Moonlight at Cuckmere Haven is Published Today

Congratulations to Graham Ley, whose compelling historical saga, Moonlight at Cuckmere Haven, is published today!

England and Brittany, 1796

In London on business, aristocrat and father-to-be Justin Wentworth chases a thief only to be confronted by a face from the past — Coline — and the news that he already has a daughter.

Amelia Wentworth is in Sussex enjoying the delights of sea-bathing with her companion Caroline North. When Caroline catches sight of a dangerous adversary in the crowd at the Brighton races — the villain Tregothen — she writes to her brother, Colonel North, who swiftly rides to their aid.

At Chittesleigh Manor in Devonshire, pregnant Arabella Wentworth is disturbed by a brief note from Justin extending his absence from her. She decides to write to Justin’s friend Eugene Picaud to ask him to inquire after Justin in London. Justin’s mother, Sempronie, comes to stay at Chittesleigh, and is drawn to Justin’s writing bureau, discovering letters from Coline from their time together.

Meanwhile at Kergohan Manor in Brittany, the villagers celebrate as bread is baked for the first time in the large oven. The gathering is interrupted by the arrival of Laurent Guèvremont, owner of the manor, who explains to Héloïse Argoubet that he has an obligation to look after her, and prepare her for life in society.

Eugene, unsure of his future, enlists as a marine aboard HMS Amphion. Justin and Amelia visit as the ship prepares to leave Plymouth. After a sudden and terrifying explosion at the dock, Justin rushes back to find that the Amphion has been blown apart, with horrendous loss of life. As he searches for Eugene amongst the bodies, he eventually sees a figure in the water…

Will Eugene survive the disaster? Will Tregothen escape justice? And is the child the result of Coline’s affair with Justin?

And when love blossoms, will it finally unite the Wentworth family once and for all?

Congratulations to Isolde Martyn, whose enchanting medieval romance, The Lady of Mirascon, is out now!

1208

When cruel King John makes advances on her, young Adela de Whitchurch is forced to flee her comfortable position as hairbraider to the Queen of England.

After stowing away on a ship, Adela finds herself in France. Surviving on her wits and courage, she is soon accepted into the retinue of Lady Alys FitzPoyntz — a noblewoman who is on her way to meet her betrothed, Lord Ricart, Vicomte of Mirascon.

On the journey, disaster strikes when the party is attacked by brigands. As one of the only survivors, Adela decides to make her way to Mirascon to deliver Lady Alys’s jewels to Lord Ricart and throw herself on his mercy.

But when the vicomte mistakes Adela for his betrothed, she is swiftly pulled into a web of deception. With Mirascon threatened by the Pope’s brutal crusade against heretics, Lord Ricart is occupied with protecting his people, and Adela is unable to find an opportunity to tell him the truth.

And as she begins to fall for his charm and passion, she wonders whether she will ever summon the strength to leave his side…

Will Lord Ricart discover Adela’s true identity? Can he return her love?

Or will Adela’s deception cost her her life?

Congratulations to Elizabeth Bailey, whose page-turning Gothic mystery, Nell, is out now!

Nell is the second book in the Governess Trilogy: heart-warming Regency romance novels with strong female leads.

1795, England

Nell Faraday has grown up at the Paddington Charitable Seminary for Indigent Young Ladies and now, like her two best friends Prudence and Kitty, she is ready to take up a position as a governess.

A star pupil, Nell prides herself on her common-sense and practicality. But when she arrives at Castle Jarrow, the imposing abode is enough to test even the steadiest of nerves, and the brooding man in charge of it is enough to test the firmest of hearts…

Lord Jarrow is a widower with a young daughter, Hetty, who Nell is to be in charge of, but it is soon clear that Nell’s job will not be an easy one.

Dark secrets lurk within the walls of the castle, secrets that could threaten the safety of its inhabitants.

Will Nell’s steadfastness keep her from fleeing? Can she earn the trust of Lord Jarrow?

And can she help free the castle from its curse…?

In this behind-the-scenes blog series, Sapere Books authors offer an intriguing insight into how, where and why they write.

Today, we are delighted to spotlight Valerie Holmes, author of the Yorkshire Saga Series.

Staring out of my study window I see a brick wall. Not a theoretical one that means I have writer’s block, which I do not actually believe in as a professional writer, but a literal brick wall.

This may not appear to be the most inspirational of vistas, but I am fine with it.

