To record this week’s podcast, I travelled to the Cotswolds to visit my guest (and friend), Elizabeth Speller. Elizabeth has recently bought a splendid shepherd’s hut on wheels which she is using as a retreat to write in. Although this book wasn’t written there, its sequel, currently a work in progress, will be. You can see the hut – which is enough to arouse the envy of anyone with writerly ambitions – in the video we recorded, which will be on this site shortly. In the mean time, click on the link above to listen to our audio podcast in which we talk about making the transition from non-fiction to fiction, the challenges of setting a novel in the past, and the ways in which the reverberations of the First World War continued to be felt in the years that followed armistice. The novel has been getting terrific reviews: The Times, for example, said: “Speller’s writing is gorgeous, her research immaculate and very lightly worn. Sheer bliss.” And the Independent said: “Covering death, poetry, a bitter regimental feud and a hidden love affair, it’s set to be the new Birdsong – only better.” Click on the book cover above to find out more about it.