A new novel from Beverly Jenkins is always cause for celebration, but romance fans were especially excited for Rebel, given that it’s both the kickoff to a new series and a return to some of Jenkins’ most beloved characters—the passionate and powerful LeVeqs. Descended from a famous privateer, the wealthy LeVeqs enjoy a high status in late 19th-century New Orleans. When sheltered schoolteacher Valinda loses her home and her classroom all in one day, the LeVeqs sweep her under their wing. And even though Valinda is already engaged, Drake LeVeq can’t help but make his feelings for her known. We talked to Jenkins about the joys of a slow-burn romance, returning to Reconstruction-era New Orleans and her favorite character on “Game of Thrones.”
What prompted your return to the LeVeq family and the Reconstruction era?
My return to the House of LeVeq was prompted by years of pleading from readers for more books featuring the family, and my curiosity to see how and what the characters were up to. I’m drawn to the Reconstruction era because it represents what America could be in terms of freedom and opportunity. After the end of Reconstruction in 1876, this time showed the resilience and strength of African Americans refusing to be stripped of their humanity in spite of the horror and degradation they faced.
This book is dedicated to “the real Valinda,” and I was wondering if you could tell us a bit more about her.
I’ve met some remarkable women on this 20-years-plus author journey, and Valinda is one. She’s now a retired academic who’s devoted her life to education and African America history. She’s also amassed one of the most expansive African American romance collections I’ve had the pleasure to see.
I’ve noticed that when a hero has a mistress at the beginning of a historical romance novel, some readers consider it a controversial plot point. Why did you decide to include Drake’s arrangement with his mistress Josephine in Rebel?
I think having a mistress after the hero and heroine commit is a more controversial plot point. Drake’s in New Orleans, where the plaçage system has existed basically since European men first set foot on its shores. Having a mistress was a common practice for wealthy men in most societies back then, and in today’s world as well.
Is the Council that Drake and several of his brothers are part of based on a specific historical group?
The Council formed by the LeVeq men is based on the groups of black Civil War veterans all over the South who banded together to protect their communities from supremacist violence. Many were called Loyal Leagues.
Is there a period of history you haven’t explored that you’d like to?
I’d like to do the 1920 gentlemen gangsters of Harlem and Detroit. I’ve yet to step out of the 18th and 19th centuries though because there’s still a large amount of little-known history to shed light on.
Rebel is a hugely effective slow burn of a romance. What appeals to you about writing that type of relationship?
I enjoy all the different levels of engagement. Whether it’s going to be a slow burn or an instant, raging forest fire depends on the story. My novel Destiny’s Surrender begins with a forest fire in the first sentence on the first page. Rebel is a slow burn due to Valinda’s commitment to her intended.
You’re a big “Game of Thrones” fan. Who is/was your favorite character on the show, and what is/was your favorite romantic relationship?
My favorite was Jon Snow, before he morphed into Jon You-Truly-Know-Nothing Snow. His relationship with Ygritte the Wilding hits all the romance beats, but her death denied them their HEA.
What’s next for you?
What’s next is finishing up book 10 in my Blessings series, which will be out in 2020, then on to the second book in the Women Who Dare series—once I figure out what it will be.
We talked to Beverly Jenkins about the joys of a slow-burn romance and returning to Reconstruction-era New Orleans in Rebel.
Sabrina Jeffries’ new historical romance series has quite the irresistible hook: an entire family of dashing dukes. The half brothers’ unlucky-in-love mother, Lydia, has been married three times—each time to a duke. Eldest son Fletcher “Grey” Pryde, duke of Greycourt, who is somewhat distant from the rest of his family due to a difficult childhood, finds his reserve tested by the forthright and unconventional Beatrice Wolfe. We talked to Jeffries about writing a blended family, the surprising tradition of funeral biscuits and what jobs she thinks her characters would have if they lived in the modern age.
Where did the idea for an entire family of dukes come from?
Honestly, I was planning on the heroes having different titles when I thought to myself, “I could make them all dukes. It would be a duke dynasty.” I started laughing (I never watched “Duck Dynasty,” but I have friends who did), and that was it. I had to make the series all dukes. Then, while researching it, I realized that there’s something of a precedent for it, since Elizabeth Gunning (famed for her beauty) married two different dukes, outlived both of them and was engaged to a third. So it’s not THAT far out of the realm of possibility.
Are the funeral biscuits that Beatrice and Grey spar over at the very beginning of Project Duchess a real tradition? And if not, how did you come up with such a hilariously macabre idea?
They’re a real thing! It was mostly confined to Lincolnshire, but they were in occasional use in other places during this period. Just check out this article about Austen’s funeral descriptions, which also has examples of the wrappers. They truly are macabre.
I laughed out loud when it was revealed that Grey’s mother named all of her sons after famous playwrights. Did you have a reason for which son was named after which writer?
Not really. It was hard enough figuring out playwright surnames that wouldn’t be too weird for hero first names! The only problem I ran into was that I initially wanted Greycourt to be Greystock and Thornstock to be Thorncourt, but my critique partner told me Greystock was just too close to Greystoke, from Tarzan. Although I’d done that on purpose, I didn’t want readers thinking that I had done it cluelessly instead of as a nod to Tarzan. What I couldn’t have known when I switched the ends of the two names was that Elizabeth Hoyt would come out with the Greycourt series within months of mine. The first book of her series was released while I was dealing with a family crisis, and anyway, it would have been too late to change the title name because my book was also well into production. I guess romance minds think alike!
Project Duchess is a very witty and light-hearted romance, even though both Beatrice and Grey have some very upsetting past experiences that come to the forefront as the story unfolds. How did you strike that balance as a writer?
That was difficult. But my previous editor used to say that I write deep emotion with a light hand. I’m not sure exactly how that works, so I can’t really tell you! I do know that I was influenced by Judith McNaught and Amanda Quick, both of whom use comic elements to lighten sometimes dark stories. Also, I’m a huge lover of Shakespeare’s work, and he practically invented the idea of comic relief. When I’m writing comic scenes, that’s how it feels to me—as if it’s a release from the emotion of a previous scene.
Most Regency readers know that the behavior in that era was extremely codified, but I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that spells out just how restricted women in that society were like Project Duchess does. Where do you do your research for all those rules about how to behave in society?
I got most rules about ballroom behavior from information I’ve culled through the years from a variety of sources. I also used From the Ballroom to Hell: Grace and Folly in Nineteenth-Century Dance, a compilation of various period sources about etiquette and dance in the 19th century, but since many of its sources are Victorian, it was only useful insofar as it covered the Regency. There are also some excellent online sources from dance enthusiasts and Regency enthusiasts.
The funeral stuff is well documented if you know what you’re looking for. Women simply weren’t allowed to attend funerals. It was thought that their over-emotional reactions weren’t dignified. Anyway, I could probably write a whole article on funerals in the period, but that would be a bit . . . morbid. ☺
Which member of Grey’s family was the most fun to write?
It’s a toss-up between one of the twins and their mom. It was hard to balance Lydia’s grief with her wit, however, so it took me a while to get that right.
What jobs do you think Beatrice and Grey would have if they lived today?
Hmm. Beatrice would probably be an animal trainer or a funeral director. Grey would be a real estate developer. Or perhaps a lawyer, since he had the capacity to read and comprehend legalese at a young age.
What was the most difficult aspect of writing this book for you?
Since Project Duchess was about a blended family, I had a rough time explaining who everyone was in relation to everyone else without using gobs of narration. Fortunately, my editor came up with the idea of using a newspaper gossip column to provide the explanations naturally. That worked very well.
What’s next for you?
I’m plotting Thorn’s book. It’s too early for me to even tell you what it’s about, since I don’t know yet. But between Grey’s book and Thorn’s is a book about Beatrice’s brother, Joshua, and Thorn’s twin sister, Gwyn. The title is The Bachelor (all the titles of the books in this series—and only the titles—are based on reality TV shows). Between Project Duchess and The Bachelor is a novella entitled “The Perfect Match,” which will come out this Christmas in an anthology called Seduction on a Snowy Night, which also includes novellas by Madeline Hunter and Mary Jo Putney.
ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: See our cover reveal of Sabrina Jeffries’ The Bachelor.
Author photo by Jessica Blakely for Tamara Lackey Photography.
We talked to Sabrina Jeffries about writing a blended family, the surprising tradition of funeral biscuits and what jobs she thinks her characters would have if they lived in the modern age.
After the glorious, angst-filled saga that was the Forbidden Hearts trilogy, Alisha Rai returns with The Right Swipe, a smart, warm-hearted rom-com starring a former football player and the tech CEO who captures his heart. We talked to Rai about her brilliantly ruthless heroine, incorporating the #MeToo movement and more.
Readers (myself included) fell in love with Rhiannon when she appeared in your last book, Hurts to Love You. What made you decide to make her your heroine in this book?
