Sharon Gosling
About Author
Sharon Gosling always wanted to be a writer. She started as an entertainment journalist, writing about television series such as Stargate and Battlestar Galactica. Her first novel was published under a pen name in 2010. Sharon and her husband live in a very small cottage in a very remote village in Cumbria, surrounded by sheep-dotted fells.
Interview
THE HOUSE OF HIDDEN WONDERS
STRIPES PUBLISHING
APRIL 2020
In this atmospheric story set in Victorian Edinburgh, three impoverished siblings find themselves up against ghosts, spiritualists and greedy villains. Zinnie is determined to find a way to keep her two sisters fed and safe. But working as an assistant for medic and detective Arthur Conan Doyle brings mixed blessings.
Author SHARON GOSLING tells us about her latest historical fiction adventure, THE HOUSE OF HIDDEN WONDERS:
Q: What The House of Hidden Wonders about?
A: The House of Hidden Wonders tells the story of Zinnie, Sadie and Nell, three sisters who have nowhere to live but the derelict underground streets of Mary King's Close on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. When Nell gets sick and a ghost begins to terrorise the girls' makeshift home, Zinnie has to keep her family safe from all sorts of different threats.
Q: Was there one thing that inspired the story?
A: I love writing strong female characters. This time around I really wanted to write about a group of sisters and the bond between them, and what the strength of that bond could accomplish.
Q: And was there a real 'House of Wonders' in Edinburgh at the time, exploiting people like those in your novel?
A: I don't think there was a particular place quite like MacDuff's House of Wonders, but in my research I looked at old adverts for amusements from the exact period. Some of the wording I have MacDuff's posters using is taken straight from those adverts.
The Victorians were very curious about 'scientific' curiosities of all sorts, and there would be regular demonstrations of 'discoveries'. There were circuses, too, both travelling ones and those that were housed in permanent buildings, and I researched some real newspaper adverts for entertainments in Edinburgh in that time, around 1869.
Q: The story is set in the Old Town of Edinburgh, why did you choose this area and how much research did you need to do into this period?
A: Edinburgh is one of my favourite cities, and I had already set quite a few books set in London in the Victorian period, so I thought it would be interesting to see what life was like in a different city in the same era. I did quite a lot of research, including getting a local historian and walking tour guide, Robert Howie, to tailor a walking tour of the Old Town for me to show me some of the aspects of the period that still exist but that I wouldn't have known about just by looking at them myself. That was really fascinating and I learned a lot.
I visited Mary King's Close, of course. I asked the National Library of Scotland to produce an A1 photocopy of the 1879 postal map for Edinburgh and Leith, and I had that up on the wall over my desk as I wrote. Looking at it made me almost feel as if I was travelling in time, following my characters along the streets exactly as they would have been in the year that Zinnie and her sisters were walking them!
I also visited the Scottish Life Archive at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh - they are collecting as many photographs as they can that depict all aspects of historical life in Scottish towns and cities, and that was a brilliant resource to go through.
Q: Zinnie, your main character, lives with her sisters in the Old Town. Can you tell us a bit more about her, and how she and her sisters survive in this world?
A: Zinnie was abandoned as a baby on the steps of an orphanage, and didn't have a good time growing up there. She ran away and has tried to be as independent as possible ever since. Her sisters are more important to Zinnie than anything, and she's determined to do whatever she can to keep them safe, even though that sometimes means she puts herself in difficult situations.
Q: You also feature a real person, Arthur Conan Doyle, when he was training as a medic. Why did you decide to introduce him to the story and at this point in his life?
A: I thought it would be interesting to suggest a few things that might have later influenced themes in his writing. Some of the Holmes stories feature The Baker Street Irregulars, a group of London street children who know the city better than even Holmes himself, and who the great detective sometimes turned to for help in finding information and people. I wondered where that idea had come from - this is my answer!
In his later life, Conan Doyle became convinced that the supernatural existed and that there was a way to communicate with the afterlife. I wanted to explore where and when the seeds of that belief might have been planted.
