236. Languages, Senses, And Romance: An Interview With Laura Florand

[music]

Sarah Wendell:  Hello, and welcome to episode number 236 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books.  I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and I have a cold, or I’m at the end of a cold, so hopefully this intro won’t be too difficult to listen to.  Today I am talking to author Laura Florand about her writing, her romances, and all of the books that she has written which are set in various places in France.  We are going to talk about linguistics, adopting pets, cultural differences, using the senses in writing romantic fiction, how indulgence and pleasure are seen in different points of view, especially when you mean things like chocolate, food, perfume, and love languages.  We also talk about writing about a place that has suffered from terrorism and attacks and capturing both the reality and the fantasy of a place like that, and of course we discuss what she’s reading.

Now, I have a number of things to say:  first, there is a special guest appearance several times by Laura’s new puppy, Dot, so I want to say, welcome, Dot!  Welcome to the podcast!  We need a new pet on the podcast, and Dot is here for us.

This podcast is brought to you by Orville, who would like you to know that the foam inside my sound box is very comfortable for naps.  He’d also like you to know that if you would like to sponsor an episode or an entire month of episodes and reach many romance readers, thousands of them, you can email me at [email protected], but Orville would also like to ask that you not come admire him all at once, as that would be very scary and he likes to sit in the sound box alone.

The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater.   I will have information at the end of the podcast as to who this is.

And I have compliments!  Compliments are so much fun!  And this is a particularly fun set of compliments.

So first, to Claudia, who I went to college with – ee!  Someone I know!: Your dedication to the things that bring you joy is so inspiring, and your creativity is a marvelous thing.  Don’t stop everything that you do.

And to Angie B., who I met – so I got to do a compliment for someone I know and a compliment for someone I met.  This is awesome!: Thank you Angie for making a long drive and for hanging out with me before my panel in South Carolina.  Your warmth and welcoming nature are wonderful, not just for me, but for everyone.

And if you are wondering what is this?  What is happening?  Why is, why are, why are we talking to people?  Well, welcome to the podcast.  I do this frequently, and if you would like a compliment of your very own, handcrafted, artisan-made, and locally sourced from my brain, have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. For a pledge, a monthly pledge of as little as a dollar or three dollars or five dollars a month, you can help support the show and keep it increasingly awesome, though still marginally unprofessional, because, well, I have a cat who wants to crawl in the sound box.  So if you are already a podcast patron, thank you so much!  And if you are a regular listener and maybe you told someone about the show or you’ve left a review or you had a look at the Patreon page, thank you very much for that as well!

I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I do, and now, without any further delay, on with the podcast.

[music]

Laura Florand:  Well, I’m Laura Florand [Flor-anh], or people often say just Florand [Flor-and] in the US.  I, I teach at Duke, and I also write books, usually set in France because I’m a long-time Francophile, and that’s where I did all my, my graduate work – well, most of it; some of it in French Polynesia – and –

Sarah:  As you do.

Laura:  [Laughs] Well, I’ve just always loved languages and cultures, and I went, ended up in, in francophone countries and in France, and so I really love that, and I think when I started writing I kind of liked that, you know, kind of slip into a fairy tale nature that that permitted me to do, you know, kind of capturing the magic of it.  To me, it’s very magic.  And I love chocolate!  [Laughs] Well known now after the Chocolate series [Amour et Chocolat].

Sarah:  Which is –

Laura:  – my lap who is biting me, so –

[Laughter]

Laura:  We just got a puppy Friday.

Sarah:  Ooh!  Happy new puppy!

Laura:  Yeah, thanks!

Sarah:  Does the puppy have a French name?

Laura:  No!  We got her from a rescue, and the rescue had named her Dot.  She’s, you know, she’s that classic cartoon dog with the white and black spots and –

Sarah:  Yep.

Laura:  – floppy ears, that’s her, and she, she’s actually my daughter’s puppy, and she liked the name Dot, so we kept it.

Sarah:  Yeah, I’ve never named my pets ‘cause they’re all rescues.  I think there’s only been one pet that, our cats that we adopted right after we moved in together, ‘cause I was pretty sure if you move in with somebody and then you adopt pets you would never break up?

Laura:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  So those are the only pets I’ve ever named; they’ve all come with their own names.  But congratulations on new puppy!

Laura:  My cat, daughter renamed her cat that we got to Jewel, but everybody else we, we just ended up sticking with the shelter name.  So –

Sarah:  So your latest book is A Crown of Bitter Orange.

Laura:  Right.

Sarah:  And that is about perfume, so you’ve moved from chocolate to fragrance.

Laura:  Yes, I think I just really like the, I like everything that lets you sink into the sensuality of it and these different textures and scents.  To me that’s, that lets me get into a lot of kind of, I don’t know, to me, magical spaces?  Things I really love to write about.  So, yes. I, I, I got kind of tired of writing about Paris and chocolate and started this series that’s in the south of France, where it’s a lot sunnier, and I could talk about, you know, well, you could go out into the fields and talk about the rose harvest or the jasmine harvest.  There’s just a whole different feel and scent and, to, to, to the south of France that I really love, so, yeah.

Sarah:  So at some point somebody told you to write with all of the senses, and you were like, I’m going to do that all the way up to 11; get out of my way.

Laura:  [Laughs] You know, yeah.  I can’t remember anyone telling me that, but I’m sure that that comes across.  I know I, I teach a writing class, and I am always telling them, I’m like, brainstorm all the senses that you can associate with this character and with this setting.  See what you can come up with and work with that.  And I do, when I, when I write, you know, sometimes, like, you’re writing dialogue or something, you’ll just be caught up in the dialogue, and then I’ll go back and I’m like, you know, am I bringing in the setting well enough?  And, and, and once I start, I probably get too sunk into it, because I really do love capturing the way people’s experience of their place –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  – is part of their character, so, yeah.

Sarah:  And also feelings are very connected to emotions.

Laura:  Exactly, yes.  Right.  Especially, I really love, you know, when I first started writing those chocolatiers, it’s such a sensual job –

Sarah:  [Laughs] I just said feelings are connected to emotions.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  I meant to say senses, but you know, they’re also, feelings also –

[Laughter]

Sarah:  I’m so amused at myself right now, and I’m sorry to interrupt.  That, clearly the coffee has not hit me.  Yeah, so –

Laura:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  – senses – also feelings, but senses, they are connected to emotions.

Laura:  Absolutely, right?

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  And when I first started writing the chocolatiers, you know, I, one, one of the things that I just loved was when I was observing the real-life chocolatiers and how sensual this job is?

Sarah:  Mm-hmm!

Laura:  You know, and, and you are, and, and a chocolatier is so focused on the senses, and I mean sensual not just in, like, sexual but, like, the senses.

Sarah:  Right!

Laura:  And so focused on every aspect of it, on getting it just right and on giving that pleasure to, to someone else, and, you know, in the books, this often is for the heroine then that he focuses, and, and so I think I was similarly attracted when I started working on that perfume field that, that it’s, it’s a similar thing, except more of a focus on scent, and you know, we all know, I mean, you know, that, how scents and flavors can carry, you know, it’s the old Proust thing, they carry all these memories and these experiences to you, so.

