‘I'd always wanted to write a historical novel about the Royal Family'

This week’s columnist: Author Wendy Holden

- Wendy Holden

If I didn’t write novels for a living, I’d run a second-hand bookshop. I love them and I never pass one without going in. As a result, our house wheezes under the weight of tatty old volumes on every subject under the sun. All purchased in a fit of enthusiasm but, it has to be said, rarely read afterwards.

An exception to this rule is The Little Princesses, which tumbled at my feet in a bookshop in Alnwick several years ago. Picking it up to put it back on its shelf, I paused, opened it and was gripped. At long last, I’d found what I had been looking for.

While I’d been a comic novelist for two decades, I’d always secretly wanted to write a historical novel about the Royal Family. But I’d never hit on quite the right angle. Now here it was, right in front of me.