Essie Fox Author Profile Banner
Essie Fox Author Profile
Essie Fox Author

@essiefox

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Represented by David Headley. Writer of historical novels. The Fascination (2023) is a Sunday Times Bestseller.

United Kingdom
Joined February 2009
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
11 months
This is something I've always dreamed of ... and today my dream comes true. Number Ten on the Sunday Times Bestseller list for fiction hardbacks. Thank you to @DavidHHeadley , @OrendaBooks , all the booksellers who've stocked and sold The Fascination.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
5 months
Oh my! All kneel in awe of this Christmas tree! Via @emma_darwin .
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
9 days
This never occurred to me before - but have just read of the idea that Elizabeth I didn’t marry or have a child so as to end her father’s bloodline, in revenge for the death of her mother. Perhaps I’m just slow. It makes total sense.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
5 months
GIVEAWAY As my novel The Fascination has Christmas scenes in a Drury Lane pantomime, I'm offering to give away a signed and dedicated Hardback. The book is embossed and foiled, with beautiful sprayed edges. Please like and share to enter. Ends 11 December. UK only. @OrendaBooks
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
12 days
Someone, who shall be nameless, gave the proof of my last book a 2 star rating, then lowered it to 1 star when 5 star reviews came in. Now I’ve been asked to blurb for her debut … which is a little astonishing.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
3 years
I know it’s not THAT exciting, but look! A hedgehog! In my garden.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
5 months
I’ve been baking. Mincemeat and almond shortcake. Honestly, there’s no going back to mince pies.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
11 months
I'm beyond delighted to say The Fascination will be number Ten in the Sunday Times bestsellers' chart this coming Sunday. Thank you every one who bought it - to @DavidHHeadley , to @OrendaBooks , to the designer @Kidethic , and every blogger and reviewer for your generous support.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
21 days
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
6 months
More thoughts on Wuthering Heights are that, on a first reading in my teens, I was obsessed with the tragic romance of Cathy and Heathcliff ... but now I'm older I see it as an abusive and mutually destructive relationship. Fascinating how age/ experience changes a reading.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
27 days
Very happy to see this news announced today …
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@OrendaBooks
Karen Sullivan 🇺🇦
27 days
🩸🚣‍♀️ WE HAVE NEWS! Look what's coming your way in 2025… @essiefox 's visceral, sumptuous #historicalfiction #thriller #Dangerous – a riveting, dazzling reimagining of #Bryon 's exile in Venice, with an extraordinary mystery at the heart… #BookTwitter
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
3 years
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
25 days
I'm late to Ripley, but now totally immersed. Every frame is like a work of art.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
11 months
Still pinching myself.
@DavidHHeadley
David Henry Headley
11 months
CONGRATULATIONS to @essiefox Her brilliant novel #TheFascination has entered the BESTSELLER LIST at no 10!
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
8 months
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
12 days
The Museum of the Home's 'Rooms Through Time' are reopening this summer. Based in East London, this is a great way to see how people lived in different eras. A really good resource for writers, and anyone interested in history and home design. #writing
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
8 months
Is it April 1?
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
6 years
A year ago, this happened. People thought I'd gone mad and was carrying a stuffed toy around in my hand bag. And then... my goodness, how he grew!