Sarah:  Oh, absolutely.  I remember two years ago when my husband and I went to Spain, I had studied abroad twice –

Laura:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and I did not realize how much there were certain smells that I associated only with Spain.  Specifically, anything frying in –

Laura:  Oh, yeah!

Sarah:  – olive oil with sherry vinegar.

Laura:  Oh, yeah!  That’s –

Sarah:  Like, sherry vinegar, and it was like the whole language side of my brain woke up and was like, oh, the Spanish words!  Hold on, we’re going to boot up that part of your brain.  Just hold on to the sherry vinegar; we’ll be right back.

Laura:  Exactly!

Sarah:  And it, it woke up my brain, and I was a lot more fluent and able to translate what I was trying to say into Spanish once I was surrounded not just by hearing Spanish but also smelling all of the things that were so familiar.

Laura:  Oh, that’s just a fascinating experience for, you know, to memory to share for a linguist?

Sarah:  Oh!

Laura:  Thinking about that, ‘cause I, I love Spain too, and I’m just thinking about that experience.  That’s, oh, I love it.  That’s great.

Sarah:  I often say that, for me, it’s almost like my brain is a partitioned hard drive?

Laura:  Mm-hmm?

Sarah:  And I have to do specific things to sort of wake up the Spanish part?  But –

Laura:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – the first, the, the easiest thing, obviously, would be to drink alcohol.

[Laughter]

Laura:  Well, it’s very true!

Sarah:  You’re so fluent when you’re a little tipsy, and, I mean, you’re far more bilingual than I am, but I remember going to a party for a friend of mine at my old job who was Colombian, and he had invited all his family, and my husband is like, I’m just going to, just, I’m, I, I can, he can understand Spanish – we actually met in Spanish class – he can understand it, but I’m more fluent in being able to talk and translate what I want to say, so I’m drinking wine, and my friend’s cousin is across the table from me, and he’s drinking wine, and so I turn to him, and I say in Spanish, okay, I think I’ve had enough to drink –

Laura:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  – that I can carry on a conversation, and he looks at me, and he’s like, I’ve been drinking so I can speak English to you!

[Laughter]

Sarah:  It was like, okay, well, you speak English, and I’ll speak Spanish, and we’ll keep drinking.

Laura:  It’s the relaxation and, and, you know, relaxing instead of worrying too much about whether you’re saying the right thing?

Sarah:  Yes.

Laura:  That’s what it is.  I, I mentioned this to my students the other day, who are most of them too young to drink in the US, so I’m like, so, it’s not, like, a recommendation, but when I’m saying to seek a relaxed environment –

Sarah:  Yes.

Laura:  – will help you, this is what I mean.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Yes.  And your, and your brain is, your brain sort of makes the jump from thinking in one language, then, and then translating into the other to thinking in that other language.

Laura:  Right, right.  You, you –

Sarah:  Which is, brains, man, brains.

Laura:  – if it’s your, like, the same as inhibitions, right?  It –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm!

Laura:  – linguistic inhibition?  It’s gone.

Sarah:  Yes.  And I am trying very hard to learn French?

Laura:  Oh, yeah?

Sarah:  Oui, je prend d’une app, c’est Duolingo.

Laura:  Oui.

Sarah:  Oui, est-ce tres difficile, because I learned some dumbass phrases.

Laura:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Do you know what I learned how to say?  Je lave mon cochon.  I wash my pig.  When, is that, is that a euphemism?  Tell me that’s a good euphemism.

Laura:  It’s, it’s not a good euphemism.

Sarah:  Damn it!

Laura:  Actually, it makes me think of these old jokes in, in France about the old English language textbooks they would have where, like, what, what was the classic phrase?  I bought the hat of my uncle, or something like that.  You know, they would learn all these crazy phrases to –

Sarah:  [Laughs] Yes!

Laura:  [Laughs] Yeah, je lave mon cochon.

Sarah:  Je lave mon cochon.

Laura:  Someone in our, in our park who actually has a pig, so possibly useful in some –

Sarah:  Well, this is clearly the guy I need to go talk to, right?

Laura:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  And we have friends here that are French ex-pats, and they’re forever telling me about what they learned in their English classes.  Apparently you just follow Brian everywhere.  There’s only one guy in the lessons, his name is Brian, and he’s always in the kitchen.

[Laughter]

Laura:  Yes.

Sarah:  And she’s like, Sarah, we have not met anyone named Brian, and I’m like, you could find a Brian; I could find you a Brian.  She’s like, nonononono.  No, no.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  So, when you were in graduate school all over the French-speaking universe, what were you studying?

Laura:  Well, so, I actually, I had a, I had a Fulbright grant to French Polynesia, and that was officially, it was between my undergrad.  I applied for it independently after I’d finished, ‘cause I didn’t quite know what I wanted to do, and –

Sarah:  Been there.

Laura:  And then –

Sarah:  That’s a really good solution to I don’t know what to do.

Laura:  It, it worked out.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Laura:  And then that, it was after that I applied to grad school, so, and I applied, one of the places I got in was Duke, and, and so I kind of, I had originally wanted to focus more, actually, on francophone and French Polynesia and things like that, but I ended up, you know, they had a program where they sent me over for a year to France, and I met my husband there and, you know, so it all, yeah, I kind of just shifted over from the francophone over into French French in France.  So in, in French Polynesia I was studying how the language and literature there were being used in the cultural renaissance, which is actually one of my first enlightening experiences because, you know, I came at it from a very western perspective, and I got there, and I was like, actually, it’s not really the language and literature so much here.  It’s an oral culture.  It’s the dance and the music, so –

Sarah:  Oh, so it’s other senses.

Laura:  Exactly!  And so that was maybe one of my big, big first wake-up calls and experiences to, like, truly other cultures and how, you know, kind of getting past that, you know, maybe, my, you know, my, my American perspective on what the world or assumptions, or western assumptions about what, what the world would be like.  So, yeah, yeah, oh, Tahiti is a very sensual place in terms of, you know, the scents of the, like, tiare flowers, and you’re by the ocean all the time, and dance is, you know, so fundamental to the culture, and it’s a very sensual kind of dancing, so if you can kind of ima- – it’s similar to Hawaiian dancing, so you can kind of see that.  So I was studying that there, but as I said, I, I, once I was there, I really shifted focus a lot to the, the dance and music.  So that’s there, but I still had, you know, some work in literature that helped me as I got to Duke, and then there I was focused on, I was focused on French studies, and so – well, I ended up studying – and, you know, you don’t, at the start, I was still looking towards francophone and then more French studies, but then I left with my Master’s, so I never had to do my Ph.D. and do the final focus.

Sarah:  And then somewhere in there you became extremely fluent in all the things.

Laura:  [Laughs] I don’t know about that, all the things.

[Laughter]

Laura:  I mean, I’ve always liked languages, so that’s, that helped –

Sarah:  Yes, me too.

