Bookish Tuesday: Travelling in Time and Space | Donna Fletcher Crow

By Donna Fletcher Crow @DonnaFletcherCr

One of my first principles in telling a story is that in order to write about a place I need to visit it first. When one lives in Idaho and sets their books in England that can be a challenge, but with careful planning, an achievable goal.

But what about the fact that the events in my newest book A Lethal Spectre, Lord Danvers Investigates #5, occurred more than 160 years ago? Much as I might wish it were possible, Tardis travel isn’t within my grasp.

So I had to settle for visiting my locations as they are today, then applying a healthy dose of imagination to picture what these scenes looked, sounded and smelled like in 1857.

In London St. James’s Palace, where Lady Danvers presents her charge at one of Queen Victoria’s Drawing Rooms, has changed little.

Likewise, the church of St. George in the East is little changed externally, although, fortunately, the area around it is greatly gentrified.

Hyde Park is still a haven of lovely green quiet—except during a Royal Salute on the Queen’s birthday.

The Docklands, however, which feature largely in this book, are radically transformed.

To get a feel of what it must have been like in Victorian times, I found photos and the Museum of the Docklands online.

Brighton is another venue in the book. Unfortunately, the Bedford Hotel is no more.

And the elegant Chain Pier was destroyed by a storm in 1896.

Fortunately, however, the Royal Pavilion is in better repair today than it was in mid-Victorian times since Queen Victoria did not care for it and sold it to the town corporation who struggled to maintain it.

Serendipitously, I was able to step fully back into the past when we discovered a group of Regency dancers preparing for an event later that evening and I was allowed to photograph them.

Donna Fletcher Crow is passionate about English history and loves telling the stories of the men and women who have shaped the world we live in. She is the author of some 50 books--all available on her website along with pictures from her research trips--something else she is passionate about. Her newest release is A Lethal Spectre, Lord Danvers Investigates

The Joys of Serendipitous Research

My father always told me, “You never learn anything you don’t use sometime.”

Just like most of the things my father taught me, I have found this to be true—especially when it comes to research for my novels. Because I live in the western US and set most of my novels in England, and because I try never to write about a place I haven’t visited, research looms large in my writing life. And because I’m always working on a tight schedule I’m very focused in my research.

I always set out knowing what I need to know and where I hope to find it. At least, I always “think” I know what I need to know—and how it will fit into my story. When something unexpected turns up—someone answers a question I didn’t ask, or suggests I go someplace I hadn’t planned to go—I used to dismiss that “extraneous” information.

Until at least the third or fourth time I was back in my office writing and discovered that that superfluous material was just what I needed—if only I could remember it, since I had failed to write it down.

I had an example of this when my husband and I visited the Royal Pavilion in Brighton as background for the novel I’m currently writing—A Lethal Spectre, book 5 in my Victorian true crime series Lord Danvers Investigates—I was enchanted to encounter a Regency dance group rehearsing to perform a program for an event later that night. But they were Regency, a whole generation earlier than the 1857 setting for my story. It was charming, but I needn’t take notes.

But wait, this was something I could report to the JaneAusten Society of North America newsletter. I sought out a pavilion official and got permission to take pictures—in spite of the prohibition against photography. 

Although I submitted the article to JASNA News, it was never published. A few days ago, however, when I needed to place my Victorian characters at a ball in the Royal Pavilion, I had my pictures to refer to for accurate details—adjusting for the changes in dance and dress fashion, of course.

You can see the results when A Lethal Spectre is published early next year, but in the meantime, my latest release is the all-new edition of ATincture of Murder, book 4 in Lord Danvers Investigates:

A devastating fire at Danvers’s ancestral home induces Charles to accept his brother Frederick’s plea for help with his work among fallen women and impoverished orphans in York. Charles soon finds himself struggling to identify a ruthless murderer while Antonia helps feed the women and children living in the asylum Frederick runs. The trial of notorious poisoner William Dove leads to surprising discoveries and sets legal precedent still followed today.

Posted by Donna Fletcher Crow. You can see more about all her books on her website.