When people ask me where the inspiration for the character of Ursula Marlow came from, I tell them that she literally strode into my head wearing the purple, white, and green sash of Women’s Social and Political Union. As soon as I saw her, I knew that she was an Edwardian era suffragette. That spark was all it took and soon I was researching not only the time period but also Ursula’s background, incorporating my family’s Lancashire heritage and my keen interest in those first women who attended Oxford university. Before long I had a fully-fledged character emerging on the page and soon the mystery she would be tasked with solving, emerged.
The inspiration for my first Ursula Marlow novel, Consequences of Sin, came from a journey down the Orinoco River in Venezuela. In the second book, The Serpent and the Scorpion, I didn’t get to physically travel to Israel or Palestine, but I got to transport myself in time and space via my imagination (and some terrific history books). When I decided to focus on Ireland in the third installment of the Ursula Marlow Edwardian mystery series, Unlikely Traitors, I drew upon my visit to Ireland in 1998, soon after the Northern Ireland peace accord was reached. Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve been intrigued with Irish history, and naturally I was drawn to researching the issue of Home Rule for Ireland (which was, not surprisingly, an ongoing controversy in Edwardian England).
In each of these three novels, I was drawn not only to the challenges of the era, but also the challenges facing women at this critical point in history as women fought not only for the vote but also for the opportunity to forge their own independent path in life.