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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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.

Author Interview with Millie

Q: What inspired you to write this book?

Millie: The inspiration for Collision Course was gnawing awareness that history and classical literature were being scoured from our schools. I was writing free-lance for periodicals while grieving the loss of Western Civilization. There’s wisdom that satisfies the soul in classical literature. And people that don’t know history are condemned to repeat its worst miseries.

I decided to research mid-eighteenth century England to find true causes behind the American Revolution. An untold story clarified, populated with amazing characters that might entice my children and grandchildren to thirst for more. I wrote Collision Course lovingly for posterity— yours and mine, and thoroughly enjoyed it myself. I wanted upcoming generations to find the love of God and personal virtue are the bulwark of our freedom. This book is a clarion call for young and old to taste afresh the sweetness of the British legacy behind America’s founding vision: the Creator God, His gift of inalienable rights to all men, equal justice, and sweet liberty.

Q: What surprised you while you wrote this story?

Millie: I would have to say, I saw up close the addictive nature of political power and the obsessive ability of jealousy, surprised me. Of course, it’s pride that allows these sins to flourish, dominate, and decimate a soul.

Q: What you hope the readers will take away from this story?

Millie: I pray everyone will find amusement and affirmation. Collision Course is a painless course in civics and human nature. So, I pray the reader increases knowledge, and wisdom. I hope everyone can name two reasons the American Revolution was guaranteed before George III mounted the throne of England. And I pray the reader gains a new appreciation for America’s British legacy: bicameral legislature, checks and balances, inalienable God-given rights, a just court system for all with jury peers, liberty, liberty, liberty.

Q: How long did it take to write Collision Course?

Millie: It took about ten about ten leisurely years including research and editing.

Q: Where can readers find out more about you and your book?

Millie: www.millienorwichinman.com

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.