{"id":1768,"date":"2025-12-05T16:07:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T16:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/?p=1768"},"modified":"2025-12-05T16:10:01","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T16:10:01","slug":"the-orchid-hunters-daughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/?p=1768","title":{"rendered":"The Orchid Hunter’s Daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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My new novel. The Orchid Hunter\u2019s Daughter\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>was published on Tuesday 11th November. All credit to my designer Maggie<\/a> for this stunning cover.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\u00a0<\/p>

More about the book and inspiration behind it.<\/strong><\/p>

Friendship, love and dangerous orchids.\u00a0<\/p>

My previous two historical novels were stand alone, but\u00a0The Orchid Hunter\u2019s Daughter\u00a0<\/em>is the first in\u00a0The Scottish Library Series.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>

Every single author will have once been a bookish child lurking in a library. (The next in my series will be set in that actual library – but I\u2019ll leave the location a secret for now.)<\/p>

When I shared my library themed intention with my writing group, my American friend Kristin Pedroja told me I should visit Innerpeffray. I was brought up in nearby Fife and this Scot had never heard of it!\u00a0Thank the literary gods for Kristin. She was the beginning and end for this book. Giving me the gift of the perfect setting, doing my last minute, post edit copy checks, then finally she was my chair at the launch.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0<\/p>

\"\"The\u00a0Innerpeffray Library<\/a>\u00a0was the first lending library in the UK, first opening its doors in 1680<\/b>. \u00a0It has been a museum since 1969 and I REALLY recommend a visit when it reopens its doors in March. It is full of gorgeous old books.<\/p>

I visited Innerpeffray Library with the idea of starting a series based in Scottish libraries and was immediately sure that I’d found the inspiration for my first book. The protagonist needed hope of independent income and the current keeper Lara Haggerty, shared some botany related books in the collection and confirmed that the library did stock magazines, so the fictional addition of the beautiful\u00a0Curtis\u2019s Botanical Magazine\u00a0<\/em>wasn\u2019t beyond the realms of possibility.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0\"\"Pages from the magazine featured orchids from Ecuador as a destination for Iris\u2019s plant hunter father and this is the backstory to Iris becoming a botanist. She found a friend in the library as many similar young women have done over the years. Mrs Birnie really did live and work at Innerpeffray during the 1840s and no doubt inspired girls, just as she is fictionalised in this novel. The library holds Queen Victoria\u2019s dedicated book in their collection and Iris\u2019s fictional summer in Balmoral was a chance to expose her to some radical ideas through feisty Princess Louise.<\/p>

Drummond Castle gardens existed and were visited by Queen Victoria, so that was a perfect botanical setting for Iris\u2019s fictional home, but I needed a different garden owner to be the sponsor for Iris\u2019s father’s orchid hunting adventure. Culdees Castle was chosen at random from David & Ian Robertson\u2019s Lost Country Houses of Perthshire<\/em>, which is sold in the Innerpeffray shop. I wanted a stately home with no real family still currently living there, and one that was within walking distance of Drummond Castle. Then, it was a lovely surprise to find Culdees Castle under renovation, to meet the new owners Tracey and Robbie Beaton and to be able to go inside. Seeing Mr Speir\u2019s chapel restored was a particular joy.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0On Friday 7th November I took early copies of\u00a0The Orchid Hunter\u2019s Daughter\u00a0<\/em>to Innerpeffray’s Christmas Fayre which was held in what used to be the Innerpeffray schoolroom. It was SO\u00a0thrilling to bring the story home to a room that features in the novel.<\/p>

On 7th<\/sup> December I took the book to another fictional setting, visiting Culdees Castle Christmas Artisan Market.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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My new novel. The Orchid Hunter\u2019s Daughter\u00a0was published on Tuesday 11th November. All credit to my designer Maggie for this stunning cover. \u00a0 More about the book and inspiration behind it. Friendship, love and dangerous orchids.\u00a0 My previous two historical novels were stand alone, but\u00a0The Orchid Hunter\u2019s Daughter\u00a0is the first in\u00a0The Scottish Library Series.\u00a0 Every […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1768"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1807,"href":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1768\/revisions\/1807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jane-anderson.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}