Nicola Cornick is a writer and historian who was born and brought up in the north of England. Her new novel is The Phantom Tree.From the author's Q&A with Deborah Kalb:
Q: How did you come up with the idea for The Phantom Tree, and for your character Alison?--Marshal Zeringue
A: A number of threads came together to form The Phantom Tree. I’ve always been interested in the lesser-known figures from history, especially women whose stories have been lost from the historical record.
One of these was Mary Seymour, the daughter of Queen Katherine Parr and Thomas Seymour. There is no account of what happened to Mary beyond the age of about three and I found this fascinating and was increasingly drawn to tell her story.
At the same time I saw a little portrait on the wall of my uncle’s house. He had picked it up in a market and was excited to find it had an inscription on the back claiming that it was a picture of Anne Boleyn.
Being a writer with a penchant for mysteries I started to speculate: Was it really a lost portrait of Anne or could it be some other Tudor lady? Mary Seymour, perhaps… And the story started to grow from there.
When I first started writing the book it was all about Mary, and Alison was a minor character but...[read on]