Writing historical fiction, it is impossible to ignore the overwhelming impact religion had on people's lives. It was not only the structure of organised religion, but the interwoven beliefs which dominated people's lives. Christianity, the religion which runs through most of my historical fiction, grew and survived with its ability to adapt as it spread from place to place and culture to culture, absorbing certain traditions as it powered on. I love Theology. I did my undergraduate degree in it, and it continues to remain a real interest of mine. I also love the idea of holding hands across history, seeing what my characters saw, and holding the same objects in my own hands as they or their peers did. Given the significance of religion and superstition throughout history, these things were common - although not necessarily accessible - and would have been understood by all. Religious iconography dominated Pre-Reformation Europe, speaking as a universal language to all. These
Today, I'm super-excited to be sharing a short story from the fabulous Gothic Horror writer, Judith Crow. Here is her Poe-inspired story, The Clockmaker ... The Clockmaker I cannot sleep. I cannot allow myself to sleep. In sleep, Death may strike with as little awareness as warning, and I find myself refusing to accept unawareness at the moment of demise. Yet, I wish I were afforded others’ natural ignorance of the timing of death. In the names of heaven and hell: I both curse and envy them for their ignorance! I, like others, started my final day with little to suggest it may be my last. I was in rude health when I arrived in London twelve days earlier, and today I took the time to call upon Sir Benjamin Pelham, a man I had served alongside in India. Twenty years ago, his interest in science and invention had lured him back to the English universities, while I had stayed abroad to make my fortune overseeing the collapse and redistribution of the once-mighty East India Company. Si