I loved crafting a character that was so many things: both vulnerable and cocky, dedicated to her family and also desperate for space from them. I knew she’d be my next heroine the second she showed up, and crafting a whole new series around a snarky dating app creator was probably the easiest thing I’ve ever done.
Rhiannon is unrepentantly dedicated to her business, to the point that she pushes through her hurt feelings to pursue a business relationship with Samson and, hopefully, his aunt. Her silent business partner, Katrina, worries that Rhiannon’s actions border on manipulation. I was delighted by this tension and conversation, as I realized I had only rarely seen a heroine act the way male billionaire characters have been acting for decades. Why do you think there’s still such a resistance to female characters whose actions aren’t perfectly altruistic?
Women in real life are rarely applauded for things like arrogance or ambition the way that men are. It makes sense that fictional women are treated the same. I love reading books where all characters are unrepentant about getting what they want and need (so long as they don’t hurt others), and I really think attitudes are shifting.
Samson and his fellow former athlete friends felt so real and so charming, and were very different from the tired stereotype of alpha male football players. Were they inspired by any real-life athletes?
No one in particular, but I’ve spent time around athletes, both pro and semi-pro, and I’ve met many who are equally charming! Every profession has all kinds of people.
Which dating app have you had the best experience on? And which was the worst?
When you’re on enough of them, you realize that pretty much the same people are on all of them, too, and I’ve had good and bad experiences on every app. I think Hinge is currently the most user-friendly for people looking for more than just a hookup. Your mileage may vary, of course.
Rhiannon’s complicated relationship with her mother, Sonya, felt extremely realistic—equal parts love and guilt, shaped by Sonya’s attempts to protect and guide her clearly brilliant daughter. Do you think their relationship improves for good after the events of this book? How do you think Sonya and Samson would get along?
I think so. And I believe Samson and Sonya would adore each other at first sight. He needs to be mothered and smothered a little.
Quite a few romance novels have been tackling #MeToo in the last few years, and without giving too much away, The Right Swipe is one of them. What did you hope to add to the conversation with this book?
I started writing The Right Swipe well before the #MeToo movement took off in earnest, but I did have to tweak it a bit in later drafts to make sure it fit into the global conversation. My hope is that readers empathize with Rhiannon’s internal struggle with her past and the choices she’s made to cope with the things that have happened to her, whether they agree with them or not. Too often decisions are seen as binary, and we don’t spend nearly enough time considering why people make the choices they do, the valid factors that go into it.
What’s next for you?
I’m currently writing Girl Gone Viral, the second book in the Modern Love series, featuring Rhiannon’s roommate Katrina and the bodyguard who has always loved her.
Author photo by M. Ladrigan
We talked to Alisha Rai about her brilliantly ruthless heroine and incorporating the #MeToo movement in The Right Swipe.
When Simon and Suzanne Duval decide to get married at the beginning of Mary Jo Putney’s Once a Spy, romantic love is the last thing on their minds. An experienced soldier and spy, Simon hasn’t felt desire in years, and Suzanne’s horrific experience as a harem slave has left her traumatized at the thought of physical intimacy. When Simon comes across Suzanne, his cousin by marriage, humbly making her way in London as a seamstress, he offers marriage as a solution to her relative poverty and their loneliness. But as real passion begins to bloom between them, the couple begins to work through Suzanne’s trauma together. All the while, Waterloo draws ever closer and Simon will soon be thrust back into the dangerous world of international intrigue.
We talked to Putney about the fascinating Napoleonic wars, the joys of writing a mature and experienced couple and what comes next.
The Napoleonic wars were underway throughout the Regency, but only a few romances set during this period address the conflict as in as much depth as Once a Spy. What fascinates you about that conflict?
I’ve always seen parallels between the Napoleonic wars and WWII. In both cases, for a long time Britain stood along against the continental monster. And for authors, the Napoleonic period offers a wealth of drama, disrupted lives, heroic men and women. Yum!!! Very handy for plotting material.
"I don’t find innocence or inexperience particularly interesting. I am interested in characters that have experienced great challenges and pain."
What differences come with writing a mature, experienced couple like Simon and Suzanne as opposed to a younger pair of protagonists?
I don’t find innocence or inexperience particularly interesting. I am interested in characters that have experienced great challenges and pain, and have become “stronger in the mended places.” Some of the strongest recurring themes in my writing are healing, redemption and reconciliation. There is often forgiveness—but some of my characters have had experiences that can never be forgiven, only moved beyond. Like real life.
What’s changed the most in your writing process since publishing your first book?
Interesting question! Not really a lot. I can’t start writing until I can produce at least a simple synopsis that delineates the setting, the main characters and the overall plot line and resolution. Everything else I figure out as I go along. If I don’t know what comes next, I tread water and edit until I know how to proceed. It’s like building a brick wall: I can’t move on until the previous courses of bricks are solid, so at the end, I need to do very few revisions. I will say that it doesn’t get any easier!
Suzanne’s past trauma as a harem slave is handled so touchingly and respectfully. How did you go about researching what her experiences and recovery would have been like?
I have various books about harem life, enough to have an understanding of how widely varied harem life could be. We first met Suzanne in my previous book, Once a Scoundrel, where we found out more about her life there and how she escaped. I did create an unusually difficult situation for her because it made her particularly interesting and impressive. Another major recurring theme in my books is the challenges women have always faced. There have always been strong women, and those are the ones I write about.
Depicting Napoleon, Wellington and Waterloo must have been a daunting task. What sources did you draw on for your interpretation of these figures and events?
There are a zillion books about Waterloo, as well as about Wellington and Napoleon, and I have a whole bookcase full of them! I’ve been writing about this period for years so knowledge accumulates.
I also some years ago wrote another Waterloo book, Shattered Rainbows (part of my Fallen Angels series). In that book, I went more deeply into the whole experience, including Brussels social life and going right onto the battlefield with my main characters. I worked out where on the line of battle my hero’s fictional regiment was located, and the major troop movements.
I couldn’t do that again, which is what inspired me to find a different angle on Waterloo for this story. Hence, intelligence gathering, which was vital and much harder to research. I sifted through still more books to get bits and pieces of real events that I could hand over to my characters.
Tell me more about the inspiration for Simon’s character, Colonel Colquhoun Grant.
He was a fascinating guy! The youngest of eight brothers of an aristocratic Scottish family, he was considered an exploring officer, riding behind enemy lines in full uniform, observing, taking notes and drawing maps. He was head of Wellington’s personal intelligence staff on the Peninsula and later during the period before and including Waterloo. Like Simon, he sent in reports about French troop movements and again, like Simon, returned to Brussels in time to take the field at Waterloo.
What do you admire most about Suzanne? About Simon?
Their resilience, their courage, their honesty. I don’t go into too much detail about the horrors they’ve experienced, but I did try to make it clear that they’d both suffered trauma and loss. Though they were lonely and weary, neither of them were bitter, nor had they given up on life. Which is why when Simon located Suzanne, they each had the courage to agree to a marriage of companionship and friendship rather than passion. They were both always honest with each other, which was essential to build the “happily ever after” neither of them had believed possible.
**spoilers ahoy** Lucas is a particularly fascinating character. Would you ever consider writing a book about him?
Why, what a coincidence! The book with which I’m currently locked in mortal combat is Lucas’ story, working title Once Dishonored. You, my editor and I all agreed he needed a book of his own.
What’s next for you?
The series I’m doing now is called Rogues Redeemed and it’s built around five men held prisoner in a Portuguese cellar where they’ve been condemned to be shot at dawn. During the night, they bond over danger and figure out how to escape, then pledge to keep in touch and maybe meet up after the wars if they’re still alive. Simon is the fourth of those five men. Lucas became an interesting detour! The book after Once Dishonored will be the story of the fifth man in the cellar, and that will take me to some places.
Having taken Sherlock Holmes and his stalwart companion Dr. Watson to the darkest reaches of the uncanny and the supernatural in his Cthulhu Casebooks series, James Lovegrove now gives the Great Detective a much more traditional, even cozy sort of case. Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon finds the sleuth investigating mysterious goings-on at an isolated manor, where someone may be trying to make heiress Eve Allerthorpe go mad. We talked to Lovegrove about Holmesian tropes, holiday traditions and more.
When first starting work on Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon, did you look at any Holmes tales in particular for inspiration?
More than anything I drew inspiration from The Hound of Baskervilles. It’s the most Gothic and ghostly of all the canonical tales (even though, of course, there’s nothing actually supernatural in it). The mood of the novel and its powerful sense of place—Dartmoor at its bleakest and most forbidding—were what I most hoped to replicate in Christmas Demon.
Do any of the original stories strike you as particularly festive? If you had to make a Christmas reading suggestion (after readers finish your own book, of course), which Doyle story would you pick?
Conan Doyle wrote only one Holmes tale that’s explicitly Christmassy, “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.” It’s not the greatest of them all but it’s sprightly and fun, with Holmes even pardoning the culprit at the end in a gesture that might well be regarded as appropriate (time of charity, season of goodwill and so on).
