About the Book

Book: Collision Course

Author: Millie Norwich Inman

Genre: Historical Fiction

Release date: January 17, 2024

The shocking death of the popular Prince of Wales launches his young heir from innocent childhood into a roiling caldron of jealousy and intrigue. Set in all the glory of eighteenth century England, the young crown prince is urgently prepared for his aged grandfather’s throne. Under the wing of his godly mentor, the prince staggers through a minefield of hazards.

Parallel to the prince’s journey, is the story of a down-and-out firebrand statesman, considering retirement from the House of Commons because he’s under the king’s extreme disfavor. An alliance between the two ensures the prince’s safe ascension. It also renders his godly mentor and the statesman, the two most powerful men in Great Britain. Then, in the face of escalating war, a shocking twist changes everything.

Collision Course is a slice of real history with real people fleshed out and facing the real challenges of living in a fallen world. It shatters stereotypes as it treks through England’s finest gardens and dines with kings and statesmen all the while peering into the universal nature of the human soul and the heartbeat of corrupted constitutional government. This is the true, untold story of alliance, ambition, betrayal, war, loss, and recovery that set the world stage for the American Revolution.

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Author Interview

1) Do you consider yourself a pantster or a plotter?
I’m more comfortable as a plotter. This is my first book and it’s based on a true story so the plot
is inherent. Only the scenes are fictionalized. I tend to have a destination in mind. When I wrote
nonfiction articles freelance, an idea was queried and developed before I wrote it.

2)What is your favorite part of writing?
I think teaching. I’m didactic by nature. Writing is a platform that offers the verbose a satisfying
mic. We just pray we have great editors and something worthy to convey. I think my favorite,
favorite part of writing is conveying word pictures and pulling off real humor. But my favorite,
favorite, favorite part of writing is conveying eternal messages couched in a real-life story. I’ve
had the joy of experiencing all my favorites while writing Collision Course. This story has
passages to evoke the awe in creation, passages to make you laugh, passages to inspire the saved,
passages that should convict the unsaved, and several mentions of judgment that should frighten
the wicked.
Oh my Gosh, I almost forgot how much joy I had writing the love story between William Pitt
and Hester Grenville. It always brings me to tears. Which reminds me, I also took pleasure from
being able to convey the excruciating reality of a battle scene in Hanover and the agony of the
Commander-General the Duke of Cumberland, the king’s son. The two graphic war chapters
were cut. But I guess I just love writing.

3) What is your least favorite part of writing?
Marketing. And bookkeeping:( I never thought about that while I was having all that fun writing.

4) What is your writing space like?
I’ve had to adapt my writing space to several places. What I need is my laptop, silence, and a big
window with lots of natural light and trees. At home, we have mighty, inspirational oaks out
every window.

5) Do bits of yourself or your friends show up in your characters?
My characters are all real people in fictionalized settings. So, I do my utmost to keep everyone’s
integrity. That said, I found myself completely identifying with the third Earl of Bute in
Collision Course. We share the same devotion to Christ and the same commitment to virtue. We
have the same didactic nature, schoolmarm written all over both of us. Like Bute, I was inspired
to gardening by several family members. Furthermore, the things Bute said in letters, I might
have said. I felt free to speak for him when the occasions arose. My dad and his dad were
dairymen so I felt right at home in Bute’s milking barn at Hampstead Heath. And I have a Scot
great-grandfather that put me in the mood for tartan plaids, a brogue, and bagpipes. Neither Bute
nor I have much political ambition, but both of us would pick the same mountains to draw a line
in the sand and die on.
The differences I found between us, were, Bute was handsome, and a brilliant intellectual.
Degrees from Utrect were more venerated than from Oxford. And he was shier than I am, and
undoubtedly more dramatic. Of course, he was painfully aware of the bias against Scots.

About the Author

Millie Norwich Inman holds a Bachelor of Arts cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis. She taught school and raised a family before dabbling in freelance for periodicals. A fair measure of success added to profound sorrow over the loss of Western Civilization culture and history, launched her into extensive research for this engaging slice of pre-American Revolution history. On two trips to England she read at the British Library and Richmond Records Office, and traipsed through fabulous architecture and scrumptious gardens. At home in Texas, she took advantage of the Trinity University, Rice University, and University of Texas San Antonio Libraries, as well as the amazing Inter-Library Loan System from her hometown Boerne Library. Similar to the research style of NYT bestseller, America’s First Daughter, some of the wittiest dialogue in Collision Course has been lifted and adapted from original letters.

More from Millie

Collision Course is a walk in the park to smell the roses compared to an all-nighter-adrenalin-rush. And the third Earl of Bute is a reluctant hero-protagonist. He’s far more interested in creating calming garden vistas than in jumping into the heart of a rough-housing political fray.

Lord Bute is John Stuart (b. 1713), a descendant of the Stuart kings of Scotland on his father’s side and the powerful Campbell Clan on his mother’s. Branches of the Campbell Clan were still known as the fiercest of highland fighters when Bute was in his twenties. The Highlanders identified as Catholics but knew little of Jesus, and I dare say, never seemed to have heard of the Bible. So, their war-like tendencies really went berserk, after the Bloodless Revolution of 1688. Whenever the banished Catholic heir, the debauched “Bonnie Prince Charlie,” felt sufficiently resentful to sail back from France and contend for the crown, he’d swing by Scotland and enlist belligerent Highlanders. On these occasions, the Campbells would take a respite from murdering the MacDonalds and bludgeoning Lowlander Presbyterians, to gleefully enlist for a bloody tromp into England.

However, by the third “Bonnie Prince” invasion in 1745, Lord Bute’s branch of the Campbell Clan had experienced a come to Jesus. Godly education had become a family priority. Since Lord Bute’s godly father had died when he was nine, his godly mother had tucked him under the wings of her two godly Campbell brothers. Bute’s Campbell uncles were entrenched in the Edinburg intelligentsia. Intellectuals were Christians. Enlightenment academics followed Christians. Bute’s Campbell family branch were Scotland’s civic leaders, innovators in banking, business, jurisprudence, and republican statesmanship in addition to their stellar reputations in science, theology, medicine, and literature.

Lord Bute’s Campbell uncles, along with his Stuart father, were instrumental in the forming the United Kingdom and in installing Protestant royalty, to act in the interest of all their subjects, on the throne of England. The value of the common man was a novel idea. Bute’s uncles ran the elections for nineteen Scottish representatives to Parliament in Westminster. So, it’s really no wonder, that in the third invasion of Prince Charlie tyrants, three contingents of militia from the Campbell Clan fought for British liberty under George II’s favorite son, the Duke of Cumberland. Campbells fought Campbells.

It was in this third invasion that the young protagonist prince’s uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, became feared as “The Butcher.” After Cumberland led the government’s final victory, and as the “Bonnie Prince” slipped away on his ship back to France, the Duke of Cumberland ran a genocide campaign of the most war-like Highlanders (30 something Campbells). That ended the north Britain invasions and turned thoughts to a walk in the park-like gardens. Let Collision Course begin.