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  The History behind The Bluestocking Brides

Several ideas influenced me when I was planning the Blue Stocking Brides trilogy of books set in the Midwinter villages. First there was Tom Pocock's magnificent book about "The Great Terror" - Napoleon's threat to invade England in 1801.  The Terror Before Trafalgar told of the secret war of espionage and subversion fought by shadowy men whose identities were secret. Even during the peace that followed the Treaty of Amiens, when the English flocked to Paris, the covert intelligence war continued.  This formed the background to my story.

Then I looked for a setting. I knew that I wanted the Midwinter villages to be situated in Suffolk because this is an area I love and it was also an area that was under threat at the time of the Napoleonic Wars.  A place that intrigued me was Sutton Hoo. But how to link the Dark Ages to the Regency period?

The answer was archaeology, or rather the hunt for antiquities, as it was known in the days before archaeology became a recognised science. So in book 1 of the Bluestocking Brides my hero is an antiquarian who comes to Midwinter to look for the Midwinter Treasure.

The following extract from Sutton Hoo by Martin Carver conjures the atmosphere of the place:

"The route turns right along a track that border the river... The vista is rich in that rarest of modern pleasures - silence.  A rabbit hurries away down the turf, a pheasant clatters out of the bracken, but nothing much is louder than the noise of one's feet on the soft sand track. The meadows, wood and turf, the promontories carrying clumps of pine - all this riverside land seems eternal, immutable..."