Inside my study I am surrounded by my writing workspace; my research books, my trusty printer and personal items that make me smile.

Centre stage is my lovely laptop with its two screens. One is usually displaying research sites and email tabs, the other Word documents — my current WIP.

The brick wall rarely gets a glance because, once my laptop is on, I dive into my inner vistas. The beautiful scenery of North Yorkshire’s open moorland and coastline with its sweeping bays and rugged headlands. These are the settings against which my romantic adventures play out. Hence the Yorkshire Saga Series and my many novellas.

It is a world I am familiar with because I grew up in a bay town on the northeast coast and have happy memories of running with my dog along the open expanses of fine sandy beach, climbing the dunes which were covered with needle-sharp marram grass.

The area is steeped in history, from the old abbeys and market towns to the beautiful city of York. I still return regularly to explore the area: the monk’s trods that cross the moorland, the fishermen’s cottages that line the harbours and the old inns of the bay towns such as Whitby, Staithes and Robin Hood’s Bay. Then there are the manor houses and halls, each with a story to tell — inspiration for my next adventure is found in all. The darker era of smuggling provides further scope to add drama and menace.

The beauty of having a laptop is that it is mobile. I have written in cafés, on trains, on picnic tables by the sea, and in hotels — but the real work, the editing, polishing and research, happens at my desk, ignoring the blank brick wall.

I have a flexible routine, writing every day. Life happens, events happen, but the one thing that is constant is the desire to write, which never goes away — or not yet — and I hope never will so long as readers enjoy my adventures.

What better motivation is there for an author to continue to write?

Congratulations to Elizabeth Bailey, whose captivating Regency adventure, Prudence, is published today!

Prudence is the first book in the Governess Trilogy: heart-warming Regency romance novels with strong female lead characters.

1795, England

Miss Prudence Hursley, orphaned from a young age, has grown up at the Paddington Charitable Seminary for Indigent Young Ladies. Primed for service, she is now ready to take up a position as a governess.

Full of trepidation as she takes the stagecoach to meet her employer at Rookham Hall, Prudence is sad to be leaving Nell and Kitty – her childhood friends who have replaced the family she lost and become like sisters to her.

Prudence has been given a temporary position by Mr Julius Rookham to teach – or tame – his two young wards, who have so far had an unconventional upbringing.

But when Prudence meets Julius she finds his changeable moods disconcerting. And it will take more than a little patience to turn the two unruly girls into refined young women, ready to enter society.

With her future hanging in the balance, can Prudence make herself invaluable enough to secure a permanent position?

And can Nell and Kitty advise her on how to handle the mysterious Mr Rookham…?

In this behind-the-scenes blog series, Sapere Books authors offer an intriguing insight into how, where and why they write.

Today, we are delighted to spotlight Graham Ley, author of the Wentworth Family Regency Saga Series.

Brittany, really, has been my place for my writing. There lies inspiration and the prompt to be historical, implicit in the ancient stone and timber that surrounds you, and the glimpses from the road of almost hidden farmhouses and squat barns of sturdy beauty — sometimes deserted but strangely still standing. And that region across the Channel has an uncanny relationship with Devon and its history, embedded in its own cob-and-timber beauties, and those oddly contrasting stone manor houses.

How better to link the two regions than with the story of a family that was both Devonian and Breton, in the mid-1790s when the buildings were still full of life and yet conflict was raging? It was bound to be the case that at some point I would catch, in passing, the misty outline of the Breton manor that would lie at the heart of the story — a home that had been emptied by the Revolution in France, but which would be gradually restored in quite unpredictable ways. That manor came into being in partnership with another that would be in Devon, both of great antiquity but which had, in different ways, been brought up to date. Two homes that might contain threat as well as comforting familiarity, both put together from what I had seen across the two regions.

In the saga, Chittesleigh in Devon and Kergohan in Brittany are manors with orchards and gardens. Both sit in the heart of farmland and woodland, with its capacity to conceal, protect and yet also harbour danger. It was only when I was finishing the fourth and final book of the saga that I stumbled on a truly striking vision of Kergohan, nestling in a valley only a mile or so from where I was staying. Its medieval aspect is pictured here, but it also has a shorter, eighteenth-century façade with a portico. So it seems that you can only sum up when you have finished. In the meantime, a building takes shape from the inspiration and the uncertain lives of its characters: they fill it with aspirations, fears and suspicions, which only their love for each other may come to quieten.

