317. Time May Not Be Linear: An Interview with Nicola Cornick

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Sarah Wendell: Hello, and welcome to episode number 317 – those are really big numbers, and I’m amazed every time I say them. This is Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and today I am talking with author Nicola Cornick. Her newest time-slip novel The Phantom Tree recently kept Elyse and me up late reading nonstop. In this interview, Nicola and I talk about the transition she made from writing romance to writing historical fiction and the challenge and opportunity of basing historical fiction on a real person and then placing her amid fictional characters. We also discuss the real challenges of being an unprotected woman in the Tudor era, the ways in which people really have not changed all that much in several hundred years, and what sorts of questions and people she encounters when she gives tours at Ashdown House, a property that featured in her book House of Shadows. And of course she recommends books, because that’s what we do here.

There is a little bit of popping in the audio, and I’m pretty sure that was due to the overseas connection. I did my best to clean it up, but if it bugs you I apologize in advance.

This podcast is brought to you by A Nice Day for a Cowboy Wedding by Nicole Helm. Bestselling author Nicole Helm returns with the fourth installment in her down-to-earth, warm-hearted, and compelling Mile High Romance series. Nestled in the Rocky Mountains, rugged Gracely, Colorado, is famous for Big Sky beauty and small-town community. It’s a perfect place to take a deep breath, start again, and even plunge into the kind of love that lasts a lifetime. When Cora Preston begins her new job as a coordinator at Mile High Weddings, she never dreamed that it might be her who ends up walking down the aisle. A Nice Day for a Cowboy Wedding by Nicole Helm is on sale now wherever books are sold and at kensingtonbooks.com.

Our transcript this week is sponsored by Bloodlines and Broomsticks, the new book in Robyn Bachar’s Bad Witch series. The Bad Witch series blends romance and urban fantasy and is filled with magic, vampires, shapeshifters, and troublemaking Shakespearean fairies. After a lifetime of academic excellence, teacher Riley O’Driscoll has only failed in two subjects: love and magic. When witch hunters break down her door, a miscast spell sends her through the looking glass and into the path of sexy shapeshifter Jeremiah Galestrom. Jeremiah is trapped in Faerie, and Riley is his only hope of escape. They strike a bargain that trades a year of Jeremiah’s protection for Riley’s help, and Riley finds herself with a new roommate who’s a real tiger. With the hunters closing in, can Riley trust her life and her heart with a man who is counting the days to his freedom? And while Jeremiah knows he can protect her from the hunters, can he protect her from himself? Bloodlines and Broomsticks by Robyn Bachar releases October 1st wherever books are sold. You can find out more at robynbachar.com. That’s R-O-B-Y-N-B-A-C-H-A-R dot com.

And of course I have links to all of the books that sponsor the podcast and the transcript in the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

We have a podcast Patreon, and I would like to take a quick second to tell you about it! Every pledge to the Patreon at patreon.com/SmartBitches helps keep the show going, helps me make sure that every episode is available to everyone, and helps me commission transcripts for episodes in the archives. If you would like to join the Patreon community, it would be super cool! Have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Pledges start at one dollar a month, and you will become part of the group who helps me develop questions for upcoming interviews and suggests guests for future shows as well.

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Now, one of the rewards for the Patreon is a handcrafted, heartfelt compliment, and I have two this week! It’s very exciting!

To Melinda O.: Your positivity and elegance are more potent than twenty-five perfect Instagram ads, and as someone who is very susceptible to Instagram advertisement, I have found that is no small thing.

And to Lacie C.: Even though the people around you know how absolutely incredible you are, every time you do something they are always impressed by what you can do, so keep going.

I will have information at the end of the podcast about the music that you are listening to. I will also have a truly horrific joke that I am super excited about, and I will have information about what’s coming up on smartbitchestrashybooks.com this coming week. I will also, of course, have links to some of the things that we talk about and links to all of the books that we mention, as there are many, and the more you listen to Nicola talk about history, the more you might be interested in trying some of her books, so I have links to those of course as well, plus books that sponsor the show and sponsor the podcast. There’s lots of links, which is good! ‘Cause it’s a website, and that’s what websites are supposed to have, I am told.

So without any further delay, let’s do this interview. On with my conversation with Nicola Cornick; let’s do this podcast.

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Nicola Cornick: My name’s Nicola Cornick. I’m a British author. I write – well, gee, it’s hard to describe what I write. I write cross-genre fiction these days. I used to write Regency romance for Harlequin, Mills & Boon, and then longer Regency historicals, but then I decided I’d like to change, so I moved over to dual-time books, and so I write books that’ve got a mixture of history, mystery, crime, oh, romance, obviously, and all kinds of other elements in them, really, so that’s, that’s what I do.

Sarah: Well, that’s fabulous, and I am glad you write all of those things. Now, my first question is sort of an obvious one: moving from writing romance to writing dual timeline or, or time-slip historical fiction, what are some of the differences that you’ve noticed as a writer, and what made you want to move from one to the other?

Nicola: Well, I wanted to write dual-time fiction about, oh, I don’t know, years ago. I’ve al-, it’s always been such a huge love of mine, but when I suggested it to my then-editor, she said, oh, nobody wants to read time-slip books, and I thought, well, I’m sure that isn’t true, because I know I love them, and I know so many people who love them, but at that time, which would be, I guess, about – well, yeah, I suppose ten or twelve years ago? I was told nobody was publishing those books, and of course at that stage I had to really write what my editor wanted me to write, so I, I was enjoying writing Regencies – I love them anyway – so I carried on with those, but this, this urge to write a, a time-slip book was kind of eating away at me all the time, and eventually I just thought, you know, I have to do this, ‘cause if I don’t stop writing Regencies and do this now, write this book that I really wanted to write – which was House of Shadows, my first time-slip book – then it’s just never going to happen. So that was when I thought, okay, this is it; I’m going to do it.

Sarah: What are some of the differences that you notice between writing a Regency romance and then writing a time-slip, aside from the dual timelines, past and present?

