History is full of blank spaces, but good stories, invariably, are not.

In crime books it’s possible to chart forensic technology by how well it has to be explained to a reader. In mid-Victorian crime novels fingerprinting has to be explained because it’s new. Nowadays it’s part...

History at its best is a gritty, dirty business.

History was my favourite subject at school and in my spare time I read historical novels voraciously from Heidi to the Scarlet Pimpernel and from Georgette Heyer to Agatha Christie.

If the universe was scientific and just left to itself, then we’d have statistical probabilities to rely on. But once people are involved it sometimes becomes much more problematic because they’re erratic. People do crazy...

Books have a vital place in our culture. They are the source of ideas, of stories that engage and stretch the imagination and most importantly, inspire.

A paucity of material can open up just as many possibilities.

Writing is a profession that has no real career structure and your best advice when you hit a difficulty is probably going to come from another writer one or two rungs on the career ladder...

I’m very aware we are the first generation ever to have such incredible opportunities to express ourselves publicly to a worldwide audience.

I’m not sure how much easier it is for a mother to balance her life now – have we simply swapped one set of restrictions for another?

No one’s book is perfect.

Those who have not been stung will hardly fear a bee the same as those who have.

I was asked the other day in which era I would choose to live. As a historical novelist, it comes up sometimes. As a woman I’d have to say I’d like to live in the...

Our children make us so vulnerable. Our parents too, I suppose.

Edinburgh is alive with words.

The lively oral storytelling scene in Scots and Gaelic spills over into the majority English-speaking culture, imbuing it with a strong sense of narrative drive that is essential to the modern novel, screenplay and even...

It took a certain kind of person to come from luxury and seek out danger.

I jealously guard my research time and I love fully immersing myself in those dusty old books and papers. It’s one of the most enjoyable parts of my job.

Muscat is like a mind-altering drug. A stroll in its streets is like getting drunk for the first time

It’s ridiculous – a girl steps out, goes dancing, gets her hair cut, decides to spend the summer in Italy and it’s a scandal. A chap does it and no one bats an eyelid.

I am completely unflustered by whichever medium people choose to read my words. I’m just delighted they’re reading them at all!

It occurred to me that as a man I could do anything, everything I wanted.

I’ve always felt that good writing does not have to be literary.

When you’re depressed you retreat and you go into a smaller world. This is why Brighton worked well for the story, because it’s a smaller world than London.

On of the prerequisites for my mobile phone is that I have to be able to fling it at a wall if I lose my temper.

I’ve always been attracted to stories about rebels – things that are unusual and sometimes dangerous.

New technologies and resources offer exciting opportunities. They democratise access to information.

Social and cultural history is often comprised of whatever diaries and letters remain and that is down to chance and wide open to interpretation.

Like most little girls, I found the lure of grown-up accessories astonishing – lipstick, perfume, hats and gloves. When I write female characters in my historical novels, getting these details right is vital.

People see what they expect to see.

Mirabelle always ate her lunch on Brighton beach if the weather was in any way passable, but out of sheer principle she never paid tuppence for a chair. We did not win the war to...

I spend a lot of time imagining things – in fact, you could say that imagining things is my job.

I’d never be where I am if more successful writers hadn’t taken an interest in me and done me a good turn.

In wartime, she thought to herself, you don’t call a death murder.

is a pile of wank.

The hard fact is that writing is available to readers because of market factors as much as particular writing talent.

Food in wartime Britain, she had to admit, was hardly inspiring.

The fifties is a decade when every year is markedly different from the one before and after. That doesn’t happen every decade. 1983 isn’t that much different from 1986. But 1953 is very different from...

It is through our extended family that we first learn to compromise and come to an understanding that even if we don’t always agree about things we can still love and look out for each...

Often we don’t notice the stringent rules to which our culture subjects us.

Wellsted will remember this moment for the rest of his life. It is the first time he desires something for himself that is not dedicated to his own advancement. It is the moment he falls...

The telling of any character is what they do in a different situation.

The space where I write is in my head, I suppose.

She tried to focus on the element of riddle or at least puzzle contained in the letter and ignore the sense of doom that was sweeping through her like clouds rolling to the shore over...

The devil was always in the detail. And here the detail was certainly devilish.

We have more choice than ever before about where and how we buy and read books.

What was it that marked me as a woman and was I prepared to let it go?

Historical fiction of course is particularly research-heavy. The details of everyday life are there to trip you up. Things that we take for granted, indeed, hardly think about, can lead to tremendous mistakes.

We can learn so much looking outside our core field of expertise.

Writers have a well-deserved reputation for being eccentric. Everything you’ve heard is true.