax lyrical about everything that I love!
As a historical fiction author, a lot of my ideas and inspiration come from all the wonderful old buildings and artefacts that surround us today. The landscape, the flow of time and especially the connections we can feel with that history and the people who lived before us. I am lucky that where I live I have access to many old buildings, stately homes and churches where I can be found on most weekends with our dog Fred. He enjoys the walk, and I enjoy soaking up the ambience of centuries past. Also I can travel to Norwich, a medieval walled city with remarkable old buildings and a castle, together with museums and galleries.
Some of my favourite places to visit are the derelict monasteries that were ransacked and demolished during Henry VIII’s dissolution in the sixteenth century. There are plenty of these dotted across the country where we’re able to walk around and see how they would have once been. There is nothing I enjoy more than drifting through ancient rooms, abbeys, cloisters with my eyes closed, imagining the lives of all the monks who walked those passages before me. I can almost feel them gliding past, habits swishing on the ground still living their lives hundreds of years later. The architecture of the abbey buildings is incredible, where it still survives to this day we can only imagine how long and painstaking the work must have been to create such magnificence.
I’m also very keen on visiting old churches – most villages in England have an ancient church surrounded by graves so old they are frequently illegible, and inside there are signs everywhere of the people who over the years have come together to pray, celebrate or mourn. People connecting with each other.
As I’ve just described, I feel a link with our ancestors when I’m visiting the places where they lived, but I also love looking at the artefacts people owned, used and loved. I am inspired by imagining the ties people had with those items. Jewellery that might be given to a new bride by her husband, special memories attached to precious things which may have been secreted into pockets as men went off to war, or crusades. When young girls were sent to another home to marry a man they’d never met, what did they take with them to remember their family? What stories can those objects tell?
I often look at things that I own which are special to me; they may not be valuable in monetary terms, but in sentimental significance, they are priceless. I know I’m not the only person who has many items that my children made at school still scattered around the house and pictures attached to the fridge by magnets that track the many holidays and foreign cities I’ve visited seeking out works of art that inspire me. I have letters secreted away written by my (now elderly) mother who has been writing to me – or emailing these days – and they are a glimpse into our past. And it’s the past which inspires me most.
As well as our connections to objects that we own and love, are the threads that bind us to each other. We all have people we love, our family and friends, and I draw inspiration from those relationships. How we interact with others.
In The Queen’s Spy these connections are made very clear as the novel progresses. The connections between Tom and his mother Eleanor and all that she taught him that propels him to a job in Queen Elizabeth I's court. Then his connections with Walsingham and his spy network and also his relationship with Isobel and of course his precious triptych. Then in the present day, Mathilde arrives in England thinking she has no connections in the world – no family and no permanent home. But as the story progresses, we get to see that she is connected in more ways than she could have imagined to the family she has yet to meet.
All these people, places and objects have a story to tell us, and I like to think about how the lives of our ancestors are still a part of us today. It is said that ‘no man is an island’, and that is so true of our place in history.
We are all connected to our forefathers, not just through our genes, but in the memories and belongings they left behind for us.
1584: Elizabeth I rules England. But a dangerous plot is brewing in court, and Mary Queen of Scots will stop at nothing to take her cousin’s throne.
There’s only one thing standing in her way: Tom, the queen’s trusted apothecary, who makes the perfect silent spy…
2021: Travelling the globe in her campervan, Mathilde has never belonged anywhere. So when she receives news of an inheritance, she is shocked to discover she has a family in England.
Just like Mathilde, the medieval hall she inherits conceals secrets, and she quickly makes a haunting discovery. Can she unravel the truth about what happened there all those years ago? And will she finally find a place to call home?
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About the Author
Growing up in Surrey, Clare always dreamed of being a writer. Instead, she followed a career in IT, before moving to Norfolk for a quieter life and re-training as a jeweler.
Now writing full time, she lives with her husband and the youngest two of her six children. Weekends are spent exploring local castles and monastic ruins, or visiting the nearby coast.
Social Media Links:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ClareMarchant1
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/claremarchantauthor
Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/3fkuf2r
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Twitter Handles: @ClareMarchant1 @maryanneyarde
Hashtags: #TheQueensSpy #HistoricalFiction #BlogTour #CoffeePotBookClub
Tour Schedule Page: https://www.coffeepotbookclub.com/post/blog-tour-the-queen-s-spy-by-clare-marchant-16th-august-28th-august-2021
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Website: https://helenhollick.net/
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