Q: The book reflects the huge explosion of interest in spiritualism at the time. What were some of the more far-fetched stories you read about spiritualism?
A: I think it's just fascinating how prevalent a belief in the afterlife was, and how readily people were convinced by the spectacles that some 'mediums' put on. I went to an exhibition at the Wellcome Collection in London when I was researching this book, which had a lot of historical material both about mediums of the period and those who spent a lot of time exposing their tricks.
Many stage magicians and illusionists at the time became avid 'de-bunkers' of spiritualists. After all, they could see exactly how the tricks were done, because they often used the same mechanisms themselves. One of these was the great American illusionist Harry Houdini, and he and Arthur Conan Doyle became embroiled in a very public spat - Conan Doyle insisting that the supernatural was real, and Houdini saying the opposite. They engaged in a feud via the national papers - that's pretty extraordinary to think about in itself!
Q: Have you ever seen a ghost? Would you want to?
A: I don't think I've ever seen a ghost, although how can I be sure? Maybe we see ghosts all the time and just don't realise that we're seeing them. I like the idea that places hold memories or traces of what happens in them, good as well as bad - I think that's why we refer to 'atmospheres' when we go into somewhere new and get a feeling without knowing why.
The house where I live is very old, and it is built into the side of a graveyard that is even older. If there were going to be ghosts anywhere, it would probably be here. And yet everyone sleeps well in our little house. Everyone always walks in for the first time and says how lovely it feels inside. I think it's probably always felt like that - it's a happy place. Maybe that's a type of ghost.
Q: You include other real women from the time in this book - an explorer and a doctor. Where did you find out about them and why did you want to include them and to highlight their achievements in the 'Historical Note' at the end of the novel?
A: Lady Sarah is a fictional character, but I also mention Isabella Bird, another sometime resident of Edinburgh around this period, who travelled all over the world. I've been wanting to write about Bird for a long time, and originally it was going to be her featuring in the role that became Lady Sarah. But the problem is that I know her character too well from having read all of her books many times over, and she just didn't fit into the effervescent, larger-than-life personality that appeared in my head as I began to plan the book out. That was Lady Sarah! Hopefully I'll get to write about Isabella Bird in some other capacity. I do love Lady Sarah, though. I'm glad she popped into my head.
I came across Doctor Sophia Jex-Blake as I was beginning to research the idea of setting a book in Victorian Edinburgh. She was born in Hastings, where my family lives, and I was visiting them when I first read about her, which seemed fortuitous. She was a fascinating person and extremely important in terms of the history of women in medicine in the UK, and yet when I started my research I discovered that there was only one modern biography about her, and that had been published 30 years ago - even though the hospital she started in Edinburgh was in use for 100 years and became part of the NHS. It only shut in 1989! I wanted more people to know about her.
Q: Will we be hearing more about Zinnie - and Arthur Conan Doyle?
A: I'd really love to revisit Zinnie and her sisters - I do have an idea for another adventure, but we'll have to see!
Q: Where is your favourite place to write and do you have any bad writing habits?
A: I have a desk in our living room which has a big bookcase built over it, and that's where I usually write. But we've just converted our guest room into a study, so once the bookcases are up in there I'll be able to work up there, too. It's got a reading nook and everything, I love it.
I'm not sure about bad writing habits... Writing is hard, so I tend to think that however you manage to do it is good!
Q: What are you writing now?
A: I'm about to start a first draft of another stand-alone middle grade adventure that may or may not make it to the bookshelves, but I want to write it anyway. It's another Victorian adventure, this time featuring meteorites, Kew Gardens, transatlantic voyages, deserted islands and the Natural History Museum. Cross your fingers for me!
Q: What are you most likely to be found doing when you're not writing?
A: Right now, trying to keep the rabbits off my allotment. I'm about to go down and put the gate back on my plot before they nibble the tops off all my broad beans. Tsk.
