An Excellent Notion

British born and bred, Sahara Kelly has enjoyed writing and

reading Regency romances for many decades, beginning in her

childhood with books by Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer and

Barbara Cartland.

Arriving in America with her almost-complete collection of Leslie

Charteris’ Saint novels, all the original James Bonds, and a

passion for Monty Python, Sahara’s new life eventually

expanded to include a husband, offspring, citizenship, and a

certain amount of acclimation to her new surroundings.

She never quite managed to attain a level of comfort with the

American way of spelling, however, and creating a Regency

novel offers challenges in that regard. So you’ll see words that

British readers will recognize, but American readers might

perhaps find unusual. It’s a choice… should one write an

English romance using English spelling? Sahara has come

around to that belief. She can now enjoy the extra “u” which

has always seemed so colourful…

After more than three decades of writing, Sahara is now

enjoying the greater freedom offered to authors by the rapidly

expanding self-publishing scene and looking forward to many

more such experiences.

Being freed of external controlling restraints has opened

doors—for Sahara and many other writers. There are now no

impediments; no obstructions barring the path from writer to

reader. Which is, in many ways, exactly as originally intended

when that first storyteller sat on a rock outside her cave,

tugged her bearskin around her shoulders and smiled at her

kids across the open fire with the words “Once upon a time...”

(or however it sounded several million years ago.)