Rosemary Morris Historical Novelist

I was born in 1940 in Sidcup, Kent. As a very small child in my pushchair I held a picture book in front of me. "It's amazing," a woman said to my mother, "your little girl is reading." My mother explained that having memorized the story I was reciting it aloud. Time passed, my love of reading, history and geography grew until, while working in a travel agency, I met her Indian husband. He encouraged me to continue my education at Westminster College in London. In 1961 my husband, by then a barrister, and I moved to his birthplace, Kenya, where I lived from 1961 until 1982. After an attempted coup d'état, with I lived in an ashram in France with four of our five children. Back in England, I wrote historical fiction. I am now a member of the Romantic Novelists' Association, Historical Novel Society and Watford Writers.

For as long as I can remember, I have always been an avid reader, particularly of historical fiction and non-fiction. As a child I read Jeffrey Farnol and Geoffrey Trease's children's historical fiction and, at the library, always chose to read historical fiction and non-fiction. Later, I read the classics, Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen. At around the age of fourteen or fifteen, I borrowed my next door neighbor's novels by Georgette Heyer and could not read them fast enough. I also read the works of Elizabeth Goudge, Anya Seton, and, I think, in my late teens began reading the Angelique series by Seargeanne Golon. These authors and many more invoked my wish to become a published historical novelist. More recently I have read and enjoyed Helen Hollick and Elizabeth Chadwick's novels. By the way, if you browsed through my personal home library, you would find The Bhagavita, The Song of God by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and the great Indian classics The Mahabharat and the Ramayan, which rival The Odyssey and the Illiad which I own, as well as the St James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. You would also find The White Witch by Elizabeth Goudge, all of Elizabeth Chadwick's mediaeval novels, Benita Brown's novels, Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, These Old Shades and Devil's Cub and other novels by Georgette Heyer, the works of Jane Austen, The Far Pavilions, The Shadow of the Moon and Trade Winds by M.M.Kaye, Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scot, and many others by authors I appreciate such as Baroness Orczy's Scarlet Pimpernel series and the novels of Francis Parkinson Keyes. 

I owe as much to many authors as I do to the blessing of an active imagination and curiosity, which made it inevitable that, one day, I would become a published historical novelist. However, the path to publication was very difficult. As a young woman living in Kenya two of my novels were accepted for publication. Unfortunately, I did not know that if a firm date of publication is not included in a contract between the author and the publisher, the publisher can renege. My novels were not published. I was, to put it mildly, discouraged. However, in later life I persevered with great determination until my novel Tangled Hearts aka TANGLED LOVE was accepted by an on-line publisher. When the publisher went out of business, and I could neither secure an agent or another publisher for several years I was on the brink of despair until my present publisher accepted TANGLED LOVE.

I enjoy writing, and on most days wake at 6 a.m., make a hot drink and work until 10 or 11 a.m. with a short break to have breakfast and watch the news on television.  I then get on with the chores, go shopping, cook, socialize or work in my organic garden in which I grow fruit, herbs, ornamentals and vegetables. By 4 p.m. I am back at the laptop or computer and work until 8 p.m. Writing is a solitary business. I do not play music while writing, but I often have the television tuned into a program which doesn't require total concentration while working in the spare bedroom that is the smallest room in the house, which I have turned into an office. The soft yellow walls are lined with cupboards and bookcases with ample space to store magazines, files, and non-fiction arranged in alphabetical order according to subject, as well as some treasured photo albums. My large desk, on which there is my computer and printer and a jumble of papers, pens, paper clips etc., faces the window through which I can gaze out onto my organic garden beyond which is a green, where children play or train for football at the weekends, and people walk their dogs etc. The green is backed by ancient woodland, and I delight in the vista of changing seasons from spring to winter when the branches of deciduous trees stand out like black lace.  I also relax in my comfortable bed and work on my laptop. In good weather I like to write in the garden.

