Sheri Cobb South discovered the author Georgette Heyer at 16, and came to the startling realization that she had been born into the wrong century. Since Heyer was dead and could not write any more tales of Regency England, South decided to do it herself. After honing her craft on five young adult books for Bantam’s long-running Sweet Dreams series, she tried her hand at the genre she had loved for so long. Her first Regency romance, The Weaver Takes a Wife, was published in 1999. A native and long-time resident of Alabama, Ms. South recently moved to Loveland, Colorado, where she has a view of Long’s Peak from her office window.

SunLit: Tell us this book’s backstory – what’s it about and what inspired you to write it? 

Sheri Cobb South: A few years ago, I read Peter Ackroyd’s “London: The Biography.” The book is arranged topically as well as chronologically, and the chapter on entertainment devotes a lengthy section to Bartholomew Fair, a staple of London life for more than 700 years. 

It captured my imagination, and I decided to create a series of historical romances in which the fair would be a prominent feature. I decided the series would focus on members of a particular family (conveniently named “Fayre”) and briefly considered portraying different generations of this family through the centuries from the Middle Ages to the Regency or perhaps the Victorian era. Since time was the essence for reasons I won’t get into here, I decided to focus on several siblings in one generation, which I knew would require a lot less historical research!

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SunLit: Place the excerpt you selected in context. How does it fit into the book as a whole and why did you select it? 

Cobb South: Normally, I would have chosen an excerpt with more dialogue and, since this is a romance, specifically dialogue between the hero and heroine. Instead, I chose a rather lengthy section describing the fair through the eyes of Penelope Fayre, my heroine. 

All of the people connected with the fair, as well as the play being performed there, “Monk and Murderer! or, The Skeleton Spectre,” were real, and were drawn from Henry Morley’s “Memoirs of Bartholomew Fair,” an invaluable research source. If I can give readers a sense of being there, I’ll have accomplished what I set out to do.

SunLit: What influences and/or experiences informed the project before you sat down to write? 

Cobb South: I always loved going to the fair when I was a kid, and even as an adult I enjoy looking at the various exhibits and entering a few of my own needlework projects. A few years ago, my cutwork sampler won Grand Champion and Best of Show. 

And of course, no visit to the fair is complete without taking a turn on the Ferris wheel! Contemporary illustrations of Bartholomew Fair clearly show an early prototype of the Ferris wheel. I’m amazed at some of the attractions on offer in a world without electricity or the internal combustion engine.

SunLit: What did the process of writing this book add to your knowledge and understanding of your craft and/or the subject matter? 

Cobb South: I’ve been reading books set in England’s Regency (1811-1820, a period most closely associated with Jane Austen) since I was in high school, and I’ve written books set in the period since 1999’s “The Weaver Takes a Wife,” so I already had a general knowledge of the historical background. 

“Fairest of the Fayre”

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But this book was unique to my oeuvre as its plot turned on events that had taken place 20 years earlier, during the French Revolution and specifically the time known as the Reign of Terror. So I had to do some research into French history, as well as drag out my French textbooks from college. 

I also had to do a lot of research into fencing, and it was a challenge to find sources that discussed not the Olympic sport we know today, but fencing as it existed at the turn of the 19th century, when gentlemen were hanging up their swords in favor of pistols. Fortunately, Richard Cohen’s comprehensive treatment “By the Sword” covers it all.

SunLit: What were the biggest challenges you faced in writing this book? 

Cobb South: Strangely enough, the biggest challenge was finding out the first name of Miss Harvey, a young woman who was exhibited at fairs as the Beautiful Albiness, with whom my heroine, Penelope, has a conversation. I could find plenty of other information about her, including engraved and printed images of her likeness; the year and the location of her birth (which helped my audiobook narrator considerably in crafting a voice/accent for her character); the name of the man she eventually married; and the fact that, at a fair in Glasgow, rowdy fairgoers decided she wasn’t as beautiful as they had been led to believe, and turned the booth over with her inside it. 

Thankfully, she doesn’t appear to have been injured in the incident. Eventually, I had to concede defeat and just refer to her as Miss Harvey. It made sense, as the more formal etiquette of the period meant that first names were only used by family and close friends.

