For those of you sensible enough not to write books, a word of advice: authors are fragile creatures, usually vain and insecure, whom it is frighteningly easy to damage with a careless word or even (sometimes worse) with no word at all. Please be careful how you handle them.
Fortunately such creative fragility has its positive side. An encouraging word from a person whose judgement an author respects is equivalent to a glass of champagne or a dry martini on an empty stomach. The world instantly becomes a kinder, happier place.
Which is why I am rushing to broadcast quotations from two national reviews of my latest novel which appeared this week.
‘Taylor’s ability to conjure time past is second to none and here he blends a school story for adults, a ghost story and a mystery for a sublime evocation of a closed world…’ – Guardian
‘Taylor’s position at the apex of historical crime writers is reinforced [by] this page-turner…’ – Financial Times
Anyway, to change the subject and raise the tone, here are a couple of photos of the medieval wall-paintings at Kempley church, Gloucestershire. These are of national (and in some cases international) importance. The chancel vault and walls is crammed with extraordinary twelfth-century work like this one of six apostles staring adoringly up at Christ:
And here is another, from the fifteenth century, around a window (with much later stained glass), which is in the nave:
These are just two of the paintings. I urge you to go and see the church if all possible and relish its impact as a whole. Then write something appreciative in the visitors’ book. Artists, even dead ones, have fragile egos too.
Andrew Taylor Author 