Shrouded in Shadows is a haunting original story of mystery and ghostly obsession set against the backdrop of the English Civil War. In an exclusive interview, she discusses the story that inspired the novel, as well as ideas about faith, identity and meaning to be persecuted

There is a lot of description in this book, but I found myself particularly drawn to the gothic mystery of Griesheis Manor. It's a particularly fitting setting for a ghost novel; did you have any real buildings or places in mind when you wrote the novel?

There were a few that I took bits and pieces from, but I'm sure I also absorbed details from other places I visited and read about. This is a really classic Gothic house. I took certain key aspects from Haddon Hall in Derbyshire and Ham House in Richmond - of course the large kitchen - and I also took some elements from Bolsover Castle, particularly some of the servants' quarters. For some later events in the novel, I drew inspiration from the history of Wardour Castle in Wiltshire.

Are you attracted to Gothic in your works?

I think so, I read a lot of gothic literature - especially when I was younger - especially eighteenth-century gothic and nineteenth century. Of course, I'm not going to write a novel in a certain genre, but then, coming back to it, I often find it's a mix of different genres.I'm just glad that booksellers don't want to come and find me and hit me for making it hard for my books to find a place on the shelf! In the case of this particular book, it fits many different criteria of Gothic influence, but I didn't realize how much until earlier this year when I had to hold a seminar and decided to use "Wrapped in Shadows" as an example. I found myself looking for examples of gothic tropes in novel and realized that he actually represented most of them.

I felt that this novel played with different ideas of ghosts - both external ghosts in the form of ghosts and spirits, and in terms of the ways in which we can be haunted by ideas, our own history and grief is something you wanted to explore in novel from the beginning?

Yes, exactly. One of the things I thought about was how we all accumulate voices in our heads. We absorb different habits from the people who have most influenced us, as a kind of inner voice. Sometimes it can be our parents, but there can also be mentors, critical voices of our peers, classmates, work colleagues, etc. - a kind internalized social police. All of these things serve different functions, and not all of them are negative.

The Myrrhbearer is a character who—even before she is literally persecuted—seems to be torn between conflicting parts of themselves. This is a familiar theme from your previous novels, the idea of ​​war with oneself. Did you want use the idea of ​​multiple personalities within one body to also explore the idea of ​​how a person can feel that there are different versions of yourself in conflict?

Yes, but it's something that needs to be handled with care. It is not easy. I think most of us are trying to reconcile different parts of ourselves, whether we recognize it or not. I think it would be hard for me to write about someone who was the only one, us everyone is complicated, we all have parts of ourselves that we repress - consciously or subconsciously - and I think that's what it seems it's natural for me when I describe the character.

The novel's historical setting also provides various opportunities to explore the ways in which women, in particular, forced to hide or mask parts of themselves in order to comply with or subvert the constraints of their society.

I think that's very true, and in terms of internal conflict, you internalize society, who you are and who you have be. Of course, Vera in The Lie Tree has this internal conflict in part because she internalizes expectations other people She blames herself for not fitting the model offered to her, while at the same time feeling this overwhelming feeling of anger and frustration that she doesn't fit this mold but is forced to pretend that she fits

Of course, in the case of the Myrrhbearer, it is much more systematic. A long-lasting masquerade is less emotionally driven the need to meet other people's expectations, which is very different from Faith, who does not want her father to disappointed in her. From a fairly early stage, Myrrhbearer takes this as a prisoner; play the long game because it her best chance. This is a very deliberate, very patient, long scam.

I liked the idea that Bear was the first to chase the Myrrhbearer, and I think the descriptions she shares his feelings and emotions, greatly influenced. It also struck me that the word "bear" itself has a double meaning, how animal and alternative meaning of burden. What was it like as a writer to explore this perspective of animals and merge it with human consciousness?

This was one of the ideas that had been floating around in my head for the longest time. Sometimes the author has a moment when he understands the main idea books But instead, it often happens that fragments of an idea hang in your head for many years, and they are obviously not is a complete idea, and they won't work by themselves, but when you find what they connect to, then it will create a story that can ignite your imagination.