Laura:  – and yeah.  But I don’t know – you know, you lose ‘em, too, when you don’t use ‘em, like –

Sarah:  Right?!  So annoying.

Laura:  Really strong in, in, oh, I mean pretty strong in Italian and then, you know, I had to do this group tour there, and I was, like, listening to all these tapes as I walked into work and trying to talk to my Italian colleagues all the time to get ready, and you know, these, these things you forget.  And Spanish, similar, you know, I lived in Spain, and I, even when I was in France I had a, my, my, one of my best friends there was Spanish, and she would always talk to me in Spanish so you, you could maintain it, but then you, you know, you’re not using it, and you feel so rusty when you start back.

Sarah:  Yeah, and then you have to drink.

Laura:  Exactly!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  It’s so annoying.  I, I find that –

Laura:  – a particular wine for each language, right?

Sarah:  Oh, totally!

Laura:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  When we were, when we were in, in Spain we went to Granada, because despite studying in Spain twice I’d never been, and then we did an all-day wine tour into the red regions, the Ribera del Duero?

Laura:  Yeah.

Sarah:  So we drank a ton of wine, and some of the vineyards that we, that we visited, the hosts spoke English, and then some of them they only spoke Spanish, but the tour guide and I both could translate for my husband, who’s way more into wine than I am.  Like, he’s really into the way, you know, the way you taste different things in the wine.  I do not have that sense, and he can sort of – I can put it in musical tones, like this is all treble, this has a lot of bass, this just punched me in the mouth, but he’s –

Laura:  Oh, I like that!

Sarah:  – you know, he’s, he’s, he’s more into the, the ways in which different wines taste different year to year, and it’s, it’s all, you know, it’s all very different applications of sense, but there were a few times when the host of the vineyard could only speak in Spanish –

Laura:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and by that time we’d had enough wine that my husband was like, oh, yeah, I got all that, no problem.  I understand, ‘cause he’s talking about organics and ladybugs and, you know, organic vint-, vintages, and he’s, yeah, you’re fine, I don’t need you to translate.  I was like, yes!  Wine solves everything!

[Laughter]

Laura:  It makes friends of everybody, right?

Sarah:  Right?  It completely makes friends of everyone.  So I want to ask you about how you make your writing almost like traveling, which is a really weird question, but one of the things that’s really interesting about your books for me as a reader is that when you read them it’s like you are traveling.  You’re experiencing being in that place.

Laura:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  And you’ve written about Paris, and I’m pretty sure somebody in France is really mad right now that you got tired of writing about Paris, and they’re super pissed off, and they don’t know why.

Laura:  I still have – [laughs] – no, I still have another Paris series going on, but I needed to change a bit, you know?

Sarah:  Yes, absolutely.

Laura:  The, the, it’s, the Paris Nights is really a spin-off of the Chocolate series, but since I’m not with the same publisher now, you know, so I am, Paris Nights, so, I, and I’m having fun with that, but I’m, I needed a, you know, I needed to go somewhere sunnier for a while, and –

Sarah:  Oh, of course!

Laura:  Get more out in the country.  Paris is cobblestone streets and, and lots of rain, really.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Yeah, a whole lot of rain.  I don’t think people realize how much damn rain there is.  [Laughs]

Laura:  Oh, I know.  [Laughs]

 

Sarah:  No kidding.  Do you have a, do you have a technique that you use, or do you have a, a method that you always apply to bring the reader to the place you’re writing about?  Are there things that you do to, to get yourself into that place?  Because writing romance and immersing the reader in a different contemporary world is very difficult, and I don’t think people really think about how difficult that worldbuilding is.

Laura:  For me, so, you know, I actually have several, you know, drafts not quite finished of, like, historical novels that I’ve written that I have a much harder time with because I can’t imagine settings that I haven’t experienced, so I, I’m very bad at it, you know, and the same reason I can’t write fantasy very well.  I’m very bad at making up a setting, but I, if I can travel to the place and be part of it, then one of the things I’ve always just taken a lot of pleasure in is trying to capture it and, and, and capture it in a way – to me, there’s usually kind of a, I have a kind of, I may, sense of wonder, maybe, when I’m, I’m traveling in particular where it’s a new spot to me, you know, where I’m just like, the magic of the space or the sense, the sense of, you know, kind of stepping into a fairytale that I think I find a lot in France is just a genuine feeling that I have, and so kind of capture that, I just, I don’t know that I have a technique except that, to remind myself sometimes that, not to assume that the reader can see it and experience it, and so, you know, especially, you know, take, to remind myself to, to, to take the time to capture it sometimes if I, you know, like I said, if I, if I’m looking back through dialogue and I’m like, well, I actually, you know, got caught up in the dialogue, and I didn’t, don’t mention the setting.  But it’s pretty instinctive, I think, you know, and a lot of times I, I start with setting and maybe have slow starts because of that.  Like I’m starting with the main character’s experience of their, of their setting.  Like in, well, Wish, A Wish Upon Jasmine, she’s starting with coming down the street and opening the door of this perfume, old perfume shop and going in there.

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.  And then with, with the – I always get the titles mixed up.  I think it’s The Chocolate Kiss that is on the island in the Seine?

Laura:  Yes.  Ile de la, wait Ile Saint-Louis.

Sarah:  Oui.  Oui, oui, and – I am bad at titles; it is super embarrassing, so I apologize – [laughs] – but the –

Laura:  I mix up characters; it’s terrible.

Sarah:  I could, I could describe the cover!

Laura:  Yes.

Sarah:  She’s got, she’s got macarons balanced on her finger, and it’s pink and with stripes!  Like, I could tell you exactly which one it is.  The title, the actual words?  No, forget it!  Why would I need to remember that?  That’s not useful!

Laura:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Anyway, with, with that one, she’s in a very specific environment.  She’s on this tiny little island, and one thing that’s interesting, I think, for me as a reader when I’m, when I’m trying to sort of relocate myself in a book or take a vacation or travel with my, with my, and I’m going to travel with the characters, there’s often one character who’s moving in and one character who’s already there, and more often than not you see things through the character who is entering.  They’re sort of the, the reader surrogate of Here’s All the New Things, but with that book, she’s already there, and she’s pissed that he’s moved into her territory –

Laura:  Uh-huh.

Sarah:  – and I, and I love that because she had to not only, you know, communicate how pissed off she was that this guy was on her turf, but she also was defending the, the way that her world was and didn’t want it to change.

Laura:  Yes.  She’s very attached to her place and very afraid of losing it.  Yeah.  That was a really, I, that was a book I really loved writing because there was that, the shop that she has is based on a real shop – well, it used to exist; it doesn’t exist anymore – and –

Sarah:  Bummer!

Laura:  – and I had often, often, I loved that shop so much, the number of times I would, like, sit there with a journal and try to capture everything about it in words on my, you know, in my, in my jour-, travel journal, or I would, you know, stare at the window and then take my journal off to the nearest park and try to describe everything about the, you know, their current display window.  I mean, I can’t even say, think of how many times, and I, and, and often I would try to, okay, try to start a story that used that shop, and I, I had all kinds of scenes set there that, you know, that I never developed into the right thing, and then Kensington has asked me for another book after The Chocolate Thief, and I just kind of finally hit the right place with what I wanted to, you know, the right story that I wanted for that place –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  – and was able to take it away.  But it was – and by the time the book came out, the actual shop was gone.  It was, they had sold it.

