3 | January | 2015 | Cynthia Woolf

Thanks to Cynthia for having me here! I’ve been writing romance for years, but Far Horizons is the first historical novel I’ve ever written, and while it’s quite different from my romances, it’s certainly a story that is close to my heart.

The main characters, Harriet Campbell and Allan MacDougall, are actually my great-great-great (I think that’s all the greats!) aunt and uncle. My mother has told me their story since I was a little girl, how in 1819 Allan proposed to Harriet right before he emigrated with his family to Canada, and how his father found out and forced him to set Harriet free. Allan gave her the letters she’d written him over the years as a sign of her freedom, but said she could keep her own as proof of his own faithfulness.

As a young girl I found this terribly romantic. Actually, I still do! And when I was in my twenties, I discovered that one of my relatives had typewritten copies of many of the letters Allan and Harriet wrote each other. Reading them was fascinating, transporting me to a different time and place. But this sentiment, written by Allan, is what truly inspired my story:

How can I express the consternation of my heart, or account for the long and cruel silence on your part? This is the fifteenth letter I have written you since, but I am afraid they never got your length, or you would not be so long in writing me.

Why, I wondered, had Harriet not written Allan? And how distraught Allan seemed to feel, at not hearing from her. I decided to make up my own reason to account for her silence, and that is the story of Far Horizons.

I’ve now finished what has become the Emigrants Trilogy, following Allan and Harriet’s story as well as the stories of their families through the years. Far Horizons, Another Country, and A Distant Shore span twenty years of the characters’ lives, and I’ve really enjoyed researching the different time periods in which the stories take place. I’m now planning to continue the story on into the 1860s and beyond. Is there a particular historical period you enjoy reading about? I’m giving away a Kindle copy of my Christmas romance, A Yorkshire Christmas, to one randomly drawn name from the comments below.

Happy reading and Happy New Year!