What does the reader expect?
 
I had occasion to consider readers’ expectations of an author’s work, following a conversation with a friend who’s read a number of my novels and was quite shocked when she came across a fairly explicit sex scene.
 
As a relatively new writer, I’ve challenged myself to try different types of writing, from light-hearted comedy (so hard!) to a serious, many-years-researched historical biography. I know some authors who choose to use different pen names for different types of writing and each name becomes a brand for a style and content in tune with readers’ expectations.
 
I haven’t done that, so I apologise to those readers who come across something they’d rather not read. Conversely I’ve also had feedback that a book wasn’t racy enough! Except for A Master of Speculation and A Master of Industry, my regency romances are what would be labelled “sweet” and there’s another on the way.
 
Watch out for the second Regency Lady novel, which should be available next month. As with my other regency books there is a link to a previous story. If you read Her Secret Ambassador you may remember Charlotte and Robert Fielding, two children on the same merchant vessel as Lady Penelope Derwent, heading for Gibraltar and the Mediterranean in 1817. Charlotte carries a book all about pirates, which Lady Penelope offers to read to them both. Fast forward ten years and we meet Charlotte again about to turn nineteen and setting out on an adventure that will change her life—and a few other people’s along the way, including the Duke of Abbeywell. It’s called His Capricious Lady.
 
Wishing you all an interesting and stimulating New Year of reading.

I haven’t published a novel with Christmas in the title but here’s a Christmas extract from my first regency novel A Master of Speculation:
 
Jack was not one for Christmas festivities. He had vague recollections from his early years of the traditions of the village in which he was raised until sent to stay with his first tutor at the age of seven. Having been at sea for most of his adult life, he did not miss what he did not know. But the staff here felt differently and under Mrs Thornhill’s authority, all was done in the fine traditions of the past. ’Tis only one hundred and fifty years since that despot Mr Cromwell took away our rights to a merry time at Christmastide, she had pronounced that first December. Now we have them back, we are duty bound to enjoy them.
So again, this year, the Yuletide log had been dragged to the house on Christmas Eve and placed in the large fireplace in the vestibule, along with some seasonal greenery. The log now gave a welcoming blaze of light and warmth, while two arrangements of laurel and holly sat beneath the two naval masterpieces by Birch. He had beautifully precise brushwork. Visitors did not recognise the artist, but how fitting to have portrayals of that huge sea battle of 1812 by an English émigré turned American citizen. He caught a whiff of rosemary as he passed through to the library to collect his two important letters and take them to the rider who would be waiting at the stables.
Later in the morning, Jack rode Clem over the hill to be present at the Christmas morning worship at the church in Wrighton. He went not out of a strict sense of faith but for appearances’ sake, and the rector’s living was in his gift, after all. More than half his staff was there, as well as most of the village. No doubt the rumours about Miss Fitzgerald were already spreading. Older villagers might well remember the scandal of the Wrighton daughter who bore a child and not be aware of the secret marriage. He wondered if the wet nurse was one of the villagers here today and whether the person who wrote that letter was still alive, almost 20 years on.
 
Read more, maybe treat yourself to the Kindle edition for Christmas. All good wishes for the festive season.

Creating believable personalities in fiction.
 
One of my favourite love stories is Paul Gallico’s Love of Seven Dolls (pub 1954, so we’re going back somewhat). His two main characters are Mouche, a young innocent who’s lost all belief in life and thinks herself worthless, and Michel, a cynical survivor and user of women, who can only express his feelings through the 7 puppets he has created and operates. Their lives cross and she gradually develops inner strength and helps him to own his vulnerability and need.
 
So how does a writer create such characters to engage the reader and make them care about their fate? Lots of ways, I’m sure, including having them face challenges and giving them (hopefully redeemable) faults. I draw on a personality type theory called the Enneagram, which defines nine basic types, each of which has positive and negative aspects and suggests ways in which they might develop balanced, healthier traits.
 
