All of the historical books are thoroughly researched. I research all my books meticulously, with the invaluable help of my researcher, who has worked with me since I began my career. If you’d like to know more about this book, and my other work, published by Random House/Delacorte Press, please see my publisher’s web site for me at About the Research: I learned a lot by writing it, and hope you will by reading it too. There are some very special people in this book, and I think it is a rich, interesting story.
I fell in love with the characters in the book, and I really hope you will too. I hope you are as excited about this book as I am. But by writing about a woman from New York, who winds up there by marriage, and later returns to it by force of circumstance, I was able to explore the story and the culture and do it justice. I've always felt that it is such a special world and culture, rich in history and traditions, that one had to be from the South to write about it. And for the first time, I wrote about the American South, which has always intrigued me. The research extended into two areas that were fascinating for me, the intricate mechanisms of the judicial system in New York, and the workings of a murder trial. Southern Lights was an exciting book to write, and required a great deal of meticulous research. “Southern Lights” Delacorte Press Hardcover, His Bright Light: The Story of Nick Trainaĭanielle Steel Debuts Digital Downloads of Her Complete Works.