330. Autonomy is the Original Witchcraft: An Interview with Elizabeth Hoyt

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hi, there! Thank you for firing up your earbuds and listening to this episode of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. This is episode number 330, and I am Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. Today I am talking to Elizabeth Hoyt. She has a new historical series, so we are going to talk about her new book Not the Duke’s Darling, which is the start of her new Greycourt series which comes out December 18th. Here are some words that will grab your attention: there is a secret society of women in this series, and it sounds delightful. No kidding. The heroine is undercover at a house party as part of a secret society of Wise Women trying to prevent legislation that will bring back witch hunting. That sounds pretty nifty, right? We are going to talk about how accusations of witchcraft were really about autonomy and who was permitted to have it and who wasn’t. We also talk about how dangerous were women who were too outspoken, had too much knowledge or too much money or too much power or any combination of those things. We also talk about how anger influences the story, the heroine, and the secret order of Wise Women. We talk about the skills required to plot a series of twelve or more books while building a world that spans several novels. We talk about random Wikipedia rabbit holes that lead to plot ideas and character development, the idea of creating a new identity in historical time periods, and the power of characters slowly revealing their true selves to one another. And of course I ask about the essentials to creating a series that is comprised of standalone books and why that’s important. And of course we talk about what she’s reading and recommending.

If you want to email us or get in touch or you have ideas or thoughts, oh boy, do I want to hear them. You can email me at [email protected], or you can leave a message at 1-201-371-3272. You can leave a message, you can tell us what you’re thinking, you can ask questions, or you can tell me a terrible joke, because you know how much I love those. Either way, I love hearing from you, either by email or in our voicemail or on Twitter @SmartBitches. It is lovely to hear what you think of the episodes.

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Every episode of this podcast gets a transcript, and every transcript is compiled by garlicknitter. Thanks, garlicknitter! [You’re welcome! – gk] The transcript for this episode is brought to you by the new options for sponsoring this here podcast for 2019, ‘cause I got new options and I’m excited to tell you about them. For 2019, if you are curious, you can sponsor an episode or a month, or – and this is new – you can book a spot for the intro only or the outro only. We have more options and a wide range of prices because, as I say in the information about advertising at Smart Bitches, I want our options to be accessible to everyone. If you are interested in advertisement or in sponsoring an episode or booking the intro or the outro, or you just have questions, email me: Sarah, S-A-R-A-H, at smartbitchestrashybooks.com [[email protected]]. Your support keeps the site and keeps the show going, and I am deeply, deeply grateful that we are still together talking about romance fiction every day. Thank you for that.

We have a compliment! I love these. Okay. This is for Colleen M.:

If you load your GPS history and a map of where you’ve walked, the lines include words that describe how excellent you are, such as caring, clever, and courageous. That is a lot of Cs. I’m guessing you live near a lot of roundabouts.

If you would like to receive a compliment of your very own – which are always more silly the later at night that I develop them – you have a look at our podcast Patreon at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Monthly pledges start at one dollar a month, and you’re part of the group who helps me pick out questions for future interviews and suggests guests for the show, which is what we’re doing right now. You can join our community at patreon.com/SmartBitches, and if you have already supported the show with a monthly pledge, thank you very, very much.

The music you’re listening to was provided by Sassy Outwater. I will have information at the end of the show as to who this is. I will also have a terrible, terrible joke, because, well, that’s how I end the episodes – [laughs] – and I really like the one I picked out for today, too! And of course there will be links to all the books we discuss in this interview.

But now, without any further delay, on with the podcast and our interview with Elizabeth Hoyt.

[music]

Elizabeth Hoyt: Hi! I’m Elizabeth Hoyt. I’m an historical romance writer. You know, I’m really bad at this. [Laughs]

Sarah: You know, it’s never easy. It’s why I say it’s the only awkward part. [Laughs] Please tell me all about your new series. If you want to just start at the beginning of the book and read it, that is also fine, because I know a lot of readers are really excited about this new series, so please tell me all about it.

Elizabeth: You know, there’s some authors who are really good at what they call elevator pitches? Like, you know, condensing it down?

Sarah: Yep.

