'Beau' Lascelles by John Hopper 1797
When I’m writing, I like to have a mental image of my characters,
and though I don’t go in for heavily detailed descriptions, I hope
I write enough to give my readers a vague idea of what I’m
thinking. Part of the inspiration for these is just drawn from the
type of character I am portraying in words – so a strong, silent
type of male is synonymous with tall, dark and handsome in my head.
That still leaves a lot of wiggle room for variation on the theme.
Hew d'Arras, Earl of Blencathra
For example, both Hew d’Arras, Earl of Blencathra (Lady
Serena’s Secret) and Lord Nathaniel Brockworth (Lord
Nathaniel’s Nemesis) are the strong, silent types, but their
appearances are quite different. Yes, they are both quite tall, but
whereas Hew has jet black hair and green eyes, Nathaniel has chestnut
brown curling hair and grey eyes – so quite distinctive from the
appearance point of view, as well as in personality traits.
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| Lord Nathaniel Brockworth |
But then there are the other sources of inspiration – the ones that stimulate not only physical descriptions but plot lines too. So about the time I was completing Lady Isabel’s Inheritance, we visited Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire – a wonderful medieval fortress turned stately home. I loved it, and it has become a favourite place of inspiration for my writing. One of the portraits that grabbed my attention, shortly after entering the castle, was an unusual picture dating from the seventeenth century of a lady called Teresa Sampsonia, Lady Shirley. She and her husband are wearing the Anglicised version of Persian costumes of the time. They are stunning portraits, but what caught my attention was the fact that Teresa was happily toting a flintlock pistol. Obviously this was a lady to take note of – and she really has quite an interesting story, travelling widely with her husband on diplomatic missions, but then retiring to a convent in Rome after his death!
Lord Shirley and Teresa Sampsonia in Persian costume.
But that one picture opened up quite a few story line possibilities, and also reassured me that Lady Isabel toting her own pistol around on a daily basis, wasn’t a ridiculous idea at all. More importantly it fed an idea that had been with me from the beginning of starting the Brockworth Chronicles – a subject for Lady Rosamund to obsess over in Lady Rosamund’s Recluse (Book Four, to be published in 2026). In this Lady Thomasina Brockworth nee Tregannon, a Tudor ancestor of the Brockworths, is believed to have been a lady privateer (an officially sanctioned sort of pirate), before her marriage, during the reign of Elizabeth I. A mysterious, swashbuckling, female ancestor whose story has to be some sort of adventure – how could the ever-inquisitive Rosamund resist such a challenge?
Lady Thomasina
The rather shocking lengths that Rosamund is prepared to go to, is, of course, one of the main themes of that particular story. She has, of course, the intrepid Lady Thomasina as her role model, so it’s not surprising that her plan is rather daring and potentially scandalous. I have to say that Rosamund, though rather the plain Jane (relatively speaking) of the Brockworth family, is one of my favourite characters. She’s clever, daring, and funny – she makes me smile.
And then there are those portraits that just stop you in your tracks when you see them, and you just know that they are going to inspire a plot line somewhere in one of your books. ‘Aurora’, Lady Harrington by Sir Joshua Reynolds 1775, was one such picture. I was wandering around Harewood House in Yorkshire (another must-visit house if you are within a hundred miles), when this beauty stunned me into awed silence. A large, impressive picture, the beauty of the subject and execution was excelled by the charisma of the lady herself.
Aurora, Lady Harrington by Sir Joshua Reynolds 1775
I wasn’t sure how such a lady would be woven into the plot of one
of my novels, but I knew she would be. She will appear with slightly
altered looks in book five, in which the ever mercurial Lord Felix
finds himself on a quest to solve a rather sinister mystery, and
bring justice to a young lady whose life might have been totally
blighted by her ambitious and greedy relative. Sorry, no more spoilers
– though the rough plot line is in my head, I have yet to start
writing!
One of the alternative images generated in Ai
which is a key point in the plot of Lord Felix's Fate
And finally, thanks to Ai I can now get something close to the images that come purely out of my head. Though not as easy a process as some would have you think, with thought and tenacity, you can get somewhere close to the perfect portrait of your imagined heroes, villains and supporting cast. I may have been thrown out of the Art class aged fifteen or so, for conspicuous lack of talent, but I still can claim to have come top in Art when that particular term’s result was based on a project on ‘The History of Art’.
So, thank you Miss Noblett – you may have made my life miserable for a few terms, but you sowed the seeds of a lifetime interest in Art, and that has been an enduring source of joy!
Copyright © 2026 Detta Adams
