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She
has always been fascinated by history - not the politics or dry facts
and dates - but how everyday people coped when the country was riven by
the black death, civil war or religious persecution. Times of great upheaval
bring out the best or the worst in people and one person's actions can
affect the lives of a whole community.
For
as long as she can remember she would read about an historical event,
such as the great fire of London, or a sea battle and wonder how she would
have coped in such a situation. It was exciting visualising herself as
a hero saving lives during a dramatic shipwreck or act of daring. Her
imagination never stopped there. She would feel the cold sweat of fear
on her spine as she read of a man mounting the scaffold, or feel the rasp
of a shackle and itch of lice on the body of a prisoner.
As
a child most of her holidays were spent in Cornwall where she fell in
love with the beautiful and dramatic countryside and its history. The
majestic and turbulent seascapes, mysterious moors and atmospheric villages
and towns captured her imagination from an early age and they continue
to fascinate her to this day. This is why she chose Cornwall as the main
setting of the Loveday novels although their adventures also take them
to London, France, Virginia and Australia.
Her
great grandmother was the daughter of a Scottish shipbuilder and at the
Great Exhibition she met the son of a Cornish farmer who she married.
Sadly the shipyard and the farm were sold before her grandmother was born
and her great grandparents moved to London. She had always wanted to write
a novel about a shipbuilding family and with a love of Cornwall deep in
her blood, it was inevitable that she should one day combine the two.
She has always been an avid reader of historical novels and particularly
those that featured bold adventurers in the mould of Hornblower and the
unforgettable Poldark.
Before the Loveday series was published she had published eighteen historical sagas and romances under two different names. Once she began work on ADAM LOVEDAY it soon became obvious that the characters and stories that were evolving were too vast for a single novel and the idea of the LOVEDAY series of novels was conceived. And writing them has been her dream come true.