The Fascination is my fifth novel in the Victorian gothic genre. Previous novels have seen stories set in the East End music halls, and haunted country houses, in London brothels, Indian temples – and in the studios creating the early moving films. It’s a time in history that’s filled with art and innovation, and new discoveries in science. It’s always fascinated me, ever since my teenage years when I read Wuthering Heights and Thomas Hardy’s tragic novels. Later, at university, the Victorian module was a favourite. It wasn’t just the human stories, though of course they are what bring these classic novels into life. It was the whole experience in which the vivid place descriptions loomed as real inside my mind, making me feel almost as if I’d travelled back in time to ‘see’ the stories playing out before my