Thank you for answering our questions @ReadingZone!
THE HOUSE OF HIDDEN WONDERS (Stripes Publishing) is now available from all good bookshops (6.99)
THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY
STRIPES
MAY 2019
THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY is an intriguing, pacey adventure story for children aged 9+, set in the Victorian era and in an age where magicians command respect - and huge audiences.
The story follows Luciana who is determined to discover the secret behind her late grandfather's most amazing act, The Golden Butterfly. But as she chases down the clues with the help of her good friend Charley, others will do everything they can to get there first and Luciana and Charley soon find themselves in grave danger.
We asked author SHARON GOSLING to tell us more about THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY!
Q: You have previously written both historical fiction and horror novels. What do you enjoy about writing each of these very different genres?
A: I think the thing is that I just like telling stories, and I don't tend to think about what genre they fit into until they're on the page. I love reading all sorts, so I write all sorts too, I suppose. That's probably why I was drawn to the writing life in the first place - the variety of places it can take you, the different lives you can live in writing them.
Q: The Golden Butterfly is set during the Victorian era of magicians and stagecraft. Why did you want to step into this time?
A: I really love the Victorian era (or maybe just my theory of it, I'm definitely not an historian), and yes, it's not the first time I've visited it in my fiction.
My trilogy that began with The Diamond Thief was also set in the late 1800s (though Remy and Thaddeus's story was much more fantastical), and actually my next book is set in the same era as well, though not in London.
It was such an age of invention and innovation, a period of huge technological and scientific advancement, and within that there's a lot of room for mystery and suspense, especially with a touch of artistic licence thrown in! There were also so many women bucking the trend for what was expected of them for the time. I have quite a lot of women's letters and biographies from this period and they are inspirational.
Q: And what drew you to writing about Victorian stage magic?
A: It was just the scope it gave, I think. Victorian theatre magic was spectacular. They really pulled out all the stops to give audiences a thrilling evening of entertainment, and I think that even an audience today, used to the magic of extraordinary digital trickery (I mean, have you seen the dragons in Game of Thrones? They just look real!) would have been astounded by those performances.
Q: Where did you go to research the kinds of magic they performed at that time? Did the Grand Society of Magicians, which plays a role in The Golden Butterfly, exist?
A: The Grand Society of Magicians doesn't exist in reality, no - they were entirely fabricated for the book. The closest approximation today would be The Magic Circle, which was established in 1905 and admitted its first female members in 1991.
There are several books from the time that describe the workings of basic stage magic. In many cases there's no way to know exactly what went into some of the biggest illusions of the time or even really what they looked like when they were performed. However, given a detailed description, a skilled magician today would be probably be able to pinpoint what the magician then was doing, because the basis of many illusions hasn't changed since that time.
It's how Penn and Teller can look at a contestant trying to 'fool them' and know exactly how the illusion was done, even if the way the illusion is presented is entirely new.
Q: The Golden Butterfly is an amazing magic trick, described in the story, but Is there one Victorian magic trick that was actually performed on stage that stands out for you?
A: Actually, The Golden Butterfly was a real magic trick from the late Victorian period (although I augmented how it worked), and its history was part of the inspiration for the book.
It started off as The Mascot Moth, and was invented and first performed by famed English magician David Devant in 1905. A year later, American magician Harry Kellar, who was keen to replicate the trick, debuted it Stateside as The Golden Butterfly.
I like to imagine the kind of subterfuge that went into Kellar trying to work out how Devant devised the trick and then how to replicate it. Magicians were, as they are now, fiercely protective of their work, and for good reason! The poster for Kellar's version is gorgeous. It's on the wall in our living room.
Q: What about contemporary magic shows - do they draw you, and are you any good at performing magic tricks?
A: I'm terrible at magic tricks! I did actually try to learn some sleight of hand with a pack of cards but my goodness, the dedication and sheer amount of practice it takes just to handle the cards deftly is far too much for me.