In this behind-the-scenes blog series, Sapere Books authors offer an intriguing insight into how, where and why they write.

Today, we are delighted to spotlight Isolde Martyn, the author of a number of historical novels including The Lady and the Unicorn and The Knight and the Rose.

Instead of looking out at rose bushes and oak trees or hearing blackbirds, I face an office window that is flanked by palm lilies, and the bird noises come from kookaburras and sulphur-crested cockatoos. None of which is very helpful when I am attempting to describe a scene in fifteenth-century England or thirteenth-century France. Living in Sydney, my research is limited to the occasional overseas trip or the internet. Fortunately, the latter is so fantastic these days and British History Online is now one of my go-to places.

Inspiration? Visiting Carcassonne and Minerve in France and hearing how the Northern French crusaders ransacked the land of the troubadours. Or sometimes it’s someone’s talk quivering my antennae. My second novel, The Knight and the Rose, resulted from hearing a fellow historian cite a rare medieval divorce case that involved a ‘green card’ situation. My third book, The Silver Bride, was hatched from reading of a daughter dressing in armour to fight a duel for her cowardly dad, plus wondering what it would have been like to be a clairvoyant woman back in the 1480s. The Golden Widows arose out of a friend taking me to visit Shute Barton in Devon and hearing about Warwick the Kingmaker’s youngest sister losing seven menfolk in battle. That gave rise to the idea of two young widows on opposite sides in the Wars of the Roses in the early 1460s: Katherine Neville and Elizabeth Woodville.

Historical novelists tend to go over the ground with a metal detector trying to find new angles. It becomes a challenge, especially with the Tudors. Fortunately, the character who was trying to get my attention was from the previous century and one of history’s most mysterious wheelers and dealers, the twenty-nine-year-old Duke of Buckingham, Richard III’s cousin, and so the tale of a villain and a loser came to life in The Devil in Ermine.

‘Write a woman next, a shameless gold-digger,’ suggested my agent. It didn’t work. Instead, on further acquaintance that most appealing of royal mistresses, Elizabeth Lambard — aka ‘Shore’s wife’ — took charge of the writing, and away we went with Mistress to the Crown.

I still envy novelists living in the UK for being able to easily do location research, but living in Australia hasn’t stifled my lifelong interest in… Oh, there goes another kookaburra!

Congratulations to Amy Licence, whose absorbing Tudor saga, False Mistress, is out now!

False Mistress is the third book in the Marwood Family Tudor Saga Series.

1528

Thomasin Marwood is one of Queen Catherine’s ladies-in-waiting at the court of Henry VIII, and she does not trust Lady Anne Boleyn.

But when an accident forces Thomasin and her family to take refuge at the Boleyn family home at Hever Castle, Thomasin is entrusted with an unexpected mission by Anne’s mother.

At court, Catherine’s attempts to regain the attentions of her husband are rebuffed, with his sights clearly set on a new queen.

And with Thomasin’s own heart in turmoil with the reappearance of a former love, she struggles to find a way to fulfil her obligation to Lady Boleyn without betraying Queen Catherine.

In despair, Catherine’s allies launch a desperate plot to distract the king. A false mistress is chosen from among her circle, to draw Henry away from Anne and lead her back to the Queen.

It is a dangerous task, to beguile the king into bed and incur Anne’s wrath. Not every woman could do it.

Will Thomasin find herself caught up in the plot? Can she retain her position at court?

Or will she be forced to change her allegiances…?

Congratulations to Natalie Kleinman, whose captivating Regency romance, Some Day My Prince Will Come, is published today!

England, 1819

Having suffered at the hands of an unscrupulous suitor during her first season in London, twenty-one-year-old Rebecca Ware has vowed to leave her ordeal in the past and is now embarking on her second season.

Though she is wary of opening her heart, Rebecca soon finds herself drawn to Comte Hugo du Berge, a handsome French nobleman who has recently arrived in London.

As the season progresses and Rebecca and Hugo find themselves thrown into closer proximity, their warm and easy friendship deepens.

However, with a long-buried family mystery to unravel, it seems that Hugo is not in a position to settle down. And when he prepares to return to France in search of answers, Rebecca begins to worry that she has lost her heart to a man she may never see again…

Congratulations to Natalie Kleinman, whose enchanting Regency romance, The Wishing Well, is published today!