Nicola: Oh, I think, well, the first thing I would say is, I find it a lot more difficult to write a time-slip, basically because I’m just not a, a plotter. I loved, with my Regencies, starting off with an idea and just, I mean, kind of writing, writing off into the blue, developing the ideas and the characters as I went along, and I quickly realized with the time-slip that I was catching myself out all the time if something that had happened in one time period then didn’t tally up with something that happened in, in the other one, and so I had to become much more of a planner and, and plan out my scenes and, and how it all fit together beforehand, so it took away that rather nice element of pants-ing, of just writing off into the blue and seeing what happened. So in some ways, though, it’s been really good for me, because it is a more disciplined, I found it a more disciplined way of writing. So that, that has been, well, both a drawback and an advantage, I suppose, of doing that. I don’t know – I mean, I suppose I find writing the contemporary strand of, of the, that part of the, the time-slip book was really difficult as well, because I’m not, I’m not really, I’ve always been a historical author, and that’s kind of my background and my, my real love, I suppose, so I’ve had to work so hard, and I’ve taken advice from contemporary authors on how to make things sound relatively authentic, but I still think that my contemporary characters probably sound a lot older than they’re supposed to be – well, they sound like me, basically, rather than twenty- or thirty-year-olds in, in, in the modern, in modern-day UK or whatever.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Nicola: It’s just, you know, that, that’s, that’s kind of how it comes out, but that, that’s the best I can do with that. I work really hard on the contemporary strand to try and make it as, as good as I can, whereas I think the historical comes a bit more naturally to me.

Sarah: [Laughs] I would not be able to manage two timelines. I barely manage the one that I live in –

Nicola: [Laughs]

Sarah: – so the idea of managing two is kind of amazing to me.

Nicola: Yeah, yeah – [laughs]

Sarah: I, I can’t. Like, I just, I can barely manage myself and, like, the people who live at my house, and we’re all in the same time.

[Laughter]

Sarah: With The Phantom Tree, this is, this is always a difficult question to ask a writer, but could you explain briefly what, what The Phantom Tree is about?

Nicola: The Phantom Tree – well, I think The Phantom Tree, although various people have different, different ideas on this, and it took me a while to work out what it was about really, but actually I think at heart The Phantom Tree is a book about the relationship between two cousins, Mary and Alison, and the fact that they are actually five hundred years apart in the story is kind of like a complicating factor, but it’s, it’s basically still about their relationship all the way through this, the book, this kind of complicated friendship that’s forged when they’re young together and, and growing up together, and through all of the things that happen to them, both in Mary Seymour’s case kind of in the past, in the Tudor period, and to Alison in the present. It’s that bond, really, between them, and the debt that they owe each other that kind of drives the story, I think, and the fact that they start off not really liking each other very much. I mean, it’s quite easy not to like Alison very much, to be fair, because she’s not, not a particularly likeable character to start with, and I think, I hope she comes over sympathetically as the story goes along. But I, for me, I realist-, yeah, I started off thinking it was a historical novel about Mary Seymour, or perhaps it was a, a love story, and I, and it is, it’s all of those things, but I think the real heart of it is, is exploring that, that friendship that’s so important to the two of them and changes both of their lives really, so that’s, that’s what I think The Phantom Tree is about.

Sarah: I, having read it, completely agree with your assessment, which is, you know, good, since you wrote it, and I, I just read the finished project.

[Laughter]

Sarah: One of the things that I found so interesting was that Mary Seymour was a real person, and there’s, like, maybe nine total mentions of her in history? She was a real person, and then Alison is a cre-, is a character that you created. In my notes I call her Mary’s frenemy.

Nicola: Yes –

Sarah: So half friends, half – they’re very much frenemies, these two.

Nicola: Yes, they are. I mean, and I thought that, I really enjoyed exploring that, because they’re kind of dependent on each other, and neither of them like that. They’re not naturally people who would get on, and of course they’re thrown together, so they absolutely have to, really. But then they both realize they can help each other, so it’s more a relationship that’s born out of, of necessity to start off with, and then I think they get a grudging respect for each other and, and so on, so it, it does build, but yes, frenemies is a really good way to des-, to describe the two of them. I mean, then, I think they’re never going to, it was never going to be easy, not an easy relationship between the two of them. But yes, Mary Seymour was a, was a real, a real historical character, and actually that was where the book started when I became interested in this. I read about her; she had, it was as though she had a tiny walk-on part in so many of the books that I read, and noth-, I started to wonder what had happened to her, and of course then when I discovered that nobody actually knew, this seemed amazing to me, that nobody, you know, the daughter of Queen Katherine Parr and Thomas Seymour, that such a, such an important child in a way, and nobody knew what had, what had happened to her, but then I thought, well, what an, what a perfect opportunity for a writer, because you can fill all those, those spaces with, with your imagination and come up with a, a story of what might have happened. I mean, we don’t know, but, but yes, that was kind of what was originally behind the, the idea for the book, you know, what happened to Mary Seymour.

Sarah: What were some of the challenges for you mixing a real person who was part of a very small fragment of history – I love the way you describe her as a walk-on character in so many other Tudor-set novels; that is really – [laughs] – that really is like how she’s ended up for us in the present day – and then you created a whole –

Nicola: [Laughs] Yeah. Well, that actually –

Sarah: – character living alongside of her.

Nicola: Because I think Mary’s character is so shadowy in history, I had a lot of scope, of course, there to make her however I wanted her to be, so I, I took her, the things we did know about her life just as little staging posts for her story, but really we, we knew nothing about her character. There’s, there’s no record; there’s not even a painting of her. There’s a painting which is supposed to be of her, but it was somebody else, but it’s kind of been appropriated as being of, of Mary because people were desperate to know what she looked like and to have a, a picture of her, so they said, this is Mary Seymour, but actually it was Anne of Austria, and it was painted fifty years later or something. So there is nothing there about Mary at all, so really, in a way, it was like creating two, two completely new characters, with the only, the only difference, of course, was that, that Mary, we do know Mary did exist, but we know nothing about her so that, it was, no left, the, the whole field was sort of left empty for me to do what I wanted with, which was lovely in a way.

Sarah: One of the things I noticed, and you mentioned that this is the story of –

Nicola: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – Mary and Alison’s friendship or relationship, is that being a woman, especially if you were unprotected financially –

Nicola: Yeah.

Sarah: – and family-wise, was really rough in the Tudor era. It was really difficult, and they had to depend on each other, even though they were always competing with each other. Every female in their world had to compete with one another for basic security.

Nicola: Yes. Yeah, I mean, I think, I, I felt that more strongly as, as the book carried on, actually. It wasn’t a theme that was really clear in my mind when I started, but the more I wrote it and the more I thought about it, the clearer it became, and yeah, I mean, I think for large, well, huge swathes of history, of course, that’s exactly the, the situation for, for women, and, and actually, the Tudor period in some ways was better than, than some of the other periods, because of course at that point there was – Alison thinks at one point, well, I’ll, you know, I’ll go off and I’ll go into, I’ll go into business, and she’s good at, she’s good at needlework and sewing and that kind of thing, so she thinks she might develop that, and actually, that would have been a possibility, but it would have been really hard work, and obviously no guarantee of, of any kind of success. Yeah, you had to look out for yourself if you were unprotected by family, relatives, or if you had no money, and even if you did, I think, if you had money, you were still seen so much just as a chattel, like a, something extra that could be traded. It – yes, I mean, it, it’s a hard, it’s a hard thing for us to, to hear and to – and it’s not, it’s, you know, it’s not something I, I like to think about, but I like the idea of, within that, what women could do, because there were still, you know, some amazing women who achieved so much in that period, and it feels like almost against the odds, but yeah, they’re amazing; they’re inspiring because it, it was all stacked against them. But yeah, pretty harsh – [laughs] – pretty harsh life.