Do you like male leads in male/female historical romances to be forceful, alpha male types? I guess I do because half my male leads are based on Enneagram number 8. This is defined as a forceful, confrontational, intimidating character who sees life as a power struggle and avoids displaying weakness. The theory suggests type 8 needs to discover a gentler side and commitment to helping others. What better way to do so than through encountering the right kind of woman? Examples include George Kemble in Rose Glace, James Forsyth in The Baronet’s Daughter and Matthew Harcourt in Her Secret Commission.
 
Interestingly, three of my female leads have also been based on type 8—Lady Olivia Charlton in Heiress to a Duke, Charlotte Milford in The Regiment’s Forgotten Daughter, and Lady Georgiana Fox in His Haughty Lady.
 
Search Enneagram for more information on the theory.

If you’ve been watching the dramatisation of Jane Austen’s unfinished novel Sanditon you will have seen the portrayal of a ‘gentry vs workers’ cricket match on the beach, in which a young woman takes the place of one of the gentry at the crease. This would have been unlikely, but all-women matches did take place at the time.
 
The earliest I’ve come across was held at Bosham (pronounced ‘Bozam’) in Sussex. Bosham was where Danish King Canute sat on a chair surrounded by his courtiers and commanded the waves to go back, but got his feet wet. It was also the port from which Harold set forth in 1064 to negotiate with William of Normandy, failing to prevent the Conqueror’s visit in 1066. Bosham also features in the Bayeaux tapestry and in the Doomsday book.
 
But there’s another claim to fame. In the summer of 1787 it hosted a female cricket match, a description of which was sent in to the Hampshire Chronicle. The editor declined to publish it on the grounds it was ‘by no means fit for publication’. However, 8 years later the same paper did publish an account of an all-female cricket match played by 11 young women of Marchwood against a visiting 11. They were all dressed in white with green or blue ribbons (quite decent, then).
 
Thereafter other similar events are mentioned with increasingly frequency into the 19th Century. They were often arranged between a team of local married ladies against one of single girls. In those days bowling was generally underarm and it has been suggested that overarm bowling became popular because of women players having difficulty delivering underarm bowls with their voluminous skirts getting in the way.
 
(thanks to the British Newspaper Archive for the above)

New! Regency Lady Series
 
If you liked HER SECRET BENEFACTOR, you’ll love the first in this new series. It’s the story of Tom, who you met briefly before. He was the stable boy at Wrighton House in A MASTER OF SPECULATION (first book in my Regency Master Series)
 
Fast forward ten years and Thomas Robertson has become a successful race horse trainer, much sought after by the nobility who make up the bulk of the racing fraternity. But his new boss, the Duke of Exford, has a supercilious daughter intent on making life difficult for him.
 s
HIS HAUGHTY LADY, first of the Regency Lady Series, out now for Kindle, KDP Select and paperback (see Home page for link)

Last month I joined about 250 others at the Romantic Novelists’ Association annual conference, a chance to network with other authors and hear from the publishing industry professionals who spoke on panels and in workshops. What did I learn? There was much to absorb, some of which is on the RNA blog (see link on Home page). With regard to trends in romantic fiction topics, it was said World War Two was much in vogue at present. So here are three of my recent reads which I recommend:
·         Cressida Connolly’s ‘After the Party’
·         L P Fergusson’s ‘A Dangerous Act of Kindness’
·         Michael Ondaatje’s ‘Warlight’
All very different but in all cases quite gripping with extremely well researched historical background.
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I’ve mentioned drawing inspiration from past events and places for my historical romances, but for my contemporary short stories, I often draw on actual experiences of my own:
For several years I was caretaker for an isolated holiday letting cottage in the Yorkshire Dales. It had borehole water, plenty of resident mice, sheep that messed the garden and fell ponies that blocked the entry gate and were also known to kick. It was only my second week when an unhappy tenant rang me late at night to say the bedroom ceiling had fallen in! No injuries, I’m happy to say, but the setting gave me the idea for NEW LEASE OF LIFE (in the collection TOWN MEETS COUNTRY) and also for SNOW PICNIC (free download under Books tab).
I once toured the Royal Yacht Britannia, moored at Leith, Edinburgh, and saw how compact it was and the cramped quarters for staff and crew. Then I read an article about super yachts owned by the very rich and how they are run. It inspired me to write MUTUAL DESIGNS (in the collection HOME AND ABROAD).
A visit to my local MP’s constituency ‘surgery’ inspired POWER TO THE PEOPLE in which a female MP gets involved in a local alternative power project and its rather dishy designer.
Finally the tire blow-out in the middle of Africa portrayed in WRITTEN IN THE BEADS (also in the collection HOME AND ABROAD) really did happen to me (45 years ago!), although I wasn’t being pursued by a felon.
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​If you read A MASTER OF LITIGATION  you will have met Roland Burford (Thomas Carnforth’s best friend) and Penelope Fitzgibbon ( Gwendolen Ashforth’s best friend) but they have not met each other—until now. Roland has been courting another lady and Penelope is married to Lord James Derwent. Why then is he launching a new career in the diplomatic corps? And why is she running off to Italy?
Read all about their travels, their first encounter and what follows in HER SECRET AMBASSADOR, out now in Kindle, paperback and KDP Select.
My inspiration for setting a story in the Mediterranean came when Ancestry sent me my latest DNA update and informed me I was 1%  Sardinian! I calculate that must have been an ancestor from the 1700s.

