Why I Wrote The Cornish Rebel by Nicola Pryce

I always enjoy featuring writers on my blog when I have met them in person and found lots to talk about. Nicola Pryce, my guest today, falls into that category. I hope we get to meet again one day, but for now, Nicola is going to tell us about why she wrote her latest novel The Cornish Rebel …

My books start with a trigger that jumps into my mind and doesn’t leave me: a view, a tall ship, a name, a place. In my latest book, The Cornish Rebel, it was a coincidence. I knew where I wanted to set the book – I’d long wanted to set a book in one of my favorite places, Restronguet Creek in Falmouth – but I wasn’t sure who would be at the center, and what jeopardy they would face. I had plenty of interesting research I wanted to incorporate but no characters. Then, came the coincidence that Esse quam videri: To be, rather than seem to be, was the school motto of Truro Grammar School at the time of my books, 1793-1801 as well as being my old school motto.

I liked it being our school motto. It means you’re honorable and trustworthy: who you say you are and what you say you are. No pretense. It’s the what you see is what you get, or walk the talk of today. Just the ticket for the perfect hero or heroine and just the ticket for the theme of a book where being who you seem to be is open to question.

Discovering the coincidence of the motto plunged me into setting my book in a school – not Truro Grammar School but a school for young ladies. I knew they existed. When she was ten, Jane Austen and her sister Cassandra spent time in a boarding school in Oxford and Southampton in 1783, and for a slightly longer period in Abbey House, Reading, in a boarding school for daughters of the clergy and minor gentry in 1785-6.

I love her depiction of the girls’ school in Emma and particularly love the image of the girls in their Sunday best going to church in the film directed by Autumn de Wilde. I went to boarding school at the age of eight and wore a straw boater and white gloves to church. Not the red cape, but a stiff blue suit so I suppose it’s not really surprising that a girls’ boarding school has crept into my books!

But did one exist in Truro? Imagine my delight when I read in Viv Acton’s book A History of Truro, Volume 1, that at the time of my books a lady called Miss Mitchell was the headmistress of a girls’ boarding school in Truro. The daughter of the Vicar of Veryan, Miss Mitchell, was a ‘sensible and well-informed lady’ who started her boarding school for girls in the middle of the eighteenth century in the Great House, moved it to the large red brick house, which is now City Hall, and then to Tregolls on the outskirts of Truro.

I took the liberty of moving her school to the shores of Restronguet Creek and re-imagined it as St Feoca School for Young Ladies. I’d just finished describing the school with its chapel and tall tower when I encountered one of those spine-tingling moments. I thought to double check local schools and a photograph of a school called Polwhele House almost exactly matched how I had described St Feoca. It was uncanny, and very exciting. This photo is taken from the school’s website.

My story was beginning to take shape. I had the setting, the characters, and the theme. All I needed now was to put the school and its inhabitants in jeopardy.

Thank you so much for inviting me onto your blog Morton. I’m delighted to have the opportunity to introduce The Cornish Rebel to your readers. xx

Well I’m hooked already! Your book sounds very intriguing. Mx

About Nicola Pryce

Nicola Pryce is published by Atlantic Books and is represented by Teresa Chris. She trained as a nurse at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, loves literature and history, and has an Open University degree in Humanities. She is a qualified adult literacy support volunteer and lives with her husband in the Blackdown Hills in Somerset. She and her husband love sailing and together they sail the south coast of Cornwall in search of adventure. It is there where she sets her books.

Nicola is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and The Historical Writers’ Association.

To keep in touch with Nicola, you can use the following links:

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About The Cornish Rebel

Cornwall, 1801

In the wake of her mother’s death, Pandora Woodville has finally escaped her domineering father and returned to Falmouth. Bright with the dream of working at her Aunt Harriet’s school for young women, Pandora is shocked to learn the school is facing imminent closure after a series of sinister events has threatened its reputation.

Acclaimed chemist Benedict Aubyn has also recently returned to Cornwall, to take up a new role as Turnpike Trust Surveyor. Pandora’s arrival has been a strange one, so she is grateful when he shows her kindness. As news of the school’s ruin spreads around town, everyone seems to be after her aunt’s estate. Now, Pandora and Aunt Harriet must do everything in their power to save the school, or risk losing everything.

However, Pandora has another problem. She’s falling for Benedict. But can she trust him, or is he simply looking after his own interests?

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There are seven books in this series.

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