I do enjoy a good magic show, and I saw a few in preparation for writing The Golden Butterfly. Last year my husband and I went on a six-week road trip in America, and one of the places we stayed was Estes Park, where The Stanley Hotel, the place that inspired Stephen King to write The Shining, is situated. Magician Aiden Sinclair was performing a Victorian-style magic show there, in one of the ballrooms where Harry Houdini also used to perform.
That was a great experience. We also went to see Mac King in Las Vegas, who was astonishing in a different way. It was really interesting and informative to see two entirely different styles of stage magic.
Q: The main character, Luciana, gets drawn into the world of magic by her grandfather, where she discovers women performing magic. Why was it important to you that female magicians play a big role in this story?
A: There are truly spectacular female magicians out there, but even today they are hugely outnumbered by their male counterparts. You're far more likely to see a woman on stage in a magic show as an 'assistant' than actually as a magician.
The traditional magician and his 'beautiful' assistant is a good metaphor for the world at large, really. In every aspect of life, women have traditionally been cast in the role of 'helpers' - good as support for whatever important, clever work the man they're being overshadowed by is doing, when we all know the woman is more than likely just as capable of doing that work, were the man willing to be her assistant instead. Wouldn't it be nice if that didn't sound like an unusual proposition?
In actual fact, there were women magicians at the time, though they were very few and far between - Adelaide Herrmann was known as 'The Queen of Magic', and toured with her own company and show. She started as an assistant, married the magician she assisted (Alexander Herrmann) and, when he died, continued the dynasty herself.
Also, I don't want to give too much away for people who haven't read the book, but given the lengths that some magicians of the time went to in order to maintain their personas (the story of Chung Ling Soo is just astonishing), I don't think it's too much of a stretch to believe that there might have been more women magicians out there than we have perhaps accounted for!
Q: As well as the prejudices against women, you explore class prejudices. Would today's children be surprised that Luciana, a middle class girl, is told not to play with Charley as he is the son of a housekeeper?
A: That's a good question. I'd like to think that children would be surprised, not because divisions like this don't exist now - they definitely do - but because children are far less aware of those kind of spurious boundaries. Children are more likely to just see people, whereas adults will see differences that they either want to maintain or overcome. Prejudice isn't a natural trait, it's taught.
Q: Although this story is set in the past, what would you like today's children take away from Luciana and Charley's adventures?
A: That an adventurous spirit, confidence in themselves and supportive friends will carry them a long way in life. I would love them to keep a tight hold on all of those things for as long as possible.
Q: What for you is the starting point of a novel - the characters, the plot or the setting?
A: Every book is different, I think. I sometimes have dreams, and wake up with an almost complete plot in my head (FIR was a nightmare I wrote down). Other times, characters and situations will pop up that need to find the right place to be - The Golden Butterfly changed quite a bit from my first idea for it, but Luciana and her grandfather were always a constant.
Q: What are you writing now?
A: I'm working on the second draft of my next middle grade adventure, which is set in Victorian Edinburgh and features three fictional sisters, one well-known historical character (a man, obviously) and one virtually forgotten historical character (a woman, there's a surprise).
I've also just written a short adult horror story about post-apocalyptic witch-finders, finished the first draft of a middle-grade dark fable set in World War II, and when I have a chance I'll be going back to the second draft of an adult romance which is set partly in the modern day and partly in the 1940s. I should probably try to stop my brain going off on quite so many tangents...
Q: Where is your favourite place to write and when do you do your best writing? Do you have any bad writing habits?
A: My husband and I live in a very small cottage in a tiny village in northern Cumbria, and I work at a desk in our living room. I love it, especially since I've just had bookshelves built right around it.
I work best early in the morning, before my very small brain gets crowded with too much of the day-to-day. I'm not sure if I have any bad writing habits, as I don't know what would be classified as bad... I think as long as you're getting stuff down, however you write is just fine!
Q: What would be your perfect day, not including writing?