 If historical research provides story themes, visiting places can inspire a setting and add that touch of authenticity. Looking back at my story-lines over the past 10 years, here are some that were born following a particular visit:
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Carlo Gatti’s ice wells at the London Canal Museum near King’s Cross led to my exploring just how ice-cream was made before the advent of modern refrigeration and the early development of refrigerated ships. So was born ROSE GLACE, CONFECTIONER TO A DUKE, about an orphaned young girl who makes a new life for herself as an ice-cream maker, and encounters a self-make businessman who runs a shipping line and is looking to inherit a dukedom. (a finalist for historical romance in the EPIC awards 2016)

Quarry Bank Mill in Cheshire was my model for the cotton-spinning mill that features in A MASTER OF INDUSTRY, except my version isn’t run quite as well and provides the opening scene of the story when the heroine (a feisty governess) confronts the earl on whose land the mill operates about some pretty telling health and safety issues!
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The Gladstone Pottery Museum, Stoke-on-Trent put on a special exhibition of the history of the toilet and inspired IN FOR A PENNY, in which the heroine is the daughter of a sanitary engineer. Then there’s the ne’er-do-well younger son of a duke who needs reforming, a philandering viscount after a new mistress, and a good dollop of society scandal. Quite a raunchy tale.

A friend recently asked me where I got ideas for the plots of my books. Usually it’s been a single fact/event that grabs my attention when researching a particular period and then that seed germinates and grows. I began, 10 years ago, with attempts at contemporary romantic fiction, but wanted to avoid the instant communication of modern technology so checked out the 1980s. 1987 stood out as a year when so many terrible events happened that I wove them into ‘The Year I found Great Aunt Alice’ as the context against which the heroine compares her great aunt’s experiences in both world wars.
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 I then researched the 2nd Boer War, including the records of the British Red Cross, where something caught my eye. One of the volunteer doctors (referred to as ‘civil surgeons’) was listed as ‘missing’ at the end of the conflict. Did he die? Probably, but I imagined a scenario in which he actually survived, but there was a reason why he needed to hide away, for his own safety. After various attempts that finally turned into ‘Miss Deacon investigates’, about a British woman sent to France in 1918 to investigate the behaviour of the WAACs on the Western Front and coming across the mystery of the missing doctor, which she uncovers by talking to various ‘witnesses’ of the time

​After that I got into Victorian events such as the Baccarat scandal at Tranby Croft (the context for ‘Fair Play and Foul’) and the Cleveland Street scandal (‘Heiress to a Duke’). More recently I’ve gone back in time to the Regency period, post Waterloo. The inspiration for the first of these, ‘A Master of Speculation’ was the real involvement of some radical British aristocrats in helping one of Napoleon’s former marshals (Lavalette) escape from France after his wife had daringly visited him in prison the night before his execution and swapped places with him.
 
​The real events provide the inspiration but I then play with them, ask ‘what if…?’ and create my own version and my own characters to fit in with the rest of the romantic tale.