SunLit: What do you want readers to take from this book? 

Cobb South: I want to give readers the feeling of being there, of taking part in what was once a staple of life in London and one of the few activities in which people of all social classes could participate as equals. It’s also gratifying to introduce readers to a few of the ordinary people whose lives (and in some cases, as in Miss Harvey, the Beautiful Albiness, even their names) have been more or less lost to history.

SunLit: If you could go to Bartholomew Fair yourself, what would you do there? 

Cobb South: First, I would take a turn on the carnival rides. It’s amazing what they managed to offer in a world without electricity or the internal combustion engine! There were big, boatlike wooden swings that seated four people, and a sort of prototypical Ferris wheel that went by the unoriginal name of the “up-and-down.” It might be fun to take in the new play “Monk and Murderer: Or, the Skeleton Spectre” at Mr. Richardson’s popular theatre booth. If I got hungry, I would buy a plate of roast pork and maybe a slice of gingerbread, both staples of Bartholomew Fair since the Middle Ages.

SunLit: Tell us about your next project. 

Cobb South: I’m currently working on the second book in the series, titled “All’s Fayre in Love and War.” It features Penelope Fayre’s older sister, a young widow with a small child. It’s a “governess and employer” story, which presents a special challenge, since the best one has already been done. After all, how is anyone supposed to compete with “The Sound of Music”?

A few more quick items:

Currently on your nightstand for recreational reading: Fellow Colorado author Connie Willis’s madcap sci-fi adventure “The Road to Roswell.” 

First book you remember really making an impression on you as a kid: When I was 4 years old, my 6-year-old sister taught me how to read using P. D. Eastman’s book “Snow,” which my family owned as part of Dr. Seuss’s Beginner Book Club. Pam was in the first grade, and she practiced her reading on me, until I started to read the book myself. When Pam proudly announced to our parents that she’d taught me to read, Dad tried to explain to her that she’d just read the book to me so many times that I’d memorized it. To prove his point, he got me up on his lap, opened the book to a random page, and pointed to a word, then asked me to read it. I did. Hmm, beginner’s luck, maybe? Let’s try another word. Same result. After the third or fourth attempt, Dad was convinced.

Best writing advice you’ve ever received:  From Anne Stuart, bestselling author in a number of genres, on how to adapt to a constantly changing market: “Forget ‘Write what you know’; instead, write what you love — but love a lot of things.”

Favorite fictional literary character: Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane from Dorothy L. Sayers’s Golden Age mystery series.

Literary guilty pleasure (title or genre): To be honest, this question always makes me a bit uncomfortable, as it sounds like an invitation to bash the very sort of book I love to write: light, humorous mysteries or romances that will never change the world, but that people tend to turn to in times of personal stress or national crisis. I will confess, though, to a sentimental fondness for the Archie comic books Mom used to buy for my sisters and me every summer to read on the six-hour drive to the Alabama Gulf Coast, and that, years later, I bought for my own kids

Digital, print or audio – favorite medium to consume literature: In spite of the fact that most of my income derives from e-book sales, I tend to be old school; I like the look, the feel, and even the smell of a book in my hand. I also like the way audiobooks allow me to enjoy a book while I’m knitting, crocheting, or even washing dishes.

One book you’ve read multiple times: Almost anything by Georgette Heyer, but if I could only choose one, I would go with ”The Unknown Ajax.” My most listened-to audiobook is Agatha Christie’s “The Pale Horse,” narrated by Hugh Fraser.

Other than writing utensils, one thing you must have within reach when you write: I do most of my rough-draft writing at a coffee shop, so some coffee-adjacent blended drink, something like a Frappuccino.

Best antidote for writer’s block: Don’t sit around waiting for your muse! Just start writing — writing anything — and the words will usually come. Some of them may be pretty awful words, but bad writing can always be fixed.

Most valuable beta reader: Sadly, my critique group was a casualty of the pandemic lockdowns. I’m on my own now, just as I was way back at the beginning of my career.

Type of Story: Q&A

An interview to provide a relevant perspective, edited for clarity and not fully fact-checked.

This byline is used for articles and guides written collaboratively by The Colorado Sun reporters, editors and producers.