Clare Marchant Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Clare Marchant
While growing up in Surrey, Clare Marchant dreamed of being a writer. Instead, after she got an MA in women’s studies and a degree in history, she accidentally fell into a career in IT. After she spent quite a few years in London as a project manager, she moved to Norfolk for a quieter life and trained to be a professional jeweler.

Finally writing full-time, she lives with her husband. On the weekends, she often spends time satisfying her love of history, exploring monastic ruins and local castles with her miniature schnauzer Fred. The family also frequently visits to the gorgeous Norfolk coast where they all, including Fred, eat a ton of ice cream.

Anybody that knows her, knows that she is a major history nut, and this has a huge influence on what she writes and reads. Whenever she visits a museum or gallery, a historic site, or just reading an article about some new discovery of an antiquated item her mind’s whirring away, wondering who lived there and who owned something. Or even why people were in a certain place at a certain time in their lives.

She also wonders this in galleries, wondering about the models and what kinds of lives they led when they weren’t posing in some studio. She also cannot help but speculate about the original owners of personal items and old books.

Clare believes that the single thing that ties together everything that she writes about is connections. Everybody is connected in life, to other people, to objects we’re especially fond of, to places, and Clare is fascinated by these bonds.

If she is researching for a book, she will happily vanish down a rabbit hole of investigations, a single event or name will need to another, until she has entirely forgotten all about what she was supposed to be looking for in the first place. She can spend hours upon hours doing this. However, some of her best plots have been created this way.

If she is in the writing stage, than she has a self-imposed deadline of at least two thousand words a day, Monday-Friday (Sunday oftentimes as well, since she is a golf widow). She stops after one thousand for a cup of tea (and some biscuits, depending on how well things are going, either for consolation or to congratulate herself), and keep going. This takes her to lunch, when it’s time to walk her dog.

She also has to edit a certain amount of chapters each day because she has external deadlines, so there will be times she continues even after lunch to achieve her daily goal of both writing and editing.

Clare is a strict planner, having planned out the entire novel with a detailed outline, not just of the plot, but of each character’s journey. And since she spent many years working on various IT projects, she is nothing if not very well organized. This probably stems from her work as a project manager. This that she hopefully won’t sit at her keyboard and wonder where the story will be going, what to throw in the way of her characters, because this is already planned out in advance.

Afternoons are usually spent to all of the admin that goes with being a writer. Writing pieces for blogs, or catching up on social media, etc. This is the part of her day that she enjoys doing. If she has time it all right, then right when her family is coming back home, she is with a cuppa watching some early evening quiz show and they believe she’s not moved off the sofa all day.

The night before, she usually prepares the next day’s work in detail, with a list of notes talking about exactly what’s going to happen during the scene or chapter. The same way that her day has a plan and a structure at all times, so do the people on the pages while she organizes their lives.

All of the boring household chores get done with her family helping during the weekend. Either then or right before she sits down in the afternoon when she runs around her house like a woman possessed. During this time, she does only the bare minimum so the house will be lived in without some grime-busting documentary team showing up at her door.

Clare’s debut novel, called “The Secrets of Saffron Hall”, was released in the year 2020 and is from the historical romance genre.

“The Secrets of Saffron Hall” is the first stand alone novel and was released in the year 2020. Two women that live five centuries apart, and a life-changing secret that’s about to be unearthed.

In the year 1538 and Eleanor, a new bride, impresses her husband by growing some saffron, which is a spice more valuable than gold. His reputation within the court of Henry VIII soars, however fortune and fame come with a price, as the king’s favor is not going to last forever.

In the year 2019, Amber finds an ancient book inside her grandpa’s home at Saffron Hall, the contents reveal quite a dark past from the past. While investigating, she unravels a forgotten tragic story and a truth that is a lot closer to home than she ever imagined. A historical novel about hope and love during dangerous times.

This is a vivid and rich historical story, and one of those rare novels that is entirely engrossing. Clare skillfully entwines present and past in this emotional and gripping debut novel. The sixteenth century comes to life vividly and readers got totally lost in the day to day existence of Eleanor’s household and all her cares and duties. She gives both women a defined and strong character as well as an equally important and satisfying in the two timelines, getting the reader invested in the fates of the two women.

It has such a tender touch and historical depth that provides a real insight into a turbulent time during England’s history. This is a historical time that is rich in excitement and happenings and Clare brilliantly mines them and is able to cleverly provide the tension in this book.