Hull Daily Mail
September 1, 2008
November. The dead month... the fields like vast lakes under a sullen sky." Cassandra Clark's novel begins amid the dripping gloom of medieval Holderness.
As it unfolds, this strange tale - set in 1382 against the turmoil of Richard II's reign - offers a compulsive glimpse of a violent, divisive time in our history. And given its haunting imagery, including the "crow-stripped" corpses that swing from the gibbets, it comes as little surprise that inspiration arrived while its Cottingham-born writer was asleep.
"It came to me in a dream," said Cassandra, who describes herself as a Yorkshire "exile" living in London. "I had been going through a bad time - my dad was ill, and I was coming up to Yorkshire to look after him. It had got to the point when I wondered whether I would ever get around to writing the book I wanted. Then one night, I had this dream about an abbey and I wrote it down immediately. It was a case of taking the jokes out, as the dream - as they often tend - was rather comic."
Given Cassandra's childhood fascination with Meaux Abbey, the now vanished religious site near Beverley, the East Yorkshire setting followed on naturally. At its centre is Hildegaard, a young woman who has given up her marriage for a life at an abbey at Swyne. Hangman Blind follows her mission to establish a new "grange" for herself and her fellow nuns - beginning with a journey through a Yorkshire landscape littered with corpses.
Following a long process of research - which included leafing through library-held chronicles dating back to the late 1300s - the book offers a compelling picture of the jostle and stench of medieval life. It all seems a long way from the fragrant romance of Cassandra's other prose - the Mills And Boon novels she wrote during the 80s and early 90s.
"It's not something I've really mentioned before," she said rather coyly. "At the time, I was a member of a writing circle, where someone happened to mention the books to me. I went down to WH Smith's the next day and bought a copy. Writing for them is a particular skill and one which requires you to put yourself in a particular mind-set. The first one I wrote they edited about 20,000 words out - I'd done so much research it was a bit over-burdened with fact."
It was a trait which was wrong for the bodice-rippers, but right for the dark historical novels with which she is now making her name. Hangman Blind by Cassandra Clark is published by John Murray. The paperback, costing pounds 7.99, is released on Thursday.
