Chele’s book has ‘devilish males to add bit of spice’

Síofra Grant

Regency romance is a book genre that has gripped the world. Series like Bridgerton and beloved classics like Pride and Prejudice are popular with people of all ages. Now a new piece of period fiction has emerged from right here in Westmeath.

Lady Dixon’s Niece is Chele Crawley’s debut novel and the first instalment of her planned series ‘Of Social Standing’.

Within days of its release, the novel was at the number one spot on Amazon Ireland.

Chele said: “I wanted to write a story that I’d like to read and I love Regency fiction so I thought why not? Just because I’m Irish doesn’t mean I can’t write a regency story.”

The book follows a young girl named Annalise as she leaves north Devon for London high society.

“I was inspired by period fiction like Jane Austen so I ended up setting it in England and I suppose there’s probably a commercial side to that as well.

“The story is about an underdog really, a girl who aspires to be socially, upwardly mobile, she wants to improve her situation in life.

“In the 19th century, as you probably know yourself, women, their life choices were constricted to how well they did on the marriage mart.

“You either moved up or you stayed the same or you moved down based on your marriage prospects and who you ended up marrying.”

That is the problem that spurs Chele’s protagonist.

“It starts with this girl who is on the cusp of being 18 years old and she knows that is the time she’s either going to be married off to a farmer – or she’s going to do everything in her power to become upwardly mobile.

“She remembers that she has an aunt who she never really hears much about because her father isn’t in contact with her, and she writes her a letter.”

That is the opening of Lady Dixon’s Niece, and from here Annalise faces the challenges of high society and has a secret thrust upon her.

“You feel sorry for the protagonist because she’s a bit naive, and she’ll just go with what her aunt tells her because if she does, her aunt will keep her around.”

For Chele, the story has been rolling around in her head since she was a child.

“The kernel of the story would have come to me when I was learning to play piano at 11 years of age.

“Old keyboards used to have little demos of classical music and that was my first exposure to classical music.

“I started thinking about what it would be like to be at a ball in regency times.

“I’d watched some of the 1995 Pride and Prejudice Series, which was huge at the time, so I had an idea of what happened at balls.

“After I did my Junior Cert, I couldn’t get summer work, so I actually sat down and typed it out and I’m going back a long time now.

“I saved it on a floppy disc.”

“That’s the precursor to USB,” she said with a laugh, “and years later I found that floppy disc and thought I need to put that on a laptop.

“I started to think about the story, I was thinking about it for a long time.

“I woke up in 2019 at the start of the year and said I want to start doing it – that was seven years ago and it’s taken me this long to get to this stage.

“When you start writing, it’s a long process, there’s a lot of learning to be done.”

Membership of the Mullingar Inklings Writing Group nurtured Chele’s writing.

“It’s so good for honing your talent and you learn so much from other people, and from listening to other people as well.

“When you’re in a writing group, you’re making time every day or every second day to sit down and just write something. Like anything, practice makes perfect.”

Chele also took a lot of inspiration from Westmeath. The county has no shortage of stately homes and that feature bled heavily into the setting of the story. “For me, the way my brain works is that I’m constantly thinking ‘who were the people living in these houses?’. What were the stories that were behind those walls? What events took place during their lifetime in that house?”

Of course it wouldn’t be a regency novel without a touch of romance, and Chele ensures readers they won’t be disappointed.

It has “a few fabulously handsome and devilish male characters to add a little bit of spice into it”.

“I created two brothers in it and they are polar opposites of each other.

“The inspiration for them is that oftentimes in life you’ll find that brothers, while they can be so similar and look so similar, they can be very different.”

Throughout the writing process, Chele received welcome support from her community and neighbours. “I’ve always found Mullingar to be so encouraging of people when they say they want to do something creatively.”

Lady Dixon’s Niece is available on Amazon.ie and at Just Books in Mullingar.

The next instalment of ‘On Social Standing’ is in the pipeline. “I’m halfway through the second book, and I would hope to have it out within a year and a half.”