ABOUT THE WORDS IN MY HAND
For fans of The Miniaturist and Girl With a Pearl Earring, The Words in My Hand is the re-imagined true story of Helena Jans, a Dutch maid in 17th-century Amsterdam, who works for Mr Sergeant the English bookseller. When a mysterious and reclusive lodger arrives – the Monsieur – Mr Sergeant insists everything must be just so. It transpires that the Monsieur is René Descartes.
Helena’s life, like that of so many women in history in history, is scarcely recorded. In The Words in My Hand she is a young woman who yearns for knowledge, who wants to write so badly she makes ink from beetroot and writes in secret on her skin – only to be held back by her position in society as a servant, and as a woman.
Weaving together the story of Descartes’ quest for reason with Helena’s struggle for literacy, their worlds overlap as their feelings deepen; yet remain sharply divided. For all Descartes’ learning, Helena has much to teach him about emotion and love.
When reputation is everything and with so much to lose, some truths must remain hidden. Helena and Descartes face a terrible tragedy and ultimately have to decide if their love is possible at all.
The Words In My Hand: Shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award 2016 eBook: Guinevere Glasfurd: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
MY REVIEW
This was a complete departure from my usual choice of read but having read and reviewed for Hodder and Stoughton on previous occasions I knew this was going to be an excellent book. And it was. The Words in My Hand truly did not disappoint.
Originally from the north of England, Guinevere Glasfurd now lives and works in Cambridgeshire. She has a background in historical research and has worked for BBC History Online.
Good morning Alli and welcome. Can I start, as always, by asking you a little about yourself?
Amid the vivid beauty of Granada, a woman entrusted with unraveling a family secret will discover the truth about her heritage–and the alluring promise of love…
Alison is a Scot, with French Huguenot ancestors on her mother’s side.
Good morning Natali and welcome. Can I start by asking you a little about yourself?
The Lost Daughter of Liverpool
Pam is a retired interior designer, mum to three daughters, grandma to seven assorted grandchildren and roadie to her musician partner.
June was born in June and she always loved the moon. She comes from Slovenia, a country which got its independence almost three decades ago.
Cambridge, with my new husband and our ginger cat, and I’ve got two novels to my name, the latest being Hampstead Fever. My novels came after a string of non-fiction books, most of them on health and parenting. I have three sons, including twins, which obviously inspired some of my books. “The boys” are all grown up now, and they haven’t turned out too badly.
in Cambridge, you can expect a little more of East Anglia to feature in a future book. I prefer writing about what I know, so I’d never use somewhere I didn’t know well as a location. One of the books I am planning at the moment will be set mostly in Egypt. I grew up in Alexandria and my memories of it are still vivid.
produced two feet away from a computer where my children played Command and Conquer, at full blast. At times I’ve found it productive to write with music on, especially choral music, but nowadays I prefer utter silence. Because I write my first draft in pencil on paper, I can do it in most places. That usually means on the sofa in my living room, but in good weather it can equally be by the banks of the Cam.
About Carol
As a writer if there’s one thing I’m grateful for it’s the ability to type. Finishing school I enrolled at college for an OND in Business and Finance with secretarial training. The latter was very much involved with unlocking the mysteries of shorthand, audio typing…and typing.
total revolution! At last we were all able to say goodbye to aching fingers. Everyone coveted – and I was lucky enough to have – a red IBM Golf Ball typewriter and at the start it took some getting used to. No more keys leaping out of the type basket to make their impact on paper; this circular metal ball covered in letters simply whizzed up and down. There were downsides of course. It wasn’t a good idea to rest your fingers on the keyboard at any time as the slightest pressure on any one key would automatically set it off like a machine gun, leaving a trail of gibberish across whatever you were in the middle of typing. Olivetti also produced an electric daisy wheel typewriter. The beauty of this machine was that you could 
buy replacement wheels with different typefaces making it a very versatile piece of equipment. Today, of course, the computer leaves us spoiled for choice with innumerable typeface options, so different from those dark days!
used had a small window built into the front to enable text to be edited – very cutting edge at the time. By the late ‘80’s early ‘90’s computers/word processors were beginning to become norm in the provincial workplace (no doubt London and other big cities already had them). My first session on a word processor was surreal. In the past typing had been about movement and noise. Now here I was, sitting in front of a strange detached keyboard. When my fingers hit keys there was a gentle tapping sound but nothing felt as if it had connected with anything else. It was only when I raised my eyes to the screen in front of me that I saw words appearing as if by magic. It was probably as weird an experience as the progression from manual to electric typewriter.
In early desktop computers WP packages were almost an afterthought and in some instances not very user friendly. Therefore I opted for a dedicated word processor instead, using the computer for spreadsheets and databases. Suddenly it seemed you no longer needed to be able to type to use a computer. Of course it completely transformed how things were done in the workplace. A manager doing his own typing? Shock, horror! That would have been unheard of during my early years at work. Then it was all about dictation and audio tapes and getting the secretary to type it all up.
Morton S. Gray lives with her husband, sons and Lily, the tiny dog, in Worcestershire, U.K. She has been reading and writing fiction for as long as she can remember, penning her first attempt at a novel aged fourteen, the plot of which closely resembled an Errol Flynn film.
Good morning Rob and welcome. Can I start, as always, by asking you a little about yourself?
Nothing is as it seems …
JO LAMBERT 