You’ve written several other Holmes stories and novels over the years. Has anything gotten easier about slipping into Conan Doyle’s world and voice? Has anything gotten harder?
What’s become easier is getting the relationship between Holmes and Watson right. For me, that lies at the heart of the original stories, and it’s as important for any Holmes pasticheur to handle well as offering deductions, mysteries and the rest. The trick lies in striking a balance between Holmes’s arch cerebralness and Watson’s abiding decency. The two balance each other out, and if you get the balance wrong, making Holmes too curt and irascible and Watson too passive and baffled, the whole thing falls apart.
What’s become harder for me is, simply, coming up with new ideas for plots, new variations on the old themes, new challenges for our heroic duo. But then the challenge is fun.
What would Holmes love about the modern world? What would he hate? How would Watson deal with the 21st century?
Holmes would doubtless find the Internet an unbeatable detection tool. He uses newspapers, encyclopedias and almanacs constantly in his profession. The Internet would give him everything he needs to know, and more, right at his fingertips. He’d probably hate the Internet’s more fatuous and unsavoury elements, though: cat videos, memes, “influencers,” trolls, bots, the lot.
Watson, I feel, would embrace modern-day advances in medicine. He’s very proactive as a doctor—at least, that’s how I portray him in my tales.
Where did the idea to do a Holmes Christmas story come from?
My wife. I was umming and aahing about what sort of Holmes book to do next, and she said, “Why not a Christmas one? People love Christmas books, and you’re such a grump about Christmas. It’d do you good.”
Holmes’s famous ability to find and discern clues from footprints is vitally important in this book. How on earth do you go about working that out as an author? Do you imitate it yourself? Are there books one can read on the art of reading footprints?
No great trick to it. I just sat down and thought it through. Holmes often finds footprints useful in his investigations, and there are few mediums that record footprints better than snow. A book on the art of reading footprints is a nice idea, though!
Speaking of Sherlock Holmes tropes, do you have any favorites? Any that you dislike?
The trope I’m not fond of writing, myself, is the scene where Holmes infers huge amounts of detail from a person’s appearance or from some inanimate object. It’s hard to do well. Yet it’s a necessary component. I’m also not a fan of him being privy to information the reader doesn’t have. Conan Doyle did that a lot, bless him, but I don’t feel that that is playing fair. I want the reader to have a chance, at least, of working out the solution before Holmes reveals all.
How do you plan to celebrate the holidays? Are there any Christmas traditions you particularly enjoy?
My birthday falls on Christmas Eve—like Eve Allerthorpe’s does in Christmas Demon—so for me the holidays are kind of a double-edged sword. I get presents, but so does everybody else, and that makes my birthday feel a little less special. My wife goes a bit crazy in our house, with decorations on every floor and no less than three Christmas trees (one in the hallway, one in the kitchen and one in the area where she has her yoga studio). She gets very excited about the whole thing, and I’m happy to go along with that, although left to my own devices I think I’d take a rather more Scrooge-like approach.
Where would you like to take Holmes next?
I’ve recently completed The Beast of the Stapletons, a sequel to The Hound of the Baskervilles. That will be published in late 2020. I also have a collection of Holmes short stories out in January, which includes a tale set in my Cthulhu Casebooks universe. After that, I have no plans. I’ve written more words of Holmes by now than Conan Doyle himself did. It may be that the time has come to take a break.
This interview was conducted by BookPage and sponsored by Titan Books. All editorial views are those of BookPage alone and reflect our policy of editorial independence and impartiality.
We talked to James Lovegrove about his festive holiday mystery, Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon.
Angelique Breedlove nearly stole the show from the titular character in Lady Derring Takes a Lover, Julie Anne Long’s return to historical romance and the start of her new Palace of Rogues series. Jaded where Delilah Derring was naïve and harsh where she was soft, Angelique was the perfect foil to Long’s good-hearted, somewhat sheltered main character. So when it came time to write Angelique’s own love story, readers were anxious to see just who could possibly deserve her. The answer? Lucien, a deliciously sarcastic bastard son of a duke, whose quest for revenge is totally derailed by his overwhelming attraction to Angelique.
We talked to Long about Delilah and Angelique’s friendship, the joys of setting a series in a boarding house and why Lucien is the perfect man for Angelique.
Where did the idea for a series set in a boarding house come from? What have you enjoyed about it so far?
The notion of a “true home” is a theme I’ve explored more than once in my books. I think it’s a yearning everyone has—to belong, to know your true family, whether they’re related to you or not. And I just loved the idea of a colorful, revolving cast of characters of various ages and social strata who move in and stir things up for a core cast —so many opportunities for connection, conflict, secret intrigues and passions, comedy and tenderness, scandal, growth, you name it! When you throw a disparate bunch of characters together, anything can happen, so it presents a wealth of storytelling opportunities. Moreover, it seemed an opportunity for two women to shine with strength—Delilah and Angelique are in charge at The Grand Palace on the Thames, irregardless of their very impressive husbands. It’s the place where they can be their truest selves. Perhaps it’s why they met their truest loves there.
Readers (myself among them!) adored Angelique in Lady Derring Takes a Lover. Did you feel any pressure to come up with the perfect man for her? And why do you think Angelique and Lucien work so well together?
I’m so happy readers seem to feel as protective of Angelique as I do! And because of that, I did feel a responsibility for finding just the right man for her. She’s far more jaded and experienced than Delilah (the former Lady Derring, current Mrs. Hardy), but in many ways she’s also far more vulnerable (something she disguises with ironic wit) because she’s been betrayed or used by men more than once. The irresistible chemistry between her and Lucien is not something easily squelched, but romantic notions have proven to be her downfall in the past, so she shuts down the physical aspect fast . . . at first. Both Lucien and Angelique have transmuted grave personal betrayals and heartbreaks into strengths—but also into ironclad defenses. Perhaps this is how they see and understand each other so clearly; they’re fitted with similar lenses. And in the distance created when she holds him at arm’s length, this understanding and intimacy flourishes until they both find themselves being almost scarily vulnerable to each other.
"Both Lucien and Angelique have transmuted grave personal betrayals and heartbreaks into strengths—but also into ironclad defenses."
How has Delilah and Angelique’s friendship changed post-Lady Derring and Delilah’s marriage?
During Lady Derring Takes a Lover, it deepened into something even more honest and open, thanks to a few bristly episodes that they managed to navigate successfully. They’re closer now—particularly because Delilah, as a result of her tumultuous love story with Captain Hardy, understands both what real love and real heartbreak is, so she better understands the kinds of experiences that have shaped Angelique. “How could you bear it?” she asks Angelique at one point. Angelique is decidedly more ironic about men than Delilah, but she likes and respects Captain Hardy. And Delilah is not one to rub happiness in, because she genuinely wants it for her friend, too. I think their friendship will go from strength to strength, and occasionally be tested quite a bit, like all good friendships.
Something I really enjoyed about this book is how forthright and open Lucien is about his attraction to Angelique. How did that aspect of his character open up the story for you?
Part of the pleasure of writing mature heroes and heroines—in other words, adults with experience of life and pasts—is that they’ve learned to cut to the chase. Lucien has had a little brush with death and resurrection, shall we say, and has learned that life is short and games are pointless. He’s actually a little too brusque and full of himself in some ways, as Angelique points out in no uncertain terms to him early on. I think there’s nothing more intimate, erotic even—maybe even a little dangerous—than his kind of forthright honesty. I think this bald honesty is in part how he manages to get past Angelique’s charm-coated fortress-like walls—it’s clear he isn’t trying to manipulate her to get something he wants. He respects her intelligence and agency. I felt it helped me develop a relationship between them that grew organically—and volcanically—in ways that felt real to me, and hopefully to the readers.
I am extremely fond of Mr. Delacorte and thus would like to know—will he ever find love?
Awww! Me, too! But I don’t want to give too much away yet! I love him as do our proprietresses at The Grand Palace on the Thames, and as we all care about him, so for now Mr. Delacorte is loved, even if he doesn’t have a wife. Anything can happen at the Grand Palace on the Thames.
One of the best parts of this series is not only how funny it is, but how every character has a specific and personal sense of humor. How do you develop that as a writer? And do you have a way of testing the funny bits to make sure they’re landing?
I’m so glad you think it’s funny! My writing process is kind of difficult to describe because a lot of seemingly contradictory things happen simultaneously: It’s a blend of total surrender to the characters (I feel that in many ways I have to BE them in order to make them real for the reader); a detached, intellectual focus that will allow you to choose just the right words to make the reader see and feel all of the things you want them to experience in the story; and there’s also sort of a delicious spectator aspect to it. Am I entertained by the story as well as the process as I’m writing it? Am I amused? Am I having a good time? Generally, I attempt to entertain myself, and if I can crack myself up then hopefully the readers will be amused, too. I look for the humor everywhere, especially in darker moments. I try not to parse it, usually, because that would be like suddenly watching your fingers when you’re playing a piano piece you know by heart—it might throw you out of the song. I’m just grateful if readers laugh.