Sarah:  Aw!

Laura:  So I was really, I felt really happy, though, that the book existed, ‘cause it’s kind of, a lot of people still, you know, they, they still remember it, and they’re like, oh, yeah!  I knew that place!  And so it’s maybe my tribute to a really magical spot that was, you know, really special.

Sarah:  It’s also interesting that in your books you blend major, you, you blend things that are inherently often in conflict.  With that character, she had to learn to embrace the part of her that was half American –

Laura:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and you have people in A Crown of Bitter Orange, you have characters blending the past and the present –

Laura:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – and also, you know, blending perfume, and you, you are forcing characters to mix things together in different ways, whether it’s chocolate or history or change.  Are there any things that are so difficult that you don’t want to write about them?  Are there any things where you’re like, oh, yeah, I can’t, I can’t do wine, or I don’t know if I could do shoes.  Shoes would be good; you could totally do shoes.

Laura:  [Laughs] Well, Magalie in The Chocolate Kiss liked her shoes.

Sarah:  That’s true; she really did.

Laura:  I, that is actually a challenge for me.  I’m not very attentive to fashion at all, so when I want to make a character who is fashionable I have to do research, and I have to –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Laura:  – think of, like, what are the shoes, and what are, you know, that she would wear?  So Magalie was a, a, Magalie was a fashion hound.  She loved her shoes and stuff, and so I had to keep Googling – [laughs] – what the, what the boots might look like and what the sweater might look like that she would wear.  That’s, yeah, for, for my Paris heroines in particular –

Sarah:  Yes.

Laura:  – that can be a challenge, ‘cause most of them have a strong fashion sense.

Sarah:  Yes.

Laura:  So, but, you know, it was good for me.  It’s a good challenge.  I guess I, I think that the mixing itself is, you know, just your ultimate metaphor, right, for, for falling in love and trying to bring two lifes to-, lives together in a way that respects those two lives and allows both of those people to maybe make compromises but still be their full selves?

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  And that can also be, that’s one of the, often, big challenges, and I’m not the only writer who, who likes to, you know, give them two things that seem like they’re not going to be able to fit.  I mean, how do they make them fit?  What do they do?  But I, I, I think in terms of, like, you were saying, you know, like, things that I, I, I mean, like, I, once people asked me to write a book about cheese, and I’m like, I love, I mean, I love good cheese, but I do not find that remotely romantic to write about.

[Laughter]

Laura:  I just cannot have the hero like, here is this cheese I made for you!  It doesn’t work for me?

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  You know, I could, so there’re some things that, to me, they don’t have that kind of sensuality that I, I like working with.

Sarah:  Right.

Laura:  So, even though cheese, you know, I know, people are going to get mad at me about the cheese.

Sarah:  I can just picture, somebody’s going to listen to this and be like, you don’t understand cheese!  I have to tell you about, I’m going to get angry – I’m going to get angry email now.

Laura:  [Laughs] I understand cheese!  I, I, all the 365 kinds of cheese, but, but I just, yeah.  It’s, to me it is not a, it doesn’t have that underlying eroticism to it, you know, that sensuality like chocolate does or pastries or perfume –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  – or picking roses, you know, so.

Sarah:  And also the idea that, especially from my understanding of French culture, indulgence is a necessity.

Laura:  That is something I often actually – and even readers will, will, will write to me and say like, oh, you made me indulge in my guilty pleasure.

Sarah:  Yeah, there’s no guilty part there.

Laura:  Why guilty pleasure?  There’s no guilt!  I mean, there’s pleasure, but there’s no guilt, and I do, actually, that is one, something I feel strongly about and try to communicate just because that’s what I believe that, you know, that you, you shouldn’t be feeling guilty about your pleasures.  You should just enjoy them, you know?

Sarah:  Which is funny when you think about it on a more meta level, because romances are so often described by readers as their guilty pleasure.  You know, they should be reading this esoteric literature.

Laura:  No, I know.  This is a very, though, this is a – I don’t know.  Maybe I’m wrong about this, but this seems to, you know, we talk about Americans’ Puritan heritage and this kind of –

Sarah:  [Laughs] Yes!

Laura:  – demonization of pleasure –

Sarah:  Yeah, somewhere someone is having an orgasm, and they must be stopped!

Laura:  Well, yeah!  And so it’s like, if you’re in, if you’re having pleasure or if you’re having leisure –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  – you would not be working hard enough, and you’re not serious enough, and I would definitely fall on the French side of that where, like, you can be very productive in your productive time and still enjoy life in all the senses and still relax over a table with friends until, you know, six in the morning –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  – drinking and, and eating cheese and – [laughs] – having a good time, right?  So.

Sarah:  [Laughs] And it’s, and it’s interesting if you think about the fact that you’re writing romances about what are, things that are considered a guilty pleasure, fragrance, you know, chocolate, food, so you are writing the meta of guilty pleasure.  You’re writing guilty pleasure books about guilty pleasures that no one should feel guilty about.

Laura:  Yes!  [Laughs] And I wish, and I’m like, people, just sink into it –

Sarah:  Yep.

Laura:  – and yes, if it makes you go buy some good chocolate for yourself, wonderful.  Don’t feel guilty.

Sarah:  No, not at all.  So what are some of the things that you’ve learned that you really appreciate having done the research for?  I mean, I’m sure you found really good chocolatiers.

Laura:  Yep.

Sarah:  Do you have a new favorite perfume?

Laura:  No, I do not have a favorite perfume, no.  I actually – oh, I probably shouldn’t say this.  Perfumes give me headaches.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Oh!  [Laughs] You are not alone.

Laura:  I love exploring the scents, and I’ve done, like, you know, I’ve worked and, and, and you can, you know, you can do workshops where you learn perfume making yourself, and you can follow perfume makers, but I, I do not actually wear perfume – [laughs] – so that’s going to get people – especially with my main characters, with Tristan and with Jess being perfumers, people are going to find me hypocritical now.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  I don’t think so.  I, I, there are a lot of people for whom scent is, is, is a pretty difficult thing to manage, that you’re going to get a headache from a lot of strong scent, especially because culturally in, in the United States, we also apply scents differently.

Laura:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  And, you know, you become nose blind to your own perfume –

Laura:  Yes.

Sarah:  – that you wear all the time, so you add more of it.  Which is not the point.  [Laughs]

Laura:  Yes.  Well, that’s one of those whole fun debates about perfume, you know.  You know, this idea of having your sillage, you know, the kind of scent that, like, wafts in your wake –

Sarah:  Yes, your signature.

Laura:  Right, but also the, the belief that your scent is only for people who are up close enough to kiss you, so they’re not, they’re, they’re, they’re not necessarily, you know, there’re different attitudes about that, right?  Whether your –

Sarah:  Yes.

Laura:  How wide your scent should go.

Sarah:  Yes.