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
6 days
People! Look at the sky! This is Windsor.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
4 years
@DrLindseyFitz @DrJennersHouse Just happened to find this being posted by a friend on FB. Social distancing in 1843, showing how terrifying the outbreak of Small Pox must have been.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
2 months
This is so incredible. Someone sent me these photos, and they look just like me. A relative called Zylphia Fox, who left her husband and children in England in the mid 1800s and became an actress in America. I'd love to know more about her.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
12 days
My uncle, whose funeral was on Thursday, made these iron gates for Leominster church.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
4 months
Has anyone else had this cough that just won't go away and makes you feel wretched and exhausted? I'm nearly into my fourth week, and just wondering if it's simply something to grin and bear ... that it WILL go away in the end. Definitely not Covid. I've done 4 tests now.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
3 years
My friend Millie. She’s 17, just left school. She hopes to model or act, and as you can see she has ⭐️🌟✨💫 quality! Please follow her on Insta @outwith_millieanna as she’d love that. Also, any advert, tv or film people ~ please shout! #DownSyndrome #rockinganextrachromosome
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
1 year
It’s here! Proof copy of The Fascination. Thanks to @OrendaBooks and @Kidethic for the beautiful cover design.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
3 years
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
6 months
So the British Library hack affecting all of us registered for PLR ... who has also received THE EMAIL? What exactly can/should we be doing? Changing bank passwords etc? I'm feeling clueless, confused and upset.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
4 years
Some fabulous illustrations of fairies by Brian Froud and Alan Lee, as featured in Beyond the Brotherhood: The Pre-Raphaelite Legacy by Anne Anderson. Exhibition currently on at Southampton art gallery, and then Russell Cotes art gallery from February 2020. #folklorethursday
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
10 months
The loveliest thing you’ll see today…
@DennyBurk
Denny Burk
10 months
It’s a hard-knock life… not.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
10 years
This is a wise and beautiful letter - from Tony Benn to his grandchildren... http://t.co/AIvOdfbNtd
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
11 months
The Fascination is out in less than two weeks. I poured my heart into this book, and what it’s wrapped up in is a dream come true. Beautiful cover from @OrendaBooks
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
4 years
@Channel4News When you think he’s gone as far as he can ... and then this. Anyone else would be put in a straight jacket.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
4 years
Thanks to PLR, and everyone who borrowed my books this year, I actually feel as if I might be a writer after all, despite this being a year of severe doubt and unhappiness. Libraries saved me as a child, and here they are, still doing the same after all these years!
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
5 years
I have some news ...
@DHHlitagency
DHH Literary Agency
5 years
Time for our weekly roundup! This week, we've got some fab chart news, an exciting addition to the DHH client list and much more... Click here to find out more 👉
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
10 months
We lost Frank for a moment or two tonight, and found him begging for a biscuit at the bar of the pub we were visiting. Butter wouldn't melt ...
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
1 year
On World Down Syndrome Awareness Day, here is the lovely Millie Anna. Millie is full of joy and life, and also a talented actor. She was a huge inspiration for my novel The Fascination, about people perceived as different finding family and home through the entertainment world.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
1 month
My Uncle 'Bossy' was trained as a blacksmith in his youth. He made the metalwork for this door at the stunning Minster church in Leominster. Today he died, and we'll all miss him terribly.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
6 months
On this dreary wet day I found my crayons and scissors and made a cutout figure of Little Tilly from The Fascination, performing as the Fairy Queen in a panto at Drury Lane. Thanks for the glorious toy theatre @KateAGriffin . @OrendaBooks @DavidHHeadley
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
11 months
Signing begins. #thefascination
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
6 months
So very sad to hear that A S Byatt has died. Only recently re-read Possession. Her work is remarkable. Truly, a great writer.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
11 months
I visited the lovely @bertsbooks and we sold three copies as quickly as I could sign them.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
7 days
Anniversary - and too many years to count anymore.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
4 years
I’m in a holiday house and ...a picture just flew off a wall (all fixings in place), and a pile of tea towels and serviettes have flown off a shelf and are scattered over the kitchen floor. No doors open. No draughts. It’s been many years since anything like this happened to me.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
1 year
I may have something in my eye. This is such a dream come true. Thank you @GoldsboroBooks for choosing The Fascination as your June Premier choice. @OrendaBooks
@GoldsboroBooks
Goldsboro Books
1 year
Introducing our June PREM1ER choice - The Fascination by @essiefox ✨️ Prepare to be transported to Victorian England and a world of "freak-shows", fairgrounds, oddities, & dark desires...
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
4 months
Starting work on some illustrations for the paperback edition of The Fascination which will be out later this year. This is the fairy child that Theo ‘thinks’ he sees in Chapter 1. @OrendaBooks
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
2 months
At the Teatro La Fenice. The royal box… where Napoleon once sat. Bit austere for my taste.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
3 years
Mermaid books from @moniqueroffey (Costa short-listed for The Mermaid of the Black Conch) in The Guardian ... includes my novel Elijah's Mermaid, which is described as: "Fox writing like the love child of Sarah Water and Angela Carter." I'll take that!
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
3 years
How could I not share! His first night in a new home from the dog shelter. His face!
@wordlikes
J. David Bethel
3 years
First Night from the shelter to his new home...the dog.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
7 years
Reaching a fever pitch of excitement here, and still a few days to go before I can collect new puppy, Frank ...
