One of the reasons I write historical novels is my love of research and learning - especially about real life people who struggled through the eras rather than the monied upper classes who attended balls and soirees.
Victorian England was a tough place to live if you were not wealthy - there was a huge gap between the rich and poor and for a lot of people life wasn't for living but surviving. So how did they survive? This was the question I wanted to explore through my Ladies of Carson Street and I soon became fascinated with women who either found themselves falling into the world of prostitution.
Book 1, A Widow's Vow, introduces Louisa Hill and Nancy Bloom, best friends who are also prostitutes. At the start of the book, the reader learns that they had managed to leave this life behind but due to circumstances beyond their control, they are forced to return to what they know...
TROUBLE FOR THE LEADING LADY is Nancy's story - Nancy has a lifelong dream of being onstage so I researched Victorian theatre, how actresses were viewed by the general public, backstage etc which was fascinating! However, as with all of my books, it is the characters themselves I focus on including their pasts and how their experiences have made them who they are today.
A past trauma continues to haunt Nancy making her falter in her decisions and moving forward - yet she remains stalwart and loyal to her friends, not to mention always being up for a bit of fun! I adore Nancy Bloom and confident you will too...
TROUBLE FOR THE LEADING LADY is available for download now - what are you waiting for??
BLURB:
Bath, 1852.
As a girl, Nancy Bloom would go to Bath's Theatre Royal, sit on the hard wooden benches and stare in awe at the actresses playing men as much as the women dressed in finery. She longed to be a part of it all and when a man promised her parents he could find a role for Nancy in the theatre, they believed him.
His lie and betrayal led to her ruin.
Francis Carlyle is a theatre manager, an ambitious man always looking for the next big thing to take the country by storm. A self-made man, Francis has finally shed the skin of his painful past and is now rich, successful and in need of a new female star. Never in a million years did he think he'd find her standing on a table in one of Bath's bawdiest pubs.
Nancy vowed never to trust a man again. Francis will do anything to make her his star. As they engage in a battle of wits and wills, can either survive with their hearts intact?
The second in Rachel Brimble's thrilling new Victorian saga series, Trouble for the Leading Lady will whisk you away to the riotous, thriving underbelly of Victorian Bath.
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