Laura:  So.

Sarah:  So what are you working on right now?

Laura:  My next book is in the Paris Nights series.  It’s Trust Me; it comes out in April.  And so that’s back in Paris.  That would be, that was a challenging book to write.  Paris has been going through a lot.

Sarah:  Yes.

Laura:  And it’s, was very hard for me, because, you know, in Chase Me, I had set up kind of, I had really just wanted to write kind of a Hollywood book?

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  Because I had been watching, I don’t know, you know, Black Widow or something, and, and I was like, why can’t I write like Hollywood where I just don’t even care how likely or plausible it is that you can, you know, you can do these things, but I can just have this, you know, leather-clad heroine who can throw knives and banter and stuff with this, you know, SEAL hero and, and not worry about the realism of it and just have fun with, and so I had started with that, and then, and he was supposed to be investigating a, a terrorist threat, and then while I was in the middle of writing that, there was, there was the Bataclan attack.

Sarah:  Right.

Laura:  That was really, really hard.  There had already been, like, you know, the Charlie Hebdo attack, and that was hard.  I, I wanted the people who would, one of the survivors of the attack who was a colleague of mine from the year before, he had been at our department as a visiting fellow.  So those things were really hard to absorb and then try to respect –

Sarah:  Yes.

Laura:  – the trauma and the damage that that caused, and at the same time let these books stay happy books?

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  You know, so when I was already caught in this thing of where I was, had started out making a fairly, you know, flippant, light-hearted kind of Hollywood, so just trying to find that, deal with it, and so this Trust Me book, it’s the, the, the pastry chef of, in that same restaurant –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  – and she’s basically dealing with the aftermath, so, you know, it’s been, it’s been challenging, couple, it, it’s been challenging.  I, it’s, I think I’ve, I’m really happy with the way it turned out, and I hope other people, you know, will be too when it comes out, but I have to say, last year was a challenging writing year for everything happening.

Sarah:  Uh, yeah.  Just a little.

Laura:  Yeah.  [Laughs] Just kind of keeping that, that happy magic fairytale world that I, I, I think I’ve typically done in books.  You know, just keeping that spirit, that was good.

Sarah:  And, and it’s difficult to, if you’re representing for someone who’s never been too a place what it’s like there, what this one particular street would smell like or what this one particular neighborhood is like every day, and you’re trying to write and, and portray how it’s changed after a horrible, traumatic event that affected everyone –

Laura:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and you’re sort of trying to explain this place is still beautiful, and there’s still –

Laura:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – wonderful things about it, and there’re all of these wonderful indulgences that are part of everyday life, and yet there is this open, painful wound that everyone carries.

Laura:  Yes.

Sarah:  It’s, and it’s, it’s hard to balance that and blend that.

Laura:  Yes, and at the same time, I think, you know, after the Bataclan, one of the drawings that circulated, you know, there were, all kinds of cartoonists and stuff responded in their own ways, you know, and one of the things that circulated a lot was, you know, I am Paris.  I am here on a terrace, restaurant terrace.  I am drinking and eating and having fun with my friends.  I am Paris.

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  Right?  And this was kind of this response because a lot of those people were, were shot while they were on a terrace eating –

Sarah:  Yes.

Laura:  – and others in a theatre, and so, you know, two quintessentially Paris things to do, and, and so one of the assertions and affirmations of themselves was to – and, and people did this, like, then, you know, going out that weekend and making a declaration of going out and not being kept from doing those activities and being who Parisians are.  It was a very powerful and very moving thing, and so I think, yes, it’s important to, to keep, keep that and respect that Paris spirit, right?

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  Which is still, you know, we are Paris, and we believe these things, and we will, you know, do these things, so, yeah.  The bad guys don’t get to win, so – [laughs] –

Sarah:  Right, and, and they, they cannot destroy the things that make your culture what it is.

Laura:  Exactly, right, and there was a very powerful affirmation of that, and I think as, you know, writing, I, I try to, you know, respect that and capture that too, right?

Sarah:  Yep.  And plus, when you’re writing romance, you’re writing about the essentials of human emotion.  You’re writing about the wonderful connections between humans that make everything better, that help us, because you’re writing about love and affection and kindness and taking care, and when you’re also writing about food and –

Laura:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – the things that you eat and the things that you make for other people to eat, that is all a form of intimacy, and that intimacy can, can alleviate a lot of fear.

Laura:  Yes, and it’s the quintessential hum-, hum-, you know, contact of humanity, right?

Sarah:  Yes.

Laura:  So, you know, I mean, well, you know, first of all, falling in love is the quintessential cont-, a continuation, affirmation of life –

Sarah:  Yes.

Laura:  – because basically its purpose.  It’s, you know, can we, can we, you know, can we bring people together?  Can we continue our species?  Can we create, can we create couples?  Can we create families?  Can we, you know, can we create networks of, you know, you know – I don’t mean a couple has to produce a child, right?  But networks of support and solidarity in different ways that help us all have good lives and continue.  So I think that, yeah, all of these things, and then of course for me, and I, I mean it’s not just for me, for everybody, food, offering food to someone is, you know, one of your fundamental love languages.  It’s, it’s, it’s, from time immemorial, from the beginning of species and for most species we know, sharing of food is a sign of caring for the other person or for the other creature.  You’re willing to give, to bri-, try to bring them pleasure and also share your life source with them, basically, right?

Sarah:  Yes.

Laura:  So –

Sarah:  And it’s very intimate.

Laura:  Yes!  I esp-, I, I especially love the, you know, it’s, when we get down to, like, the chocolatiers and the pastry chefs who are trying, you know, they’re pouring their heart into trying to figure out the combination of flavors and textures that will really speak to the person that they’re, you know, I, I, like in The Chocolate Heart or in The Chocolate Kiss, she’s trying to make the, the hot chocolate that will, you know, kind of bring him into her power, and he’s trying to make the dessert that will, you know, that would –

Sarah:  Impress her, yeah.

Laura:  Yes, exactly, ‘cause they’re in this, this, this kind of love battle the whole book.  So it’s, it’s, yes, they’re, you’re thinking, what does this other person like and want, and what can I produce and make that is part of me that will, you know, just fulfill that other person too, so.

Sarah:  And I remember in the, in the next book, the heroine is, is recovering from an attack that, on herself.  She was –

Laura:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – she was attacked, and the hero (a) is obsessed with feeding her because she’s too thin.

Laura:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  But then –

Laura:  I mean, yeah.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  And yet all of these men – one of the things that I loved about the Chocolat series was that they were a different kind of alpha hero?  They were alphas very much in their kitchen; this was Their Turf –

Laura:  Yeah.  Yep.

Sarah:  – but then they were inherently caretaking and trying desperately to communicate different emotions through food, and so, you know, often I think that for many readers, the idea of an alpha hero is sort of a shorthand for has one emotion, hates that one emotion, and is mad about it.

Laura:  Yeah –

 

Sarah:  Which is not the alpha hero that I like at all.

Laura:  Yeah.

