Mary Nichols | Writing Historical

I love writing historical romance, researching the backgrounds and working out how my hero and heroine are going to resolve their dilemmas. Although the majority of my books have Regency backgrounds, I have also used the English Civil War, the Jacobite Rebellion, the building of the railways (Working Man, Society Bride) and the outcry for and against building the Crystal Palace in Victoria's reign (A Desirable Husband). Romance can be found in the most unexpected places. For instance, the conflict between Roland, the Earl of Amerleigh and Charlotte Cartwright in The Earl and The Hoyden, just out in the UK, involves a quarrel over the ownership of a Shropshire lead mine.

At the moment I am working on a series of linked books about how law and order was (or was not) kept in Georgian times. There was no regular police force and anyone who had been the victim of a crime had to find his own way of bringing the perpetrators to justice. They frequently used 'thieftakers', who had a bad reputation for being as bad as the thieves themselves. These men would often track down a criminal, take his ill-gotten gains from him and charge the real owner to restore them. Sometimes they even tipped off the thieves and shared the profits. My heroes, all honest gentleman, form a small group of private detectives, who are working to bring criminals to justice, long before the phrase came to be used. In solving these mysteries, each finds the love of his life.

My books are published in the UK first and later the American market. If you would like to look at back titles, there is a list on my website: www.marynichols.co.uk

Happy reading

Mary Nichols