I’d already seen many of her paintings in a 2013 exhibition of her work in her hometown of Nottingham, and I then read everything I could lay my hands on, scouting round for her rare, out-of-print autobiographies: Oil Paint & Grease Paint (Penguin, 1941*), and The Magic of a Line (Kimber, 1965), which were wonderful reading, because her voice comes through so clearly in the narrative.

I made sure I discovered as much as possible about Dame Laura before beginning. In my new book, The Night Raid (Simon & Schuster, 2017), one of the central characters is Dame Laura Knight, a renowned painter who worked as a war artist in both First and Second World Wars. But, as a result of that one-star Amazon review, I felt that I should re-double my efforts in future work, and try to create characters that contain as much ‘truth’ within them as possible. I knew I had taken care to ensure my made-up version of her was authentic.

In the course of my research for The English Agent I’d read Sara Helm’s comprehensive biography: A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Lost Agents of SOE (Abacus, 2006), watched old TV interviews with the SOE officer, visited her wartime London home, and listened to audio archive of her held by the Imperial War Museum. However, the one-star review set me thinking about the borders between truth and imagination when using real-life figures as a stepping off point for historical fiction. It had never been my intention to cause upset with my fictional take on the Secret Operations Executive (SOE) agent handler Vera Atkins, one of the main characters in The English Agent. In my opinion it was bordering on libellous, although I realise that you cannot libel the dead,” said the reader. It does an immense disservice to a great lady. After dozens of four and five star Amazon reviews for my second novel, The English Agent (Simon & Schuster, 2016), I got my first ever one-star review: “I feel this is a very poor book and the Vera Atkins portrayed in it is nothing like the real Vera Atkins. Let’s hope Ms Harvey doesn’t hear from any disgruntled readers this time! She discusses how she incorporated both reality and her imagination when creating a ‘real-life’ character in her latest book, The Night Raid (renowned artist Dame Laura Knight). Historical fiction author Clare Harvey guests on my blog today.

The English Agent by Clare Harvey