Sarah: In your research – and I know you know a lot about this era – what are some, what were some details about women’s lives that are particularly memorable for you? I mean, do you sort of have a greater appreciation for aspects of the modern era, knowing the difference in circumstances only, you know, a couple hundred years ago and a couple generations ago?

Nicola: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, I always say that I would love to go back in time just to see what it was really like, but there is no way that I would even want to live there for a day, be- –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Nicola: And it’s, it’s just, it sounds a romantic idea, but it’s, it’s not really. It’s, I think it, I think all of us who are used to the modern world would find it completely repugnant in lots of ways. I don’t think it would be that romantic, which is hard, actually, because when you’re writing fiction that has got, it’s, it’s got an either romantic or, and romanticized elements to it, you want it to be very, an attractive world, but actually, I think in real life it, it probably wasn’t. I mean, I would, would have hated to be a woman in, in history, because I, I would have struggled, I think. I would have wanted an education, and of course – again, in the Tudor period, you had a better chance of an education probably, in some circumstances, if you were at a reasonable point in the social scale, than you would maybe later on, even, in the Georgian period, when it became less of a, it was thought less appropriate to educate women. It’s not, no, it’s not a, it’s not a kind of continual improvement, I suppose, through history. The fortunes of, of women in terms of how they, how they were educated; how they were treated went, went up and down, but that basic theme underneath it all of the fact that, you know, that you have so little power most of the time, I would absolutely have hated that. I would have hated not being educated if I had brothers to the same standard as they. That, that would have felt incredibly unfair. I would have, I think I’d have been fighting against all of those things, even though at the time, of course, to people that was the norm, and so, you know, a lot of people didn’t –

Sarah: Yep.

Nicola: – question it, but I think we would do –

Sarah: Yep.

Nicola: – particularly with our modern sensibility, if you went back, but even if you didn’t, I think if you had an enquiring mind and if you wanted just to know about things and to see more of the world, you could feel incredibly hemmed in by all of that.

Sarah: When, when – I’m trying to make sure this – this isn’t really a spoiler – Alison ends up in the 20th century. Did you write about her adjustment to the 20th century that didn’t make it into the book? How was Alison able to make an adjustment to all of those changes from going from the Tudor era to the 21st century?

Nicola: Yes, and, and that is a really good question, I think, and I deliberately chose not to include that because I thought it would be so complex to write about. I thought about it all and how it would happen, and then I thought it would take up so much of the story if I wrote that into the book that it would be too long, and that –

Sarah: It could be its own book.

Nicola: – bit that I really wanted to examine, so I did, well, I wouldn’t say I was cheating exactly, but I skipped over that bit by, I, I think in my mind I was thinking, okay, so how could you actually make this work? So she’s very young, that’s the first thing. She’s very young when she comes forward to, to the present, and so that, to me, that, that, that then meant that she could kind of learn about, it wasn’t as though she was coming into, she, she was treated in a different way, I suppose, when she was a child, essentially, in the modern day, whereas of course she’d been treated in some ways as an adult in, in the Tudor period because of the differences in the way that, that, that women were seen at that time. So she comes along, she’s sixteen or seventeen, she’s put into care in, in, in England, and, and that is a system where everything is kind of, you don’t have to make any decisions, everything’s taken care of for you, and so she could just learn and watch and see how it all worked and gradually work out how to live as a modern person. But I thought that was a very interesting process that she’d have to go through, and of course I did, in the book, hint at the psychological struggles that she’d have to go through to, to get to that point, because nobody’s going to be able to do something like that and come out of it feeling fine. You’ve got a massive amount of mental adjustment to make.

I hope it worked. I was aware that there would be people who said, well, this, you know, I, I just don’t believe that, that this, this would have worked. I, I, I hoped I was able to show that she’d be able to adapt, being relatively young and, and, and sort of flexible and in that situation where she was being told what to do every day, which actually was pretty similar to the situation she’d come from, so until she’d kind of worked it all out, then she had her autonomy, and she could go off and be the woman that she really, really wanted to be then.

Sarah: I also love that she had a therapist, that she was like, I need to talk to somebody, and she had a really positive relationship with a therapist who was like, yeah, yeah, adjusting is hard, and I think it’s hard for everybody, even if you don’t change times by five hundred years? I mean, growing up and adjusting as a human is hard work, let alone with a five-hundred-year time difference. I love that she had a therapist and that she had someone that she could rely on.

Nicola: Well, you know, I thought she, at the very least, she would need to have a therapist after everything that she’d been through. I mean, I am, I am very fortunate in the sense that I’m biased in favor of therapy as a person because I’m married to a therapist, and so we have long conversations about things like, well, if someone came to you and said, I’ve just come forward five hundred years in time, would you believe them? And, and my husband said, well, that’s not the point; the point is you listen to what they’ve got to say, and, you know, and that’s exactly what happens in the book, you know. So we, I, I was able to kind of trace that relationship sort of through, through discussing how, how that might work with somebody turning up and presenting like that, as, as he would put it, which was very, very interesting. But I mean, yeah, I think, as I say, at very least, having had to make such an enormous life adjustment, you would need somebody you could tell the truth to and talk to about all those things that you couldn’t tell anybody else, especially not in a, say, in a close relationship. So it seemed obvious to me that, that, that she needed that safe place where she could go and just say things that might sound outrageous if she told anyone else and would be accepted, because yeah, you’re right, of course, we, we all, we all need to talk to people sometimes about all kinds of aspects of our lives, and, and I think in a, when it works in a positive way, I’m a huge supporter of therapy for, for any of these things, because it really can help you kind of make those adjustments. I mean, I’m not sure whether it would be enough if you’d come forward five hundred years in time, but Alison’s a tough cookie; I reckon she could, she could cope with a bit of help there.

Sarah: She’s a very tough cookie. I also love that you, you, with what your husband said, that it doesn’t matter if he believes this person; it matters that he listens to what they have to say.

Nicola: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: That seems to be a recurring theme in the, in the book, that each of them, each, Mary and Alison, find people who will listen to them, and even if they don’t believe them will hear them. I mean, Mary has these incredible premonitions, and when people listen, they put her in danger, but nobody really takes her or Alison seriously. But then Mary has this connection with Darrell, and Alison comes forward and has this connection with a few different individuals in different ways. Each of them finds someone who, who, who will listen to them and how, how vital that is for them as people.

