City of Dreams - Harriet Steel - Author Guest Post

Today on the blog I'm pleased to welcome historical novelist, Harriet Steel, talking about the inspiration for her latest book, City of Dreams.

Guest post by author Harriet Steel

Many authors have found inspiration in sensory experiences. The example that most readily spring to mind is that of Marcel Proust and his famous Madeleine, but a piece of music, a waft of scent, the feel of a wave-smoothed pebble or the touch of a hand might also spark off an idea that grows into a novel or a short story. For me, paintings have often provided inspiration and this was the case with my recently published novel, City of Dreams. It's set in Paris in the second half of the nineteenth century and tells the story of Anna, a young Russian girl, who comes to Paris with her new French husband, Emile Daubigny. She's thrilled to be in the most fashionable city on earth, but when Daubigny turns out to be a rogue and abandons her, she has to cope with a very different life from the one she had looked forward to with such joy.

The names that come to mind in the art of the time are well known - Manet, Renoir and Monet to mention the most famous. Manet's harsh realism certainly had a place in City of Dreams, although Monet's beautiful pictures were less influential. His water lilies and haystacks are a marvellous subject for his magnificent explorations of colour and light, but I suspect their private lives are a little lacking in interest. No, it was his contemporary, Auguste Renoir, whose work really fired my imagination. His work is sometimes dismissed as, 'chocolate boxy' but look closer - there's so much more to it than that. Renoir's paintings, with their lush brushwork and limpid, sensuous colours, aren't just beautiful, they're full of stories too and bursting with life.

A glamorous woman with her beau in the box at the opera looks pensive, as if she's not really enjoying herself. A girl gazes wistfully out of the picture plane in The Moulin de la Galette, The young men in The Boating Party, show off their muscles while a smooth, dandified young man whispers in his girl's ear. Who are they all? What are their stories?

It was my desire for answers to questions like these that planted the seed of City of Dreams in my mind and finding them has been a fascinating journey.

City of Dreams is available from Amazon in paperback or Kindle formats.

Visit Harriet’s Amazon Author Page http://www.amazon.co.uk/Harriet-Steel/e/B00845TT0U for details of her other books, and her blog https://harrietsteel.blogspot.com/ for articles on history and interviews with a variety of guests, including bestselling author, Joanne Harris (Chocolat) and Margaret Mountford (The Apprentice) on her other life as an academic specialising in Greek papyri.

Twitter  @harrietsteel1