A HUSBAND and wife team hope their new book will kickstart a step into the unknown as a micropublisher.

Andrew and Margaret Evans, from Hook Norton, near Chipping Norton, set up Nuova Stella Publishing in September and have just released Mrs Evans' latest work, a fictional 17th century tale entitled 'A Farthing for Oxforde'.

The pair, both in their 50s, travel the country performing English Civil War re-enactments and Mrs Evans has written extensively on the period, including articles in national newspapers and a previous book in 2015.

With her husband providing the illustrations, the pair had self-published for four years, before becoming a micropublisher ahead of the release of their latest title.

'A Farthing for Oxforde' was released last month and can be bought in Oxford's renowned Blackwell's bookshop, shops in Burford and Woodstock, and in e-book form.

The couple are determined to make a success of Nuova Stella, but Mr Evans admits running the micropublisher alongside their day jobs is a labour of love.

He said: "We decided to turn our passion into our profession.

"It takes up all our evenings and weekends as Margaret is a full time author and I have a day job in computer games."

The pair are members of The Sealed Knot re-enactment society, an organisation dedicated to events surrounding the English Civil War, which ran from 1642 to 1651.

Mrs Evans has played many civil war characters for the Sealed Knot and is currently the 'Goodwyfe' of Leven's Company, from Oxford, of the Kings Lifeguard of Foote.

This has benefited her writing, with her husband revealing the pair often speak to lords and ladies whose ancestors were present during the battles.

Mrs Evans makes 17th century clothing and authentic food and has spent several years researching the period, specialising in the lives of women.

This formed the subject of her first book, 'The Women of the English Civil War', released in 2015.

Writing under the name Margaret Cooper Evans, the author produced a factual account of the period resulting from 20 years of research, including from diaries stored in Oxford's Ashmolean Museum.

The stories in that text formed the character Anne Farthing, the fictional protagonist in 'A Farthing for Oxforde', which is based on the diaries of four women who lived in Oxfordshire during the civil war.

Miss Farthing, the daughter of the King's tutors, is sent to Oxford in disgrace and the book follows her struggle to survive the war.

The text was released to Blackwell's, Burford's Madhatter Bookshop and Woodstock Bookshop on October 24, but is not available in e-book form until tomorrow, due to the couple's pledge to support independent bookshops.

The pair have plenty of experience, with Mrs Evans writing from a young age and her husband's job in the games industry even seeing him work on the Alien vs Predator video game.

Despite this, Nuova Stella has so far only printed and distributed a small number of titles, all written by Mrs Evans.

The micropublisher is keen to branch out and attract other authors, but Mr Evans is very mindful about taking the new venture one step at a time.

He said: “We wanted to start by just publishing Margaret’s books as we didn’t want to get anyone else’s hopes up.

“Taking other people’s works in your own hands is a big jump.”

Visit nuovastella.co.uk for more information.