Nicola Cornick

The historical novelist Nicola Cornick could well have been destined to become an author. ‘One of my grandfathers was a poet and my godmother was the author Patricia Hunt,’ she says. ‘So from early childhood I had some very strong literary influences in my life.

‘I started writing the book that was to become my first published novel when I was eighteen. I wrote it on and off while I was at university, and when I was 21 I sent it to Mills & Boon. It was rejected, so I put it to one side for a few years before reworking it and sending it in again. Mills & Boon turned it down again, but this time with a very positive rejection