Sophie tells the story of how our new collection of spooky novellas came about.
Great News! A Second Collection of short stories from the Libertà Books Hive and Friends lands his month. Hauntings at the Black Cat Inn is published on Tuesday 13th October. Perfect gift for your Hallowe’en party hostess.
I have a theory. In his poem Locksley Hall, Alfred, Lord Tennyson says, “In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.” My companion theory is that in the dark days before the winter solstice, a lady novelist’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of a novella for the coming year.
It had already happened to us in 2019, during an extremely jolly supper in November. Out of wine, rueful memories and a communal silliness that made our ribs ache with laughter, we dreamed up an eccentric seaside town called Little Piddling. Result? In the summer of 2020 we published Beach Hut Surprise.
Hauntings at the Inn
Last year’s idea kicked off with Sarah Mallory jaunting round her beloved West Country . She fell hook line and sinker for an ancient country pub. I was probably the first person actually to say we should “see if it inspires another set of novellas.” But Liz jumped straight to suggesting a title: Murder and Mistletoe?
And within a week of reading Sarah’s blog, the conversation was heating up. In two weeks, our Directeur de Projet, was circulating a round-up of all our inspirations.
We would invent our own inn as we went along, depending on our individual stories. The George Inn at Norton St. Philip would still inspire the spirit of the inn, though. I definitely include a room based on the George’s Dungeon No 1 in my own story. And their recorded guest, Samuel Pepys, inspired Louise Allen’s.
By then, Louise and Liz already each had a story in their sights about a real historical person having a spooky encounter. The encounters were hugely different, though.
The spooky element embraced more than ghosts, by now. It included witches/warlocks, fantasy creatures, plus tricksters and criminals, alive and dead. Moreover, the ghosts were communicating across time and sometimes getting a reply. It was agreed that the Inn would be a hot spot for barriers between times were thinner.
And then came Christmas and we all went back to doing normal stuff.
In Spring
By the end of March we were starting to play with location, geography , alternative history and (oh, heavens!) continuity. Janet Gover (21st century) moved us to Cornwall and our characters pushed us towards the sea and, more specifically, ships.
Our six stories would each be set in a different century. That meant that we needed to take account of lingering ghosts and architectural adjustments to the Inn which preceded our own story. We started a Record.
Sarah, Louise Allen and Joanna Maitland are, of course, first and foremost historical novelists. So they were very particular about what was and wasn’t acceptable when stretching recorded fact. But Liz Fielding (20th century), Janet Gover and I, although we primarily write contemporary novels, are also inveterate researchers. Just try Janet on Outback firefighters or dinosaurs. And crime writer-Liz’s research history on ways to kill people might give the local constabulary a turn if they ever had reason to look at her laptop.
Our ghosts, however, resisted research like nobody’s business. They all marched to the beat of their own drum. “But consistency,” some of us said, worried. “They don’t follow the same rules”
Which, of course, makes them just like the living. “They each follow their own rules. All great fun,” said Joanna Maitland, firmly; thereby squashing my attempt to hang onto my story for another pass to check ghostly consistencies.
Well, she is the Directeur de Projet and, as such, not only doing double the work of the rest of us, but the Ultimate Arbiter on such things. Her story is set in the eighteenth century, at the more elegant end of the social spectrum, when and where Arbiters knew their stuff.
Enter The Cat.
We liked the idea of including a cat because they go very well with spooks.
“I’m a sucker for a good Victorian ghost story like M R James,” emailed Louise Allen somewhat wistfully, I thought. “He makes cats very edgy.”
The White Lion and Black Griffon promptly fell into second place behind the Black Cat, as a name for the Inn. Ah, but was it likely that an inn would be named after a cat in Tudor England?
“Well there was a type of ship called a Catte. Google Whitby Cat,” says Louise. Janet does so and reports that Captain Cook’s Endeavour was one. Indeed, it is possible that Dick Whittington’s “cat”, was effectively the ship(s) that made him rich.
And yes, I’m a research freak too, and I can’t resist working my way through a good old maze.
So I dug a bit and found that Dick, who was Lord Mayor of London four times (1397, 1398 1406 and 1419), wouldn’t have been using a “catte” because they were a type of ship invented by the Dutch in the late 1500s. But they were probably appearing when the association of Whittington and cat became established. So it could have emerged as an anachronism.
Cats and Companions, Ghostly and Otherwise
There’s a nastier version here which shows Whittington up as a crude exploiter of his faithful feline, which really upset me. The cat in my own story ( Victorian, not edgy) sort of compensates for that dreadful betrayal.
There are a couple of black cats in our stories, as well as the one on the handsome inn sign. Also a number of real historical people, at least three of whom you will recognise. They played a significant role in their day and will leave their mark on the Inn and its inhabitants.
Of course there are loads of spooky doings, secrets, misunderstandings and escapes, not to mention those idiosyncratic ghosts all working to their own rules, possibly self-imposed.
Spooky Takes for Darker Nights
So, now our Black Cat Inn collection is ready to go. There are ghosts, adventure, moral dilemmas, along with some laughs, some romance and a dash of other worldly activity. A lot of pub love for the George inspired a cookery book to offer a taste of dishes our characters might have experienced, too.
Above all, a good deal of justice gets delivered to the deserving too.
And, because writers like us are notoriously feeble at blowing our own trumpets, I will share a snippet of an email from a previously unknown interlocutor, which surprised us earlier this week.
“What stayed with me was not just the bullet hole in the fireplace or the Spanish Armada survivor or the French medium. It was the quiet truth underneath the project itself… You did not just edit a collection. You curated a shared world.” Wow. Quiet truth. I’ll certainly take that.
So close the curtains, light the fire, pour a mug or glass of your joyful cup of choice and ENJOY!
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