As a writer of historical erotic romance, (among other things), I consider myself very lucky to have grown up in and around London. I was also blessed with parents who didn’t really like T.V. so took every free opportunity offered to take us out and about in the city. I spent many Sunday afternoons at the Toy Museum at Bethnal Green staring at all the beautiful wax dolls and the toys of children long gone.

My mother had a keen love of history and was always ready to answer any question about the history all around us. When you grow up near a city where Roman walls jostle with medieval pubs, Regency squares and Victorian monuments, you can’t help but be aware of the people who have come before you and of your place in time.

There’s a quote attributed to John Cleese, which says that to a British person a hundred miles is a long way and that to an American a hundred years is a long time. Having lived in both countries now, I can see what he was getting at. In my current home town of 55,000, there are 3 buildings over 100 years old. I grew up in a road of 85 terraced London houses built in 1889 which had no original bathroom but were considered modern because they had an inside toilet J (Don’t worry; by the time I lived there, it had a bathroom-1 for all 8 of us).

So I’m lucky. When I write my historicals I try and place them in areas I know and love, such as Essex and Hertfordshire in England and South Wales where I spent most of my childhood holidays. I love to get out a map, close my eyes and try and imagine myself back there with my characters. It helps me a lot.

Some people imagine that because I write at the more erotic end of the writing scale that I perhaps forget about other stuff like plot, character or setting. So not true. I’m a history major and I always try to get my history right and I hate it when I find out later that I didn’t. One naughty example springs to mind. I did quite a lot of research about 18th/19th century condoms made from pig gut. It was a fascinating process and crucial to the plot of my book that these things existed, even if they didn’t work very well .Later, when reading further on the Beau Monde site, I realized that you had to soak the things in water for about half an hour before you could use them. That part, I’d completely got wrong!

Of course, I might be lucky with my Regency historicals, but my contemporary American books are a different kettle of fish-that’s when I’m the one asking for help!