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NANCY CARSON - NOVELIST

When I read R D Blackmore’s Lorna Doone as part of my English literature studies at school, I was enthralled, and it was that story which inspired me to become a romance novelist.

Although I have been writing since 1990, my first novel was not published until 1997, followed by eight more, published by Hodder & Stoughton. In 2015, Avon Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, decided to re-publish my backlist. The first novel Avon issued, both as an ebook and a paperback was Poppy’s Dilemma, an earthy love story set largely in a railway navvies’ encampment in Dudley in the early 1850s during the construction of the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway. It sold well.

Next came The Dressmaker’s Daughter, a saga set on Kates Hill in Dudley between 1904 and 1929. This was the first book of a trilogy based on the women of the Kite family; the other titles in the trilogy are The Factory Girl, and Rags to Riches.

A Family Affair is set in a family-run brewery in Dudley in the early 1900s, and is the story of two step-sisters who were rivals in love; The Railway Girl is a romantic comedy, although it has its sorrowful parts, written around a historical and tragic railway accident that occurred in Brierley Hill in 1858. Daisy’s Betrayal set in the 1890s is a potent tale of passion and relentless vindictiveness that draws attention to the Dudley underworld. Then came A Country Girl, a story of one young man and five entirely different women who influence his life, and its sequel A Fallen Woman, abounding in scandal. Both are set in Brierley Hill in the 1890s.

Since then, I have complete two more novels, but decided to self-publish rather than rely on the rollercoaster and uncertainty of traditional publishing. Many established authors have successfully taken this route.

MISSING YOU

In 1937, with Britain preparing for war, eighteen-year-old Libby Shakespeare finds employment as a shorthand typist at the