DEBORAH CROMBIE: This post should possibly be called "What Debs Is Not Writing" but I think we'll be kinder than that! I'm still recovering from my back surgery on July 1st, and although all is going well, I'm frustrated by the fact that I still can't sit for more than about half an hour--and even more frustrating, I'm still not able to sit comfortably in my computer chair. But, meanwhile, I'm camped out on my living room sofa with my laptop, trying to pick back up where I was in Kincaid/James #20 when all of my back nonsense started.
I've also been rereading/relistening to Deborah Harkness's All Souls series, and am now halfway through SHADOW OF NIGHT, the second book and possibly my favorite. In it, the protagonists time-travel back to London in 1590, meeting all sorts of Elizabethan luminaries. (Harkness is a historian, so the details of life in the time period are wonderful.) In one scene, Matthew and Diana visit Queen Elizabeth I's court in Richmond Palace.
Richmond Palace fronting the River Thames.’ A 1765 engraving by James Basire
Richmond! Writerly attention flags jumped out and smacked me upside the head! Some of my characters live in Richmond! Parts of the book are set all along the Thames at Richmond, Twickenham, and Teddington. I made several research visits to Richmond on my last trip to London! Why did I not associate Richmond with the royal residence of Queen Elizabeth I?
Down the research rabbit hole I went, learning that it was in part because the palace was almost entirely destroyed by Oliver Cromwell and his minions in the decade between 1650 and 1660. It was a favorite residence of Elizabeth's, however--she died there in 1603--and the palace has a fascinating history both before and after the Elizabethan period.
Only a few walls remain, incorporated into later buildings designated The Gatehouse, The Wardrobe, and the Trumpeter's House due to their association with the vanished parts of the palace. All are now private residences. In 2020 you could have bought a three bedroom apartment in The Wardrobe for just under 4 million pounds!
Then, when I looked at Richmond Palace on the map, I realized I had been a stone's throw from the site! I had drinks at The Prince's Head (the Crown and Anchor in Ted Lasso,) I walked across Richmond Green and down Old Palace Lane to the Thames, never realizing that I was setting foot on what was once an actual palace.
I have no idea how this little historical side trip of mine will fit into K/J #20, but I have no doubt it will, if only as a bit of scene-setting local color. I started college as a history major, so this is all catnip to me.
How grand the palace must have been!
It may seem as though I've been wandering in the weeds, but it's these little tidbits and associations that spark my imagination and make me want to be IN the book--and I very much hope readers will feel the same way.
How about it, dear Reds and readers, do you like to know the background of settings in books? And who wants to go in on that flat??