A: Honestly, it wouldn't be a perfect day if I hadn't written. So I'd get up, do an early session, and then spend the rest of the day walking on the fells with my husband, hopefully in sunshine and in the direction of a second-hand bookshop. We'd finish off with a meal at a pub, then head back home for a film, some chocolate, and a dram of a good single malt.
FIR
RED EYE
FEBRUARY 2017
Fans of the Red Eye horror list for teenagers will be thrilled to discover a new title in the range, FIR by SHARON GOSLING. Fir offers an eerie blend of mystery, suspense and horror - lurking at the edges of the vast Scandinavian forests in which it is set.
The book is an account by an unnamed teenager whose parents decide to sell up their family home in Stockholm to move to a plantation in northern Sweden. In the isolation and unforgiving landscape of their new home, shadows and myths drift into the family's lives as the ancient forests stir, demanding payment for past debts...
We asked SHARON GOSLING to tell us more about FIR:
Q: What made you decide to write a horror story, was it influenced by Scandi noir writers?
A: I didn't really set out to write a horror story - in fact, Fir had quite a strange beginning, as it came out of a nightmare I had one night. Quite a lot of elements that have ended up in the story were in it, including the fact that it took place in a huge, dark, snowy forest in northern Sweden.
When I woke up the nightmare was still so vivid in my mind that I wrote it down. Later I realized that actually, what I had written in my notes could be the bones of a good story, so it grew from there.
I do love Scandi noir detective novels, so perhaps that's what originally planted the nightmare!
Q: What did you enjoy reading / watching as a teenager?
A: I read a lot of detective fiction - pretty much anything I could get my hands on!
Q: These days are you a fan of horror and do you have a favourite horror writer / film series?
A: Stephen King is a genius. What I like about his stories is that in a lot of instances, the horror elements in his novels are almost incidental.
He's known primarily as a 'horror writer', and yet what he mainly writes about is day-to-day lives that just happen to have an extraordinary element appear in them. He spins tales about people that make the reader believe and care about what's going on, and that makes whatever horror is there all the more shocking when it does happen - and the most horrifying things are often very small events told in strikingly visceral prose.
I still remember reading a scene involving the death of a faithful dog in From a Buick 8. It was just a passage but it was so piercingly observant in its description. It still makes me shudder now.
Q: What inspired the Scandinavian setting for this story? The descriptions are so vivid - did you visit the area?
A: The setting came straight out of the nightmare in which the original story was conceived. I don't know why I was in northern Sweden, but that's definitely where I was, and that's where the story stayed.
I did a lot of road trips into the kind of forest I write about in Fir, but those were actually in the United Kingdom. I live in the far north of Cumbria, very close to the Scottish border, and there's a huge plantation called the Border Forest about an hour north of where we live. It's very similar to the forests in the part of Sweden I write about - in fact, at one point in the distant past, it would have been the tail end of the taiga, the Northern Boreal forest that stretched right across the northern hemisphere after the last Ice Age and which I talk about in the book.
It's an extremely atmospheric place - there are parts of it that grow wild and tangled, and other parts of it that is acre upon acre of perfectly straight trees planted in perfectly straight lines. The most remote parts of it are just logging tracks that snake between blocks of forest that stretch into the distance. The first time I visited I just stood and listened to the wind in the branches overhead. If I had started walking then, I could have just disappeared and no one would have found me, that's the kind of place it is: beautiful but also kind of terrifying, too. It makes you feel very small and insignificant, which is what I tried to capture in Fir.
Q: There's also an environmental theme in this story which helps drive the horror angle - but do you also feel these ancient forests need better protection? Is it an overlooked area?
A: I think it's absolutely an overlooked area. Actually that aspect of the book came about as I was researching northern European forests. Clear cutting of the ancient forests is still happening.
Q: Given the themes of the novel, have you ever been afraid of trees or had a bad snow experience?!
A: No, I love trees! I've never really been caught in bad snow, although where we live - a very small village in quite a remote place - there are stories about huge drifts that can cut the place off for days at a time. I haven't experienced that yet...
