Today, on behalf of Alex Nye, Fledgling Press and #LoveBooksTours I am proud to be hosting a brilliant guest post about inspiration from Alex to promote her fabulous book Arguing with the Dead. with it’s links to Mary Shelly, it’s a must for classic and modern fiction lovers.
Synopsis
The year is 1839, and Mary Shelley – the woman who wrote Frankenstein – is living alone in a tiny cottage on the banks of the river Thames in Putney. As she sorts through the snowstorm of her husband’s scattered papers she is reminded of their past: the half-ruined villas in Italy, the stormy relationship with Shelley and her stepsister Claire, the loss of her children, the attempted kidnapping of Claire’s daughter Allegra from a prison-like convent in Florence. And finally, her husband’s drowning on the Gulf of Spezia as they stayed in a grim-looking fortress overlooking the sea. What she has never confided in anyone is that she has always been haunted by Shelley’s drowned first wife, Harriet, who would come to visit her in the night as she slept with her two tiny children in a vast abandoned villa while Shelley was away litigating with lawyers. Did Mary pay the ultimate price for loving Shelley?
Who will Harriet come for next?
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Guest Post
Inspiration: THE LAST TURNING
When I was researching my novel Arguing with the Dead, I spent a lot of time exploring Kelvingrove Art Gallery – which I like to do now and again to recharge my batteries. I came across one painting which absolutely fascinated me. It’s called The Last Turning by James Patterson, and shows an ordinary woman with a basket of provisions over her arm, wrapped in shawls against the winter, walking her usual quiet route to collect bread at a time when people mostly used their feet to travel. The Last Turning might refer to the fact it’s the last turning before she arrives, but it could also refer to the approach of winter, as the trees stand bare. On the opposite riverbank, you can make out buildings in the distance. I stared and stared at this painting for ages, visiting it often, fascinated by the back of the woman’s head, wondering what her face was like, what sort of life she led, amazed by the fact she looked so real, so ordinary, so like one of us, and yet she was wrapped in shawls and travelled mostly on foot. Maybe it was the fact she was engaged in doing something very ordinary – fetching bread and provisions – that caught me, as well as the soft brown and grey tones of her winter setting, but whatever it was, this anonymous woman in the painting haunted me just as I was writing my novel about Mary Shelley.
I began to imagine that Mary Shelley was that woman on the riverbank, in sight of the last turning, carrying her bread back to share with her servant Lizzie whom she is teaching to read during a winter of terrible blizzards.
In my novel, Mary Shelley is haunted by a mysterious figure who has followed her all of her life, and follows her still. Ghost or human? Or a product of Mary’s own imagination inspired by guilt? I’m not telling you, obviously, but what I will say is that I would always recommend visiting an art gallery or studying paintings as a form of inspiration.
After my spell in the Kelvingrove, I scurried along to the Artisan Roast nearby, found my favourite table, took out my notebook and began to write. It was at this table I typed the words THE END for both Arguing with the Dead and my soon-to-be released YA novel When we get to the Island.
Author Bio – Alex Nye
Alex Nye is the award-winning author of four novels. She grew up in Norfolk by the sea, but has lived in Scotland since 1995 where she finds much of her inspiration in Scottish history. At the age of 16 she won the W H Smith Young Writers’ Award out of 33,000 entrants, and has been writing ever since. Her first children’s novel, CHILL, won the Royal Mail Award. Her fourth book is a historical novel for adults about Mary Queen of Scots. Her forthcoming title, ARGUING WITH THE DEAD, is to be released on July 31st 2019. She divides her time between walking the dog, swimming, scribbling in notebooks in strange places, staring at people without meaning to, and tapping away on her laptop. She also teaches and delivers atmospheric candlelit workshops on creative writing/ghost stories/Scottish history. She studied at King’s College, London more years ago than she cares to remember.
Herding Cats 