Nicola: Yes, and I think, again, it probably wasn’t a theme that I was conscious of when I was starting to write, but to me that, again, as a writer, that is incredibly important, that we all as individuals, you have, you need to find that, that, that comfortable space. And then it could be in all kinds of different relationships with friends or with a partner or, or – I mean, the therapy relationship was an interesting one, really, because that is, in some ways, quite a formal relationship. You know, there are boundaries that you don’t cross, and yet it can be a very close relationship. But, yes, I think that at the heart of it, I do really strongly believe that, that to, to feel supported and, and accepted, you know, that all those people, they have – and, and as we all do in different ways – they’ve all got their own idiosyncratic personalities. I realize maybe that being telepathic or whatever is slightly more idiosyncratic than many other attributes we might all have, but it’s the same kind of principle, and we all need to find someone who can just be accepting of that and listen to you when you want to talk and feel that you’re not being judged. That is incredibly important, so yes, for those people in the story to, to find that sort of safe haven I think was a really important part of it.

Sarah: So with Mary and Darrell’s connection – and I’m going to be deliberately vague so I don’t spoil too much – how did you –

Nicola: [Laughs]

Sarah: – how did you set the limits for that particular connection, and was it related to Mary’s ability to, to see the future?

Nicola: Well, I think one of the interesting things about Mary, of course, was – and one of the things I really loved about Mary’s gift – was that it was uncontrollable and, and, and unpredictable, so it wasn’t that, that when she tried to see the future for Alison and, you know, it doesn’t always work out how you want it to. So one of the themes I was always kind of exploring with Mary was the, the frustration of knowing you have this gift but that you can’t master it really, and she was always struggling with that, so I, I don’t know where – I just loved the idea of, of her – maybe it was coming out of this thing of, of her not feeling isolated or not being completely isolated. She did need somebody to talk to, hence the connection with, with, with Darrell. So, and I just loved the, the kind of warmth that that, that gave, ‘cause she was such a, she was so alone so, so often. It felt, it felt really important for her to have that special, that special connection, I think, and so, yeah, that was a part of the story that I really loved writing. I do have to, obviously – people have commented on this – I have to acknowledge it, that, there, to, to Mary Stewart, because it was, it was probably at the back of my mind reading Touch Not the Cat where there’s, there’s a similar kind of connection. I don’t want to give too much away – [laughs] – but that was kind of maybe what inspired me there in the, in the first place. I, I like that idea of communication and how people can make, communicate and be there for each other, not necessarily in a conventional manner, I suppose.

Sarah: And also, because their communication is so private – and I’ve read a number of different books that have that type of connection between characters, both contemporary and historical – that when you have that kind of a connection with another person, and, and you’re not entirely sure that they are real, or maybe they are a figment of your, your brain being interesting, they have to accept you as you really are. There’s no pretense when you’re on that much of an intimate level.

Nicola: Mm, yes, yeah. That is a really, really good point. It does sort of strip away that, all that stuff that can get in the way sometimes when, if you’re getting to know somebody, or when you know them well but there’s things you want to hide or – but, but of course you can’t. Yes, that, that’s it. You’re straight in there, and so it creates certain intimacy, and sometimes that’s, that’s good; sometimes it, you know, some-, sometimes it, you’re giving away stuff that you don’t want to. It’s a very, it’s an interesting dynamic, I think, and it’s a different dynamic in a relationship, so I love that about it.

Sarah: Yes, you have no choice but to be honest.

Nicola: Absolutely! [Laughs]

Sarah: You can’t do anything other than be honest!

Nicola: No, well, they, they’ll just call you out, because they’ll know! [Laughs]

Sarah: Exactly, exactly! Speaking of other men in this book, was Will Fenner based on a real person? Elyse wanted to know this.

Nicola: Yes. Yes, yeah.

Sarah: [Gasps] Oh God, he was so terrible! He was a real person? Why am I not surprised?

Nicola: I know, I know! He was a terrible, terrible person. He’s actually really quite famous round here where I live, because he, he’s one of these mythical local characters who was so bad. He was, he was known as Wild Will Dayrell in his real life, and yeah, I mean, he was unbelievably dreadful, and yet it’s such an attractive – every book needs a, a villain who’s got those sort of characters that are, characteristics that are kind of attractive, even though they’re not, really. But, but there is something about him –

Sarah: Right.

Nicola: – and in real life he was exactly, he was exactly like that. He, yeah, I mean, he, he was worse, actually, than he is in the book. There, there was a, he just, there was a, he was around in that, in that historical period. I mean, actually, the whole, the whole of the Fenner family were based on, on real, on the Dayrell family, who, yeah, live, lived in a, a very spooky Tudor mansion down the road from here, and it’s said that his, his ghost still haunts the, haunts the house. I…haven’t met it there, because I think – [laughs] – I’m not sure how I’d feel bumping into him, but yeah, he had, he fell out with everybody because he had affairs with various other landowners’ wives, he owed them all money, and this, he, I mean, he had a huge income, but he just spent, he was so extravagant, so he got into debt, and then he was very litigious and took everyone to court, and yeah, and ro-, and, and went round shooting people and, and, and even murdering babies, so he was just, he was just a, a thoroughly, thoroughly bad, bad person. Yeah, it’s such a gift, really, for a character.

Sarah: And he was charming! Like, one of the things that I noticed, of course, was that when women are in vulnerable positions, they are easily preyed upon by charming men who are really just looking out for themselves, and he’s definitely that type who had so much charm!

Nicola: Yes, and again, that was kind of drawn from what people said about him in, about William Dayrell in real life. It’s, it’s this, this is dangerous charm and, I mean, yeah, you’re exactly right. I mean, Mary in the story of course is in a very vulnerable position. She’s young, and she’s got no one to look out for her, and so, and, and you know, and he’s quite glamorous in that respect, or at least he seems to be to her to start with, and, and, yeah, I mean, we see it now, don’t we? It’s a kind of, it’s, it’s a repeating pattern, I think, through, through relationships that, that, you know, with the bad boy – not, not the bad boy who turns good, but the one who really is bad all the way through, and you get involved with the, with the wrong, with the wrong sort. And, and that is exactly what he was, except on a grand scale, really. He was a thoroughly, thoroughly bad person.

Sarah: And yet, I think Will Dayrell could probably come forward into the 21st century, and I would be like, oh, yeah, I recognize you.

Nicola: [Laughs]

Sarah: You talk kind of funny, and I’m not sure what’s up with your clothes, but I know exactly what kind of person you are.

