The Inspiration Behind Victoria Reeds

Victoria Reeds. A beautiful young woman trapped in a stifling patrimonial world where marriages are the prime importance for every woman to inherit wealth and high status.

Victoria is the eldest daughter of a powerful politician with a blind ambitions to marry off his daughter to the former Prime Minister's son.

Fearful of an impending marriage, it creates an even greater friction in the Reeds household. One day when walking home, Victoria meets a stranger at Brownhurt's Park, a short distance from her estate, and it is there that she speaks for the first time to a mysterious man with a strong Irish brogue. She knows that speaking to him is beneath her, especially if he is not a part of  London's high society, but there is something alluring about this stranger with his dazzling "azure blue" eyes.

Readers will later discover that the strangers surname is "McVeigh" and he is as elusive as ever. It is up to the main narrator, Detective Varon, to find out the truth about McVeigh and the reason for him being so interested in this young woman. What powerful forces convinced Victoria Reeds to run away from home in the dead of night? Was she truly in love with this man, or is there something more sinister behind it?

Returning to the main point of this blog post, the inspiration behind this story was based off a few Gothic novels that I have read and loved. To name a few popular reads that inspired me were: The Vampyre, Dracula, and Arthur Conan Doyle's detective series "Sherlock Holmes." Gothic literature is my favourite genre to date, mostly because it combines suspense, horror, and dark romance. A rather apt description for "Far from Home" series, if I may say so myself. Victoria Reeds at the beginning of the novel resembles the stereotypical naive character that is regularly featured in Gothic literature, but suddenly her personality shifts, it is a dark, twisted form, barely recognizable to the one that was once worshipped in London high society. What influence does McVeigh have on this young girl? Why was she so desperate to run away from home, and where could she possibly go next?

*A copy for "Far from Home: Book One" is free on Google Play. You can purchase a copy for 99 cents on Kindle, if you prefer Amazon Kindle.