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
6 months
Today, my UK Sunday Times best-selling novel is published in US/Canada and has a starred review in @ForewordReviews . It's a beautiful glittering hardback with sprayed edges. Please spread the word among friends who'd like a dark Victorian gothic to read over the Christmas period.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
26 days
Oh my goodness - The Fascination is number one in historical thrillers in the @AmazonKindle rankings. @OrendaBooks
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
1 month
I feel I should make a confession about my April 1 post. I'm afraid this is me in fancy dress.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
11 months
Oh me, oh my! The Fascination is published today. If a dark Victorian gothic set in the gritty rural fairgrounds, the glamour of the theatres, and an anatomy museum is the siren lure to call you the please buy the gorgeous @OrendaBooks hardback. It is such a thing of beauty.
@OrendaBooks
Karen Sullivan 🇺🇦
11 months
🦢🖤 🔊OUT TODAY!🔊 This summer's most RAVISHING historical read… @essiefox 's DAZZLINGLY dark, spellbinding gothic Victorian novel #TheFascination 📖EXQUISITE hardback: 📲 🦢🖤 #HistoricalFiction #BookTwitter #PublicationDay
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
11 months
Frank is with the dogsitter, and I've just been sent this photo.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
11 months
It’s been such an amazing and emotional thing to see The Fascination published this week and to read the lovely reviews. If you’re tempted by the beautiful hardback please buy a copy today. This first week of sales can make all the difference to a book’s success.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
5 months
@Peston Ashamed of my country.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
2 months
Do I buy it?
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
4 years
I was working at the Telegraph Sunday Magazine and living in Kentish Town. Another girl. Another planet.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
1 year
So excited to be having a book with sprayed edges. (And foiled lettering!)
@OrendaBooks
Karen Sullivan 🇺🇦
1 year
@DMan1504 @Anna_Mazz @essiefox AND (!) can we all just feast our eyes on THIS??
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
5 years
@RoryStewartUK Rory, so many of us really really really don't want Brexit.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
1 year
Allowed to post these now. Sets my daughter’s been working on for the new production of Cinderella at the Royal Opera House. Winter and Autumn.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
2 years
I simply can't decide ... which one to wear?
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
7 years
Meet Frank...
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
6 months
Today I had the loveliest gift from @GoldsboroBooks ~ the very first signed copy of the sold-out Goldsboro special edition of The Fascination. I will cherish this. Thank you @DavidHHeadley . @OrendaBooks
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
4 years
Two lovely things happened. Someone in Sweden messaged on Insta to say they are reading my books through lockdown, and then a complete stranger called out my name on the Long Walk to say she recognised me from photos, and was doing the same. Not big things, but much-needed boost.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
9 years
Told this is Hattie Madders, Irish Dairy Farmer, AKA The Mad Hatter. Fought the Scottish boxer Wee Willy Harris, 1883 http://t.co/9flDH9YFuH
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
7 years
I got books, they're multiplying, and I'm losing control...
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
2 months
Only in Venice - the local SPAR in an old theatre. It was enormous.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
9 days
The Met Gala - it's all a bit end of the Roman Empire, isn't it? I do get the performance art element, but... Have I just woken up as a grumpy puritan?
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
1 year
My new book, The Fascination, out in June this year, is heavily influenced by the Victorian theatre world. Here's a wonderful list of other novels featuring the theatre, compiled by Lyn Gardner. #theatre #victorian #novels
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
3 months
My most popular book in Uk libraries from 2022/23. Of all the books I've written The Last Days of Leda Grey is probably the one that still haunts me the most. #silentfilm #gothic #ghosts
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
2 months
My sincerest best wishes to this brave woman. What grace in the face of so much adversity.
@KensingtonRoyal
The Prince and Princess of Wales
2 months
A message from Catherine, The Princess of Wales
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
5 months
Delighted to have been one of the Goldsboro Book Club picks this year.
@GoldsboroBooks
Goldsboro Books
5 months
Our new upgraded website is live AND we have spaces available in our Prem1er book club.. happy Monday! Prem1er 👇 #bookclub #booktwitter #specialedition
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
6 years
WHEN AUTHOR EVENTS DON'T GO AS PLANNED. I've been meaning to write about this for years...and I'm sure it's not a unique experience. In the end this was very funny, and it did have a happy ending... @theprimewriters
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
8 years
Introducing Leda Grey...soon shimmering over your pages, or flickering across your screens.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
3 years
This book has everything I love. A deliciously dark historical novel of thrilling originality: The Clockwork Girl by @Anna_Mazz ~ coming January 2022 from @orionbooks . Click on text box for full review.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
8 years
So, the man who risked the political, social and financial security of entire country has left the gambling table.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
3 months
Me soon! Just booked an opera in a private palazzo on the Grand Canal. All in the name of research for my next novel - a historical crime thriller, set in Venice, and based around the exploits of an infamous poet.