"I look for the humor everywhere, especially in darker moments."
Did you map out Lucien’s adventures from the decade he spent out of England for yourself while planning this book? Or was he as surprising to you as a writer as he was to readers?
Oh, if only I “planned” books in detail before I embarked upon writing them! I wish. I suppose I knew that Lucien’s journey, beginning with being hurled into the Thames, would turn him into a formidable, confident, wealthy man, and that he would acquire the experience to continue to build a fortune. The details of his journey dialed into focus later as I came to understand him better as a character, and who he would need to deserve, and be a match for—Angelique.
What’s next for you?
More The Palace of Rogues, and perhaps Pennyroyal Green prequels or other novellas—it all depends on what life throws at me schedule-wise and what readers seem to want!
We talked to Julie Anne Long about Delilah and Angelique’s friendship, the joys of setting a series in a boarding house and why Lucien is the perfect man for Angelique.
Kate Clayborn’s Luck of the Draw series enchanted romance fans with its subtle mix of gentle humor and complicated, emotional love stories. With her print debut, Love Lettering, Clayborn casts a similar spell with an NYC-set romance that’s somehow both utterly magical and absolutely real. We talked to Clayborn about her hand-lettering heroine, why she only wrote from one character’s perspective and why it’s important to fight the right way.
When did you first become aware that being a hand-letterer was an actual job, and what led you to make your latest heroine one?
Well, first I should say, I’ve always been a little fascinated by handwriting and calligraphy, and my mom used to do quite a bit of calligraphy when I was growing up—I remember her addressing wedding invitations and doing some framed quotes for friends of hers. But a few years ago, I started bullet journaling, and anyone who has found their way down that internet rabbit hole knows that there are some amazingly talented people designing gorgeous planners. I keep mine pretty minimal (and tidy!), but I really loved watching people create such beautiful things that served such a practical purpose, and so that’s one of the things that inspired me. And because letters and words mean so much to me personally, something just clicked for me as a writer: What would it be like to tell a story about someone who tried to express herself through the letters and words that she designs, that she makes beautiful?
Extremely important question: What is your favorite font?
You must mean extremely excellent question! So, this answer is going to seem very on the nose for anyone who has read the book, but it’s true. When I’m at my day job, I prefer a sans serif font (I don’t even mind Helvetica!). But when I’m writing, it’s usually one of two serifs—Georgia or sometimes Palatino.
"I don’t know what other people’s experience of creative burnout is, but when I’m stuck it feels so desperately isolating."
When the story starts, Meg is in the middle of a wicked bout of creative burnout. Have you experienced something similar, and do you have any strategies to overcome it?
I certainly have—and I deeply envy any artist who hasn’t! But the truth is, writing about creative block in Love Lettering was really personal, and often very difficult for me. I don’t know what other people’s experience of creative burnout is, but when I’m stuck it really feels so desperately isolating, and of course Meg too experiences isolation in a very particular way at the start of the book. As for overcoming it, I certainly think it helps when I reach out to writer friends who know what it’s like. But also, some really basic stuff that is all too easy to forget when I’m in the thick of a block or burnout: making sure I sleep and eat well/enough, making sure I get outside, making sure I give myself time to read and watch things I love, making sure I spend time with people I love.
Why did you choose to write only from Meg’s perspective, and did that choice change the story at all for you?
This is the first time I’ve written only in one character’s point of view, and it was important to me for two reasons. One, I really wanted the whole book to be focused on how Meg interprets the world, because part of her journey over the course of the story is about how she has often misinterpreted that world, and how she has to learn to see it differently. Letters, words, signs—I wanted to show how Meg’s relationship to these things changes over time, and so I wanted to be deeply in her point of view throughout. Two, it’s really important to the story overall that the reader learns about Reid through Meg—her initial interpretation of him (which she realizes is, again, a misinterpretation), the new ways she learns to “read” him as they spend more time together.
Honestly, it’s a cliché at this point to call a book a love letter to New York City but I’m going to go ahead and do it anyway, since Love Lettering is such a wonderful one. Have you lived in NYC and if so, did you base parts of this on your own history with the city? Or was this aspect of the book based on another city that you love?
I have never lived in New York City, but it’s a place I love a lot. When I first got the idea for this book, I spent a lot of time in the city—walking, walking, walking. And something I realized on those walks is something Meg says to Reid early on in the book—she says signs in New York helped her organize her experience in such a vast, chaotic place. I feel a lot like this when I’m in the city, or really any new place. I’m always looking for a way to move through it with a touchstone in mind. Walking through New York with my eyes up, looking for these old signs, gave me such a new experience of the city. So, yeah, this book is a love letter, because I do feel in love when I’m there. It’s a place that forces me to see my surroundings in a new way.
"Conflict can be really scary for many of us who navigate a world where we’re encouraged to smile, to be nice, to not make too many waves."
Meg learns how to fight the right way over the course of this book, which was an arc that struck me as particularly relevant for a lot of women. When did that thread of the story emerge for you, and did you learn anything about your own approach to conflict through it?
Meg feels really threatened by conflict—arguments to her always feel like they’re going to result in loss or instability. That’s partly because of what you learn about her over the course of the book, but I definitely agree that conflict can be really scary for many of us who navigate a world where we’re encouraged to smile, to be nice, to not make too many waves. I knew I wanted Meg’s creative block to be tied to an emotional block, and the fact that she hides things in her work is a symptom of all the things she struggles to say in her day-to-day life. It was inspiring to write about Meg pushing through this emotional block to become a more honest, courageous fighter—and so yeah, I think I carry a bit of her with me now, always. I try to remember that her emotional honesty made her feel more complete and more creative.
What was the easiest part of this book to write? What was the hardest?
I try to say it loud and often: I think writing is hard, generally! So there were lots of hard parts, but the trickiest bits were where I had to show just enough of Reid while also holding him at a distance from the reader—chapter 11 was particularly challenging in this regard. I love writing scenes where women are interacting with each other, and there’s lots of that in this book. Those were fun, especially scenes in the paperie/stationery shop.
You’re also a NaNoWriMo coach. How would you counsel someone who was considering taking on the NaNoWriMo challenge, but not sure if they could do it or if it was right for them?
One thing I tried to emphasize as a coach was that the notion of “winning” NaNo—getting to 50K—is great, but more importantly, the exercise is great. Getting words down every day teaches you a lot about yourself as a writer, but it also teaches you a lot about your story. Most of the time, I really can’t write every day; I work full time and sometimes have to bring work home with me. But the ethic of NaNo translates really well to all kinds of writing practice, because it’s about establishing routine. I think that’s so valuable, and I’d tell anyone who was thinking about it to give it a try, and to think about it as a really immersive learning experience.
What’s next for you?
I’m working on a new standalone contemporary romance now, something I’m very excited about. I’m hoping we’ll have a blurb for it soon, but it’s early days still!
We talked to Kate Clayborn about her hand-lettering heroine, why she only wrote from one character’s perspective and why it’s important to fight the right way.
In Milla Vane’s new fantasy romance, A Heart of Blood and Ashes, protagonist Maddek and his fellow Parsathean warriors are ruthless, practical and feared—and their society is also sex positive and completely egalitarian in terms of gender. We talked to Vane about updating the barbarian trope, crafting Maddek’s complicated relationship with Yvenne, his guarded and calculating love interest, and more.
What were your favorite fantasy worlds growing up?
Oh, I’m definitely a product of the 80s and all of those movies and cartoons. Conan, Red Sonja, The Beastmaster, Willow, “He-Man,” “ThunderCats”—and toss in superheroes, because I suppose that falls under fantasy (or science fiction), and Star Wars. My dad had a huge collection of Edgar Rice Burroughs and shelves crammed full of pulp sci-fi, and they always seemed a lot like fantasy to me (especially their covers, which I loved). So I never differentiated much between science fiction and fantasy. It all felt very similar to me, and I gobbled it down. Mix it all up with fairy tales, which I also loved, and out pops the writer I am now.
Have you always wanted to write a fantasy romance? If not, when and how did the idea come to you?
I have, though I started out in urban fantasy/paranormal romance. I’ve always really enjoyed sword-and-sorcery type of fantasy—but there really didn’t seem to be an audience for it in romance (or at least, there wasn’t much on the shelves; it was mostly paranormal and UF). But I’ve always loved historical romances, too, and adding in dragons or fantasy elements only seems like a step sideways from that. So it’s always been in the back of my mind, but I didn’t start developing this series until about 10 years ago.
A Heart of Blood and Ashes absolutely does not shy away from the violence inherent to its world. How do you approach the depiction of violence in your work, and were there any scenes that took a particularly long time to get right?
I approach it in much the same way that I would if I were watching a movie. “Is the action clear? Can we tell what’s happening? And if we can, is it too clear and edging into gratuitous? Am I at the point where, if this was a movie, I’d be putting my hands over my eyes or turning away until it’s over?” And I know every reader has different tolerances, but I use that feeling as my baseline guide.
