As the nights draw in and the ghosts seep from the walls, it’s time to huddle beneath your counterpane with a suitably creepy book. I asked seven of our most brilliantly chilling writers to name their favourite Gothic reads, both a classic and a modern Gothic novel. Prepare to be frightened, repulsed, entranced… Ruth Ware […]
History by the River April 18
History by the River is a monthly panel event with a social buzz for lovers of books, history and good beer. It’s a chance to get together with fellow readers and authors to hear about the best new historical writing, then discuss it all over a drink afterwards. Three acclaimed writers, three remarkable stories, one […]
Historia Interviews: Michael Stewart
Katherine Clements talks to author Michael Stewart. Creating a fresh take on a much-loved classic is a challenge for any writer. The novels of the Brontës have inspired spin-offs, homages and countless pastiches, some more successful than others. Now adding to this oeuvre is Michael Stewart, whose novel Ill Will, the untold story of Heathcliff’s […]
Review: Making Thunder Roar at the Brontë Parsonage Museum
Katherine Clements visits the new exhibition at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth. Emily Brontë is the most elusive of the famous Brontë siblings. We know little about her, beyond her propensity for solitude, her preference for simple domestic life and her love of the moorland landscape surrounding the Haworth Parsonage where she spent most of her […]
The Coffin Path by Katherine Clements
The Coffin Path is a seventeenth-century ghost story. A story in which the oppression and wild beauty of the Yorkshire moors provides a compelling backdrop, where a sense of encroaching malevolence seeps like a ‘winding sheet of fog … silent, still, watching’ through the very stones of Scarcross Hall, and the fates of all who live there. Scarcross […]
Historia Interviews: Bettany Hughes
Katherine Clements speaks to Bettany Hughes about women in history, gender equality and her love affair with Istanbul. ‘When I very first went into the BBC a producer said, “Nobody wants to be lectured at by a woman”.’ 25 years, 3 books and 250 million viewers later, I think it’s safe to say, that producer was […]
The Best Costume Dramas for Christmas
Katherine Clements picks the best costume drama to watch over the festive season. The Crown (Netflix, from 8th December) When The Crown first aired last year it was much hyped as the most expensive TV series ever made. I doubted whether a show about our current royals would live up to such grand claims. I was […]
Review: Peaky Blinders, Season 4, Episode 1
‘We’re going back … back to Small Heath,’ says a blood-spattered Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy), in the opening episode of Peaky Blinders, Season 4. ‘Back where you belong,’ replies Johnny Dogs (Packy Lee) – he knows, as do we, that Tommy can’t escape his roots. Season 3 of Peaky Blinders was about Tommy’s attempt to […]