One of my favorite things about writing historical romance is getting to share a bit more about all the interesting historical tidbits I came across while doing research with you, lovely readers.

This story was inspired by the tale of The Nutcracker, both the original story written by E. T. A. Hoffmann (“The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” written in 1816) and the ballet, first performed in 1892. I wondered what would happen if Clara (Marie in the original story) and her brother Fritz, who were seven and eight in the 1816 version, respectively, grew to adulthood. Clara falls in love with a nutcracker doll and is swept into a world of imagination. But on the outside, might that be mistaken for the workings of an unwell mind? I aged Clara (Clarissa in my story) and Fritz (Edmund) twenty-two years, to the year 1838, sent Edmund a governess to help with his sister, and set them all down in the Scottish Highlands to see what would happen!

While portraying Clarissa’s mental state, I have tried to be both sensitive to the fact that mental health is an extremely personal and often challenging contemporary issue, while also attemping to fairly portray how mental illnesses were thought of and treated in the nineteenth century. As understandings of the brain and psychology expanded during that time, a wide array of both diagnoses and treatments were promoted. Women were thought to be particularly susceptible to hysteria, which could cover everything from what we’d now call post-partum depression to bipolar disorder to reading too much. Often, a common theme in the diagnosis of women with a mental disorder involved focusing on women who didn’t conform to society’s expectations of them—women who were outspoken, or not “motherly” enough, or who were simply struggling to cope with society’s pressures.

In my research, I came across a nineteenth-century document that listed the varied reasons a woman could suffer “mental disorder,” which included the climate of India, overworking, and the loss of a husband or child, among others (the last of which inspired Clarissa’s backstory for the purposes of this book). Some women were committed to asylums, where they were often abused with shock therapy, enemas, and isolation. Others would spend time in an asylum or sanatorium, receive treatment for several weeks, months, or even years, and leave “cured” enough to rejoin their lives and families. You can imagine with such an incredibly broad definition of mental illness, a wide range of symptoms demonstrated by patients, wildly varying treatments, and a gamut of outcomes for different women, mental health was a thorny issue in the nineteenth century, with some women being caused harm as well as others finding relief.

The MacLainn clan and Kinfallon Castle are fictitious, but the issues facing the Highlands at this time, particularly the Clearances, are another important historical point that provided context for my story. The Clearances, or the effort to remove farmers and replace them with Blackface or Cheviot sheep, took place mainly in the first half of the nineteenth century. Because sheep grazing was more profitable than farming, landowners on many estates dislocated tenants from traditionally common lands and moved them to poor, unworkable regions. Many farmers were relocated to coastal lands, where they were forced to become fishermen or kelpers (collecting kelp/seaweed to burn or sell).

One of the most egregious and damaging instances of the Clearances took place on Sutherland lands. The Countess of Sutherland, looking to make a greater profit from her estate, hired a man named Patrick Sellar (whom I have reimagined as Perry Selfridge in this story) to lead the scheme of clearance. Sellar was a lawyer who became the factor (estate manager) for the Countess of Sutherland, who controlled about 1.5 million acres of land in Scotland—the largest private estate in Europe at the time.

Under Sellar’s scheme and at the Countess’s urging, roughly fifteen thousand people were dislocated from their homes between 1811 and 1821. Many of the farmers being displaced were given no time to pack their things or even evacuate their crofts. One eye-witness recounts a night in 1816 when he observed two hundred and fifty houses aflame to force the farmers to leave, some with people still inside. He said the countryside burned for six days, until nothing was left of either the land or the farmers’ homes.

On June 13, 1814, Sellar participated in the forced removal of a man named William Chisholm and his wife from their croft. The croft’s roof was set on fire, but William’s mother-in-law was still inside. Her daughter rescued her, but she died five days later. Sellar was put on trial for arson and culpable homicide, but he was acquitted.

For their part, Sellar and the Countess of Sutherland (and many others) believed that the Clearances were a good thing. They argued that it was necessary to modernize their land management techniques by shifting from farming to grazing. They also claimed that by forcing farmers onto smaller and far inferior plots of land by the coast, they would become more industrious and frugal (ignoring the fact that most farmers already lived in abject poverty). Perhaps most disturbing was Sellar’s argument, which he gave in an account after the fact, that it was a “benevolent act” to displace the “barbarous Highlanders” from their land, claiming that they would be forced to “apply themselves to industry, educate their children, and advance in civilisation.” Sadly, many suffered because of the Countess and Sellar’s warped views on their own people.

On a slightly lighter note, I had great fun incorporating The Mysteries of Udolpho, the great gothic novel by Ann Radcliff, into this story. The quotes I used come directly from that novel, which is part of the public domain. Gothic and Romantic novels like Radcliff’s were wildly popular, yet they were thought to be terribly scandalous and inappropriate for proper young women to read (sound familiar, romance readers?).

Regarding Highland celebrations of Christmas (and Hogmanay and Yule) in the 1830s, I found a wonderful account called “Christmas in Scotland” written in 1833 by Andrew Halliday. In it, he explains the traditions of New Year’s Day (Hogmanay) and Yule, observed on January 6^th (or Twelfth-day), including carolling, eating sowens, and the lady of the house handing out both whisky and grain to the “beggars” singing at her door. It was not the custom in England or Scotland to bring an entire tree into the house until the 1840s (when Queen Victoria borrowed the tradition from her German husband, Albert), but pine boughs and holly decorations date all the way back to the Vikings’ arrival in Scotland!

Thank you for journeying back in time with me for this romantic tale!