The hardest scene by far was the one where Maddek thinks Yvenne has spoken something she shouldn’t have (I’m trying to avoid spoilers). Because that wasn’t a scene where he was defending against a charging revenant, or defeating the bad guy—it’s emotionally fraught, and horrible, and combining the emotional elements with the physical/action elements was difficult, because the scene is a difficult one, and I wanted to make sure that I showed exactly what I wanted to show without lingering in a gratuitous way.
Did you look to any specific aspects or eras of history for inspiration for the world or characters of A Heart of Blood and Ashes?
My barbarian world is made up of many different realms that will have different influences and cultures, but I think it’s easy to point to the Parsathean riders and trace their origins back to another series I wrote which included an alternate history of the Mongol Horde. The cultures and history are not much alike, but was all that research still in the back of my mind when I was developing another society of mounted warriors? Absolutely.
Due to their different cultures, goals and personalities, Yvenne and Maddek have some emotionally brutal and very compelling fights. What makes for an effective, believable conflict between a couple?
I think you’ve listed some great sources of conflict: different cultures, goals and personalities. Though in the end, I would say that their goals are very much in agreement, and that allows them to work toward each other despite differences in personality and temperament.
But the other aspect is passion—not just romantic or sexual passion, though they have plenty of that, too. These are two people who feel deeply and care very much about the people under their protection. So when they clash, it’s just not their own interests they are fighting for (and fighting each other for). And it also makes it harder for each of them to back down, because the stakes are so high.
There is a very adorable running bit about the sheltered Yvenne discovering and loving new foods. What do you think she would most like to eat in our modern age?
Mango with sticky rice. It’s the perfect little dish—just a little sweet, a wee bit salty and if the mangoes are properly ripe, they’re so smooth and luscious and incredible. And the rice lets you lie to yourself and call it a proper meal instead of a dessert. Or maybe that’s just me.
Yvenne would probably like anything at a county fair, especially if it’s meat that comes on a stick.
This novel plays with the barbarian stereotype in really interesting ways. When you were creating the Parsatheans, what about that trope did you want to keep, and was there anything you consciously decided to be rid of?
One common aspect of barbarian stories that I wanted to keep was the road trip structure. In other stories (like Conan), wandering from place to place is more episodic, but it’s so fun exploring a world as we go along, fighting monsters and sorcerers and whatever other dangers pop up.
What I got rid of? Rape as an acceptable form of courtship. Which isn’t to say that rape doesn’t happen in this world, or that sexual interactions can’t be problematic as the characters negotiate their relationships with each other or try to gain power over the other. But I’ve built consent into the fabric of the world’s mythology, so rape is a criminal act punishable by a goddess’s wrath.
Are there any fun world building details that, try as you might, you just couldn’t find a place for in this book?
Oh, so many! The most obvious one to most readers will be apparent by the end of the book, because the “dragon” referenced throughout isn’t the same as they probably expect. But will one show up in the series? . . . We will have to see.
What’s next for you?
The next book in the series, which takes us north! That’s A Touch of Stone and Snow.
In Milla Vane’s new fantasy romance, A Heart of Blood and Ashes, protagonist Maddek and his fellow Parsathean warriors are ruthless, practical and feared—they’re also sex positive and gender equal.
Since launching in 2000, Kensington’s Dafina Books imprint has become known as an industry leader in publishing fiction and nonfiction that centers on race and cultural identity. In honor of Dafina’s 20th anniversary, we spoke to Executive Editor Esi Sogah, who has worked with critically acclaimed and bestselling authors such as Alyssa Cole, Kate Clayborn and Mary Monroe, in addition to acquiring titles and managing strategy for the imprint.
What was the first book you remember reading with characters you felt represented you?
I had to rack my brain for this one; the perils of reading anything and everything as a kid! But I think the first time I read a story with a black girl who I could see myself in was when they introduced Jessi Ramsay to the Baby-Sitters Club series. I read every single BSC book the second it was released and desperately wanted to be one of them, so when Jessi arrived on the scene, it was like, bingo!
When you look back at the Dafina books that have really sparked your interest as an editor, do you see any common threads or themes?
I think the unifying theme at Dafina is humanity. It’s a shame to say it, but a huge reason lines like Dafina exist is because, for a long time, black people weren’t seen as . . . people. Not to say things are perfect now, but the arts is one area where it can be easier to get someone to open up their mind and engage with someone who’s a little—or a lot—different from themselves. And I think every Dafina title, whether it’s a biography, street lit, suspense or a book club novel, creates a little world for the reader to sink into and live as someone else for a little while.
Over the last several years, we’ve seen a lot of imprints similar to Dafina be shut down or folded into other existing imprints. Why do you think Dafina has lasted?
I think the main thing is that Kensington has truly been a leader in this area, from the time Walter Zacharius created Arabesque Books. So it’s a really important part of our identity and something that every single person at this company feels strongly about continuing into the future. Also, there is a real loyalty in the readership for authors like Mary Monroe, Shelly Ellis and Kiki Swinson—born, I believe, out of finding a home when everyone else was telling you that you don’t belong.
“I think the publishing industry can fall into the trap of thinking that if you’re writing about race, then the book is a downer.”
What is your vision for Dafina going forward? Do you have any specific goals for the next few years?
I’ve got so many goals! But one thing I’m really keen on doing is acquiring novels that are specifically engaging with cultural identity as central to their plot. Happily, we already have authors on our list (for example, Aya de León and her Justice Hustlers series) doing this work, and I’m excited to see the team expand in that area. We’re also hoping to reinvigorate our nonfiction list. One of the true goals of diversity is creating diversity of thought, so we’ll be looking for nonfiction in popular subjects from points of view that haven’t been heard as often.
How have the books published by Dafina changed over the past 20 years?
When it was first established, Dafina’s slogan was “Publishing books by and about African Americans.” At a time when African American was a genre by default, having an imprint that acquired, promoted and published books categorized in this way was vital. Over the years, that catch line evolved to “Books by and about people of African descent,” acknowledging that not all of the books’ authors—or the characters they wrote—identified as African American. However, more recently, and as we move forward, we’ve felt that it’s important for Dafina’s mission to explicitly communicate the more nuanced understanding of race and identity that is reflected in the authors and books it publishes. We now characterize Dafina as an imprint with a focus on commercial fiction and nonfiction that centers race and cultural identity. I think this desire to define the imprint in ways beyond simply having people of a certain race in the books shows both the way Dafina has changed over the years and the vision for Dafina going forward.
What are your personal favorite romance tropes?
Anytime someone is snowed in—doesn’t have to be actual snow. Stranded by a broken-down vehicle, flight canceled, hotel fully booked—as long as there’s only one bed, I’m game.
I also love an amnesia storyline, which is why I was so excited to work on A Cowboy to Remember by Rebekah Weatherspoon. Her new Cowboys of California series is inspired by fairy tales, and her take on Sleeping Beauty in this first installment is just perfect.
“Publishing may be a majority-white industry, but it has never been an all-white industry.”
What is something you would like to see more of in the Dafina submissions that come your way?
I think the publishing industry can fall into the trap of thinking that if you’re writing about race, then the book is a downer. There are many serious, unflinching conversations to be had around this topic, and I want those. But I’d love to see submissions that are celebratory, as well—that speak truthfully to the characters’ experiences in all facets of their lives, including the most joyful. Even in the hardest of times, people laugh and love and play silly games with their friends, and I’d love more submissions that highlight all the cultural specifics that inform those parts of our lives. Some upcoming Dafina releases that do this well are The Gift of Family by Mary Monroe, The Seaside Café by Rochelle Alers and The Essence of Perfection by Nita Brooks.
What’s something you love about working not just as an editor or in publishing, but in this particular corner of the industry?
Publishing may be a majority-white industry, but it has never been an all-white industry. I feel strongly about the importance of increased diversity but also the importance of not erasing those of us who are here, some for decades. And what I’ve found in this particular corner of the industry is an understanding and camaraderie around this specific tension—a drive to push for growth and change without ignoring everyone who has already been doing the work.
And finally, a very important question. Serial comma: Yes or no?
I’ve never loved a question more. Serial comma until I die!
This interview was conducted by BookPage and sponsored by Dafina. All editorial views are those of BookPage alone and reflect our policy of editorial independence and impartiality.
Since launching in 2000, Kensington’s Dafina Books imprint has become known as an industry leader in publishing fiction and nonfiction that centers on race and cultural identity. In honor of Dafina’s 20th anniversary, we spoke to Executive Editor Esi Sogah, who has worked with critically acclaimed and bestselling authors such as Alyssa Cole, Kate Clayborn and […]
Rebekah Weatherspoon’s latest romance, A Cowboy to Remember, gives the Western romance a glossy, fairy tale makeover by using it as the setting for a modern take on “Sleeping Beauty.” When chef Evie Buchanan suffers from amnesia after an accident, she goes west to Big Rock Ranch to recover with the fabulously wealth and charismatic Pleasant family. Evie grew up with the Pleasants, and experienced both first love and first heartbreak with Zach, one of the family’s dashing brothers. We talked to Weatherspoon about updating the Western romance, her biggest influences as a writer and more.
