Everdene FAQs

There are a lot of Hardy’s characters that have psychologies that I was able to deepen to bring out a BDSM context.  Much literary analysis has been done on Far From The Madding Crowd and the sexual undertones, and how much Thomas Hardy was restricted in what he could put in the novel due to its serialisation origins. Boldwood is a…

I read the book several times, watched the films and read all the typical York’s Notes, SparksNotes and other analysis sites.  The book was on my Kindle app, so I had it on every device (iPad, laptop, phone), which was great if you suddenly wanted to search for a quote or re-read something.  I also had paperback copies throughout my…

I don’t, because Far From the Madding Crowd is a brilliant, classic piece of English literature and remains intact in print.  There will be some that don’t like my adaptation, but that doesn’t mean that impacts on the original novel – they will still like Hardy’s work and just not like mine.  Hopefully there will be some fans of the original…

I had a short story that I had written a while ago and that formed the first few chapters of Everdene, even though originally it had nothing to do with Far From The Madding Crowd.  The idea to base a full novel on the story came about when I’d been discussing Thomas Hardy with someone; a few hours later when…

With only two exceptions, all the characters in my novel are based on Thomas Hardy’s original Far From The Madding Crowd characters.  I wanted to choose names that linked them back to their Hardy roots. The two protagonists: Bathsheba Everdene has become Catherine Everdene – Catherine just happened to be a name that I had used before (my original pen name).  Many…

Emilia is a new character (not directly linked to a Far From The Madding Crowd character), and one I debated whether to leave in or out as I wrote the novel.  Without giving too much away, she does appear fairly early on, makes some very sporadic appearances and then appears later on.  If anything Emilia is actually a character based on…

I based almost all of the characters on the original Far from the Madding Crowd story.  The character personalities are a mix of Hardy, plus BDSM psychology. That said, there are bits and pieces of people I know thrown into character personalities – sometimes even across several characters.  Whenever I wrote a Liddy and Catherine scene, I was saying it aloud in…

A little in personality – probably more than I want to admit!  I’ve certainly always been ambitious, been known to be bossy and I do have a tendency to build walls.  My least favourite phrases are ‘biological clock’ and ‘you really should start to think about settling’ (sorry Mum).  I also have a split personality when it comes to romance –…

I probably would change a few words here or there, but at some point you have to stop editing.  I expect there is a spelling error or two (or more) in there, and although it has been edited extensively, a different editor would probably pick up on something. As I edited, there were some big revisions as well as the…

I don’t want to give away too much, although by the nature of following an existing story like Far From the Madding Crowd, a lot of people know the plot and the ending. There’s a scene where Catherine writes a story – this was the first part of the novel I wrote, and long before the intention was to write a…