Travel to Egypt with Kate Lord Brown
The Golden Hour – Kate Lord Brown
The Golden Hour by Kate Lord Brown is a historical novel set in and amongst the tombs of the pharaohs of Egypt
Book map of locations in The Golden Hour
I’ve been lucky enough to spend my life living and working overseas. So, I always wanted to write a novel based on my years in the Middle East. The Golden Hour was inspired by my lifelong fascination with Egyptology. In the library at home I have books on Egypt I’ve had since childhood – it struck me one day, flicking through them – where are the women archaeologists?
Kate Lord Brown (c) Lucy Williams photography
I am drawn to forgotten bits of women’s history. I wanted to tell the story of the pioneering women who worked on the digs in Egypt. Research is one of the great joys of writing historical fiction. As well as knowing the locations in the novel, I immersed myself in historical accounts to get the voice of the characters pitch perfect.
Book map of locations in The Golden Hour
Reading accounts by women explorers and archaeologists including Freya Stark, Agatha Christie, Amelia Edwards all helped build the world of the novel. These intrepid women helped shape the characters of Polly and Juno, old schoolfriends who meet up in Cairo before WW2. It was a ‘golden hour’, a remarkable time to be there.
British Museum
Book map of locations in The Golden Hour
I write cinematically, and gather a lot of visual material as well as trawling old biographies and historical texts. A lot of this novel was based on personal experience. Like Juno and Lucie I did research at the British Museum as an undergraduate. I’ve always been fascinated by Ancient Egypt and spent hours sketching in the galleries there.
Arabian horse (c) Wikipedia
Book map of locations in The Golden Hour
Also like Polly, living and working in the Middle East, I spent many happy hours riding Arabian horses in the desert. They are beautiful animals, and I loved the excuse to visit studs in the UK and the Middle East to talk to breeders, researching life on Polly’s farm. For the 1970s sections of the book in the lead-up to the Civil War in Beirut, I drew on conversations I had with an old friend who had lived through that time. It’s one of the things I love about writing C20 historical fiction – it’s in touching distance, and we can still learn so much from lived experience.
Roseland in Cornwall
Book map of locations in The Golden Hour
The Golden Hour is a sweeping epic and intimate story set in a fascinating part of the world – hopefully it will carry readers away to an extraordinary time in history. If you are in the UK, I’d recommend a visit to the Egyptian hall at the British Museum to see some of Lucie’s favourite pieces like Bastet, the cat. Further afield, Roseland in Cornwall is an inspiring and magical place. I grew up in the south west, and there has always been something special about this place, with its holy well. It’s reputed that Jesus visited the UK, and the location inspired the hymn ‘Jerusalem’. More prosaically it is where Polly and Juno become blood sisters on a school trip with their mentor headmistress.
Nefertiti at the Neues Museum
Book map of locations in The Golden Hour
Visit Cambridge to see where Juno studied as an undergraduate. I was in Cambridge for several years, and loved revisiting this area to write the scenes. At Christmas I made a pilgrimage to Berlin to see the famous bust of Nefertiti at the Neues Museum. It is a powerful, beautiful object, and hard to believe it is three thousand years old.
5 star Winter Palace Hotel
Book map of locations in The Golden Hour
In Egypt, there are so many places for readers to visit. You can’t climb the Great Pyramid like Juno and Polly any more, but a visit to the monuments and a cocktail at Mena House afterwards is always a good idea. In Luxor explore the Valley of the Kings before returning to the 5 star Winter Palace Hotel to dance the night away like Juno.
Kate Lord Brown (c) Lucy Williams photography
Book map of locations in The Golden Hour
The Golden Hour was an intensely personal book to write, about love and loss, secrets and lies. The key to the story, the heart of it, is love – love of friends, family and freedom. I really enjoyed revisiting the locations which have shaped my life, and I hope you will, too.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: The Golden Hour
Twitter: @katelordbrown
