How Historical Characters Add Layers To Your Novel.

Each book I write contains either the mention, or a cameo of a real-life historical character. I love weaving these characters into my stories, but there is always a reason for their involvement. My goal is to recreate the feeling I experienced when I read my first romance novel in fourth grade, FOREVER AMBER. Real-life historical characters have their own story to tell and add a richness to the setting, while they teach the main characters. I consider these real-life people, mentors.

In my current novel, FALLING IN LOVE WITH EMMA, the challenge was not WHO to include, but how could I choose after my initial selection. You see, I’d watched the movie, Julia and Julia and knew Julia Child would play a role in my next novel. The character who wrote the blog in the movie was the inspiration for Emma. Like the gal in the movie, Emma loved everything French and was an amazing chef.

Emma had also inherited a French bakery and longed to return to Paris, but was afraid. Like the movie, Julia and Julia, Emma needed Julia Child’s strength to push her in the right direction. But I didn’t stop with Julia. Emma meets Mary Wollstonecraft when she travels back in time with Bjorn, the fisherman, and longtime friend she keeps at a distance. Mary Wollstonecraft who was a pioneer in feministic thinking and writing and the mother of Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. Both women, like Julia Child were fearless. The independence of these women helped Emma realize she had been living her mother’s dream, and not her own.

FALLING IN LOVE WITH EMMA is available on Amazon http://a.co/8mIgNlq