Most readers would not connect a sun-drenched barrier island off the coast of northeast Florida with the windswept peninsulas of northern Ireland. Nancy Blanton has spent more than two decades making exactly that connection from her home on Amelia Island.
Nancy is the author of five historical novels, all set in 17th-century Ireland, a century she has made entirely her own. Her most recent book, The Noblest Share of Earth, centers on the O’Doherty clan and their fight for control of Inishowen, a fertile peninsula in County Donegal — the farthest reach of Ireland’s north. The story unfolds through three distinct first-person narrators, a structure she uses deliberately, placing readers inside moments no single character could witness alone.
“The writing and the book are the smallest part. The rest of it goes all the way across the board when you’re talking about publishing.”
Her path to publication was not the one she planned. After journalism school and a corporate communications career that eventually took her to the Port of Seattle, Nancy returned to Florida and the historical fiction she had been quietly drafting for years. When agents passed on her Ireland-focused work without reading it, she made a decision: go indie, go wide, and build something better. She now distributes through IngramSpark, reaching readers internationally, and co-founded Amelia Indie Authors on Amelia Island, a community for writers navigating the publishing landscape outside traditional gatekeeping.
Research anchors everything Nancy writes. She has traveled to Ireland six times, worked with specialist editors including History Quill in England, and digs through digitized journals and historical documents searching for the single detail that unlocks a story. Her process is plot-first: she builds a timeline from real historical events, then constructs her characters around what those events require. For each character, she assembles a full profile and searches the internet for a photograph that matches her mental image, a practical tool for keeping a large cast vivid across hundreds of pages.
Her sixth novel is already taking shape, reaching into the Restoration period and the reign of Charles II. Nancy found the story she was looking for just two days before we recorded this conversation.
Where to Find the Author
Website: https://NancyBlanton.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NancyBlanton.author/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blantonn17c/
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/nblanton.bsky.social
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancyblanton/
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Nancy-Blanton/author/B00APT0HAO
View Our Entire Video Interview on YouTube
A Note from our Editor
We would encourage any North Florida Writers who would like to submit a Guest Post on our online magazine or be a featured author on the North Florida Writers Tour website then please get in touch using their CONTACT US form. Our other Online Magazine called “Webs and Blogs for Writers” does featured articles on authors not in our area CLICK HERE TO READ. For those who wish to be a guest on Jolene’s Book and Writer’s Talk podcast visit the Southern Dragon Publishing Information page.
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