One of the pieces of the idea that lingered in my mind the longest is the ghost bear. I learned a little about history the mistreatment of the dancing bears, and it made me very angry, so I've had this for a long time of a truly wronged ghost bear who returns for revenge, finally freed from his bonds.But it never is didn't seem like a good enough idea on its own, so it wasn't until I came across the idea of ​​the Felmott traditions, hereditary possessions and had it in her head as metaphysics, everything finally came together.

The bear seems to represent Myrrhbearer's anger, her grief, and her wounded part, so he doesn't always make things easy for her, but it is also a source of strength. She finds strength in coming to terms with this primal part of herself – or the primal force, which is basically the Bear. I gave her a rather strange name; she is never going to "make peace" with in terms of the wider war, but what it can do is make peace with itself.

In this novel, you get a really vivid picture of the reality of grief and a sense of what for a person who is grieving, you are never the same on the other side of grief.

This is a very strange thing about grief; we all have the strangest doubts about what we are allowed to feel and what we are not allowed to feel to feel how we should react and whether we are doing it right. This is the only moment when you think you have it all it doesn't matter, but these things carry with them a huge amount of guilt, the feeling that you're grieving wrong.

Writing about the seventeenth century and the Civil War, an incredibly tumultuous time in English history, a time when the country is at war with itself.

This is an incredibly dramatic period. I'm always fascinated by periods of change, transition and upheaval in history as well England has not had many more dramatic periods, in terms of change, than the Civil War. I didn't want to either focus primarily on battles and beautiful dresses. There is some of that, but I also wanted to look at people — many people — who will be affected by the war, whether they participate in it or not.

In English history, it is very impressive how the civil war led to the division of families, when people stood on different sides parties to the conflict.

Certainly, real families like the Verneys fell apart. Father Edmund Verney stood with the king, and his eldest son Ralph — no, and it was really tragic because they were never reunited. Edmund died at the Battle of Edgehill, and so did I I think that Ralph was always unhappy that he was never able to reconcile with his father, and I think that was typical.

It was also the time when women first began to have a public voice – albeit a very limited one – and some of the first female voices published works at this time are prophetic. Have you been inspired by reading any of these true accounts?

Yes, of course, but I couldn't squeeze them all in, of course. Because of the direction I took my story, I didn't was able to touch none of the women, for example, on either side who resisted the siege—people like Charlotte de la Tremouil at Latham House and Brillian Harley defending Brampton Brian. The character of Helen is heavily inspired by real life a woman named Jane Warwood, who was a Royalist agent and gold smuggler, and was even involved in some conspired to rescue Charles I when he was finally captured. Obviously, these plots failed, but one of her colleagues said something like, "If we all did our part like Mistress Horwood, the king would be free now." To her managed to land him in prison and there is even speculation that they may have had a brief affair! There were others women who smuggled gold to the king, and the technique of smuggling gold in soap seems to have been something that actually happened.

In terms of prophetesses, Lady Eleanor in the book is a nod to Lady Eleanor Davies, who was a prophetess and wrote rather long, very vivid Bible tracts and sometimes predicted that people would die and had this strange habit of having right!It seems she was absolutely unbearable. She chased people away, was very bad at paying bills, and didn't strive to have friends, but just had an annoying habit of being right. Fortunately, she is not right in her prediction about the end the world

The book has a real sense of excitement about how information is spreading and what people are desperate for. get your hands on the latest news.

The number of printers increased dramatically because both sides realized the importance of getting to know each other stories for propaganda purposes. And this genie was never put back in the bottle. After the Civic After the war, there was never again the same central control over printing presses and their products.So, with from the point of view of those who lived at the time, this paper explosion, this forest fire, was an uncontrolled release of information by across the country, and – as with the Internet today – not all information could be trusted.

We think of fake news as a modern invention, but of course it is not.