This is the question people always have. What was the inspiration?
Most of my story ideas came from dreams–recurring dreams which wouldn’t stop until I’d written the scene. These stories include all the Esperance books and a couple of my stand-alones.
One–Gambler’s Folly–came from a folk song I heard about a man winning his wife in a card game. I got to wondering how that could happen now, or in the future.
The next story in the Gambler’s Folly series, The Russian, was inspired by a face. I decided the person involved looked like someone who could be a werewolf and wondered how he would fit into the series.
And Master of the Fleet?
Well, I have at various times been involved with the SCA–Society for Creative Anachronism. Taking inspiration from the feasting and tournaments, my mind wandered from there to choreographing sword fights. Somewhere along the way, staging a fake sword fight as part of the entertainment at a feast began to play around in my head. But what if the fight wasn’t staged? What if it was real?
And that is the idea I built the first part of Master of the Fleet around. The wealthy owner of a shipping firm hoping to marry a successful seamstress agrees to take her home for the festival season. What he doesn’t know is that she is only playing him for what she can get, never intending to marry.
At the baron’s feast, she gets tipsy, and begins flirting with every man around. When her escort mentions it, she draws a dagger and attempts to stab him across the table. In self-defence, he takes the dagger away and decides the affair is over. Still angry, the lady grabs up a sword from somewhere and again tries to kill him, only to be disarmed and backed up to the baron’s table.
From there, I developed the setting for the story–an America much more heavily influenced by the French and divided into kingdoms, SCA fashion, instead of into states. This is an America without the internal combustion engine, set around the end of the 1800’s in an alternate time-line, where elemental magic is real. Magic is used to bind contracts, marriages, and control the weather for shipping.
Haven’t read Master of the Fleet? It’s available on Amazon, Smashwords, and at most major book sellers.
Want more?
Esperance Series
Gambler’s Folly
http://bit.ly/GamblersFolly_Am
Mellie's Books 
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