Frequently, I meet people who say they could write a novel. Yes, I am sure they could but, as I explained to a gentleman at party, who obviously thought I could give him a magic ingredient for success, it is essential to write day after day and then revise, revise and revise again not forgetting to check facts. "What," he asked me are the most important factors in a novel. I explained I could only share what is essential in my own books. "An intriguing plot, an interesting theme, strong characters, good or bad, which the reader can identify with," I replied. "And emotion, emotion and more emotion, by which I do not mean only in romances. Emotion can be low key but it needs to be there. Last but not least, a good pace which makes the reader want to turn the page to find out what happens next." "So," the gentleman asked, "What do you write?"  He had monopolized more than enough of my time so I told him I write traditional historical romance. By that I meant my novels are sensual but contain no explicit sex. Each one is set partly in London and partly in Hertfordshire but in FAR BEYOND RUBIES, set in Queen Anne Stuart's reign, India adds an important dimension to the plot. Incidentally, Queen Anne is mentioned in FAR BEYOND RUBIES and TANGLED LOVE but she does not play an active part in them. In each of my novels I mention historical figures but they rarely appear in person. My characters are fictional, although I sometimes see a face in a crowd, a magazine or a newspaper and jot down a description, which I subsequently use in a novel.

A commonly asked question is, "Where do you get your ideas from?" With regard to actual events, I read widely and visit places of historical interest to get the facts right. Inspiration comes from various sources; I was inspired to write TANGLED LOVE, which was short-listed for the best romantic e-novel at the 2012 Festival of Romance, when reading about Charles II, James II, his daughter, Mary, who with her husband William of Orange, usurped the throne, and his second daughter Queen Anne.  After Charles II's death, his brother James became king. Most non-Roman Catholic peers did not like the man, his politics or his religion. Eventually, James II was forced to flee to France. Some of the peers of the realm refused to take an oath of allegiance, first to William and Mary, and then to Anne for as long as James II lived, because they had sworn an oath of allegiance to him.  "What," I asked myself, "would be the fate of a daughter left in England by her father followed James to France?" The inspiration for SUNDAY'S CHILD came when I asked myself how families of dear ones killed in the Peninsular War against Napoleon would be affected, and what effect the war would have on a survivor. FALSE PRETENCES, set in Regency England, evolved when I imagined a five-year-old child who spoke fluent English and French, and when she grew older was desperate to find out who her parents were, refuses to make an arranged marriage. And FAR BEYOND RUBIES was inspired by a snippet in a non-fiction book about Queen Anne's period and my personal interest in India.

Once the theme and plot were in place for my Regency Novels, SUNDAY'S CHILD in which the heroine's father and brother's die in the Napoleonic Wars, after which she must cope with a very difficult situation, and FALSE PRETENCES in which the heroine is desperate to discover her true identity, the hardest part of my novel is writing the first paragraph, which I hope will intrigue readers and make them want to read on. The easiest part of the stories is the first draft in which I develop the plot and theme, and in which the characters come to life, and are true to the time in which they lived.  As a result of my search for historical accuracy the shelves in the bookcase in my office are slightly bowed with books about economic history, fashion, food, furniture, make-up, perfume social history, and much more. Frequently, I stagger home from the library with books for research. However, historical novelists must meet particular challenges. For example, we experience the same emotions as our ancestors although our life styles are so far removed from theirs. Yet, to understand our present it is helpful to understand our past. For example, if the Duke of Marlborough had lost the Wars of Spanish Succession the history of the United Kingdom would have been different and the same would have been true if Napoleon had not been defeated at the Battle of Waterloo.

Finally, here is the advice I give to authors seeking publication. Never be discouraged by rejection, have faith in yourself, persevere, and while doing so learn as much as you can about the craft of writing through books on How To Write, constructive on-line writers' groups, workshops, and writers' groups at which you can read extracts from your work and receive helpful comments.

FAR BEYOND RUBIES, FALSE PRETENCES, SUNDAY'S CHILD and TANGLED LOVE by Rosemary Morris

Available from: MuseItUp Bookstore | www.amazon.com | www.amazon.co.uk | Kobo