Dodie Bishop

Books have always been a big part of my life. My love of reading led to a First-Class Honours degree in English Literature and many years as an independent bookseller. I’ve always written – notably, several unpublished paranormal crime novels – though with varying degrees of commitment. When circumstances allowed me to concentrate on it again, I decided to do a Master’s in Creative Writing with the Open University first. Developing a dual time-line novel for this, I discovered how much more I enjoyed researching and writing the historical strand and decided to abandon the second plot. And with that I found my writing genre and ‘Still Life’ and the ‘Silence and Shadows’ series are the result … so far.

I love all Kate Atkinson’s books, though A God in Ruins is my favourite. The ending is extraordinary.
Again, I love everything David Mitchell has written from Cloud Atlas to Utopia Avenue.
Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall novels are particular favourites, too.
S.G. MacLean’s Damien Seeker series – set in Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth (1653 to 1658) and her Alexander Seaton series set in 1620s Scotland, are big favourites.
As are S.J. Parris’s Giordano Bruno series set in the Tudor period, and The Jackdaw Mysteries, an Elizabethan crime series by S.W. Perry.
I love Diana Gabaldon’s historical time travel Outlander series. The books are a wonderful exploration of a marriage over time.
Bernard Cornwall’s Last Kingdom novels are completely gripping – all 13 of them! The Bridgerton series by Julia Quinn is great fun, too.
Ken Follet’s Kingsbridge series is a joy … and a mammoth read.
Rose Nicholson by Andrew Greig – the fictional memoir of William Fowler set in James VI’s Scotland is exceptionally enjoyable. As is Annie Garthwaite’s Cecily set in the 15th century. A feminist retelling of the Wars of the Roses.

My novels are historical fiction with plots involving murder, political intrigue, treachery, and kidnapping … yet all have love stories at their heart.
Many of my female characters have feminist leanings. Still Life’s Clara Peeters overcomes resistance from 17th century Amsterdam’s male art world. Susannah – Silence and Shadows – scorns the women at court who are such willing prey for men. And, after her husband’s death in The Violin Maker’s Wife, the provenance of Katarina’s violins is disputed because she is a woman. I also explore secret love between men in an era when a death sentence loomed.
My male characters are often the rocks these women lean on. Raphael as Susannah’s husband and the father of her children. For Still Life’s Clara, Nico and Henri take on the role.
In the Silence and Shadows series, I follow my characters through time as friendships grow into love and Susannah and Raphael’s marriage develops as they have children and overcome many tribulations together.
My research is extremely thorough, giving my stories a real sense of period – sights, sounds, smells, and customs, using a framework of real events to support my fiction. Good examples are the Southwark fire. The extent of slavery in Barbados and Florence cathedral’s lack of a façade in the 17th century. As part of my research for Still Life, I visited an exhibition of Clara Peeters’ work in Madrid where I learnt she used tiny self-portrait reflections in her work. I first encountered her in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, drawn by a female name amongst so many men from an era when women were not expected to stray beyond the home. Yet here was one whose paintings had survived for 400 years. Though she left behind a body of work, no record of her life exists, which gave me space for my fiction.
In ‘The Other Side of Silence,’ Susannah and Raphael are based on married couple Susan and Michael Rosse, a portrait miniaturist and jeweller to King Charles II’s court who lived and worked in London’s Henrietta Street in the 17th century. While researching this novel, I came across the practice of spiriting. ‘Spirits,’ often illegally employed by legitimate shipping companies, were responsible for ‘spiriting away’ (kidnapping) people into servitude, many of whom were then ‘barbadosed’ or sent to the West Indies. This led me to Penny’s kidnapping in ‘Our Little Life’ (Silence and Shadows book 2) and on to books 3 & 4 when the plot behind it is uncovered linking it to conspiracies around the succession to the British throne.
Some historical background for the Silence and Shadows series:
King Charles II turned the previously staid English court at Whitehall into a hedonistic palace of pleasure, publicly acknowledging at least fourteen mistresses who were given enormous wealth, apartments at the palace, and political influence. Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine, Frances Stuart, Duchess of Richmond, and Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth are all in my novel, Frances Stuart most notably. Charles also had countless liaisons with other women, including actresses and prostitutes.
With the mistresses came thirteen officially recognised illegitimate children. The King elevated them to the highest ranks of the nobility and provided them with apartments at the palace and estates in the countryside. They also received the most prestigious Offices of State and were granted pensions and annuities from the crown. That Queen Catherine had no children meant that Charles’s brother James, Duke of York, remained heir to the throne.

My character Raphael Rossi was prompted by Michael Rosse, a real-life jeweller to King Charles II’s court and married to a portrait miniaturist who lived in Henrietta Street in 17th century London. Writing a new character is like meeting someone for the first time. The more I write about them, the better I get to know them until I understand exactly how they will respond to the situations I place them in.
Raphael is a Florentine jeweller sent to London by his father to set up a branch of their business in London’s Cheapside to sell gems and jewellery to King Charles’s court. He is beautiful, charming, self-deprecating, and promiscuous in a philandering court, enjoying the generous attentions of many of his female patrons.
He recognises Susannah as his soulmate long before she recognises it in him and is ready to devote himself to her and her daughter for the rest of his life. I want readers to fall in love with him and as one said in her review: I liked Raphael for his flaws as well as his strengths. I was half-ready to marry him by the end!

I’m currently working on 2 books:
Son of the Morning – Book 4 in Silence and Shadows.
In this final novel of the series my characters witness the death of Charles II, the coronation of James II and the Monmouth rebellion – Sedgemoor in 1685 being the last major battle fought on English soil, Englishman against Englishman – and its bloody aftermath. Hal, having fought on the wrong side, flees with Penny to Florence.
The Violin Maker’s Wife
Set in Cremona, Italy in the early 18th century, this novel explores the marriage between violin maker Giuseppe Guarneri and Katarina Rota, both historical figures. Giuseppe is a renowned maker equalling his more widely known contemporary, Antonio Stradivari, all living in the ‘Luthiers’ Isle’ area of the city. After Giuseppe’s tragically early death Katarina continues making instruments but their provenance is disputed, for a woman could not be capable of such perfection.

Next, I plan to write a spin-off series featuring two minor characters from Silence and Shadows.
Michael Bartholomew, a physician at the court of King James II, and miniaturist Francesca Rossi. Michael becomes assistant to the royal coroner and Francesca uses her skill as an artist to assist him. Though they have known each other since Francesca was a child, they find themselves drawn to each other, though neither will acknowledge it, and both initially turn to others.