Nicola: Exactly! Yeah, you, you would recognize him, and that’s just one of the really interesting things that I’ve found writing these books. There are characters, real, real historical characters who now, if you met them, you would instantly recognize that type of person, and it’s absolutely the case that there are certain human characteristics that don’t actually change that much. I mean, in, in House of Shadows, when I was writing that, the father of the, of the hero in that story, the first Sir William Craven, I completely recognized his character. He was one of the sort of Tudor self-made billionaires, but you see people like that now, the, the hard-nosed businessman who’s, you know, a control freak and determined to…empire. It’s such a recognizable character, and again, yeah, the, the, the thoroughly bad but dangerously charming man who, who you, you like, even though you know you shouldn’t is again somebody that we’ve, we’ve all, we’ve all met, so yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s fascinating, really, when you see these reflected in real people in history.

Sarah: And it, it’s an interesting contrast to the idea that although the things that surround us in terms of technological advancements and advancements in the way we live and how we live and our standards of living, and changes in our food and how we travel, all of these changes are massive compared to the Tudor era, but people don’t change all that much.

Nicola: I think that’s, I think that’s exactly right. I think fundamentally people are still probably interested in the same things; their characters are, are, are the same. I mean, I’ll always remember I went to the Viking exhibition at JORVIK in, in York a few years ago, and they’ve got a, a display of what a Viking feast would have looked like, and they were saying, oh, this would be the occasion that they’d all bring out their best, their best silver and all these imports from abroad because they wanted to impress the neighbors, and I just thought, yeah, you know, we, we all kind of, we all recognize all of this, this sort of presentation of yourself. It was, and they were blingy as well; there was a lot of stuff, you know, shiny things in silver and gold and everything, and it, it, yeah, you just see it generation after generation, and I think that’s fascinating. I love, love finding those resonances, if you like, in, in history, because yes, of course it was different, you know, in so many ways, but I think there is so much that we can still identify with now. I think, because, yeah, human nature fundamentally doesn’t really change that much, I, I think, so I love kind of finding those parallels and, and drawing comparisons between them.

Sarah: And time-slip or, or dual-timeline novels are an interesting way to represent that fundamental sameness and that way that humanity is pretty much kind of consistent, even though everything around us changes so much. You can sort of demonstrate that with two different timelines with related or interlinked characters.

Nicola: Yes. Yeah, I mean, that, that’s one of the really appealing things to me about a dual timeline is because you can look, you can look at these two things, and you might, you might see it completely differently in, in the modern day from how it sort of happened back in the Tudor period, but essentially, at the bottom of it, you may be looking at somebody’s ambition, or you may be looking at a poor choice in, in a relationship or whatever, and it’s just played out in, in a different way, but the fundamental emotions are the same, and I love the opportunity that that gives comparing those sort of things when you are writing dual time. It’s, yeah, it’s a really good way of, of focusing on that, I think.

Sarah: I do a lot of interviews where I asked, I am asked about, you know, what, what is it that brings people to reading romance? Why do people like it so much? Which I always think is an absolutely hilarious question, because fundamentally, all of our stories as humans boil down to somebody killed somebody or somebody fell in love with somebody, but it’s one of those two!

Nicola: Yeah!

Sarah: Like, we’re really not that varied!

[Laughter]

Nicola: Yes, I suppose that’s true, actually. I haven’t thought of that quite, quite so starkly, but yeah, you’re right. That’s why crime and romance are the most popular genres of, of fiction, I’m sure. And yes, I mean, obviously there are endless variations and permutations –

Sarah: Yep!

Nicola: – of those stories, but essentially, that is, that’s at the crux of it all, and those are things that are so important to everybody. I find it baffling that people can’t see why, why so many people are drawn to, to reading romantic fiction, because it seems pretty obvious to me that it, it, you know, it reflects everybody’s, everybody’s relationships with eternal fascination to it, and I wish more people would acknowledge that –

Sarah: Yep!

Nicola: – ‘cause actually, I think lots of people do realize that, but they just don’t want to, they just don’t want to, to admit to it because of all this stuff that’s around reading romantic fiction, which I know you have in the States as well as, as we do over here in the UK, this sort of idea about it’s a lesser genre to read or something. I haven’t, I haven’t got much time, I suppose, as, as the chair of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, I certainly haven’t got much time for that sort of, of an attitude, but yeah, it, it, I think it, it’s more honest just to say, look, we’ve been fascinated by these stories since people have been telling stories, you know; just admit it’s about, it’s about the human condition. What’s, what’s not, what’s not to like about that? It’s, it is –

Sarah: Yep.

Nicola: – it’s fascinating. We’re totally into that, and we always will be, I think.

Sarah: Absolutely. Now, I know from your bio that you are a tour guide at Ashdown House, and that was the setting of your book House of Shadows, which you mentioned earlier. What was it like to set a book in a place that you have been through so many times and experienced so personally?

Nicola: Yes, it was, it was nice. I mean, it was, it was lovely to be able to write about Ashdown because it, it’s such a, somewhere I’m so closely attached to and I’ve got such a history with myself, having worked there for so long, and in some ways it was easier because I knew the history of it inside out, and so it felt, it felt a lot easy to write about. But in other ways I, I, well, I upset an awful lot of people with that book by burning the house down for a start, because of course, actually, Ashdown House is still there, it’s still standing, and so people get very confused when they read the book and then they come to have a look round. But yeah, it was a, it was a, a strange thing all right, already I think, oh, I wish I’d done this differently or done that differently. I think inevitably when you’ve got such a close connection to a place – and I still work there and so on – it’s, you know, it’s probably the book that I could see myself rewriting already – [laughs] – except I won’t. I’m not, I’m not, I’m not going to, I might do a, I might do a sequel, though, as that might help me get, kind of get the, the bits out of my system that I wish I’d done differently, but, yes, I mean it, it was the, it was in some ways the, the, the book of my heart, and I knew I’d wanted to write it for so long, but I think, interestingly, that doesn’t necessarily help you when you’re so close to something. So, yeah, it was an interesting exercise, writing that one, and I did love it. I mean, I love Ashdown, and its history is amazing. But, yeah, I, I think there could well be a sequel to that before too long.

Sarah: Well, I think that’s a brilliant idea.

Nicola: [Laughs] Thank you!

Sarah: So when you’re giving tours, what kinds of questions do you get from people? Do you have, like, a, an expected set of questions that you normally receive from different guests, or does it vary?

