Writing characters from one series into another...?

by Carola


I'm writing about lifeboats at present--a rescue from a cave. Both these types of boat are involved.

D-class inflatable inshore boat

I've had a lot of discussion on Facebook and on my website as to whether it's kosher to name the three lifeboats in my Cornish series mystery after characters in my Daisy Dalrymple series: the Daisy D., the Belinda, and the Lucy. These people, from the 1920s setting, would be in their 50s/70s by the time of the Cornish series.










The Royal National Lifeboat Institute is a volunteer organisation. RNLI boats are usually named after the donor(s) or fundraisers of the donations that paid for them. Daisy, her friend Lucy, and her stepdaughter, Belinda, could well have done this.

This is the actual Padstow lifeboat at the time of my story, now retired to Land's End.

The Oakley class--this is a 37'; Padstow actually had a 44', as pictured above.

Lots of readers liked the idea of a nod to the Daisy series. A few didn't like it, but those few had very strong opinions on the subject.


What do you think? Is it a mistake to intrude one series on another, in such a minor way? Maybe next I'll have an older Daisy turn up in Cornwall and meet Eleanor...

All photos courtesy of RNLI