I love a good historical fiction novel. There’s nothing better than feeling the sense of place long gone, getting to know people who strode this planet long before I did, all while reading a captivating tale. I still recall reading a book that took place in the thirteenth century, full of sieges and sackings of towns in Brittany. A key part of the plot was the involvement of a heretical Christian sect. I could almost smell the smoke of burning buildings, the copper tang of blood pooling on the ground, and the fetid mud left behind by hundreds of horses and oxen.

As I sat down to plan my story, I wanted to evoke that same sort of sensory experience. When my characters walk the streets of late nineteenth-century Edinburgh, I want you to feel the pavements beneath your feet and the honey-coloured sandstone townhouses rising up around you. When they head home to a cosy townhouse with well-worn rugs on the floor and comfortable leather chairs placed to perfectly catch the afternoon sun, I want you to wish to be there, just a little bit.