A Bit About the Writing of Book One: Creatures of Habit
I’ve written a sweet, historical English countryside romance series. There are four books, one for each season. The series is called A Year in Cherrybrook, written by Charlotte Brothers (my pen name).
The mellow yet playful plot of Creatures of Habit popped into my head pretty much whole cloth while I was on my return flight from the 2019 Historical Romance Retreat. Plots don’t come to me in quantities, so when one shows up, I start taking notes! I spent the entire six hour flight writing the beginning of Lawrence and Eugenia’s story, filling up the small stenographer’s notebook I had brought along.
I admit that the cheery hours spent in Cherrybrook, the fictional late Regency or early Victorian country town where this young couple lives, was a welcome distraction from my seventh or so edit of a medieval novel which I was working on.
It’s also fair to mention that reading and writing are havens from the fear and unrest that the current world conditions are bringing to the forefront. Without a doubt, Cherrybrook gives me a place “away”.
Any readers of Lisa Kleypas’ Love in the Afternoon here? It’s my favorite book in her Hathaway series, although the whole series is steamier than what I choose to read now. I think a seed of Lisa’s protagonist in that book, Beatrix, combined with her namesake, Beatrix Potter, landed close to dreamy British actor Rupert Penry-Jones and they blossomed into animal loving Eugenia and quiet, steady Lawrence. I should warn you however, there are no dukes in Creatures of Habit, and while my lovers flirt when they’re smitten, the action stays at sitting room/kisses only level.
A small bit of Lawrence and Eugenia also came from “Little Women”. Certainly I felt the boy-next-door energy coming from my Lawrence, as well as a bit of Jo’s tomboy nature in Eugenia.
Creatures of Habit is my first published story. I owe a debt of gratitude for the pleasure I get from writing to my mother, who resurrected my love of fiction by gifting me a vintage copy of I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, and my loving husband, who bought me my very first genre historical romance written by a contemporary author, and all my writing friends who have given me community.
