A husband and wife writing duo from Presteigne are celebrating the launch of their historical Victorian detective novel, described as Charlotte Brontë meets Agatha Christie.

Sarah Burton and Jem Poster, who have lived in Presteigne for more than 20 years, are launching their intriguing detective book, Eliza Mace, in paperback on February 27. The story is deeply inspired by the eerie Welsh marshes, with protagonist Eliza’s sense of isolation mirroring the remote surroundings where she grew up. It is the first in a planned series, published with Duckworth.

Sarah and Jem met at Cambridge University, where they taught creative writing, before setting up the Masters in Creative Writing, and it wasn’t long before they realised they had chemistry together.

Speaking to The Brecon and Radnor Express, Sarah said: “We worked harmoniously, and we found we were very harmonious generally.”

There is an assumption that a collaborative approach to writing may have moments of tension, or be split 50-50, but Sarah says: “We don’t argue at all. I’m very much an ideas person. I love plot. Jem is much more of a lyrical writer than I am. We realised we couldn’t joint author in terms of both be typing the words. We talk about everything. Jem drafts it, and then we go through edits together. We’ve found it needs a voice, and there wasn’t a voice we both had. We felt one of us had to do the typing, and that is Jem.”

Both of them started writing later in life, with Jem starting to write in his late forties and publishing in his early fifties, while Sarah published her first novel in her forties. They praise being mature for their healthy working relationship, allowing them to work objectively.

“It has to be consistent,” Jem adds. “But I would never have wrote historical fiction at all if it wasn’t for Sarah’s ideas. Neither of us could have written this without the other.”

Although the town is never named as Presteigne specifically, anyone familiar with Presteigne is likely to recognise its features, such as the high street, the judge’s lodging and courthouse and the way the buildings cluster close to the river that forms its boundary with England.

“We had this idea because we live in Wales to write a Victorian novel set in a place not unlike Presteigne. A lot of the street names are the same,” Sarah says.

“The reason for not pinning ourselves down to a specific place name is because it gives us more imaginative space,” Jem says. “I don’t want to be held to a historic railway timetable. Writing in Presteigne means we’re writing to what is around us. Presteigne is quite out of the way, even now. It is partly easier to think of yourself in the 19th century in Presteigne than it would be if we were in Birmingham. This sense of a place that is a little bit out of time helps us immensely.”

Sarah and Jem are writing in a genre defined by Agatha Christie, and capitalised on by more modern writers, such as Richard Osman. But it’s the character of Eliza that sets their novel apart, as Eliza’s struggles of being a woman in the 19th century come to the forefront. “Her life is a battle,” Sarah says. “At every turn she is being told this is not lady like, this is not what girls should be doing. She’s wanting to be out in the world and finding things out generally, and that’s why she starts looking into her fathers disappearance. In many ways she’s quite a difficult person, but readers like that she is difficult. She’s got so many obstacles even before she starts to solve things.”

“We had this idea that there would be a family background for her as a young girl growing into adulthood,” Jem says. “Interactions with her mother, uncle and wider in the town itself creates a sense of context for all of this which isn’t just a murder. We married elements of psychology with an intriguing whodunnit.”

“We’ve got at least five stories for her,” Sarah says. “We’d like her to eventually move out of Presteigne.”

As well as teaching at Cambridge, Sarah and Jem have also taught creative writing at Oxford, and Aberystwyth universities. Eliza Mace is not their first work. Sarah has published several books, including two biographies, Impostors and A Double Life: A Biography of Charles and Mary Lamb, and the award-winning novel The Strange Adventures of H, which was also shortlisted for the HWA Debut Fiction Crown.

Jem is the author of two acclaimed historical novels, Courting Shadows and Rifling Paradise, and co-author, with Sarah Burton, of a handbook for fiction writers, The Book You Need to Read to Write the Book You Want to Write.