Ask the Author: Diney Costeloe
Answered Questions (20)
Diney Costeloe
Andrew Taylor
The Ashes of London
The Fire Court
The King's Evil
Also his 1950s detective series
The Ashes of London
The Fire Court
The King's Evil
Also his 1950s detective series
Diney Costeloe
I really enjoy the research required, but sometimes I don't know exactly what I need to know when I'm doing the actual writing.
For The Lost Soldier I went on a tour of the WWI battlefields and war cemeteries, led by a military historian. It was extremely interesting and helpful.
For The Lost Soldier I went on a tour of the WWI battlefields and war cemeteries, led by a military historian. It was extremely interesting and helpful.
Diney Costeloe
Thanks for your kind comments Carrie. Very welcome. I hope you enjoy some of the others if you get a chance to read them.
Diney Costeloe
Hi Sue
I'm sorry I really don't know why Amazon didn't send your book. They normally send within three days. It is worth contacting them direct and asking about your order, they're usually very good. The have an interactive chat contact which I've found is pretty good,,
Good Luck...hope you get it.
I'm sorry I really don't know why Amazon didn't send your book. They normally send within three days. It is worth contacting them direct and asking about your order, they're usually very good. The have an interactive chat contact which I've found is pretty good,,
Good Luck...hope you get it.
Diney Costeloe
Sorry, but I think Charlotte has had enough, and happily ever after doesn't make an enthrallin read!
Diney Costeloe
Hi there.
Thank you for your question. I'm glad you've been enjoying my books. I get my ideas from all sorts of places. Sometimes from something I have read or seen or a snippet of conversation I've heard. When the idea is established in my mind I start the research. I read letters, diaries and memoirs written by people who were there at the time. From these I learn how things were at any given time so that I can get the background to my story right.
I hope you will also enjoy The Married Girls, the sequel to The Girl With No Name. It has just come out in paperback.
Thank you for your question. I'm glad you've been enjoying my books. I get my ideas from all sorts of places. Sometimes from something I have read or seen or a snippet of conversation I've heard. When the idea is established in my mind I start the research. I read letters, diaries and memoirs written by people who were there at the time. From these I learn how things were at any given time so that I can get the background to my story right.
I hope you will also enjoy The Married Girls, the sequel to The Girl With No Name. It has just come out in paperback.
Diney Costeloe
I think it would have to be Narnia. I have loved the Narnia books since I first read The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe as a child. I always used have conversations with my dog, hearing his side of the conversation as well as my own, and to visit a country where there are talking beasts would be a delight.
While I was there I would hope to meet creatures that have become familiar as friends, the Beavers, Mr Tumnus, Puddleglum and Prince Caspian and most of all, though it would be a salutary and humbling experience, I would love to meet Aslan.
While I was there I would hope to meet creatures that have become familiar as friends, the Beavers, Mr Tumnus, Puddleglum and Prince Caspian and most of all, though it would be a salutary and humbling experience, I would love to meet Aslan.
Diney Costeloe
Probably not. Perhaps in the future some time, but it would need a strong story line and I think poor Charlotte has had enough trouble in her life!
Diney Costeloe
Hi Wendy. Glad you're enjoying my books. The most recent ones are historical fiction, I tend to call them modern historicals as they are set in the 20th century, however there are also a couple of modern ones which are entirely different, The New Neighbours and A Dish Served Cold. Before I wrote these I was writing romances under the name of Diney Delancey.
Thank you for your question. I hope you enjoy the other historicals if you get a chance to read them.
All the best,
Diney
Thank you for your question. I hope you enjoy the other historicals if you get a chance to read them.
All the best,
Diney
Diney Costeloe
Boring as it sounds, I'm not sure I have one! Perhaps falling in love with the wrong person before I met the right one, but then almost everyone does that, so I'm not sure it counts!
Diney Costeloe
Thank you for your kind comment, Sherry. I'm so glad you're enjoying my books. I'm enjoying writing them! The Married Girls, now out as an e-book and to be published in May in Hardback and in August in Paperback, is the sequel to The Girl With No Name, so hope you enjoy that if you get a chance to read it.
Diney Costeloe
Hi Carolyn.
Thanks for the question. No, none of my family were evacuated, though for a while my mother, expecting the birth of my sister, born December 1940 at the height of the Blitz, moved out of London to stay with friends. Her mother, my grandmother, was an air raid warden, and the front of her house was a sandbagged wardens' post. There were occasions when my pregnant mother slept under the knee-hole of my grandmother's oak desk, in the sandbagged area to help protect her from blast and falling rubble. Wouldn't have helped if there'd been a direct hit!! (I still write at that desk!) So, Over the years I heard many stories of living through the London Blitz, and I also remember seeing ruined buildings standing with their sides sheered away displaying the remains of people's homes to public view.
Thanks for the question. No, none of my family were evacuated, though for a while my mother, expecting the birth of my sister, born December 1940 at the height of the Blitz, moved out of London to stay with friends. Her mother, my grandmother, was an air raid warden, and the front of her house was a sandbagged wardens' post. There were occasions when my pregnant mother slept under the knee-hole of my grandmother's oak desk, in the sandbagged area to help protect her from blast and falling rubble. Wouldn't have helped if there'd been a direct hit!! (I still write at that desk!) So, Over the years I heard many stories of living through the London Blitz, and I also remember seeing ruined buildings standing with their sides sheered away displaying the remains of people's homes to public view.
Diney Costeloe
Thank you for asking, Bev.
Maybe, in the future, but one of my books is just post war. I'm working on another now, but post war as well.
Maybe, in the future, but one of my books is just post war. I'm working on another now, but post war as well.
Diney Costeloe
Hi Poppy-Kathryn.
Thank you for your question. I'm so glad you enjoyed The Sisters of St Croix. I suggest that you read The Lost Soldier next as the Sisters are actually a sequel to it, so you'll find out how Sarah came to be at the convent.
All my other books are stand alone, so it doesn't matter which order you read them in. If and when you get to them I hope you all enjoy them too!
All the best and happy reading whatever it is!
Thank you for your question. I'm so glad you enjoyed The Sisters of St Croix. I suggest that you read The Lost Soldier next as the Sisters are actually a sequel to it, so you'll find out how Sarah came to be at the convent.
All my other books are stand alone, so it doesn't matter which order you read them in. If and when you get to them I hope you all enjoy them too!
All the best and happy reading whatever it is!
Diney Costeloe
Writing I suppose. It's something you just have to do, even when it's not going very well.
Diney Costeloe
A comment from a friend and a suggestion from another.
Diney Costeloe
If you wait for inspiration you won't write anything. Ideas come and go and you don't know if they'll work until you start to build on them. Some lurk in the back of your mind for ages before you finally decide if they fit in somewhere.
Diney Costeloe
I'm still deciding! I've just finished a novel about child migrants to Australia in the 1940s, but I'm not sure what comes next.
Diney Costeloe
Keep going! It's never easy to sit down and write, but when you do you'll find the time flies. Just don't put it off. What you write may never see the light of day, but it certainly won't if you haven't put pen to paper...or these days, fingers to keyboard.
Diney Costeloe
Never finish work at the end of a chapter. Always start the next one, even if it's only with a sentence or two, then you're never faced with a blank page. Also it's a good idea to edit and review what you wrote yesterday and then move straight on.
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