Sarah:  I like, I like my heroes emotionally fluent and also somewhat mature –

Laura:  Yeah, I mean –

Sarah:  – and when you’re dealing with the –

Laura:  – the heroine’s job to fix him every way, you know?

Sarah:  Yeah.

Laura:  Maybe open his eyes about some things, but not –

Sarah:  Not all the things.

Laura:  Yes, right.

Sarah:  Yeah, my, my, my least favorite trope in a lot of older contemporaries is, you made me have a feeling and I hate it, so I hate you, and I’m going to be really mean to you because you made me feel –

Laura:  Oh –

Sarah:  Like, oh, for God’s sake, grow the hell up!

Laura:  I would, I would entirely agree with you on that.

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Laura:  And I mean, I also, I don’t even know where some of these things come from.  I think peop-, it may be that people just have, I’ve had this discussion with other people who’re like, well, you, you had a, like, a good dad, didn’t you?  And I’m like, yeah, my dad was a good dad, and I had four older brothers, and they were, you know, far, far from perfect but fundamentally well meaning, you know?

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  And, and so yes, maybe my, you know, maybe some writers, and also readers who respond to that, are coming from a different space.

Sarah:  Maybe?

Laura:  That’s certainly a theory that’s been proposed to me when I’m like, huh?  Why do people even like these?

Sarah:  Yes, why is this a guy you like?  He’s such a jerkwad!  Yeah, I, they, they are very popular with a lot of readers.  They just, those heroes don’t work for me.

Laura:  No, not me either.  Uh-uh.

Sarah:  And when you were, when you were writing about, was it Jaime?

Laura:  Yeah!  So, it’s Jaime in English and her, Dominique pronounced her name Zhem.

Sarah:  Zhem, right.

Laura:  Yeah.

Sarah:  So, if, the, the scene that stuck with me from that book was at the end when he and, I think, was, was Dom and then a hero from another book –

Laura:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – were trying to feed her, and he, and the one guy says to the other one, did you ever see the pictures?  Don’t look.  Just don’t ever look. That’s the sort of emotional fluency that I love.  Like, I know this is going to hurt you.  Now, I would like to hurt you professionally in, like, ninety-five different ways, but in this way, no, I’m going to look out for you.

Laura:  Yes.  And I actually think there’s plenty, you know, that that’s a, a not-unusual thing –

Sarah:  No.

Laura:  – that personal rivals or guys who are, like, ready to kill each other in, say, sports, if that’s their thing, but –

Sarah:  Can all go out for a beer after.

Laura:  Exactly!  There are things that are, there, there’s a competitiveness that is healthy –

Sarah:  Yes!

Laura:  – and it’s part of the drive to get ahead, and then there’s a, a kind of willful infliction of real emotional damage that is no, not okay, right?

Sarah:  Right.  And I think in – to make sweeping gender statements – I think that that’s something that’s taught to men more than it’s taught to women?

Laura:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  That you can compartmentalize and compete in a healthy way that is located in this one sphere –

Laura:  Yes.

Sarah:  – and then set it aside later, and I, I, speaking for myself, I was never taught to do that?  I figured it out as an adult –

Laura:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – because I didn’t like being jealous and envious and avaricious all the time.  Like, that feels horrible!

Laura:  Yeah, no.

Sarah:  It’s just gross!

Laura:  Yeah, it, it –

Sarah:  And I had to figure it out.

Laura:  Well, I – you know, there’ve been studies done on, there was a study I saw, you know, and, and it kind of annoyed me the way it was done, but it was, you know, that, that when they look at the way boys in school would solve problems – I can’t remember the age of the kids, but – and then girls, the boys would tend to compete –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  – to be the one solve the problem, and the girls would tend to work together and form a team to solve the problem, and the reason the study made me mad was ‘cause, like, they’re like, so we need to teach girls to be more like boys and compete, and I was like, well, why do you draw that conclusion?  Perhaps the boys could also learn from the girls’ instinctive way.  But I, I wonder if that’s, you know, there’s some instinctive or societally trained, you know, or a little, a combination of both –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  – where, where, you know, girls feel like they’re, they – well, first of all, if you stand too much above the crowd you can be punished for it.

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  If you’re competing to get ahead of the others, you know, why, when you’re supposed to be kind of on their team?

Sarah:  Yes.

Laura:  And so –

Sarah:  Plus women are instinctively – or not instinctively – we’re inculcated to care.

Laura:  Yeah.

Sarah:  We have to, we do the emotional labor, because that’s our job.

Laura:  Yes, and also, but also they can get, you know, kind of this push back or negative reaction whenever they’re not nice.

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  Like when –

Sarah:  Really?  I’ve never had that happen to me.

Laura:  [Laughs] Yeah, really.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  That’s never happened; I don’t know what you’re talking about.  [Laughs]

Laura:  Yeah, I mean, I remember – and, and it’s a very instinctive thing; it’s like you’re, you’re, you know, you’re supposed to be, and, and people don’t even realize to what degree they are placing that expectation on the girls to be nice –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm!

Laura:  – even if, say, some boy in class is pulling their hair or whatever, you know, they’re, they’re supposed to be the one who stays nice, and that comes across, you know, even by people who think they’re very feminist and very aware, you see it all the time.  I see it with my daughter who’s ten now.

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  I’ve seen that kind of thing come across.  Like, one time on the playground there were, you know, these boys just running behind her to tease her, not really mean-mean, but she wanted them to stop grabbing at her backpack and stuff, and so I don’t –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  – and they wouldn’t, and she told them to, and so at one point she kind of just swung her backpack at them, and she accidentally gave one of them a bloody nose.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  We-ell?

Laura:  And so, you know, and so there was this, you know, this whole thing, and one of my, where I was like, well, you know, I apologized to the mom, but to her I, I was like, you know, I feel like you did the right thing.  You told them –

Sarah:  Yeah!

Laura:  It’s not like you deliberately bloodied his nose?  But, you know, at some point you need to reinforce the girl’s right to, to fight back.

Sarah:   Yes, and she tried to establish a boundary that wasn’t respected, so, okay!  She’s going to establish her boundary with her books in a bag.

Laura:  Right, right, and if he hadn’t been still chasing her, the books would not have hit him, so –

Sarah:  Yep.

Laura:  [Laughs] I mean, in the bag.  So, you know, it’s these, these things where I feel like we can easily give a message where she, you know, the, you know, you get picked on and, until you fight back, and then you’re in the wrong, and I think we do that to girls much more than to boys.

Sarah:  We do.  Which makes the, one of the things I love about romance is the way in which – ‘cause we were talking about the, the way you express love and the things that you do?  The, the language of, of your tasks that expresses your emotion.  I’m also fascinated by the way that in romance we write about emotional labor and that, I think there’s more of a division of emotional labor –

Laura:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – especially between the hero and heroine or the two, the two protagonists, depending on the, the gender that they are – I don’t want to – [laughs] – I don’t want enforce a binary where there isn’t one; sorry!  So you have the, the emotional labor being divided in the characters, and what’s interesting about A Crown of Bitter Orange is that the, you know, the hero is trying to heal –

Laura:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and bring the heroine back into his world and is pretty confident this is all going to work out, whereas – [laughs] – the people around him are like, you really don’t understand what you’re doing here, dude.