Nicola: Yes, it varies hugely, because we have such a different mix of people who come round, which is brilliant, and I mean, actually, I learn so much from talking to the people who come to visit, because a lot of them have either got a connection to the, to the family who owned the house or to people who worked there, and, you know, so they want to tell me about their family history, or sometimes we get people, we get very, who are specialists, ‘cause we’ve got a, an amazing collection of portraits of Dutch master paintings from the 17th century, so we get a lot of people who are experts on that, and because we’re near Oxford, we get quite a lot of Oxford lecturers who are very knowledgeable, who will be so excited to ask a really difficult question in the hope that we don’t know the answer. So I remember, I showed a group of two around one, one day –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Nicola: – and I was making some reference to the background history of what was going on in, in Europe during this period of history where was the house was built, and a man stepped forward and said, I’m sure we’d all be fascinated to know if you, you could give us a summary of the causes of the Thirty Years War, and –

Sarah: Oh dear God!

Nicola: – and I thought, I’m sure nobody wants to know about that at all, and I, and I don’t, and I knew I didn’t need to tell him because I knew he knew, and he wanted to be sure I didn’t know, so you do get that sometimes. Sometimes you get stuff that is completely wayward and, and coming out of nowhere. I mean, my, the best one was, I was standing on the roof and finished my talk and, and said, is, are there any questions? And a lady said, yes! Where did you get your lipstick from?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Nicola: Totally threw me, because I kind of, I was, and then I said, well, I’m not wearing any, and then the people who didn’t hear the question were looking very puzzled because they heard my answer. So that was, that was a bit weird. But yes, I mean, we get, I mean, it is, like I say, it is fabulous, because I love the house. I love sharing, it has such a passionate history of it, and I love sharing that with people, and the people who come to look at it, which it is, ‘cause it’s such a pretty little place, so it’s such a happy thing to do, really, to be able to, to share, share that history with them, so it’s fantastic.

Sarah: I love the idea of these people who know that you don’t know the answer. It made me think, yes, really, humanity does not change. Really doesn’t! [Laughs]

Nicola: No! Well, we’ve all, we’ve all had those, and we’ve had people who kind of put a hand up and go, no, that’s wrong! And you’re in the middle of your talk, and it really throws you, because they will sort of challenge you, because they want to show that, that they know, that they know more, so you have to be prepared for all of these, these things to happen. I mean, I have to be prepared for all kinds of bizarre things to happen on the tour. I mean, it, it is quite, it’s quite a lot of fun, really. Anything from the fire alarm going off when you’re up on the roof to, I don’t know, well, like I say, people who’ve got the most arcane, obscure questions they could possibly, possibly ask about. But, yeah, it’s great; it really is. It’s, it’s –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Nicola: – it’s a really nice thing to balance with writing, ‘cause of course most of the time I’m sitting here on my own, and, and going out and talking to people about history is a nice, a nice balance to, to mix in with that so I don’t get too isolated and too locked into just talking to my own characters.

Sarah: I also know that you’ve done some historical advisory work for TV and radio. What sorts of questions do you receive, and what sorts of things do you work on?

Nicola: Oh, yeah, so that’s been, that was fun. That actually came out of, well, one of them came out of the work I did at Ashdown, because there’s a series where they convert old buildings and, and sort of modernize them. It’s a TV series that, say, start off with some broken-down looking place, and it ends up looking like the most amazing house, and one of those was on the estate close to, the Ashdown estate, close, close to here that they were doing up. It was actually an industrial building, and they wanted to know all about the history of it, so, so yes, I was able to go into the archives and dig around kind of to find that out, and then I met with the producer to talk about the bits that might be interesting to people on the television, ‘cause of course you’ve got a tiny, tiny slot to give a bit of fascinating historical background, so we picked out the, the really interesting bits about the history of this little building and how it sort of related to the whole of the, the, the Industrial Revolution and things, so yeah, that was great. I really loved that, and I did another one where I was just walking – [laughs] – walking and talking at the same time always throws you – but it was kind of like walking through history, and again, that was in this landscape and, and the locality round here, because there, there’s so much history to, to sort of talk about. You know, you start three thousand years ago, and, and we’re still going, it’s still going strong. By the time you get to the Tudor period, you’re not even halfway there, so there’s so much, so much history locally, I think that, that’s sort of how I got involved in all of that. So yeah, it’s, but it could be, it could be anything, really, from, from clothes to obscure architectural things, mostly just as a result of the work that I’ve done with the National Trust, really, so it’s, it’s absolutely fascinating.

Sarah: That’s so cool. This is a tough question.

Nicola: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Well, it’s not tough; it’s just a little, it’s a little difficult to answer, I think, ‘cause I don’t know the answer. I know that writing time slippage in fiction is one thing, but do you think that time slippage is possible?

Nicola: Hmm. Yes, actually, I think it is. I mean, I think I’m, oh, it’s real-, it’s really interesting, isn’t it? I, to talk to people who write things, ‘cause I, I love talking to other authors who write dual time or time-slip books and asking them what they really believe in about all paranormal stuff, and I mean, doesn’t even necessarily –

Sarah: Yeah!

Nicola: – need to be paranormal, of course. It could be entirely scientific, and it’s just that we don’t understand it. So, so, I mean, I’m one of these, I’m one of these people who, I love all the spooky stuff, so I’m very open-minded to all kinds of things that, that might happen that we don’t know or understand. But at the same time, I kind of quite like the idea of there being a sci-, a scientific explanation for time travel, for example, which I know, you know, various eminent physicists have put forward ideas that would say that it’s possible. I mean, I’m, I’m rubbish at science, so it’s, there’s no point me trying to understand any of these theories, but I, I very much hope it’s possible. I like the idea that there’s something there that would – especially these days, when people think that we understand and know everything. It’s sort of, I think it’s interesting to think, well, no, actually, there must be so much more –

Sarah: Oooh.

Nicola: – like other dimensions and wormholes and all these things that could allow you to, to travel in time, but we just haven’t worked it out yet, really. So, yeah, I’m very open to that.

Sarah: I loved the idea from The Phantom Tree that time isn’t necessarily linear, that it loops back, and you are, you can interrupt multiple timelines and encounter things in a different order and not realize it.

Nicola: Yes, well, I mean, like, I was going to say, this idea of, of parallel dimensions or – I just like playing with these ideas that, in, in some ways, because our world now, it feels as though there’s so, there’s so little left to discover or so little wonder, and actually that feels a bit arrogant, doesn’t it? You know –

Sarah: Yes.

Nicola: Yeah! I mean, no, why, why do we feel, or why do people think that, that we’ve, we’ve worked it all out? I mean, it seems, hey, you know, there, there might be other ways for this to run, so, yeah, it’s, it’s terrible for an author like me, though, who’s not good at planning, because that’s how, as I said before, it’s how I catch myself out so many time, by not having things working out because I’ve just had – oh, I remember that happened with The Phantom Tree. I was, there’s a bit in there when I, I almost got to the end, and I thought, hold on a minute, this can’t happen, because I’ve written myself into a corner –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Nicola: – so I had to go back and sort that all out. But yes, just exploring that, just so many possibilities, isn’t there? I love it.

