Sometimes, when I am interviewed by a blogger or a journalist, I am asked what hobbies I have beyond reading and writing, and the answer that always springs to mind is this:

‘Antiques. I love antiques! I love to be the custodian of an object that has a history – indeed, that is part of history; to care for it for future generations; to wonder about (or research, where possible) its peculiar history. Most of all, I enjoy discovering new items: in every city that I visit on my travels, I go to the market and delve into back-street antique stores, looking to unearth new treasures, marvelling over an unusual find or one to add to a collection, negotiating on price with the shopkeeper and delighting in a bargain.’

I grew up in Alexandria, Egypt, so you could say that a reverence and deep respect for old, antiquated items is in my blood – but then, I think that was the case all over the world before the advance of modern consumerism: buy, consume, discard, buy another. I suppose in some ways my love for antiques is a love for a more traditional way of life, founded on valuing that which you have. I would much rather have an old hardback book – a first edition, say – than a brand-new paperback. That old book has such soul.

A home needs soul, and that can be created with a sense of history. Take this description of my heroine’s bedroom in my latest novel Legacy, set in Cadiz, Andalucía:

‘She took in the oversized bed with its beautiful Spanish wrought-iron headboard. It was covered with an old-fashioned bedspread of thick white lace and was draped with a snowy mosquito net, secured by a satin tie-back. The dressing table and chair were also antique-looking. Its oval, free-standing, Murano glass mirror with silver inlay in its frame, combined with the beautiful cobalt-blue Murano glass chandelier hanging from the beamed ceiling, lent a touch of bygone charm to the room.’

Luna’s new home is a beautiful, modern, architect-designed house, and the antiques in her bedroom serve as an important and necessary contrast. This is a book all about historical roots, and the objects with which she is surrounded in her room remind her of this and tie her to the place; they ground her in the setting and, in a sense, in an older time as well as the present.

Throughout the Andalucían Nights trilogy, I interweave old and new. Take the traditional masked ball which features in each of the three books, Indiscretion, Masquerade and Legacy. In Indiscretion, Alexandra finds in a costume shop ‘a genuine Moorish costume, which belonged to a Moorish princess … a real museum piece … entirely embroidered in silver thread and set with tiny pearls and precious stones’. The sultana’s costume is one of a pair; there is a matching sultan’s costume, which Salvador wears. Fast-forward to Masquerade, and Alexandra’s daughter, Luz, wears the antique sultana costume to the ball; and then, in Legacy, her son Ruy and Luna meet at the ball wearing the paired costumes.

The costumes are passed from generation to generation, and not only are they imbued with all the significance of the predecessors’ romance, but they are also attached to a legend: it is said that the wearers of these costumes are destined to fall in love. (For more on the legend, visit https://hannahfielding.net/staging/1129/the-legend/.) As I write in Legacy, something that’s been passed down through the generations is to be greatly appreciated: ‘If it’s old and has a story, then it is all the more romantic and meaningful.’

Every old object tells a tale, and thus old objects are perfect both to inspire tales and to be interwoven into tales. Thus do I, to paraphrase Virginia Woolf, ‘ransack [antique stores], and find them full of sunken treasure.’