What have you enjoyed about writing a modern Western? And what drew you to that subgenre in the first place?
Horses. I love horses. I’m secret horse girl at heart, and I love a man who knows how to take care of a horse. It’s like a man who’s good with dogs or babies. Throw in a cowboy hat and I’m done for. I also love writing close-knit families and tight groups of friends. I really got to do that with the Pleasant family and the gang at Big Rock Ranch.
“I’m secret horse girl at heart, and I love a man who knows how to take care of a horse.”
A Cowboy to Remember uses and subverts the amnesia trope in such fun and interesting ways! What did you like about it as a trope, and was there anything you wanted to specifically avoid while using it?
It’s not actually a trope I’d thought about much before. I was thinking of how I could do a twist on "Sleeping Beauty," and a coma wouldn’t really work. Amnesia popped into my mind, and as I researched it more, I thought I could make it work for this story.
Zach tells Evie both the broad strokes of their fight and that he still has feelings for her fairly early on in the book. What did that choice open up for you, and did you ever think about putting those moments further into the narrative?
With the amnesia and Evie being isolated with all of the Pleasants, I knew there was a chance it would feel like Evie had no one to advocate for her. The only thing that made sense to me was honesty. I didn’t want to Zach to keep things from her.
You’ve said that this book is a play on “Sleeping Beauty”—and since A Cowboy to Remember is set in the fictional town of Charming, California, will the other books be fairy tale themed? And what is your favorite fairy tale?
Book two will feature Zach’s younger brother, Sam, and that will be a play on “Cinderella.” Book three, featuring their eldest brother, Jesse, will be a play on “Beauty and the Beast.” I think “Beauty and the Beast” is my favorite fairy tale, followed closely by “Cinderella.”
Who are your biggest influences as a writer?
That’s a tough question. I admire a lot of writers, but when I read a good book it inspires me to keep writing in my own way. I can trace pivotal moments in my career to Stephenie Meyer and J.R. Ward because I was disappointed with the way people of color were treated or omitted from their paranormal work. Beverly Jenkins and Anne Rice inspired me to write happy stories and sexy stories.
"Beverly Jenkins and Anne Rice inspired me to write happy stories and sexy stories."
There were so many supporting characters that I adored and wanted to know more about in A Cowboy to Remember! Do you have a favorite? And did any character surprise you in how much fun they were to write?
I love Corie. Every family needs a loud play cousin. Miss Leona, because she’s the ultimate grandmother I never got to experience. Jesse was a surprise for me. I knew he was going to be there, but when I handed in my first draft I added a note that said I might add more Jesse. My editor came back with MORE JESSE!!!
Of all the incredible dishes made by Evie and Miss Leona in this book, which would you most like to sample for yourself?
I love a good carbonara. I’d eat that every day of the week.
What was the hardest part of this book to get right?
The hardest part was keeping it under 8,000 pages long. I could write about the Pleasants and the ranch forever. I had to limit myself to the pages of one book.
What’s next for you?
Sam’s book—If the Boot Fits (out 10/27)! He’s a sweetheart and I’m looking forward to sharing his story.
Martha Waters’ delightful debut romance, To Have and to Hoax, takes the death-by-consumption trope and flips it on its head. Lady Violet fakes a very serious illness in an attempt to get back at her estranged husband, James. But when James finds out that Violet’s been lying to him, it kicks off a hilarious war of lies and pranks between the pair.
We talked to Waters about which episode of “Friends” inspired the buoyant, clever tone of her debut romance, why her cat doesn’t deserve any credit for helping her work and what comes next.
Where did the idea for James and Violet’s war of escalating illnesses and lies come from?
I have to be honest: The fake consumption came before anything else in the entire book. I’ve had a longtime running joke with my friends about consumption being the most romantic way to die (I blame Ruby Gillis’ oh-so-romantic/tragic death of galloping consumption in Anne of the Island for this belief on my part), and several years ago I was joking about it with a friend and said it would make a great premise for a romance novel, but the consumption would have to be fake, since no one wants to read a romance about someone actually dying. And I quickly realized that James needed to see through Violet’s ruse pretty quickly, so readers wouldn’t feel too bad for him, so it logically evolved into this game of one-upsmanship. I was also definitely inspired by the “they don’t know we know” episode of “Friends,” which is overall the vibe I was going for with this book.
If Violet and James were each a cocktail, what would they be?
I don’t think James would be a cocktail at all, but a glass of good red wine—something classic and high-quality, in an understated kind of way. Violet would be some weird combination of ingredients of her own invention that sound totally insane mixed together but that all come together nicely in the end.
I stalked you on Instagram (as is necessary when conducting a Q&A) and was delighted to see that you have a very adorable cat! What role does your cat play, if any, in your writing process?
I was just joking with a friend the other day that if I could write an anti-acknowledgements page for my book, noting the people that I succeeded in spite of, rather than because of, my cat Puffin would be at the top of this list. Fortunately, I hadn’t gotten her yet when I was initially drafting To Have and to Hoax, but she was extremely distracting when I was trying to do revisions on a tight deadline. She’s the best cat ever, but a horrible, playful nuisance when I’m actually trying to get writing done.
“Any man who can write a love letter that good has my undying affection.”
There are so many fun side characters in this book, from Violet’s hilarious friends to James’ very sweet and honestly heartbreaking older brother. Did any of them really pop off the page for you while writing?
All of the side characters ended up playing much more crucial roles than I intended. They kind of took over all the scenes they were in. One character a lot of people have told me they love is Sophie, who is James’ brother’s former almost-fiancée and who plays a role in James and Violet’s hijinks. She actually didn’t exist in the first draft of the book! I had a different character filling the sort of plot role that Sophie plays, and I didn’t like her, so I rewrote her completely in the second draft, and Sophie came into existence instead. I ended up really loving her, despite the fact that I originally created her solely in service of the plot.
Many of the problems in James and Violet’s marriage stem from issues with family. Which backstory came first, and did you shape the other half of the couple’s backstory to complement it?
I actually think the backstories evolved organically in tandem with each other, rather than one leading the way. I realized early on that for a couple to be this bad at communicating, there needed to be some valid issues holding them back. From that point, it was just a matter of figuring out what those issues looked like for each of them. Writing James’ relationship with his father as one that caused a lot of trust issues in his adulthood played really nicely into his character arc. I had known since literally the first few pages of the book that Violet’s relationship with her mother was complicated—that she wasn’t the prim and proper lady her mother wanted her to be—so I then developed this a bit deeper in terms of how these issues affected her relationship with James and the tensions they might cause.
What was the hardest single scene to get right in To Have and to Hoax?
I really struggled, as the book went on and the war between Violet and James escalated, with keeping everyone’s motivations clear. There are a couple of chapters at a ball late in the book that were particularly difficult in this regard. When you have two characters lying to each other and also in total denial about their real feelings for each other and what they actually want the outcome of these shenanigans to be, it’s important to make sure the reader is right there with them for every shift of the emotional winds, so to speak. It was really tricky! I’m super grateful for both my wonderful agent and my brilliant editor for helping me with this in different rounds of revisions.
Is there another era of history that you’d love to explore as a writer?
I really love the 1920s and have a couple of ideas for books set then. I struggle with these ideas a bit, since I find the ’20s to be a fairly depressing decade, and I like to write very lighthearted romps, but I’m confident I could make it work.
Who is your favorite Jane Austen heroine and why? Who is your favorite hero?
It’s obviously hard to choose, as I love so many of them, but Emma is my favorite heroine, and that’s also my favorite Austen book. She’s so complicated and at times unlikable and selfish and deliciously human. For heroes, I think I’ll have to choose Captain Wentworth from Persuasion; any man who can write a love letter that good has my undying affection.
What’s next for you?
Coming out in spring 2021 is To Love and to Loathe, which takes place immediately after the action of To Have and to Hoax. It’s not so much a sequel as a linked standalone—meaning, you can read and enjoy it even if you haven’t read the first book, but readers who loved To Have and to Hoax will get a particular kick out of it. It’s set at a country house party at the estate of Jeremy, James’ best friend, and it’s about a deal he makes with Violet’s best friend, Diana, wherein they become lovers solely for the duration of the house party . . . but of course it doesn’t end up being that simple! It’s a fun, banter-y rivals-to-lovers book, and I can’t wait to share it!
We talked to Martha Waters about which episode of “Friends” inspired the buoyant, clever tone of her debut romance, why her cat doesn’t deserve any credit for helping her work and what comes next.
