Nicola here and today I’m talking about reprints of my old books that come out all around the world. Although I now write timeslip books – and some of those are being published in different countries – my Regency historical romances are still regularly reprinted and reissued. It makes me very happy that books, some of which were originally written 20 years ago, are still in print somewhere in the world and hopefully reaching new Regency readers!
When I first started writing, back in 1998, I was published only in the UK. The books were shorter, sweet romances, sometimes with no sex and if there was a hint of it, the bedroom door closed quite quickly! After a few years, by great good luck, my books were selected (along with a certain brilliant author called Anne Gracie!) to be published in the US. I vividly remember the day the first one came out; not only did it feature a cover model called Mike Dale, which seemed to cause some interest, it was published in the week that I gave up my office job to become a full-time author. It also gained some pretty scathing reviews that almost sent me scuttling back to the day job, convinced my writing was no good, so the timing wasn’t great but I stuck with it.
Twenty years later that same book, The Virtuous Cyprian, is being reissued in Holland under the title Veroverd Door De Graaf which I 
think means Conquered by the Count. I still itch to edit and rewrite it, especially to get rid of some of the exclamation marks. But it is what it is; a book that represents a certain stage in my writing career and I’m happy about that. It’s also a book I am particularly fond of because the story of a woman who inherits a house in a Suffolk village is based directly on my parents’ home and also on the research I did into their beautiful Georgian home. Right from my very first book I loved taking some lesser known aspect of history and incorporating it into my stories, and I still do this to this day, whether it’s the London Beer Flood or Somerset cider wassails. (I’ve only just realised that both of those involve alcohol – Perhaps that’s a theme!) In the case of The Virtuous Cyprian, I researched details of copyholder law, by which tenants could leave their properties to someone in their will. It sounds incredibly dry and boring but when it involves the twin sister of a courtesan inheriting property on the estate of a rakish lord it had plenty of potential!
So I wish The Virtuous Cyprian a very happy re-release this month. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Europe, the Blanchland Secret is being published in Portugal and Deceived is coming out in Germany with the title Rächer Des Herzens, Avenger of the Heart. This is really cool and I wish my language skills were sufficient to enable me to read these editions. Over the years I have been in touch with a number of the translators of my books and this has been a fascinating experience, chatting to them about their work and the way that they interpret the stories, especially if they have to meet a word count that is shorter than the original. The only books I have a halfway chance of being able to understand in translation are my Scottish Brides, the first of which (The RITA-nominated Lady and the Laird) is coming out this month as “La Belle Et Le Highlander.” And as a final excitement, Finland is publishing an audio version of The Last Rake in London!
It’s lots of fun tracing the journeys of my books around the globe and I’d like to thank all the readers who pick them up in all sorts of different places!