@david_hewson
David Hewson
3 months
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
4 years
How beautiful are these endpapers! #thewarlowexperiment by @alixnathan
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
4 years
Whenever I write a new book I like to buy some memento for myself - something that suits the theme. This time, as I come to the end of another, I have this gorgeous owl print from @hannahwillowart . Thanks, Hannah. Very apt for folklore, myth, and mystery.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
3 years
Not out until August, but such a Georgian treat in store for all readers from @sarasheridan ! What a setting and cast of characters! This seductive and sensual novel comes from a writer at the height of her powers. Captured my senses, and my heart. #edinburgh #botanicgarden
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
7 months
Six years ago my best buddy came home. The pup, not Cary Grant ... though there is a certain similarity. I just can't put my finger on it.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
4 months
I’ll be walking moonlit country lanes with a stolen Indian diamond clutched tightly to my breast.
@DrMatthewSweet
Matthew Sweet
4 months
How will you be celebrating the 200th birthday of Wilkie Collins? Leaping out of your wheelchair? Smoking roll-ups and playing with your mice? Turning yourself blue by drinking silver nitrate? So many options. To fellow observers - Have a sensational day!
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
11 months
Feeling a little emotional. What a lovely surprise, and so many thanks to Nick Rennison for his review of The Fascination in The Sunday Times @thetimes . @OrendaBooks @DavidHHeadley
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
2 years
Wow! A heron landed in my tree.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
26 days
Roll up, roll up ... Really, any excuse to show this kaleidoscope of a little film again, and to announce that for this coming week The Fascination is only 99p across all platforms. Shares much appreciated. #booktwitter #historical #victorian
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
1 month
Amazing gift arrived today. Not only is it a thing of beauty, it made me laugh out loud. Now in pride of place on my kitchen table. Thank you @Anna_Mazz - how perfect a nudge at your marvellous novel about a true life historical mass poisoning. #thebookofsecrets
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
2 months
If my book was an Easter Egg - filled with wonders of rural fairgrounds, glamorous London theatres, and an anatomy museum in a shop on Oxford Street. #victorian #gothic @OrendaBooks
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
11 months
My day ... “The rain it raineth on the just And also on the unjust fella; But chiefly on the just, because The unjust hath the just’s umbrella.” Or something like that. My (once) lovely writing shed.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
1 month
Today I was so lucky to be invited here for lunch. #deanstreet
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
4 years
The amazing Margate Shell Grotto, as discussed by @TraceyEmin on BBC Radio 6 Music today. No-one knows how, why, or when it was created, but here is a little about its discovery, and some historical theories...
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
2 years
She could be here, right now. She has a story to tell, and I wish she was still alive so that we could hear it. Sargent's portraits are astonishing. It feels as if his subjects might get up and walk towards you, or start to speak, or cry. He captures the unique essence of life.
@JohnConstableRA
John Constable
2 years
The Lady in White (aka Portrait of Elsie Palmer painted at Ightham Mote in Kent) by John Singer Sargent 1889-90 (Fine Arts Centre in Colorado Springs)
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
1 year
Frank in the buttercups.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
1 year
At the end of my new book's first chapter, a little boy thinks he's seen a baby fairy in bottle. I've made a drawing of what he sees ... but it's not what it actually is. The Fascination. #illustration #gothic #novel #victorian @OrendaBooks
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
1 year
Happy publication day to @AndrewJRTaylor ! This is such a good series of historical crime mysteries.
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
7 years
A sneak preview of the new look for The Last Days of Leda Grey, which is out in paperback next week ...
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
1 year
The Fascination as an Easter Egg - inspiration brazenly taken from @LizFremantle
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
5 years
I respect Angela Merkel - who has a doctorate in quantum chemistry, and who, hopefully, realises that not everyone in the UK is a self-deceiving fool who thinks a racist poster is the epitome of being 'clever'. #Remain
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@essiefox
Essie Fox Author
11 months
Do we or don't we? I have signed up - but it's hard to leave the mothership. And if this was a dystopian novel, the irony of ... the irony.
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