Q: Can you tell us a bit about the legends you've drawn on for this book?
A: The story of the varulv is a classic aspect of Scandinavian myth. I don't want to give too much away, but I find the idea that a person's identity depends on them or someone who knows them remembering their name a really fascinating thing to explore, so I took that and played with it a little.
I've added my own aspects here and there - 'kulning' is an ancient Scandinavian method of calling in herds of livestock over great distances. It's a haunting, beautiful sound - if you look it up on YouTube there are examples to listen to. I use it in a slightly different context, which I felt really worked for the story.
Q: Why did you decide to write it in the first person?
A: The question of identity is a key theme in the book - I thought it would be interesting to write a main character without giving that character a name or a gender. Writing in the first person allowed me to do that, and actually, the voice came out very easily. A first person perspective also makes the action more immediate, which I think definitely builds tension.
Q: What other techniques do you use to build the tension?
A: I think setting and atmosphere are key to pulling the reader in, especially when it comes to suspense and creating tension. I really wanted my readers to feel the claustrophobia and isolation that the characters are experiencing in the story - that terror of being cut off from the rest of the world.
Q: What makes a good horror story? Do you prefer the ending to be horrific or to end well?
A: I think the best horror, for me, often isn't in huge, gory set pieces but in smaller moments - in the realization that something terrible has happened that we can't change, for example, or in being just a moment too late...
I think there are arguments in favour of both happy and horrific endings to all stories, as long as it's appropriate for the story being told. Sometimes a horrific ending is the most plausible outcome to a tale, and plausibility is the best way of making horror really affect the reader.
Q: Is there something special about writing horror for teenaged readers?
A: I think writing for teens is always special because at that point, a person has one foot in each world, child and adult, and they're seeing both from the outside as they move from one to another.
It's also probably the period in a person's life when they'll decide the sort of person they want to be, what they want to do with their lives, where they want to go. That's a massive precipice to stand on, because they'll never be there again, and they're old enough and smart enough to know it.
They're also old enough to know that life isn't as simple as 'bad things only happen to bad people' - which is a pretty scary thing to accept.
Q: Fir leaves a gap for a possible sequel, are you planning one?
A: I hadn't thought about it before, but I suppose there is a space left for a sequel... I'll have to see if I have another nightmare!
Q: What are your top tips for teenaged horror writers?
A: Remember that the devil is always in the details, so it's as good to pay attention to the tiny moments of horror as much as the big, set piece blows.
Q: Will you write more horror for teenagers?
A: I've got one more horror story that I will write for the teen age group at some point, yes. It's set near where I live on the Cumbria/Northumberland/Scottish border - it's driven by the atmosphere of the place, which is strange and wonderful and ancient, full of gods and monsters.
I've had the first line in my head for ages: "This is the story of how I killed my sister." It's about how, even though losing someone to death is terrible, perhaps having them come back and stick around wouldn't be such a good thing, either.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I've just written a short, funny/sad/little bit romantic radio play about a woman with an abject fear of flying who signs up to get her Private Pilot's License. I'm also about to start work on a book for a younger middle-grade audience. It's set in late Victorian England, in the world of great stage magic. I'm very excited about that one.
THE RUBY AIRSHIP
PUBLISHED BY CURIOUS FOX
APRIL 2014
The Ruby Airship - the follow-up to The Diamond Thief - is a story of daring-do, brilliant escapades and audacious plots. Rmy, a trapeze artist and reformed jewel thief, is performing at a theatre in Victorian London when she sets off for France to find her old circus friends. There, however, she is unwittingly embroiled in a plan to kidnap a French heiress and danger, fabulous machinery and adventure follow.... The Ruby Airship is aimed at readers aged ten years plus.