Sarah: I remember listening to a travel podcast from Rick Steves, who’s an American travel writer and tour guide and writes a lot of travel books for all over Europe, and around Halloween a couple years ago he did an iss-, an episode with people calling in to talk about how they’d visited places that they’d never been never but had very vivid memories of them and said, oh, there was a, a chest over here, and the fireplace looked like this, and the banners looked like that, and they had this unexplicable, inexplicable memory of a place that they had never been before –

Nicola: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and I thought, you know, if that many people have that experience, then who I am to be like, no, that’s not possible? I mean, sure, maybe it is possible, and that’s another, maybe that’s another form of time slipping.

Nicola: Yes, well, that’s exactly the kind of thing that I really love. I was talking at the most recent RNA conference, I was talking to Barbara Erskine; she was, I was in a, in a total fangirl mood. She’d come along to do a talk about her new book, and, and we were having sort of one of these late night discussions about all kinds of spooky things that really you shouldn’t if you’re expecting to get any sleep afterwards. I mean, gee –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Nicola: – with that, you know, that she’s had experience of that. I mean, I, I’ve had some curious experiences myself with stuff that you can’t explain, and I think, yeah, I mean, I, I’m totally open-minded about that, because I, I think so many people have different but similar experiences. Again, we’re back to this thing about, about arrogance thinking that it can’t be possibly be true or that we can explain things away. I mean, it does make me laugh, actually, because my husband was trained as a scientist, and we used to…a haunted cottage, and – before we moved to the house we’re in now – and, I mean, he loved the house –

Sarah: Oh my.

Nicola: – but he didn’t love the fact that he couldn’t explain the things that happened there. So eventually, because I’m, I’m the one who he would probably call flaky, who believes in all these things – he’s the one who likes to explain everything – in the end we just had to agree that, I think the way he referred to it was, there are things that happen that I can’t explain, and he had to leave it at that because there was, there was no rational explanation for it, and this whole thing of people’s past lives and – I mean, again, I’m very, yeah, I’m very open to, how do we know what happens or, or, or whatever? Some people’s memories of these things seem so vivid and so convincing, but the, you, you really wouldn’t want to, to dismiss things like that. I think – and also, I don’t want to lose that sense of wonder, you know, we were just saying about in, in the modern world. I mean, I think that’s maybe why people like books with elements of fantasy and, and all these kind of questions that are raised in them, because perhaps we don’t want to be able to explain everything. We want to have those elements there that we can wonder about, and there’s something good about that.

Sarah: Yeah, I, I agree, and I definitely don’t think, speaking for myself, I definitely don’t think I know everything. I’m always amazed by things that I learn, especially doing, doing podcasts. I get to talk to people from all over the world.

Nicola: Yeah, I imagine that’s amazing! [Laughs]

Sarah: It’s really fun! So what are you working on right now? I know your next book is in February of next year, and is it called The Woman in the Lake?

Nicola: Yes, yes, that’s right; that’s the next book that’s coming out. It’s sort of, I mean, it is a bit dual-time-y, but it’s mostly about possession. That’s the kind of theme that I’m exploring in that, ‘cause I find that really, again, kind of an interesting, spooky thing, but at the same time, obviously, the idea of possession has got lots of different permutations. So yeah, it’s got the dual time going on; it’s got some romance, of course; and it’s got, it’s got this whole idea of possessing things and being possessed by things, so yeah, that’s The Woman in the Lake. Which is 18th century, actually; that was the first time I’ve written a book set in 18th century and the present, so I had to do a lot of research for that. But that is also based on the story of a real-life person, the ancestor of Lady Diana Spencer, who was also called Diana Spencer, so it’s actually based on her life story, so that was really, really interesting to research.

Sarah: Oh cool!

Nicola: That was the next one that’s coming out, and then I’m, I’ve stockpiled a few, ‘cause I, because I’ve been writ- – they’re, they’ve sort of been scheduled to come out later than, than I’ve been writing, so I’ve got a Tudor book coming out of that as well. So, yeah, a Tudor and a contemporary, so yeah. So really exciting; lots of, lots of spooky stuff in, in the pipeline.

Sarah: That is, that is so cool, the whole idea of possession and objects. I mean, that – yeah, okay, I’m, I’m on board. Sign me up. I’m ready. Do it, do it, let’s do it.

Nicola: [Laughs]

Sarah: That sounds great. [Laughs]

Nicola: I hope, I very much hope that, that you’ll like that one. I kind of like doing something a bit different with the books each time, so not exactly – I like, I like, obviously, having the dual-time elements, but not exactly the same theme each time, so it might be ghosts, or it might be reincarnation or, or whatever, or telepathy or, or witchcraft. I just like exploring one of those things, different things, yeah, that, so the possession thing, I think, was really interesting, and I was, again, chatting to some other authors about the best books about possession and things that they’d read, so that was, that was really interesting. I went and read my way through some good old, old classics and things on that and scared myself stupid, actually. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah, if you’re scaring yourself, it’s sort of like making yourself cry: you know you’re on the right track.

Nicola: Yes, I hope so, but it was, it was a very – I’m like I used to be when I was a child; I really shouldn’t read these things on my own late at night – [laughs] – because –

Sarah: No. [Laughs]

Nicola: – is, it’s too, it’s too frightening anyway. [Laughs]

Sarah: So I always ask, are there any books that you’ve read recently that you would like to recommend?

Nicola: Yes. So kind of in the, in this sort of paranormal-y, I, I was, I was reading Barbara Erskine’s new book, because, as I say, I did interview her at the RNA conference, and that was actually called The Ghost Tree. That was a brilliant book; I mean, I love Barbara Erskine’s writing, and that’s all about genealogy as well, and sort of family history and, and, and I really enjoyed, I really enjoyed that. I just, I mean, I’ve loved her books for years and years, so that, that was fantastic, to be able to read that.

I mean, there are some, there are some authors who, I’m, I’m just thinking, Tracy Rees as well is another author who I love who kind of writes historical sort of, sometimes it’s dual timeline, but she’s just written a book set in the 1920s which I’ve been recommending to everybody, called Darling Blue, and that is, that –

Sarah: Ooh!

Nicola: I just thought she captured the spirit of that era so beautifully, so I absolutely loved that. It was a really, really beautifully written book.

