Last Updated on February 20, 2026
Special to BookCottages.com by author Kelly Scarborough
I wrote a complete draft of my historical novel, ‘Butterfly Games,’ before ever visiting its setting: Sweden.
But something was missing. The story was there, but its heroine, Jacquette, wasn’t.
My Connecticut home was filled with research into Countess Jacquette Gyldenstolpe’s fabled relationship with Prince Oscar Bernadotte, the young future king of Sweden. I had shelves sagging under the weight of nineteenth-century memoirs and Swedish history books. I had studied genealogies, palace architectural plans, and royal court directories. I had translated letters from the Swedish National Archives, line by careful line. But I had never stood in the places my characters lived, gazed at the sky in the faint Scandinavian light on a summer night, or paced out the distance between palace and park.
Travel changed everything.
My journeys to Sweden filled in the gaps. Almost immediately, I gained a sense of scale, atmosphere, and color that no book or image can fully convey.
One of my first stops was Finspång Castle, Jacquette Gyldenstolpe’s childhood home, where she was raised by her Aunt Emilie, far from the drama of the royal court in Stockholm. Finspång is not the kind of palace that overwhelms with gilded ceilings. Instead, it possesses a kind of contained dignity. The rooms are elegant but intimate. It is tidy and Dutch-inspired, nothing like I imagined.
Standing inside Finspång’s rooms, I felt something shift. I imagined a young countess sent to live in this idyllic place, heartbroken because her mother preferred the royal court to family life.
And then my guide showed me Jacquette’s notions box.
Tiny, preserved personal objects. Not ostentatious, not monumental, but hers. Seeing things Jacquette had owned eliminated the distance of two centuries and reminded me that before Jacquette became a figure defined by scandal and proximity to the throne, she was a young woman who kept treasures. Letters. Tokens. Small fragments of a private life.
But it was outside the castle that I understood her most clearly. Finspång Castle Park is open to the public and well worth a visit. The interior of the castle, unfortunately, is private.
Finspång gave Jacquette a foundation before she entered a world of scrutiny. In Stockholm, every gesture carried consequence. At Finspång, one could breathe.
That contrast became central to the novel.
On a later trip to Sweden, I took a boat from central Stockholm to Drottningholm Palace, the setting of Butterfly Games’ opening chapters. As the boat pulls away from the city, the noise recedes. Water replaces cobblestone.
I thought about Jacquette making that journey, abandoned by her mother at the age of fourteen and sentenced to live among the courtiers at the summer palace. How she must have missed the lilacs of Finspång.
Drottningholm Palace is expansive, the “Versailles of the North.” Its Baroque Park, functioning palace theater, and Chinese pleasure palace earned it a place on the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites. From the palace, I walked through the park toward Confidencen, where Jacquette and Oscar’s first meeting leads them. The distance is not great, but it made me understand how impossible privacy would have been. Every glance, every pause, potentially observed.
Travel also clarified the political tensions underpinning the novel. Early nineteenth-century Sweden was adjusting to a new dynasty led by former French general Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, renamed Crown Prince Charles Jean. That dynamic between the established nobility and an imported new ruler can seem abstract in historical summaries. At Drottningholm, the symbol of the former dynasty, it feels real.
The political decisions and relationships I had written about unfolded within rooms of particular dimensions. Tension and desire play out differently in small salons than they would in a maze in a Baroque garden.
Travel is not required to write historical fiction. Research can be rigorous and imaginative from afar. But for me, visiting Sweden transformed Butterfly Games from a carefully constructed narrative into an emotional one.
Travel did not give me new facts. It gave me atmosphere. And atmosphere, ultimately, is what allows history to breathe.
About the Author
After more than two decades as an attorney, Kelly Scarborough began writing historical novels about fascinating women who lived in challenging times. Her passion has taken her to Swedish castles and archives, where she has met interesting people and new friends. Scarborough’s debut novel, Butterfly Games, a tragic love story about two star-crossed lovers, a countess and a prince, is based on real-life characters who lived in Sweden in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. It’s for fans of Philippa Gregory, Outlander, and Bridgerton.
Scarborough currently lives on the Connecticut Shoreline and in South Carolina’s Lowcountry, where she bangs away on her MacBook Pro whenever her husband, three stepchildren, two children, and Shih Tzu cooperate. At heart, she’ll always be a Jersey Girl.
Learn more at kellyscarborough.com.
