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Shall I let you into a secret? Research or not to research?

Readers often ask me how much research goes into my books? Now if you mean checking facts on the Internet or doing a google search then I would say quite a lot. For my latest book, Finding Rose, I found I needed to do rather a lot more 'real' research, especially since this is a contemporary novel with a strong historical aspect. As part of the book is set in Tudor England (my favourite period) then it called for some more serious research in the way of visiting actual buildings.
For a flavour of Tudor life then The Tudor house in Worcester is excellent. As you walk through the entrance, you are immediately transported back five hundred years. The physical sense of people treading the same floorboards as you all that time ago is very evocative and you half expect to encounter someone in Tudor dress just round the corner.




Okay, so the staff have been known to dress up but it certainly adds to the ghostlike atmosphere.

The Tudor house has been used for almost anything you can imagine over the years, from a children's school dentist to council offices. To show the history of the building, different rooms show a Victorian parlour, a dentist's surgery and a warden's office. It is upstairs though that the real Tudor character lives on. There is also lots of factual, fun or fairly gruesome information about daily life at that time, some of which might just find its way into my book.


I'm really fascinated by how the Tudors brushed their teeth, the clothes they wore and the food they ate. The museum really answered a lot of my questions  and when we'd finished, it was time for a twenty-first century coffee in the cafe.
Some of the information may never see the light of day yet the whole experience is somehow enriching and even if never used, gives a deeper insight into the time in which my characters lived.

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