The Re-launch of Isobel Brite

My first fully historical novel, Isobel Brite, was initially published two years ago. At this time, my experience of being a self-published author was pretty minimal. I had very little knowledge of how to go about effectively marketing a book, and so I had very few sales. Since then, I have been on a steep learning curve; invested in some online training for self-published authors, re-launched another book, and launched my new novel, Legacies. Having succeeded in getting a few more sales for these books, I decided it was time to re-launch Isobel and give her the same treatment.

Isobel was a novel that I thoroughly enjoyed writing, though, I have to say, it took me a while to finally get to the last chapter. I got distracted by work, and other projects half way through, and it was left on the shelf for several years, until one day I picked it up again and decided it deserved to be finished.

The idea for the story came to me many years ago, just after I had finished my Open University degree. In my last year, I carried out a historical research project, and my chosen theme was local entertainment in the nineteenth century. During my research, I came across a bundle of letters from the members of the travelling theatre company that played often in Daventry (where I was living at the time) and Northampton, and travelled the midland circuit from Uxbridge to Leamington. These letters gave me a real insight into the life of the travelling actor, and one letter writer who stood out as a real character, was an actor called Henry Hartley.

Isobel was born: a selfish, witty and intelligent, but very naive, young shoemaker’s daughter, who gets swept into the world of theatre to lead a very different life than the one she knows.

Hartley leaped out at me across the century, and would not let me go. I began to think that all this information would be great in a novel. So I began to dream of a central fictional female character, one who would be enticed into the world of the theatre and have many adventures. Hartley and his wife, Caroline, would befriend her, guide her and eventually be her saviours, as she journeyed through the ups and downs of being an actress in the Victorian age. So, Isobel was born: a selfish, witty and intelligent, but very naive, young shoemaker’s daughter, who gets swept into the world of theatre to lead a very different life than the one she knows.

A novel like this had to have a love interest, or two! So I invented the charming, but roguish, character of Frank Douglas, a fellow actor with whom Isobel falls dangerously in love. But what about Joe, who comes late to the story? A gentle Irishman, escaping the famine with his sister, whom Isobel rescues from the slums of London?

No spoilers here! However, Isobel will have many choices to make – in her love life and her career – as she faces the changing fortunes of a life on the stage. Along the way, she will meet several characters that I have taken from real life of the times, including one Charles Dickens. Researching and writing little cameos for some of the real theatricals of the day was one of the joys of writing this book!

The story I started writing was intended as a bit of an amusing romp through early Victorian theatre – but Isobel and her friends had more depth to give, and there are some poignant moments, as well as some thrilling ones, and it became the story of a young woman who learns her lessons the hard way.

To buy this book on Kindle or paperback click HERE.