Laura:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  ‘Cause there’s bad family history, and that’s another kind of labor to up, to keep that up!

Laura:  Right.  Well, he’s, I mean, he’s, that’s his, one of his particular arrogances is, you know, he’s, he’s sure he knows better than everybody else, really, because he’s the emotionally smart person in the family –

Sarah:  Yep!

Laura:  – and so, you know, and, and just, I think it was just something I had fun with was his, was his family like, ahem, you have a blind spot – [laughs] –

Sarah:  Yes.

Laura:  And him refusing to listen to them the way, you know, they had often refused to listen to him when he, ‘cause he’s the one who’s often trying to get them to get their heads on straight in their, in their relationships, and they, you know, they would usually kind of forge ahead on their, on their path, and –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  – he’s always rolling his eyes over, you know, their inability to handle their emotional relationships cor-, you know, correctly, because he can just see how they should do it –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Laura:  – but when he’s in one himself, of course –

Sarah:  Oh, it’s never easy when it’s you.  It’s easy, it’s easy to see when it’s someone else.

Laura:  Yeah.  So I just had fun with that, with them trying to beat him over the head with, excuse me, but – [laughs]

Sarah:  Hello.

Laura:  And him just completely, you know, completely blowing them off.

Sarah:  That’s something I’ve, I learned this year about myself really, that, that it’s okay if I’m in a situation and I don’t know what to do to ask somebody.  Okay, this is the situation I’m in.  Would you tell me what you think I should do?  ‘Cause I don’t know what to do because I see everyone else’s problems with perfect clarity!

Laura:  [Laughs] Yes, get some outside perspective.

Sarah:  Yeah!

Laura:  And in that family, they have this, you know, they’re very, they have a lot of solidarity, but they’re also very competitive.

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  Which is probably inspired from my four brothers.

[Laughter]

Laura:  But, you know, so, so they can, it takes a little bit of, you know, a gla-, a couple of glasses of wine – [laughs] – before they can sometimes just kind of loosen up and show that they need, they need a little bit of help or advice.

Sarah:  Yep!  So the question I always ask each guest is what you are reading that you want to tell people about.  Are there any books that you want to tell people about that you’ve really enjoyed lately?

Laura:  Oh!  I read, have you read Pretty Face yet?  It’s –

Sarah:  Oh, my gosh, yes!

Laura:  Oh, I loved it!  Oh, I loved it so much!  So she’s a new author I discovered with Act Like It, which I loved.

Sarah:  Oh, my God, I love that book.

Laura:  Yeah, and then I read Pretty Face, which if possible I loved even more.  I mean, you know, I love both of them so much.  I just, I love her – so she has a kind of acerbic wit, you know, kind of –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm!

Laura:  – that I just respond to very well, but at the same time, without being – I mean, they, they can bounce off each other some, some serious jabs, but they both seem to be up to the weight of it?

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  So it’s not like one person is being cruel to the other.  They’re like, you know, they’re sparring; like, they’re fencers that are evenly matched, her characters.  And, and so you can have a lot of fun with the way they spar with each other verbally?

Sarah:  Mm-hmm!

Laura:  And so she’s got this great dialogue, this kind of very, kind of biting, funny wit, and then this really wonderful characterization, not only of the main characters but of the secondary characters?

Sarah:  Yes.

Laura:  She captures that West End theatre setting.

Sarah:  That’s another example of writing into a place where I’m there when I read it.

Laura:  Oh, yeah, absolutely, so, you know, which is not something I had ever really known that much about, the West End theatre setting, or really theatre period, but when you’re, you’re there, you just feel, and all the characters and secondary characters, everybody feels so real in the way they act.  Not, not like you’re reading a stereotype of someone or a, or a two-dimensional –

Sarah:  Yes.

Laura:  –  character.  So, yeah, and I, if, I mean, I don’t know.  I’d have to go back and read Act Like It again too now to compare that I finished, ‘cause I just came off Pretty Face with such a love, and it’s like, I think it’s even more emotionally heart-tugging too, while keeping the humor and the dialogue, but since I love both of them so much, I don’t, yeah.  I, I recommend both, and if you’ve already read Act Like It to definitely grab Pretty Face.

Sarah:  Oh, yes, no question.  I, I think pretty much anything Lucy Parker publishes, I’m going to, like, demand –

Laura:  Yeah, I know!

Sarah:  – to, to read as soon as it’s available.  Like, did she just type The End?  Email it to me now!

Laura:  There you go!  Let me have it, yeah!  And so, I had read Karina Bliss who you like too, right?  

Sarah:  Yes!

Laura:  – Fall?  This has been a couple months ago now, but as of the last, another book recently that, that I really loved, the, with Dimity and Seth?  So Dimity’s kind of the one in the series that you, that I kind of didn’t think I would like because, you know, she comes up very abrasive in the previous books in that series, and then you get into her skin and the way she has to fight her corner and the reasons she, you know, and I just, I really loved her, the way she fought her corner, and Seth was this kind of good guy, you know, rela-, you know, just more relaxed.  Maybe a little bit like Tristan in A Crown of Bitter Orange, and that, and that way he’s more relaxed and more comfortable with things and trying to get her to let down her guard?

Sarah:  Yes.

Laura:  Yeah, that was another great one; I loved that one.

Sarah:  The thing I loved about the, the conflict in Pretty Face was that a lot of it is based on the idea of how much you have to worry about what people are going to say?

Laura:  Yes.

Sarah:  And it’s all, that, that is wrapped up in every aspect of the story.

Laura:  Mm-hmm.  Yes, that, what it really means to live that kind of public life.

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  And have that, and I thought she did a good job, ‘cause sometimes that kind of conflict can be set up really superficially –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  – but she did a good job of really showing how this is affecting them truly, both, you know, in terms of their daily lives but also, you know, their career reputations.

Sarah:  Mm-hmm, and that they both acknowledge that whatever happens, it’s going to be much harder for her every time.

Laura:  Yes, yes, yes.  The realism of it, right?  Of, of, of being the young, the young one in the relationship, but also the, you know, the busty, beautiful, kind of Marilyn Monroe kind of –

Sarah:  That was my thought, too –

Laura:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – that she was like Marilyn Monroe:  everyone assumes that she’s stupid, and she’s really quite smart.

Laura:  Right, and also everybody assumes that everything she does, you know, she slept her way to it, right?

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  Which is perfectly fine for him.

Sarah:  Right.

Laura:  Maybe he gets some, he gets some blowback for it, but, you know, but it’s more fine for him, and of course for her it’s that, that usual judgment of women, and I think, I think Lucy does a great, great job of pulling that out.

Sarah:  And –

Laura:  In ways realistic but also, you know, that, that you believe in their happy ending and you, yeah, that they’re going to work.

Sarah:  And I love your description that they’re in the same weight class?

Laura:  Yes.

Sarah:  That’s really a good way of putting it.  They are in the same weight class.  They are coming from very different places, but they are – it’s like the emotional weight class; they are equals in that way.

