Sabrina Lund has released an AI cinematic trailer for her debut novel Consequence of Power: Isabella's Season, which was published in November last year.

Speaking about what inspired her to create the trailer, the author who was born in Kingston and attended Surbiton High School, told Kingston Nub News: "It's quite a vivid book, as in it translates really well on screen because it's sort of very visually impactful."

She added that her "English background", having studied an undergraduate degree in English Literature at Exeter University and an MA in Shakespeare at UCL, along with her love for watching period dramas like Bridgerton and Gilded Age, "really helped make the novel really immersive and visually impactful".

Sabrina Lund grew up in Kingston and attended Surbiton HIgh School (Image supplied)

Lund continued: "And then obviously the next step was to create a trailer for it. But you have to be very privileged to have a publisher who can help you create a book trailer because it's quite expensive to do that. And also, you don't always get the sort of cinematic quality that you would have compared to a lavish period drama or in a cinematic film."

She explained that, as an author with a "small budget" like herself, she would never have been able to recruit anyone who would be able to create a book trailer for her.

But, Lund said, when Google AI Ultra came out two weeks ago, which she says is "just amazing software", she and her partner realised they could create eight-second clips using the software.

She added: "You don't need any coding experience or anything like that, which neither I nor my partner have.

"Luckily, with this software, you have to articulate or write what you want, and you have to be quite good at that, and there was a lot of trial and error for us. But if you can do that, you don't have to code."

Lund explained that she used Adobe Premier Pro to stitch together the clips used in the trailer.

Speaking about the completed trailer, she said: "It is an immersive and vivid 18th-century drama of love and ambition, exploring the many facets of power, combining the social nuance of Austen with the political intrigue of Wolf Hall.

"It's perfect for fans of romance, historical fiction and political thrillers."

The novel itself, which has received much editorial praise and is inspired by true historical events, follows the life of fictional Isabella Thornbury and sweeps readers into the scandal, seduction, and secrets of 18th-century London, where glittering balls and whispered alliances hide deadly intentions and ambition.

As Isabella steps out for her first London season, she hopes for love but quickly finds herself at the centre of a dangerous game, played by the powerful and corrupt.

Caught between the dark charm of the enigmatic Duke of Winterbourne and the steady devotion of her childhood friend Lord Augustus, Isabella must decide whom to trust in a world where desire is leverage and love can be a trap. But romance is only the beginning.

Lund told Kingston Nub News that while she has always been interested in history and has learnt a lot about various historical periods through her university studies, it was her partner who found out about The Order of the Friars of St Francis of Wycombe, a secret society which inspires the novel's plot.

She said: "I must have missed some little-known history about disappearances, such was the secret society, Hellfire Club", which welcomed a lot of British politicians, princes, and even Benjamin Franklin who carved caves into his hillside next to his estate in Wycombe, which can be viewed as a tourist attraction today.

The novel includes the true figure of Sir Francis Dashwood, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer and Lord Bute, who was Prime Minister at the time and favourite of King George III.

The author said: "The more I explored this piece of history, I realised I struck upon something like a little-known or forgotten history.

"So, a lot of the time when you read literature or watch period dramas like Bridgerton, let's say it's about young ladies stepping out into high society, there is usually a marriage match, which becomes a very well-loved sort of romance trope.

"And I love that as well, but then I thought, what if our heroine sets out in the society and actually it's not as good as she thought, maybe there's something going on underground, some political intrigue or darker undercurrents happening, which would be the case in real life.

"In those days (1763), that was the case, people were going out in the high society, but they were also politicians doing all sorts of political strategizing and it was a very interesting moment, and we just finished the Seven Year War, which was the first global conflict. And Britain at the time was expanding their territory."

She explains that she then "looked into this further and found the East India Company who was one of the most powerful companies ever to have existed and possibly one of the most corrupt".

Lund added: "There was a lot of corruption going on, which I don't think comes out in a lot of literature, and it's not something that I was particularly aware of."

She explained that the novel had inspirations from the then Tory MP, John Wilkes, criticising the Prime Minister while locked in the Tower of London and the Dashwood Hellfire Club secret society, and she "just overlaid that with my own fictional story of a young lady going into society".

'Consequence of Power: Isabella's Season' was published on 15 November 2024 (Image supplied)

While the character of Isabella is fictional, Lund read up about what women in high society at the time were like and says she views Isabella as an "every girl".

The author says that she herself sometimes finds Isabella and her decision-making "annoying", but has to understand that is how a woman of the era would be and act.

Lund says that having an analytical mind when reading, as she learnt when studying Literature at university, "really helped and deepen my understanding of the culture of that time because I've read so widely."

She added that by having read a lot of 18^th-century literature like that of Austen, she was able to write in a "a more lyrical 18^th-century tone", despite having to go off the descriptions and voices of the era from the books she has read rather than her own experiences of the time.

In the trailer, Lund adapts a quote from Milton's Paradise Lost, saying: "Will she make Hell of Heaven or Heaven of Hell?".

She explained that she uses the quote as a "philosophy that runs throughout the novel because the world is not always a good place, but it's a good place in some ways, and that links to the quote I used from Voltaire at the start of the trailer 'and we do not live in the best of all possible worlds', which was published just a few years before my novel is set".

She says that the novel explores this philosophy.

The author says that she hopes to create the novel into an AI cinematic series, similar to her trailer, and says that she is already thinking about her next novel which she will base on one of the characters from her first.

Speaking about growing up in Kingston before moving to Hampshire four years ago, Lund says that she loved living so close to Richmond Park and having a lot of greenery while also being close to central London, running along the river, and the wealth of history Kingston has while also adapting to modern living with facilities such as its "great shopping".

You can buy Consequence of Power: Isabella's Season either as an E-book on Amazon or in paperback form from stores worldwide, including Blackwells in the UK.