It’s here, we’ve made it! I’m grabbing a few minutes and putting my feet up until the midnight bell welcomes in a new year.

It has been a busy twelve months - with research trips, speaking events and the release of Wheel of Fortune through Resolute Books - and with the second book in The Tarnished Crown series - due to be published in spring 2024 - I expect this year will be equally full-on.

Have you ever wondered why we sing carols? I am drawn to those that spin me straight back to the medieval and Renaissance past. But where does the tradition of singing songs at Christmas originate and what do they mean to you?

There are few things that conjure Christmas quite like the smell of baking and a warm kitchen. It goes back to my early childhood in Lincolnshire, where the warmest part of the house was the kitchen, my mother and grandmother allaying the Siberian chill sweeping across the frozen landscape, with the zingy scents of citrus and complex spices redolent of a past of which I was not yet aware.