Who are the authors who made an early impression on you? One of the reasons I came to love mysteries was my early exposure to Nancy Drew. My sister and I were voracious readers of Nancy when we were teens, but by our teen years we had graduated to the books my mom read. These wonderful romantic suspense (and some horror) novels included books by Mary Stewart, Phyllis A. Whitney, Victoria Holt, and others. I read them in paperback, an in big chunky hardbacks that we took out of the library, ten at a time.
Here’s a secret for you: I was so enamored with the books of Mary Stewart that when I decided to create a Gothic cozy series, the idea of a young writer meeting her idol was a wish-fulfillment of my writing daydreams about Marry Stewart. Of course, in the pre-Internet days when there was no distracting social media, a person could spend a lot of dreamy time with a book, studying the cover art ad the author picture on the flyleaf. That’s how author idolatry began. 🙂
So yes, Camilla is loosely based on Mary Stewart, whose great books spanned the late forties to the nineties. Titles I would recommend: Madam, Will You Talk?, Nine Coaches Waiting, This Rough Magic, and The Ivy Tree, for starters. Even if her books might seem dated now, her description is still wonderful, and her sense of setting will draw you in and transport you to in order of the titles mentioned, London, France, Corfu, and Yorkshire.