After releasing three critically acclaimed, independently published romances, Scarlett Peckham is making her Avon debut with The Rakess, a ferociously feminist historical romance inspired in part by the Enlightenment-era women’s rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft. Peckham’s romance follows scandalous reformer Seraphina Arden as she confronts her painful past while writing her memoirs and falling in love with Adam Anderson, an upstanding architect and single father.
We asked Peckham about the radical life and heartbreaking death of Mary Wollstonecraft, why she considers her female characters to be “alpha heroines” and the secret to writing fantastic angst.
You’ve said that you write romances starring alpha heroines. How would you define that term?
As a historical romance novelist, I love writing about women who find ways to claim a great deal of agency for themselves and feel empowered despite living in a period in which they were not afforded the same rights women have now. To me, “alpha heroine” is a cri de coeur for readers who, like me, grew up reading alpha heroes and were like, “But what about all the strong, powerful ladies?” In other words, it’s more of a state of mind than a character trope—an acerbic bluestocking spinster can be just as alpha as a naïve aristocratic maiden, who can be just as alpha as a whipping house governess.
This book is dedicated to Mary Wollstonecraft and is clearly inspired by her and the other reformers/revolutionaries of the Georgian period. When did you first encounter Wollstonecraft, and what does she mean to you?
I first read A Vindication on the Rights of Women in a humanities class my freshman year of college. This is embarrassing to admit, but at the time, I thought it was shockingly misogynist. I had expected to read a “feminist” treatise—“feminist” as I understood the word as an 18-year-old in the early aughts. But part of Wollstonecraft’s argument is that women would not be so vain, petty and foolish (I’m paraphrasing) if they were given an education. I was like, “Um, wow. Harsh, Mary.”
When I decided to write a book about a feminist reformer, I went back and reread Vindication and belatedly realized the somewhat obvious fact that the book is not written to persuade women; it’s written to persuade men. There is such a sly brilliance to its rhetorical approach. “Gents, you may not want to educate your silly ladies for their own sake, but they will be less annoying wives and much better mothers to your sons if you give them an education. Do it for the boys!”
I was so amused; it struck me as so transgressive and tricky. This is absolutely something one of my characters would do—use the tools at her disposal to persuade a man into doing what she wants out of his own self-interest. It made me fascinated to know more about what Wollstonecraft was like as a person, rather than just as a writer.
“And so, of course, having fallen head-over-heels in love with her, I was heartbroken over the circumstances of her death.”
I picked up Romantic Outlaws by Charlotte Gordon, which is a dual biography of Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein, and I was blown away by how radical and modern she was in all aspects of her life. Politically, she was pro-abolition, anti-monarchist, anti-marriage, pro-female education—she was literally negotiating an equitable distribution of domestic labor with her male partner in the 1790s because she was trying to write a novel while looking after a baby. And she had this absolutely juicy personal life with grand adventures (she went to Paris to report on the French Revolution and to Scandinavia with her baby to search for a ship of lost treasure for her lover). She had tumultuous love affairs. She suffered depressions and attempted suicide. She was a complicated person with a fierce intellect, a probing sense of personal ethics, grand passions, surprising tenderness. A heroine by any estimation.
And so, of course, having fallen head-over-heels in love with her, I was heartbroken over the circumstances of her death. Her life had just finally reached a place of fulfillment and contentment after years of struggle—she was polishing a feminist gothic novel, she was pregnant with her second child and able to spend quality time with her older daughter, she was in a fiercely equal partnership with a man who was her intellectual peer and also madly in love with her—and she died from complications of childbirth. And then her husband, William Godwin, wrote a memoir about her, which revealed that she had had a child out of wedlock, and she posthumously lost all credibility. She was dismissed as a slut, an “unsex’d woman” who personified the risk of allowing the patriarchy to release any of its grip on power.
It killed me that this woman who was so brave and brilliant and transgressive and determined got this abrupt end after leading such a singular life, just when she seemed about to truly achieve abundant joy. And her fate struck me as being very . . . female. By which I mean a man in Mary’s position would likely have lived to write more books and do even more persuasive work toward reform and raise his children. At the very least, he would not have died of childbed fever. And his reputation would not have been destroyed over the revelation of an affair—because men do not typically get rebranded as whores when their ideas are found frightening.
So I wanted to take all these aspects of Wollstonecraft’s life that remind me so much of an idealized romance heroine—her defiance, her passion, her tenderness, her vulnerability, her self-determination—and give her the romance novel-style happy ending she did not get to enjoy in real life.
What was the political atmosphere in England in this period, and how did that influence the book?
The last few decades of the 18th century were such an interesting time, because you see all the ideals from the Enlightenment cresting—citizens rejecting hierarchical forms of government, turning away from the church and toward science, demanding more justice, demanding an end to slavery. You have the American Revolution and the French Revolution throwing off oppressive monarchies and moving toward democratic ideals.
And in England, the response to this was a division in society not unlike the schism we see in American politics today. Conservatives were terrified that revolution would come to England and topple the foundations of society. Progressives were energized by the ideals and changes that were happening abroad. Powerful factions began to mobilize to uphold their power and privilege, while activists were agitating to make reforms. And it resulted in a culture war. Conservatives vilified progressives in the papers, branded them Jacobins, advocated for anti-sedition laws to shut them up and keep them from organizing and publishing.
In The Rakess, because the heroine, Seraphina, is considered to be in league with the Jacobins, you see her become a target. Not just for her “rakish” lifestyle, but for her politically dangerous ideas. The tension in the love story is around the stakes of this—you cannot enter a relationship with a woman like Seraphina Arden without taking on the stakes of her life—which will put you at odds with the ruling class and threaten your family’s security. And you cannot be a woman like Seraphina Arden without feeling the repercussions of this constant threat of danger, the stress and dread that underlie the fight. Which is why, when we meet Seraphina, she is in such a dark place.
Her historical influences are clear, but did any contemporary figures inspire Seraphina? And did you have any specific historical or contemporary inspirations for Thaïs, Cornelia or Lady Bell?
I started the book just after Trump was elected and revised it amidst the #MeToo movement, and I think my anger about how women are still fighting the same fights of the 18th century is . . . not a subtle undercurrent in this book. The concept of “nevertheless, she persisted” runs through Seraphina’s behavior—there is definitely a debt to Elizabeth Warren’s calm in the face of men berating and seeking to undermine her. There is also a hefty debt to women who speak out about gendered injustices and double standards and receive no end of harassment and scrutiny because of it. The characters are not inspired by anyone in particular, but I was inspired by people who have been on the front lines pushing forward feminist thinking, including Chanel Miller, Christine Blasey Ford, Rose McGowan and so many others. I wanted to capture both the bravery and heroism of being on the front lines, and the sacrifice.
What was the most difficult aspect of this book to get right? What came to you the easiest?
Seraphina initially seemed to have arrived fully formed in my head—her voice, her writing style, her mannerisms and the way she looked were all very clear from me from the first chapter. But that was a trick, because Seraphina is very, very tricky. It was much, much harder to actually crack into her interiority and excavate what lies inside this outwardly dazzling but brittle person. She resists being known to protect herself, and that defensiveness extends to the person who invented her!
You do such a fabulous job at writing great angst that moves the story along, rather than wallowing without purpose or plot development. How do you plan the emotional journey of your characters?
Thank you! I suppose the basic puzzle that animates any romance novel is, “They must be together, but they cannot not be together.” So when I start a draft, I’m doing a lot of very cynical calculus to see what will drive them together, physically, sexually and emotionally . . . and what will make it absolutely inconceivable that their relationship will work. I’m constantly sowing the seeds of compatibility and conflict, so that there’s always a way to yank the heart strings and then twist the knife.
What led you to deviate from the typical rake formula (near constant brandy and wine-swilling without any adverse effects), and show the consequences and the emotional reality of Seraphina’s copious drinking?
One thing I love to do as a romance writer is take a beloved genre trope—say, a marriage of convenience to someone you fear, or having to fake a relationship with someone you are in love with—and roll around in the psychological muck of what that might really feel like as a lived experience. Often tropes that are so delicious as the premise of a romance would be equally compelling as the jumping off point to a horror thriller. Fairy tales, after all, ride the line between fantasy and nightmare. The overlap, to me, is what makes romance so utterly fun to read and write.
So for me, the whole point of writing a hard-drinking, promiscuous, emotionally unavailable rake is to probe the reasons why the character would have that tendency toward detachment and numbness, and to examine the toll it would take on their emotions and health.
The arc of the rake trope is that the rake is redeemed by love, but obviously love can’t save you from the effects of trauma or from a drinking problem. That requires real emotional work. And so Seraphina’s journey is about acknowledging and allowing herself to really feel what she has endured in her life, and accepting that it is incredibly painful, rather than dismissing it in rakish trappings and the comforting haze of booze.
One of the key moments of a romance novel is the black moment, where it seems as if there’s no hope for the main couple to end up together. Something that fascinated me about The Rakess is that you don’t have just one event that could qualify as the black moment. Was this a conscious decision on your part? How do you see these moments of crisis in The Rakess, and how did you structure them? Is one of them the true black moment for you, or do they all serve that function or parts of it?
