Dear Reader,
Some books are born from pure imagination, but some are born from true life events enhanced by imagination. A Most Noble Heir falls into the second category.
I’ve always loved reading any type of romance novels, but when I first started penning my own stories, I wrote strictly in the contemporary genre. I used to say, “I could never write historicals. Imagine the research involved.” Well, as I’ve discovered many times in my life, never say never!
During the 2006 Christmas holidays, my mother made a comment that sparked a journey I never could have anticipated. She said she wished she’d asked her mother more about her family history, because she knew nothing about her background. She didn’t even know the names of her maternal grandparents. My mom’s mother, Iris Irene Colver, had been told by the aunt who raised her that her mother had died in childbirth, and her father followed soon after from a broken heart. Despite my romantic nature, I instinctively knew that George Colver did not die of a broken heart. And so I took it upon myself to uncover the secrets of my ancestors. My instincts proved correct, and I learned that my great-grandfather had indeed been alive all that time, remarried with another family. My grandmother never knew she had a living father, as well as a stepmother and half-siblings. Would that have made any difference in her life? Sadly, we’ll never know.
Needless to say, I was fascinated with the questions that arose from my research. But the most intriguing story I uncovered was that of my great-great-grandfather, Charles Henry Colver, who I learned was a stable hand at a great English estate called Stainsby Hall. He married a girl named Mary Hannah Burnan, a kitchen maid at the same estate. I had great fun imagining how their romance had unfolded. Unfortunately, their love story had a tragic end when Henry’s early death left Mary Hannah a young widow with two babies.
Nevertheless, their tale sparked my imagination and became the seeds of Nolan and Hannah’s romance. Of course, I couldn’t give them such a sad ending, so I started imagining different scenarios. What if one of the stable hands at Stainsby Hall was actually the heir? What would happen to his love for the kitchen maid then? That led me into the world of English aristocracy, and once I started the research, I found I rather liked it!
Thank you for taking this journey with me back to Derbyshire, England, in 1884. I hope that you enjoy Nolan and Hannah’s story and that my characters will do justice to the real Charles Henry and Mary Hannah who inspired this book.
Warmest wishes,
Susan