I love doing the research for a novel, especially when it calls for travel to somewhere exciting. Daughter of the House involved thinking myself back in time, though, instead of getting on a plane. Wikipedia and Google are useful for chasing facts and getting dates correct, but not much more than that. The trick of researching a novel is that you don’t know what you’re searching for until you stumble across it. You can’t beat a slow browse along the shelves, picking up books almost at random. I use the London Library, and can easily lose a few hours wandering in the stacks. A million books on open shelving soon lead to a notebook full of scribbled notions. Writer’s gold.