England 1818

Ever since the deaths of her fiancé and her father, Harriet Lambert has thrown herself into the management of her family’s estate to cope with her grief. Though time has eased her sorrow, she has had little opportunity to once again pursue romance.

But when she is called on to accompany her younger sister, Amabel, to London for her introduction into respectable society, Harriet finds herself caught in a flurry of social engagements. And when she meets Major Brew Ware at a soirée, the two form an immediate connection.

Having experienced tragedy at an early age, Brew understands the significance of Harriet’s loss. With their shared interests and honest approach, their friendship continues to flourish as the season wears on.

Though no man has turned her head since she lost her fiancé, Harriet is aware that her affection for Brew is growing stronger. And as she tentatively considers her future, she must now decide whether she is prepared to take another chance on love…

Congratulations to Elizabeth Bailey, whose fabulous historical mystery, The Vengeance Trail, is out now! The Vengeance Trail is the ninth book in the Lady Fan Mystery series.

1796, England

When Lady Ottilia Fanshawe finds herself launched into a river and fighting for her life, she becomes convinced someone pulled her under the water.

And when a dead body washes up on the riverbank, her theory becomes a certainty.

Lady Fan recognises the dead woman as someone connected to one of her past cases.

Had the woman been spying on her? Was she Lady Fan’s attacker? If so, why was she killed?

Lady Fan is desperate to unravel the mystery but her dedicated husband, Francis, is determined to keep her out of harm’s way.

She is devastated when cracks appear in her marriage, but she knows she cannot give up her sleuthing if she is to protect herself and her family.

Who is targeting her? And why? Can Lady Fan solve the mystery before everything she holds dear comes crumbling down around her…?

Congratulations to Coirle Mooney, whose page-turning Medieval drama, My Lady’s Shadow, is published today!

1198, France

Lady Maria of Turenne has long been engaged in a flirtation with Count Hugh La Marche. It is a match which her father has strongly encouraged. However, Maria is her own woman and she is determined to choose for herself. Maria is unaware that her clever, scheming maid, Maryse, is secretly in love with the count.

Soon after, the young troubadour, Gui d’Ussel, arrives at the castle and Maria is instantly captivated by him. He shares her distaste of convention and her love of the arts and they soon become inseparable. Meanwhile, Maryse develops a strong dislike for Gui and her resentment for Maria grows.

Angered by her treatment of the Count of La Marche, Maria’s father has arranged a new wedding match. This time, Maria will not be allowed to decline.

Forced into marrying a wealthy viscount against her will, Maria and Gui are torn apart from each other. However, Maria is determined to find a way to use the power she has gained through marriage to raise Gui in society.

Will Maria and Gui find a way to be together? Can Maria escape her marriage?

Or will they be fated to remain apart?

Congratulations to Amy Licence, whose stunning Tudor saga, Dangerous Lady, is published today!

1528

At seventeen, Thomasin Marwood is plunged into court society when a husband is found for her elder sister, Cecilia.

But the mood at court is tense. It is split between the conservative Catholics, loyal to Queen Catherine of Aragon, and the fashionable Francophiles, enthralled by King Henry’s mistress, Anne Boleyn.

While her parents sympathise with the old queen and her faith, Thomasin can not help but be drawn to the glamour and vitality Anne represents.

And her head is soon turned by the tall, dark and handsome Rafe Danvers who seems equally entranced with her.

But as a ward of Anne’s father, Sir Thomas Boleyn, Rafe represents the “other” side, of which Thomasin’s parents are unlikely to approve. And they have already lined up their own candidate for Thomasin’s hand, Sir Giles Waterson, who comes from wealth and good standing.

Thomasin finds herself torn between duty and the desire Rafe has aroused in her. But when she is drawn into a dark plot concerning Queen Catherine, she realises the court is far more dangerous than it appears…

Which path, and with whom, will she choose?

Congratulations to Natalie Kleinman, whose captivating Regency romance, Love’s Legacy, is out now!

When her father — a countryside reverend — dies suddenly, young Patience Worthington is left with no home and little money. In urgent need of support, she is forced to seek out her estranged uncle, a viscount at the vast Worthington Place.

Patience arrives to find that her uncle has died and that the current viscount is her cousin, Gideon. After hearing her plight, he agrees to give her a home on the Worthington estate.

