Behind VICTORIA & VIOLET by Rachel Brimble

November 1, 2022
1 Comment
Guest Post, Spotlight

It should be a dream come true to serve the Queen of England…

When Violet Parker is told she will be Queen Victoria’s personal housemaid, she cannot believe her good fortune. She finally has the chance to escape her overbearing mother, a servant to the Duchess of Kent.

Violet hopes to explore who she is and what the world has to offer without her mother’s schemes overshadowing her every thought and action.

Then she meets James Greene, assistant to the queen’s chief political adviser, Lord Melbourne. From entirely different backgrounds and social class, Violet and James should have neither need nor desire to speak to one another, yet through their service, their paths cross and their lives merge—as do their feelings.

Victoria & Violet – It Started With A Dog Walk…

My new book Victoria & Violet is my 28^th published novel and it also represents a long-held ambition coming to life! When my first novel was accepted by The Wild Rose Press back in 2007, I was well and truly caught with the writer bug and haven’t been able to shake it off since.

Writing is an addiction, a compulsion, and one many published authors (myself included) have surrendered to, knowing that there is very little they can do to escape the need to write…even if we do try on a frighteningly frequent basis!

So why is Victoria & Violet a realization of a long-held ambition? Well, ever since I started writing novels, I vowed that one day I would write an historical novel that included real people and real events. The trouble was, I was TERRIFIED to tread this particularly treacherous path. As much as I might devour fiction with real characters and events, I wasn’t sure how the authors went about creating the story, what they could and could not assume of the real people and events or if all was down to poetic license.

And then Violet came along…

I was walking my dog one day and struggling with the plot I was writing – my dog walking tends to be problem solving time as much as fresh air time! However, instead of my imagination/consciousness solving my plot problem, a young woman started invading my thoughts and eventually she was speaking to me…endlessly. I knew in that moment, that she was a maid, she had an area in her life where she felt entirely trapped, and she was working for a young Queen Victoria.

My heart started pumping a little faster, my stomach knotting with a nerves and excitement – the time had come. I was ready to write a book with real people and real events – and it would be set in the court of Queen Victoria, Violet was her housemaid, and the story would revolve around the women’s relationship as well as the romance between Violet and courtier, James Greene, assistant to the queen’s private secretary, Lord Melbourne.

The stage was set!

During the writing of this book there were mind blocks, moments of panic and moments of pure joy. Yet, most of all, there were days of writing like I was taking dictation as these wonderful characters told me their stories. In fact, every scene with Victoria was the easiest to write. Why? Because what I had already learned about her over the years, plus my intense research for this book, I felt I really knew who Victoria was at around the age of twenty-one when Victoria & Violet is set. At this time, Victoria was joyous, romantic and so full of hope that she would come to be the best monarch Britain had even seen.

I really hope her optimism and Violet’s determination comes across on the page with as much verve, passion and love I felt when I was writing…happy reading!

It should be a dream come true to serve the Queen of England…

Violet hopes to explore who she is and what the world has to offer without her mother’s schemes overshadowing her every thought and action.

Only Victoria’s court is not always the place for romance, but rather secrets, scandals, and conspiracies…

BUY

Rachel lives in a small town near Bath, England. She is the author of 29 novels including the Ladies of Carson Street trilogy, the Shop Girl series (Aria Fiction) and the Templeton Cove Stories (Harlequin). Her latest novel, Victoria & Violet is the first book in her new Royal Maids series with the Wild Rose Press and released 17^th October 2022.

Rachel is a member of the Romantic Novelists Association as well as the Historical Novel Society and has thousands of social media followers all over the world.

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