And I am delighted to have Hannah here today:
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Rhys:
Honeychurch Hall is a new departure for you—where did the inspiration come
from? I get a distinct Downton Abbey feel—are you
a big fan?
Hannah: I was inspired by my mother’s rash
purchase of a wing in a country house in Devon at age 76. When most widows of her
advanced years would be heading off to a retirement village, Mum decided that
at last she had the freedom to do what she jolly well wanted and there was
nothing any of us could do to stop her! She completely reinvented her life and
now, at 85, is in robust health, working as a docent at Greenway (Agatha
Christie’s summer home) and has never been happier. As for Downton Abbey, who
does not love that show! The chance
to weave in a contemporary upstairs-downstairs take with “Murder at Honeychurch
Hall” was the icing on the cake.
Rhys: Your
heroine is an antiques expert—how about you? Do you collect antiques? Do you
own antique stuffed mice?
Hannah:
Following my stint as an obituary writer chronicled in my other
series – The Vicky Hill Mysteries – I went to work for Leonard Lassalle, an
antique dealer who ran a beautiful shop in The Pantiles in Royal Tunbridge
Wells, Kent. I absolutely loved that job. He was French and specialized in 17th
century English and European furniture, paintings, Delft pottery and treen. Leonard
taught me a lot but not about antique toys in which he had no interest at all. In
fact, up until I was introduced to the Merrythought Jerry mice by accident
(that ended up providing a key clue in the first Honeychurch Hall mystery), I’d
never heard of them! On doing some research I subsequently discovered that the
Merrythought toy factory in Ironbridge, Shropshire, England produced them in
the 1960s and 1970s. The company—eighty years on and still family owned—were
licensed to make the MGM Jerry mouse from the Tom and Jerry Show. And honestly,
they are really cute and yes, I own two.
Rhys: Your
books are set in the English countryside—does this England still exist or are you
attempting to recreate the England of your childhood/nostalgia or fantasy?
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Rhys: The
mother—what a fun and awful character. Where did she come from?
Hannah: Iris
Stanford is a mixture of my own lovely Mum (the good bits), an eccentric old
spinster who lived in the village where I was born, and myself! Of course, my
mother is not a romance writer of steamy bodice-rippers. In fact I have you to
thank for suggesting that Iris have that secret, Rhys! I’ve had a lot of fun
writing “excerpts” under Iris’s pseudonym of Krystalle Storm. And if you ask if I share any similarities
with my protagonist, the TV celebrity Kat Stanford, I would say a definite no.
She’s far too sensible and if anything, reminds me of my own daughter.
Rhys: You
now live in the US. What do you miss most about England? What do you do when
you go back? (I have to have cream teas/Cornish pasties/fish and chips
and go to friendly local pubs)
Hannah: I miss everything except London and the
big cities. I’m still a country girl at heart. I miss the sound of blackbirds
singing on a summer’s evening, walking the coastal paths of the West Country, the
taste of real Devonshire clotted cream—not the stuff in a jar; Mum’s Sunday
Roast Beef and Yorkshire puddings, but most of all the sense of history that exudes
from centuries old castles and forests where four hundred year-old oak trees still
stand. Most of all, I miss my family but America has been very good to me. It’s
where I first got published and where I found true love after years of
searching in a barren wasteland of broken dreams … oh sorry … Krystalle Storm
just popped out …
Thanks
for inviting me today!
Murder at
Honeychurch Hall will be published May 13, 2014 (Minotaur)
