It was back on a glorious day in October 2017, just after my first book Ella’s Journey had been published, that I began thinking about the story that would be published in March 2020 as The Margate Maid (and now A Maid’s Ruin). Following up on a bit of my own family research, and with the help of a map from the early 1800s on my phone, I started to explore the area in Margate where my ancestors once lived.

The cow barn in Church Street, which I’d discovered on the 1811 census, had long gone, but I found Princes Crescent and a pub nearby that had been there in the early 1800s, when it was known as The Liverpool Arms. (I preferred its later name The Spread Eagle, so kept that).

I had a wander around Margate, taking photos of the harbour from outside the Turner Contemporary and along the harbour arm, little knowing at that point that both Turner and the harbour would come to play a part in my story. A visit to the Foundling Museum in London just after Christmas led me to another part of my story – all I had to do now was write it! The title went through many revisions – my working title was Molly, then The Pomegranate Tree, then The Apothecaries’ Garden, then The Girl with the Chestnut Hair, before we arrived at The Margate Maid and, finally, A Maid’s Ruin for publication. If you’ve read the book, which title do you like best?