This post was going to be places, then I thought about the past, my love of history, and I vacillated. Why not both?

Take the past, as a writer, it’s a fantastic starting point for ideas and inspiration. Whether I want to set a book in a real historical setting, do loads of research and immerse myself in a specific time frame, or take the context of a setting and throw in a fictional cast weaving them around the actual events, or perhaps, warp history and create a new version – an alternate reality.

Places change over time. Cities, countries and cultural heartlands are created or disappear without trace. Landscapes are altered, whether by natural disasters or man made ones. The map of the world is dynamic and constantly being re-shaped by human activity.

Combine the two, places and the past, and where can I go? Any where and any time.

Today’s book – an alternative version of life in post-war Germany if Hitler had won.

Fatherland – Robert Harris