My Inspiration: A Storytelling of Ravens by R. R. Penfold

North East author R. R. Penfold’s debut novel is a gothic horror adorned with fantastical elements, which follows amateur detective Doyle as he navigates a mysterious collection of suicides with the help of ever-watching ravens, in the eerie and atmospheric streets of Victorian London. Here, he tells us more about the inspiration behind the novel…

“I suppose this first came about as a combination of me wanting to write a book and being given a great opening, thanks to some ravens. The rest came when I Googled the name for a collection of ravens and found it was usually an ‘Unkindness’, but it could also be a ‘Storytelling’. All of a sudden, I had an opening and a title. After that I just had to write it.

“It all began when I worked in an office overlooking the river which was one day buzzed by all kinds of helicopters, both police and air sea rescue. Apparently, someone had jumped off the Tyne Bridge, and now they were looking for the body. That explains why so many people were on the riverbank that lunchtime, with me being one of them. That meant I was there when a raven landed on the handrail in front of me, followed by another one perching on a tree branch. As this was a dark dismal November day, the whole thing was just so spooky it had to be the start of a story, and who could argue. Since Victorian times were the heyday of ghost stories, it just had to be set then!

“So, I gave it some thought until one Sunday afternoon when I finally decided I should start. Straight away the opening line popped into my head which was too good to ignore. The only thing was that line had a Victorian feel to it so I couldn’t just switch back to a twenty-first century style of writing after that. It had to be all done in a cod Victorian style which I have to admit I enjoyed doing. I got to play with words and characters that I would never have got away with any other way.

“The rest of the story came naturally from the idea that something had to be making people commit suicide, which was the supernatural element, followed by what had caused the dark evil to appear, which was the murder/mystery element. Since the ravens started the whole thing off, they had to be there throughout the story, which they are.

“As for the rest that came down to a, possibly, feverish imagination and a lot of reading about Victorian times. Somehow that all came together, and A Storytelling of Ravens was the end result. Let’s hope everyone enjoys reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.”

A Storytelling of Ravens is out 26th November and available to order online at Waterstones, Amazon, and all major retailers.