I’ve just started Josh and, is it Hazel and Josh’s Guide to Dating, or is Josh & Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating? Anyway – ‘cause that was recommended to me, and obviously I always read Sarah Morgan all the time, over and over, whether they’re new books or not, because she is my all-time favorite read when I, when I want to feel happy. I’m really excited whenever I get a new book of hers.

Sarah: That’s brilliant! Is there anything else you want to add to, to your comments, or anything you want to make sure you mention?

Nicola: I’d just like to mention about Wolf Hall, actually.

Sarah: Yes, please!

Nicola: There is – okay! [Laughs] Because I only found out a few months ago that the Wolf Hall, the place, obviously, where, well, not only where I set some of The Phantom Tree, but the actual Wolf Hall where Jane Seymour was born and where Henry VIII was supposed to have married Jane Seymour, and this kind of iconic place out of history, that it still existed, and when I wrote The Phantom Tree I thought, like everybody else, that it had been lost years ago to, fallen down hundreds of years ago, and then, to my astonishment, I was contacted by somebody from an organization called the Friends of Wolfhall who had rediscovered this house, this Tudor manor house with this extraordinary history, and it’s still there! It’s still standing.

Sarah: Whoa!

Nicola: Just, what I couldn’t believe was how they could have lost it in the first place! [Laughs]

Sarah: How do you lose a house?

Nicola: I know! It’s amazing, and apparently –

Sarah: There’s, like, a lot of shrubbery involved.

Nicola: No! I mean, it, I couldn’t believe it, but apparently somebody had been driving past one day, and they saw this house and thought, oh, parts of that look as those they’re Tudor, and that was actually how it was rediscovered. I mean, the clue was really in the name, because it was called Wolf Hall Farm, so you would have thought that somebody might have made a connection, but anyway, and that was how it was found again. Now they’re excavating all the old parts of, of the house that had been lost, and they’re restoring the bits that are still standing, and they’re the most amazing organization. I just wanted to, to say a word about that for people who are interested in Tudor history. You can look them up online; they’re called the Real Wolfhall, because yeah, they’re finding out all this stuff about the real Tudor history behind all the books kind of all the time, and yeah, it is the amazing, amazing place, so yeah, I just wanted to mention that it’s still there, and you can be a Friend of it! [Laughs]

Sarah: So what we should all do is that first go to visit Wolfhall and support the friends of Wolfhall and then head over to Ashdown House and ask you really interesting questions.

Nicola: Ask me questions you know I won’t know the answer to. [Laughs]

Sarah: We’ll all compliment your lipstick, even if you’re not wearing any.

[Laughter]

Nicola: Thank you very much!

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of the interview. I’m going to thank Nicola Cornick for hanging out with me and talking across so many time zones. If you’re curious about some of the books that we talked about or the books that she recommended, they will be in the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

This episode was brought to you by A Nice Day for a Cowboy Wedding by Nicole Helm. Bestselling author Nicole Helm returns with the fourth installment in her down-to-earth, warm-hearted, and compelling Mile High Romance series. Nestled in the Rocky Mountains, rugged Gracely, Colorado, is famous for Big Sky beauty and small-town community. It’s a perfect place to take a deep breath, start again, and even plunge into the kind of love that lasts a lifetime. When Cora Preston begins her new job as a coordinator at Mile High Weddings, she never dreamed that it might be her who ended up walking down the aisle. A Nice Day for a Cowboy Wedding by Nicole Helm is on sale now wherever books are sold and at kensingtonbooks.com.

Every transcript for this podcast is written by garlicknitter. Thank you, garlicknitter! [You’re welcome! – gk] Today’s podcast transcript is sponsored by Bloodlines and Broomsticks, the new book in Robyn Bachar’s Bad Witch series. The Bad Witch series blends romance and urban fantasy and is filled with magic, vampires, shapeshifters, and troublemaking Shakespearean fairies. After a lifetime of academic excellence, teacher Riley O’Driscoll has only failed in two subjects: love and magic. When witch hunters break down her door, a miscast spell sends her through the looking glass and into the path of sexy shapeshifter Jeremiah Galestrom. Jeremiah is trapped in Faerie. Riley is his only hope of escape. They strike a bargain that trades a year of Jeremiah’s protection for Riley’s help, and Riley finds herself with a new roommate who’s a real tiger. With the hunters closing in, can Riley trust her life and her heart with a man who is counting the days to his freedom? And while Jeremiah knows he can protect her from the hunters, can he protect her from himself? Bloodlines and Broomsticks by Robyn Bachar releases on October 1st wherever books are sold, and you can find out more at robynbachar.com. That’s R-O-B-Y-N-B-A-C-H-A-R dot com.

If you have had a look at our Patreon, thank you very much for that. Our Patreon URL – if you listen, you probably know – is patreon.com/SmartBitches. Monthly pledges start at one dollar a month, and everyone in the Patreon community helps me develop questions for upcoming interviews, helps keep the show going, and helps me commission transcripts for episodes in the archives, so if you’ve had a look, if you’ve supported the show, thank you, thank you, thank you!

The music that you are listening to is provided Sassy Outwater. This is “Ascent of Conival” by Peatbog Faeries. I thought the sort of ethereal, kind of misty sound went with the topic today. This is from their album Dust, and you can find it at Amazon or on iTunes or wherever you get your funky music.

Now, as always, I have a bad joke. This one is really, really bad. Like, it is super bad. That means that I’m super excited about it. Okay, are you ready? You ready, ready? Okay, here we go:

What do you call a line of bunnies hopping backwards?

Give up? What do you call a line of bunnies hopping backwards?

That would be a receding hare line.

[Laughs] Course, you know, I imagine them, like, hopping backwards with, like, top hats and canes like, ta-da! Here we go! That book is by – or book, that book. Listen to my brain. That joke was originally posted by Soul of Cthulhu, so thank you, Soul of Cthulhu, and thank you, receding hares. Hee-hee!

Coming up on Smart Bitches next week, this Saturday, tomorrow if you’re listening on Friday, our most popular and most expensive post will go up: Whatcha Reading? We tell you what we’re reading, you tell us what you’re reading, and then we all buy more books, or borrow them, or both. We also have reviews coming up this week; Cover Snark, which I know y’all love; Help a Bitch Out; and a new edition of one of my favorite columns to write, Unlocking Library Coolness. There is no limit to library coolness, as I have discovered. We also have a sponsored edition of Covers & Cocktails, so grab your shakers and get ready. I hope you will come by and hang out with us.

That brings me to the end of my outro script. I script everything, because if I try to ad lib I end up stuttering, and that’s unpleasant for everyone. So on behalf of Nicola Cornick and all of the animals that are currently in my office begging for treats, I wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend, and we will see you back here next week.

[ethereal music]