However, when Patience and Gideon learn the cause of the long-standing rift between the two sides of the family, they quickly begin to clash. Now too proud to accept his accept the viscount’s charity, Patience soon leaves Worthington Place to seek shelter with her late mother’s relatives in Bath.

With her kindness and beauty, Patience is an instant success in Bath society and regularly crosses paths with Gideon. Despite their differences, they enjoy each other’s company and form a tentative friendship.

But when dark secrets once again threaten their growing bond, the cousins begin to wonder whether they can ever leave the shadows of the past behind…

 

Click here to order Love’s Legacy

Congratulations to Ros Rendle, whose breath-taking dual timeline saga, The Divided Heart, is published today!

England, 1975

Having recently suffered heartbreak, twenty-five-year-old Heather Rawlins is ready to give up on love. Her confidence in tatters, she seeks solace in her new job at The Beeches Care Home for the Elderly.

When Heather meets Izzy Strong, the home’s newest resident, she is surprised to find that they have an instant connection. And as they grow closer and Izzy begins to reveal her shocking past, Heather starts to question her own life choices…

Germany, 1927

With the Great War now a distant memory, Izzy is thrilled to be continuing her education in the beautiful city of Berlin. And when she meets the kind and handsome Garrit Shain, it seems that her happiness is complete.

But with the rise of the brutal Nazi party, ripples of unrest are once again spreading throughout Europe. And when war breaks out, the era of fragile peace comes to an end.

As a Jewish man, Garrit soon begins to fear for his life. Emboldened by her love for him, Izzy is determined to find a way to help Garrit and his family escape the horrors sweeping through Germany…

 

Click here to order The Divided Heart

Congratulations to Coirle Mooney, whose enchanting Medieval romance, The Lady’s Keeper, is out now!

At Eleanor of Aquitaine’s palace in Poitiers, fourteen-year-old Lady Joanna of Agen is coming of age. Her aunt and guardian, Alice, rescued Joanna from her brutal father by bringing her to court. But now Alice fears Joanna could once again be at risk from the men around her.

When Queen Eleanor’s son, Henry, arrives at court, Joanna quickly catches his eye. But Alice overhears the lewd conversations of the male courtiers and worries that Joanna’s honour is at stake.

And as the relationship between Queen Eleanor and King Henry II of England becomes fractious, a dark mood settles over court.

Drawn into a world of intrigue, danger and adventure, Alice must fight to keep her and Joanna safe…

 

Click here to order The Lady’s Keeper

Congratulations to Natalie Kleinman, whose sparkling Regency romance, The Ghost of Glendale, is out now!

Having never been in love, twenty-four-year-old Phoebe Marcham has no interest in marriage. Fiercely independent, she spends her days helping to manage Glendale, her ancestral home — a centuries-old estate full of long-buried secrets.

While out riding, Phoebe crosses paths with Duncan Armstrong, a charming wanderer who has just returned from the Continent. Finding that they share a penchant for mystery, Phoebe shares the biggest enigma that haunts Glendale: the tortured ghost of her ancestor, Simon Marcham, who took a secret sadness to his grave.

Convinced that Simon’s soul will never be at rest until they uncover his secret, Phoebe and Duncan set about unravelling the riddles that he left behind. As they delve deeper, a story of heartbreak and intrigue soon starts to emerge.

Faced with the darkness of the past, Phoebe is determined to make the most of the future. And as she and Duncan grow closer, she soon begins to wonder whether she has at last met her fate…

 

Click here to order The Ghost of Glendale

Congratulations to Ros Rendle, whose moving romantic saga, Resistance of Love, is published today!

Resistance of Love is set in England and France before and during World War II, and is the second book in The Strong Family Historical Saga series.

After spending ten years in Australia, Delphi Strong is on a ship back to England with her daughter, Flora.

While on board, Delphi meets Rainier, a charming vineyard owner on his way home to France. Forming an instant mutual attraction, the two share a whirlwind romance before disembarking.

Unable to forget her, Rainier crosses the channel a few months later and asks Delphi to marry him. Equally lovestruck, Delphi accepts, and she and Flora join Rainier in France.

However, their idyllic lifestyle is shattered when war breaks out and the Nazis begin to occupy the country. Forced to flee to the Free Zone in the south, the family must now pull together to resist the enemy…

 

Click here to order Resistance of Love

Natalie Kleinman is the author of The Reluctant Bride, a glittering Regency romance with a strong-minded heroine at its heart.

