I had been looking for a topic for my next historical novel, and so purchased it, and found it contained a treasure trove of information about the Arden murder.

Then I discovered that forty years later, it was believed that a young William Shakespeare visited Faversham and read an account of the crime in the town's wardmote book, an official record of events in Faversham from 1251 to 1581. He used this to write his first play, Arden of Faversham, which he published anonymously. But why? I knew then I had the idea for my next book.

I visited Canterbury in October 2021, as part of the research for my previous novel, The Maids of Biddenden. I came across the Chaucer Bookshop and on a whim, I popped into the bookshop for a look and discovered Patricia Hyde's Thomas Arden: The Man Behind the Myth, an academic study of the Faversham mayor murdered by his wife, her lover and a gang of five accomplices in 1551.

The result is the two conspiracy theories at the heart of the novel, unveiling shocking new evidence about the murder of Thomas Arden and revealing, for the first time, a remarkable new theory about Shakespeare's early years.

A two-year search of historical documents located in the Doddington Parochial Library in Faversham and the British Library in London followed. The more research I did, the more I began to question whether Alice Arden, who was burnt at the stake for killing her husband, was really the one responsible for the murder, and also began to realise why William Shakespeare's first-ever play, written about this murder, does not bear his name.

Arden is a story of two people – one reviled, one revered – whose fates become linked in a tale of corruption, collusion and conspiracy. It's certainly proving to be controversial!

The astonishing untold story of Shakespeare's first play