Author Sharon Gosling began her career as an entertainment journalist with a passion for 'geeky' shows like Star Trek and Stargate. She wrote The Diamond Thief originally for Fiction Express, where the readers vote for what should happen at key moments of the story, and explains, "Writing for Fiction Express meant that readers would vote on what they wanted the outcome to be, so I would plot the story according to what they had voted for. As a writer, it was very hard work because I was working full time then and then I also had weekly deadlines for Fiction Express, but it was also quite freeing because once you have come up with the choices, it's up to the reader to follow through. The hardest part was trying to tie it all up in a satisfactory way."
When publisher Curious Fox subsequently bought The Diamond Thief and published it more traditionally in a book format, she was asked to write a follow-up. It was two years between The Diamond Thief being published and Gosling returning to work on the sequel, The Ruby Airship, and in that time, Gosling had "avoided re-reading The Diamond Thief" which she had written originally in just 11 weeks and which she thought would require considerable re-writes. In the end, however, very little needed to be changed although there were parts of the story Gosling didn't remember writing in the first place. "I was still working on magazines at that time so I would spend a day writing and editing and then at night, I'd write a chapter. I had to work on it very quickly."
Gosling's main character in these stories, Rmy, is a circus performer which enabled the author to bring a little of the 'fantastical' world of the circus to her historical fiction novel and, as the story and its sequel progresses, we also have elements of romance, steam punk and straightforward adventure; so the novels are hard to define. What makes them stand out is having a feisty, younger girl character at the heart of the novel; something that you have to search hard for among current publishing output.
Making Rmy a circus performer also solved a number of logistical issues, says Gosling. "At first Rmy wasn't anything to do with the circus but I thought that a circus performer who is also a jewel thief would make a great character, as well as her skills being useful." In The Diamond Thief, Rmy is brought to London by the circus master to steal a gem, the Ocean of Light, which is based on fact as in 1864 the Shah of Persia brought the diamond to London.
We learn much about the Victorian era through Rmy's adventures, particularly the East End of London where the poverty, enterprise and criminality are depicted. Gosling explains, "I did quite a lot of research into the East End and the poverty that existed at that time. I love the East End as a place and, when I was writing The Diamond Thief chapter by chapter, readers said that they wanted pictures of everything in it so I would visit the area and take pictures of the places mentioned in the book. I have used a pub that exists and the shoreline is pretty accurate, so there is a physical trail that the book follows." She also used the scenes of London from Gustave Dor's book, A Pilgrimage to London, which was published in 1872.
The Victorian background to the novel allowed Gosling to explore some of the era's fascination with industrial development and travel, which gives the novel its 'steam punk' feel. There are a number of intriguing futuristic devices in the stories, even including a laser gun and a transmitter - and not forgetting the airship in this latest adventure which takes her characters across the English Channel and into France - although her favourites are a pigeon with a homing device; "much more eco-friendly than a mobile phone".
The circus theme also required a lot of online research where Gosling found plenty of material describing how circuses operated in that era, and particularly the number of young children who were also required to perform on the trapeze. "It would make your hair stand up to read what these very young children would have to do, but there were certainly children a lot younger than Rmy working on the trapezes," she adds.
The story builds up through a chase across France to end up at a menacing town and castle carved into the side of a mountain, where the entire circus family descends to rescue the kidnapped heiress and her fellow rescuers using all their circus skills. It is an extravagant and adventuresome final.
Writing The Ruby Airship is the first time Gosling has had complete control over a book she has written, she says, after the Fiction Express commission and another earlier novel that she wrote to a commissioned plot. She says, "It puts on a lot of pressure but I enjoyed it. It also meant that I could make quite a few changes after I had finished writing it." This included changing the entire ending to bring in the circus folk.
While she continues to write about film and television, Gosling now writes fiction every day. "I get up early and will write from 7am to 11am and then will edit or do my non-fiction work." She works from home and 'chain drinks' tea, broken up with regular walks in the fells of the Penines in Cumbria where she lives.
The House of Hidden Wonders
The Golden Butterfly
Fir
The Ruby Airship
The Diamond Thief