Laura:  Yeah, I was actually thinking about that on a walk this morning, ‘cause I was thinking about how sometimes when the guy is kind of, he’ll say jerky things or whatever, he’ll say, you know, a mean thing, it bothers me more in books than others, and I was thinking, you know, if they are, if they are fighting and they are equals in their fight, it’s a very different feel for me when I read it than if, you know, she is, say, in a weaker position than he is, and he’s being a jerk to her, so –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  – I think that, so in, in Lucy’s books, when they spar off each other it’s like if one person says something rude or, you know, he’s dismissive in a way he shouldn’t be at the start, you know, because that’s how this book starts, he’s dismissing her –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Laura:  – she has to, you know, he has to learn the error of his ways, and she kind of forces him to do that.  She is perfectly capable of doing that.  I mean, she is right in his face as, as she needs to be, and you know she can handle him, and he is not, he’s not going to get away with that.

Sarah:  No, and, and that’s true in the first book too, because the, the hero, Richard, he has such a reputation for being a grumpy, taciturn –

Laura:  Because he is.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Right.  Like –

Laura:  Do you end up loving that?

Sarah:  He’s super crabby, and he doesn’t like people, and he doesn’t like people in his business, and he’s crank-, cranky all the time, and not only does she call him –

Laura: She’s got a cranky  streak herself, right?

Sarah:  Yeah!  She’s –

Laura:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  She understands.  She has nothing to lose by not taking his shit.

Laura:  Uh-huh.

Sarah:  She can give it right back to him, and then there’s one scene where he’s, where he has to sort of acknowledge, all right, I act like this, but I don’t mean to hurt you.  I don’t, I’m not lashing out because I want to hurt you.

Laura:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  And her response is, okay, so then maybe not do that?

Laura:  Yeah, and –

Sarah:  In the first place, dumbass?

Laura:  [Laughter]

Laura:  Right.  I’m not your punching bag, so, you know –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Laura:  – I’m glad you acknowledge that, but you still need to stop.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Right?  So, referencing the title, you’re an adult; act like one.

Laura:  Exactly, yeah.

Sarah:  Oh, I love that.

Laura:  Right.  Yeah, no, she does, I, I, I love, you know I’m going to go read Act Like It again.

Sarah:  I have reread that several times.  It’s a comfort reread for me?

Laura:  Yeah.  Well, it is; it’s a wonderful book.  And I’ve just read several – I’m not going to say their names, but just several books where I thought it was, I was reading a wonderful book, loving it, and then I got to the end and I’m like, wait, what happened?!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Yeah, I’ve, I’ve read a few that you get, like, to eighty-five percent and then you’re like, wait, this isn’t what I was reading.  What happened?

Laura:  I know!  I know!

Sarah:  It fell apart!  How did – no.

Laura:  Yeah.

Sarah:  Go back!  [Laughs]

Laura:  Yes, yes, yes.  And, and actually, a couple of these books were fantasies, so they don’t even, like, they didn’t have a happy ending, and I’m like, wait!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Ohhh!

Laura:  What happened?  I –

Sarah:  Bugger!

Laura:  How’d this happen?  But, oh, well.  So, yeah, I need to go back and read Act Like It.

Sarah:  Yes.

Laura:  Restore my reading.

Sarah:  Yes.  It’s wonderful.  You also might like The Hating Game?

Laura:  Oh, yeah!  I’ve had, that has been recommended to me, but I haven’t picked it up yet.

Sarah:  It’s got a similar feel in terms of the dialogue?  It’s two people who, it’s, it takes place in a publishing house, and two publishing houses have merged, and the, the two leads are the assistants to the two heads of those publishing houses who are now trying to figure out how to work together, and they hate each other.

Laura:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  They hate, they play petty games against each other.  They share a, a cubicle space.  They hate each other.  It’s all from her point of view for the most part, but then the dialogue is just delicious.

Laura:  Oh, okay.

Sarah:  You would really like it.

Laura:  I’ll have to check it out, yeah.  It’s, I, I’ve seen it recommended, but I haven’t picked it up yet, so.

Sarah:  It would, it would totally work for you, especially because the heroine is very petite –

Laura:  Uh-huh.

Sarah:  – and she dresses in a sort of vintage librarian style –

Laura:  Uh-huh.

Sarah:  – and of course people underestimate her, and between the two of them, you know, everyone’s afraid of him, no one wants to bring him anything, they all give it to her to give to him, and she’s the one who’s nice and kind and accommodating, and they, they help each other change in better, in good ways.  Oh, you’re going to really like it, I think.

Laura:  Oh, okay!

Sarah:  I hope you read it.

Laura:  Yeah, no, this sounds good.  Yeah, that one might be what can cleanse, cleanse my reading palate after –

Sarah:  Yes.

[Laughter]

[music]

Sarah:  And that is all for this week’s episode.  I want to thank Laura Florand for hanging out with me on Skype and telling me all the things.  I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did.

If you are interested in trying to learn another language, I want to tell you, there are a number of free resources.  I’ve been using an app named Duolingo which at this point is amusing the hell out of me because, having learned a language through immersion and also through lessons in school, I don’t necessarily think it’s the best method, but I was able to make my way around Strasbourg last summer after figuring out basic words and phrases.  That said, I want to let you know that there is every likelihood that your local library has a buttload, a literal paid-for buttload, of language software that you can access for free, because as a library patron you get to do all the cool things!  So if you are thinking, I want to learn another language, it’s very good for your brain, and I bet your local library can help.  And if you are a librarian who knows about this stuff or you know about language software and you want to tell me all the things?  You should totally do that:  [email protected].  I would very much appreciate it, because, you know, my brain is already annoyed with me for trying to learn a third language?  Why not go for four, right?  Eventually I’m just going to start busting out into other languages while I do the podcast parts, and it’s just going to be weird.

Okay.  This podcast is brought to you by Orville, my cat and sound engineer, who wants you to know that if you would like to sponsor an episode you can email me at [email protected].  You could sponsor one episode, you could sponsor a whole month, we could do all kinds of funky things, but if you’re interested, thank you very much!

And if you’re not interested in sponsoring, but you would like to support the show, please have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches.  Your pledges are enormously and deeply appreciated and help me make the show more and more awesomer and gooder each week.  Plus, you might get a handcrafted, genuinely heartfelt, artisan-sourced compliment from yours truly.

The music in this podcast is provided by Sassy Outwater, who deserves all the compliments.  This is Caravan Palace.  This track is called “Dragons”!  Can’t imagine why I like this one so much!  You can find this on their album, and I have linked to a new double edition of Caravan Palace’s two albums, and you can have them for your very own if you go to Facebook or iTunes or Amazon, or their Facebook page, where there’s more information.  Either way, I’ll have links to all of this stuff, plus, I will also have links to all the books we talked about during the episode.

And in the meantime, on behalf of Laura Florand and myself and Orville and Wilbur and all of the other animals, plus Dot, the new puppy – welcome, Dot! – we wish you the very best of reading.  Have a great weekend.

[swinging music]