I spent the first few years of my career writing contemporary romantic fiction, firstly short stories and then novels, until the burning desire I’d had for so long pushed itself to the forefront. I wanted to write a historical novel set in England’s glorious Regency period. Maybe I couldn’t, but I had to try. I’d previously looked upon it as a presumption on my part even to consider it, bearing in mind my love for the works of Georgette Heyer and Jane Austen. But I wasn’t trying to emulate them. I was trying to make my own contribution the genre that had given me so many hours of joy over decades. And so my first Regency novel, The Reluctant Bride, was born, to be followed by another, and then another. They’ll be coming soon, so watch this space.

Charlotte Willoughby — the heroine of The Reluctant Bride — is a young woman of her time. Born into the aristocracy, she is as much tethered by her status as privileged. When she is forced by her father to marry the Earl of Cranleigh, purely to satisfy his own interests, she has no choice but to comply. Six weeks later, fate takes a hand when her husband is killed in a riding accident. Free of a tyrannical parent and a loveless marriage, Charlotte begins to enjoy her newly found independence. Gresham, the earl’s cousin, undertakes to guard her from fortune hunters and, while she finds him arrogant and aloof, she cannot deny the security his protection affords her, particularly with regard to the unwelcome attentions of Lord Roxburgh. Acutely aware of the tension between the two men, Charlotte learns they have a shared history, the animosity of which still lies between them. With the coldness of one and the over-heatedness of the other, will she be able to find her own path to happiness?

Writing The Reluctant Bride, I settled into a deeply satisfying place where I was able to weave a tale while indulging in my love of the setting. I could see the magnificent houses and the glorious balls, but beneath all ran the story of a young woman, struggling with adversity, triumphing over it and finding her own way. I hope you enjoy it.

 

Click here to pre-order The Reluctant Bride 

Click here to subscribe to Natalie’s newsletter

Elizabeth Bailey’s Regency-era Lady Fan Mysteries follow Ottilia, a courageous woman sleuth faced with gruesome deaths, buried scandals, witch hunts and more.

The first six books in the series are already published, and we are delighted to have signed up the seventh, THE DAGGER DANCE.

In Elizabeth’s words:

“In THE DAGGER DANCE, Lady Fan is off to rescue a Barbadian slave girl accused of murder. I’ve been wanting to bring this story to light, since Ottilia long ago guessed her steward Hemp had a secret heartache for a lost love. Bristol was at that time a major port for shipping traders doing the rounds from Africa to England and the West Indies. The research was almost as engaging as writing the book.

“With this seventh adventure, I count myself a very lucky member of the Sapere Books author family. Sapere has done wonders for Lady Fan, and it’s a joy to be with such a supportive and encouraging publisher where the author’s contribution is so much valued and validated.”

Click here to order the first Lady Fan Mystery, THE GILDED SHROUD

Click here to find out more about the Lady Fan Mysteries

We are delighted to announce that we have signed up a new Regency romance novel by Graham Ley.

Writing runs in the family: Graham’s mother, Alice Chetwynd Ley, was the author of numerous Regency romances. Sapere Books have reissued sixteen of her books, including The Eversley Saga and The Rutherford Trilogy.

In Graham’s words:

“I decided to write a novel in my mother’s honour. Then the world speeded up. In place of the familiar books in covers, there were eBooks, and over the last few years her complete backlist has been published by Sapere Books.

“I’ve written a fair bit in the past – playscripts and poetry, and some children’s stories. My greatest challenge was undoubtedly what kind of heroine should I choose. In the end, Arabella chose herself, and was her own woman from start to finish. I set the story in Devon and Brittany, which I love equally, and added intrigue, conspiracy and action to the romantic mix.

“I shall be delighted to see my own tribute novel sitting alongside my mother’s books with such a strong specialist publisher! I hope readers enjoy The Baron Returns.”

Jane Cable is the author of ANOTHER YOU and ENDLESS SKIES, modern romantic sagas that draw on the Second World War.

Although I hated history at school, in my adult life I have become a total history buff. Not history about royalty, wars and politicians though – the history of ordinary, everyday people. A history I feel connected to and is more often than not local.

For my contemporary romances the history I choose is sharply focussed, linked to the setting. For Another You, the most gripping part of Studland’s past was its role in the practices for D-Day, and for Endless Skies I decided to stay with World War Two. The book is set in Lincolnshire, so to my mind is inextricably linked with Bomber Command.

