Author Feature: The Story Behind the Plot by Jane Linfoot

I'm so excited to have Jane Linfoot on my blog today. Here to talk about her new book, The Right Side of Mr Wrong and the inspiration that struck her to write it. Here you, people. The lovely Jane Linfoot!

When you’re learning to write you hear a lot of advice about how and where to find inspiration, and as a writer you learn to soak up everything around you, and store it to use later. It might be a snippet of conversation you overhear in a queue at a bar, something you read in a borrowed Closer magazine over coffee, a sentence you catch on late night TV... It’s a bit like panning for gold – the nuggets are rare, but when you find one it’s brilliant!

The inspiration for The Right side of Mr Wrong came from a TV show that visited a different crumbling country house every week, and gave suggestions to make the houses more viable. The show took a delight in revealing the downside of grand living – the maintenance bills on a big house are vast, and the coffers of the homes featured were largely empty. But the owners were a determined lot, and watching as they implemented (or didn’t implement!) the presenter’s suggestions made for riveting TV.

One week the show featured a Scottish castle that was completely neglected by its headstrong bachelor owner, who refused to sell any of his land to pay for repairs, and spent all his money living the high life in London. Despite every attempt, the presenter didn’t persuade the guy to change a thing, and in the end she said that she thought what he needed was a wife to help him. The castle looked like the perfect setting for a romance, so I went onto the website to see if there were more pictures of the location. I didn’t find pictures but I was intrigued to see lots of messages from women offering to try out as wife for this errant ageing playboy. I thought what interesting TV that would make! And this was my nugget!

Obviously this was only a starting point, because my hero had to be smoking hot and drop dead gorgeous! Originally I thought my characters would be running around castle ramparts up to their ears in cobwebs and chaos, but as soon as hero Brando Marshall strode onto the page I knew he’d never let his home deteriorate in this way even if he didn’t spend time there, because he was too organised and meticulous. What’s more, I felt he was much more likely to live closer to London. So Edgerton Manor was born, a gorgeous country home in the Cotswold's that I fell terminally in love with.

Then Brando’s sister Bryony emerged to drag him onto the TV show, and to organise his trial wife, despite his protests. And then came the lovely Shea Summers, flown into Edgerton by Bryony, in Brando’s helicopter. Shea is convinced that she can handle difficult men without a problem – until she meets Brando! The end result has moved a long way from the initial inspiration, but I hope if you read it you enjoy it!

Like what you read? Treat yourself to a copy of The Right Side of Mr Wrong then! Click here to buy it on Kindle.