Across the Pond- the evolution of a story

The book I've just started "stewing and brewing" is the next Halsey Homecoming Book with Colin Healy-Miller as the hero.

For those who need a refresher; he is the son from Aileen Miller's first marriage and Aileen's third husband is Ethan Halsey. Clear as mud? ;) Aileen is Scots and married an Irishman, Patrick Healy, when Scots were run out of their homeland and went to Ireland. Patrick's mother was English. His parents both died and when his grandmother in England passed away an estate in England was left to him.

As the story goes, his English relatives weren't happy the estate was left to an Irishman and Aileen believed that was why he was killed. She fled to America with Colin, married an abusive man, and after his death, Ethan Halsey wanted a portion of her land. They locked horns and eventually hearts. In  Miner in Petticoats, Zeke and Maeve are on the job as Pinkertons tracking down the murderer of young boys. It turns out to be a hired killer looking for Colin, to make sure the English land stays in the hands of the English Healys.

At the beginning of Doctor in Petticoats, Ethan, Aileen, Colin, and Shayla all go to England to decide what to do with the estate.

The beginning of Staking Claim, Colin's story in the Halsey Homecoming trilogy, Colin has been in England tending the estate and is now taking a clipper ship back to the United States. On board he becomes infatuated with a young woman who isn't what she seems. And this is where I find myself delving into research that I've so far stayed away from.


I will be researching the hierarchy of English peers, the "rules" and etiquette of being a person of peerage and being as fumbling at it all as my character who is trying to pull off being a lady when she has been working in factories since she was eight.

Did I get your attention?