LADY ARMSTRONG’S SCANDALOUS AWAKENING is set in the Victorian era. What appeals to you about that time period as a setting? Is that your favorite period to set a story in? The Victorian period was a time of huge change in every way. The Industrial Revolution was really taking hold, railways and telegrams transformed communication and travel, and there was a move away from the countryside to city living. What fascinates me are the contrasts that all this change emphasized – between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots, and in particular, in the position of women, who were being forced by a society which was in many ways liberating men, into a much more domestic and constrained role. Ideals of femininity were disseminated through photography, and image took on a new importance. Women who did not conform had to be real rebels, incredibly strong and radical thinkers, and it’s coming up with this type of woman as a heroine that really appeals to me. As to whether this is my favorite period to write about – I’d say yes, at the moment, because it’s the period I’ve been immersed in for the last couple of years,…