This book, available via Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B086CD11Q6/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i19 represented a bit of departure from the kind of novels that I write. It was encouraged by an author friend, who ended up being a beta reader for the book. A few years back she pointed out a competition in 'Psychologies' magazine for people to write a psychological thriller novel. They could win £5000 and a publishing contract. Of course, as is often the case, I had nothing to hand, in time to enter. However, the idea remained in my mind. With 'Gone Girl' (novel 2012; movie 2014) and 'The Girl on the Train' (novel 2015; movies 2016 & 2020), unreliable female narrators seemed to be the way to go. However, I have always been uncomfortable with the term 'girl' being applied to women. Though while writing this book it was laughingly called 'Girl in a Carriage' having grown up in a feminist family and subscribing to feminism, at least as it was in the 1970s, I felt it was important to come at this story from that perspective. The title 'Folly' soon became fixed for its double meaning of buildings common in large gardens of the time and how the heroine's attitudes would be perceived by many around her.
This then led me to think of contexts in which female initiative would be even more constrained than it is in 21st Century Britain. However, I recognised that if, for example, I featured a farm labourer's wife in 18th Century England, her autonomy might be so small as to make it difficult for her to discover anything much about the murder which would provide the mystery. An added element was that I felt almost obliged to include an unreliable witness. Alcoholism has been used to provide that in some of these stories. Thus, I soon came to having a partygoer, a woman of relative wealth and some autonomy than a female labourer, but whose sense of what was real and what had happened when might be weak. Influenced by the circle around Mary Shelley, I had the sense of 'lotus eaters' and made the lead character, soon called Clementia (not Clementina which is a more 19th Century than 18th Century name) Hiscott, an opium smoker too. I was eager to highlight the female Gothic authors of the era who are so easily forgotten these days and made Clementia not simply a fan of them but also an aspiring Gothic author herself. This aspect means that she is less certain than some would be about the reality of what she has witnessed and allows others to dismiss her testimony as fiction. Feeling that there are too few asexual characters in novels, I felt that was an important trait for her and we see Clementia rebuffing advances from both men and women which I imagine in many novels set in the late 18th Century she would take up.
I like the tension between the fact that, as daughter of a baronet - even though he has abandoned her for business in North America - and granddaughter of a duke, Clementia had greater autonomy, yet with noticeable constraints. This stems from her youth (at 20 in 1794 she is still legally a child), the propriety of a family in some of the higher levels of society, but also her own fears and addictions. Though it had not been the original intention, the Blandbourne estate effectively limits her world. It both constrains but protects her, especially when she is struggling with the mental health issues that arise from her addictions and witnessing a bloody murder. I was keen to show the difficulties of her organising her thoughts, by having scenes out of chronological sequence. They started as simply 'Now', 'Then' and 'Later' chapters, but feedback highlighted how easy it was for readers to get lost, so this was modified. The novel does not run in strict chronology, but rather in three chronologies, effectively with two in the future of 'now'. I hope these are clear to readers but communicate the confusion inside Clementia's head.
Some elements took on a greater role than I had expected. One was Hedvig Schmidt, one of Clementia's friends who ends up taking much more of a detective role than originally envisaged. The other is the role of Trusty, the retired otterhound bitch, originally an element of the relationship between Clementia and her elder sister Isabella, but who in time gained a bigger role in the investigation, otterhounds having a very keen sense of smell.
For me, 1794 seemed an interesting time. It preceded the era of Jane Austen's novels and represented when Britain was not only fighting revolutionary France, but there was a fear, especially among the privileged like Clementia's family, of the revolution spreading to Britain. While I had researched a great deal about 18th Century large houses and gardens, food, painting and clothes, I was encouraged to include more on the decor and furniture. I became conscious that readers of novels set in this period look for such details. Thus, I feel the finished novel is a mix between a 'standard' 18th Century historical novel and one which is challenging, both as a psychological thriller but also for highlighting aspects of the time that are often overlooked and for adopting a feminist line on the challenges women even from highly privileged backgrounds, faced in getting their voices heard even on important matters such as murder.
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