The wartime setting for Endless Skies is RAF Hemswell, now an industrial estate best known for its antiques centres and markets. In fact, that was the reason I went there in the first place. But wandering around the old barrack buildings, I could almost see the airmen on the stairs and hear the stamp of their boots in the parade ground. This had to be the place.

The staff at Hemswell Antique Centres were able to give me a leaflet with a short history of the base, and that set me off on my research. While we were in Lincolnshire I walked its buildings and roads then drove around the area, so I was totally familiar with the terrain, and once we were back at home I started to dig deeper.

Here the internet is invaluable, and there are a number of websites giving the history of RAF bases. Hemswell was one of the first to be operational right at the beginning of the war, but as I dug deeper I found two Polish squadrons had been based there in 1942-3 and had suffered huge losses. I knew exactly where to focus my research.

This is where local history becomes exceptionally localised for me: one place at one point in time. In Endless Skies my protagonist, Dr Rachel Ward, is an archaeologist and my own work made me think of hers: researching a site, carrying out a survey, opening a trench, trowelling into every corner then digging out a single artefact. She finds … well, it would be spoiling the story to tell you. I find words.

But sometimes before you focus down you need to pan out, so I read around the subject: first-hand accounts from wartime bomber crews; memoirs of civilian life on RAF bases. For background on Hemswell itself I was very lucky – it was where The Dam Busters was filmed in the 1950s, and there was both a book and documentary about making the movie so I could watch almost contemporary footage.

There was also a treasure trove on the internet about the Polish airmen who crewed the station, and seeing photographs of them was quite an eerie experience. In fact, I ended up with far more information than I could possibly – or would want to – use in the book. But the level of detail gives me confidence my historical details are correct.

But equally interesting to me were the ghost stories associated with Hemswell: a pilot in flames on the runway, the echoes of 1940s music and the sounds of bombers taking off and landing. And having researched them, it would have been such a shame not to use at least one of them as well. Although my ghosts, of course, are completely fictional.

 

Click here to order ANOTHER YOU.

Click here to pre-order ENDLESS SKIES.

On Saturday, Amy and I travelled to York to celebrate the winner of the RNA’s Joan Hessayon Award.

The Joan Hessayon Award is for a debut author who has had their book accepted for publication after passing through the Romantic Novelists’ Association New Writers’ Scheme.

This year’s shortlist of fifteen included sweeping wartime romances, uplifting stories of self-discovery, and intriguing mysteries.

Our editorial director, Amy Durant, judged the shortlist alongside RNA Chair Alison May, Vice Chair Imogen Howson, and Simon & Schuster’s Sara-Jade Virtue.

This year’s winner is The Forgotten Village by Lorna Cook: a story of hope, new beginnings and unlooked-for love. Cook’s debut novel intertwines two love stories: one set in 2018, and one set in 1943.

In the present, twenty-eight-year-old Melissa is stuck on a lacklustre holiday in Dorset, with a boyfriend who seems more interested in surfing than working on their stale relationship. On a whim, she visits the nearby village of Tyneham, which was evacuated and closed during WW2 but is now open to the public. There she runs into Guy, a charming celebrity historian. Intrigued by a seventy-five-year-old photograph of Veronica Standish — the long-suffering wife of Tyneham’s tyrannical nobleman — Melissa enlists Guy’s help to find out more about her. They soon find themselves untangling a decades-old mystery to discover the fate of Veronica, her husband, and her secret lover.

As well as skilfully navigating and developing two romantic plots, Cook should be praised for her deft interweaving of historical detail, her strong sense of voice and character, and her sensitive handling of one of the book’s more difficult themes: domestic abuse.

We would like to send a huge congratulations to Lorna — and to all of the authors who participated, and managed to overcome the huge hurdle of getting a publishing deal!

As well as indulging in a wonderful Afternoon Tea before the ceremony, we also had the chance to catch up with two of our authors: Ros Rendle and Natalie Kleinman, both of whom have fabulous romantic fiction forthcoming with Sapere Books.

Ros’ Strong Sisters series will explore family relationships, rivalries, and love. Natalie’s Regency romances will feature spirited heroines, determined to succeed against the odds.

 

Image credits:

The Forgotten Village by Lorna Cook, published by Avon in 2019.

Featured image: Photo by Brigitte Tohm on Unsplash.