It’s unusual for an author to center all her novels around a single family, and it wasn’t something I planned to do when I started writing.
The Chase family came to me all at once. I knew I wanted to set my first books in the late 17th century, and I wanted to write about people affected by their times. An English family with Royalist sympathies would have lived through a lot in those years—the English Civil War, the Protectorate, exile on the Continent, the Restoration—and those experiences would have forever shaped their personalities. So the Chases came to me: Jason, the oldest, who had responsibility thrust on him too soon by the untimely deaths of their parents; Colin, a middle child filled with resentment for his parents’ choices and what those had ultimately cost him and his siblings; Kendra, the only girl, raised by imperfect but well-meaning older brothers; and her twin Ford, the baby of the family, the happy-go-lucky one who was too young to feel the burden of their circumstances. Ford later marries Violet Ashcroft, bringing her eccentric relations into the Chase family circle.
After two series, I decided to write books set in the Regency period. By then the Chases felt as real to me as my own family, so it was natural to write about their descendants. Though over a hundred years have passed, evidence of the original Chases still remains, hidden in old portraits, hereditary traits, and family legend (the truth of which astute readers will know better than the Regency Chases do!). I had a lot of fun tying these characters together across the centuries.
My daughter and I are now writing Chase books set in the Renaissance era, so the tradition continues. Will I ever write about a different family? I can’t say for sure, but I’m not ready to walk away from the Chases yet!
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There are so many great romance novels out there—thank you for choosing mine. I so hope you’ll enjoy Kit and Rose’s story.
Happy reading!