Depending on your definition, I have written a number of historical novels. Portland Place and Wachusett are set in the 19th century. Lost Lady is set in the 1920s, and Nantucket Summer and The Countess Comes Home are set in late 1960s and early 70s. While I would not have considered the 1920s to be a historical novel setting because it's the time when my parents were growing up, it is now a hundred years ago. As for the 60s and early 70s, as far as today's youth is concerned, that was shortly after the Jurassic period. What writing these books has meant - and I never set out to be an historical novelist - is that I spent a lot of time looking into daily life in the periods covered. Finding out what people ate at a mountain resort hotel in 1876, or how they lit their rooms was fascinating, and not easy to discover. Fortunately, today there are some wonderful resources for historical novelists on the web and this information can be winkled out. Another unexpected sourc