I think of a black moment as a mechanism by which Character A chooses to protect an old fear rather than open up to the love of Character B, and in doing so inadvertently activates the deepest wound of Character B, creating a chasm between the lovers that can only be fixed by Character A recognizing the cowardice of the choice, and then demonstrably changing.
So by this calculus, The Rakess has two major black moments. For Adam, it’s the night Seraphina chooses to drink alone instead of attending Golowan. Her treatment of him that night reminds him of his father’s abusive behavior when he was a child, and he knows he must end his relationship with her. The ugliness of that night propels her to recognize that she is destroying her own happiness, and hurting people she cares about.
For Sera, the crisis is much later, when Adam ends their relationship to protect his family name and financial prospects, repeating the abandonment she suffered at the hands of a man she loved in her youth. When he realizes how his choice mirrors that of the man who sacrificed Sera’s future for his own well-being, Adam radically reexamines the kind of man he wants to be.
I staggered them like this because I wanted Seraphina’s problematic use of alcohol to crest in the middle of the book, so that we could see her begin to recover and heal by the time she is attempting to build a relationship with Adam. And there needed to be another romantic crisis in the third act, because it’s only after she begins to stop numbing herself and let down her guard that she can actually be hurt by the loss of Adam, and realize how much he means to her.
Cruel but necessary!
What’s next for you?
I’m currently writing my next Society of Sirens book for Avon. It will be Cornelia Ludgate’s book, tentatively titled The Jezebel. And after that I’ll be working on The Rogue I Ravished, my next Secrets of Charlotte Street book, which will be about Elena Brearley, the whipping governess who has been in the background to the other books in the series.
How women’s rights activist Mary Wollstonecraft inspired Scarlett Peckham’s “alpha heroine.”
With Wolf Under Fire, Paige Tyler kicks off a new series in her paranormal universe of werewolf heroes and the people who love them. We talked to Tyler about the concept for the STAT: Special Threat Assessment Team series and why she and her husband plan out all her books at P.F. Chang’s.
Where did the idea for this spinoff come from? Have you known for a few books now that you wanted to set another series in this world, or did the idea come after you finished Wolf Rebel, the last book in your SWAT: Special Wolf Alpha Team series?
The STAT: Special Threat Assessment Team series spinoff actually has roots all the way back to book three in the SWAT: Special Wolf Alpha Team series, In the Company of Wolves. Caleb Lynch, our favorite out-of-control omega werewolf, made his first appearance in that book and his character screamed out for his own story. Unfortunately, with his criminal background, he didn’t fit in with the basic premise of the SWAT Series (i.e. law enforcement) so he was sort of stuck for a while . . . years actually. And no, he wasn’t happy about that!
It wasn’t until the release of book nine in the SWAT: Special Wolf Alpha Team series, Wolf Instinct that we started thinking seriously about the spinoff. This book introduced not only another scene-stealing side character—Jake Huang—but also the broader supernatural world, revealing that there are other things besides werewolves that go bump in the night.
Take those two characters, a wide-open supernatural world, an international perspective and a tag line of “Mission Impossible . . . with werewolves” and you have the basis of STAT: Special Threat Assessment Team in one neat package.
Is there any paranormal creature you haven’t depicted that you’d really like to have in your books someday?
That’s easy. I’ve always wanted to write a story with a gargoyle. There’s something so powerful and tragic about a creature forced to sit on the top of a building, watching life pass them by. Just writing that little part has a dozen ideas spinning though my head that I’d love to jump on . . . if there were enough hours in the day.
“I’ve never written alpha-holes. Can’t do it. Don’t want to.”
I really enjoyed how Jake had some typical alpha traits, but was also very emotionally intelligent and respectful of Jes’ abilities and boundaries. What led you to make him a less traditional alpha male?
I’ve never written alpha-holes. Can’t do it. Don’t want to. The stories I write are as much about strong, capable women as they are about the strong, capable men they fall in love with. There’s no room in my world—or my stories—for anything less.
What do you love about romantic suspense? Would you ever consider writing in another genre?
I’ve always been attracted to the danger and action of the suspense side of the house. Having your characters in tense, life-threatening situations brings out a ton of raw emotions and words that can be fun to explore. It also brings obvious conflict to the story, both internal and external, while providing a plot vehicle to carry the story in between those moments that the hero and heroine are developing their connection. And yeah, blowing up stuff is a lot of fun.
What was the first paranormal romance you remember reading and loving? How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire by Kerrelyn Sparks! It came out around 2005, and while I had read some paranormal romance before then, none had really struck me quite the same way. In my experience before that book, supernatural protagonists (mostly vampires) were a rather broody lot. Woe is me, I live in a dark home, drinking blood, I’m so unhappy, etc., etc. Not that I mind that particular trope (especially when it comes to Angel from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”!) but it started getting a bit old. Then I find Kerrelyn’s book about a vamp who loses a fang biting something he shouldn’t have and the human dentist (who hates the sight of blood) he goes to for help. The story was so different than anything I’d read before and showed me that paranormal creatures are people, too, looking for love, laughs and happiness. It changed the whole way I approached the genre and has had a tremendous effect on how we write our paranormal stories.
I imagine this book required a lot of research, from the various international locales the team visits to the equipment they use. What aspect do you most enjoy researching? And is there anything that is particularly annoying to research, but necessary?
Yes, tons of research! All I can say is thank God for Google and the rest of the internet. I depend on hubby a lot for the weapons and equipment, but we both get wrapped up in exploring the locales for the adventures the team gets involved in. I really love looking at that kind of stuff—old cities, hotels, iconic buildings and landscapes—and imagining having a chance to see it for real someday.
Research can take on its own life sometimes, taking the story in a direction you didn’t even consider. That happened when hubby found a GoPro video someone had taken of themselves riding a motorcycle through the Blackwall Tunnel in London. The footage was so mesmerizing we ended up changing the story to have the hero and heroine ride a motorcycle in the same tunnel.
Of course, this can also be the annoying part. Research can be a tremendous time suck! You think you’re going to spend a few minutes finding some details on a restaurant your characters go to eat and the next thing you know, you look up and realize you spent four hours of your day flipping through images of food you’re never going to actually eat! The internet is a very dangerous place . . . you can get trapped in there!
You and your husband, who is also your writing partner, go to P.F. Chang’s to plot out your story arcs. How did that tradition get started, and do you have a favorite dish?
That’s a great question! We’d eaten at P.F. Chang’s a few times over the years and really liked it, but up until about 2011 or so, it was merely a restaurant we ate at occasionally. Then we were at the Lori Foster Get Together in West Chester, Ohio, that year and ended up going to dinner at Chang’s with a few other authors from the conference. After receiving some advice on what kind of stories we should be writing and what New York was looking for, hubby and I ended going back to Chang’s the next day for lunch by ourselves. We ordered Chang’s Spicy Chicken and spent hours brainstorming ideas for our next book, which ultimately became Her Perfect Mate from our X-OPS series, our first traditionally published print book. We discovered we did our best brainstorming over a plate of Spicy Chicken and brown rice, liberally coated with hot mustard. Now we drive about 30 minutes a couple times a month to the nearest PF Chang’s so we can plot out our stories and we always order the same meal. Yes, it’s become a crutch—and maybe a vice—but it works so well, we don’t want to mess with it.
And yes, we tried to contact PF Chang’s about becoming the official author of the restaurant chain in return for free food. Shockingly, they’ve never returned our inquiries!
A lovely aspect of this book is how organically and naturally the team begins to feel like a family. What are your favorite found families in fiction?
Hubby and I spent 12 years roaming around the globe while he was in the Army. He was in the Bomb Squad, a small team environment that’s completely different than most people envision when they think of the military. Basically, everywhere we went was like a little family. It was that exposure, and how these small teams interact and take care of each other, that comes out in my stories.
As far as found families, there are more than a few. The whole Hogwarts world of Harry Potter is one, of course, then there are the Monster High characters, and most recently the four teens from The Last Kids on Earth. If you haven’t already figured it out, I tend to read a lot of teen and young adult stuff. They all seem to have a lot of family stuff that I love.
What’s next for you?
Well, Seal on a Mission, the next book in the SEALs of Coronado series, releases Aug. 18, then Wolf Untamed, the next book in the SWAT: Special Wolf Alpha Team series, releases Nov. 24. We’re also currently writing the next book in the STAT: Special Threat Assessment Team series, and after that, the next books in the SEALs of Coronado series, SWAT: Special Wolf Alpha Team series and STAT: Special Threat Assessment Team series!
Author photo by Pure 7 Studios.
We talked to Paige Tyler about her high-octane new paranormal suspense series, and why she and her husband plan out all her books at P.F. Chang’s.
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Is there another era of history that you’d love to explore as a writer?
What was the political atmosphere in England in this period, and how did that influence the book?
What was the first paranormal romance you remember reading and loving?