Elizabeth: I have never been good at that, so when people ask me about a book, I have a tendency to see the whole thing, and then people look at me blankly when I try to explain it to them. But I’ll try. It’s basically –

[Laughter]

Elizabeth: So first of all, it’s a series of twelve, so I’ve got this huge big picture in mind of – yeah, yeah, so –

Sarah: Holy cow!

Elizabeth: – but I’ll narrow it down to the first book. It’s, it’s about two main families, and there’s a tragedy that happens fifteen years before the book starts. It’s kind of a mystery, and it’s not revealed in the first book exactly what happened, but all you need to know is that these are two families that were very close, and this tragedy happened and it tore them apart, and fifteen years later they’re still living through the, like, the, the tremors and the aftermath of this; everybody was torn apart. And the heroine of this book was besties with another little girl – they were, like, twelve at the time – Messalina. The heroine’s name is Freya, and she lost her best friend, and her brother, her older brother, Ran, Ranulf, he, he lost his, his hand because he was beaten so badly sepsis set in. Anyway, so she’s like, you know –

Sarah: Oy!

Elizabeth: – kind of angry, and so she – it’s an angry heroine, which I thought was kind of apropos for the time period right now – not back then, but right now, ‘cause I was feeling kind of angry – and in the present time at that time, she’s a Wise Woman. So she’s in this secret society of women who are – I never say it’s feminist, but they’re, they’re pro-women; they help other women. They have, like, a, a base knowledge that they keep, they don’t keep to themselves, but they’re, they’re keeping alive sort of, and have done for centuries, and they’ve got basically a male-centric cabal of bad guys who are out to, to get rid of them because of religious and other reasons. So she’s undercover; she’s kind of like a spy, sort of, for the Wise Women, and at the beginning of the book, she’s trying to find something, anything at all on a guy who’s going to bring back a witch act in Parliament, so make it, it legal again to hunt witches, because the bad guys consider the Wise Women witches. As you probably know, the, the, back in the day, witches were basically any woman who was – I, I think, I think probably there were women who thought they were actually witches or Wiccans, but a lot of them were outsiders. They were women who either had some knowledge; or they were old and getting weird; or they were, you know, people who were, didn’t have enough friends, and so they were the ones who got pilloried and burned at the stake when anything happened wrong; you know, the crops didn’t come in or whatever. So in this case –

Sarah: Right.

Elizabeth: – they’re, you know, since these guys don’t like them, they consider them literal, literal witches, and I should say that, that there’s no paranormal in this book, so our good people, our Wise Women, are not actual, literal, literal witches.

Sarah: They’re just women who aren’t under other people’s control.

Elizabeth: Right, yeah. Yeah, they have autonomy. Anyway, so she’s trying to figure out something that she can hold over the guy who wants to bring back witch hunting, and as part of that, she goes to a, a house party, and the first guy she sees is wearing the ring that her beloved brother wore, used to wear, and it’s the guy who was there on the night that her brother lost his hand, and that’s the hero. So.

Sarah: So now it’s very personal.

Elizabeth: It’s very personal.

Sarah: I love how autonomy is the original witchcraft.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Yeah, it’s women who are – and I think that historically is true – it’s women who –

Sarah: Yeah.

Elizabeth: – were too outspoken, had too much knowledge, who, you know – sometimes I think it was women who had too much money or had too much, you know –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – land or whatever. It’s just certainly a good way to get somebody out of the way if you want to take over their land or money, you know?

Sarah: If you can’t be controlled and you can’t brought under someone else’s control, then the only option is to marginalize –

Elizabeth: Yes.

Sarah: – or just kill them.

Elizabeth: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: ‘Cause sometimes that marginali-, marginalization is exactly what they wanted. Like, please, yes! It would be great if you left me alone! Oh my gosh, stop talking to me.

Elizabeth: Uh-huh.

Sarah: So the heroine, Freya, is a member of the secret order of Wise Women, which, those are the best five words I’ve heard today; thank you.

Elizabeth: [Laughs]

Sarah: What is that? How did you develop a secret order? And I’ve been told to ask you how it connects to Wonder Woman.

Elizabeth: [Laughs] Well, I don’t know if it actually connects to Wonder Woman. That was because someone had given me, within our house, when the publicists in my house had given me a prompt to write an essay about this book, and it was kind of a boring prompt, and I said, well, I’m going to write something about, you know, Wonder Woman and this, because it’s more, I thought, fun. It, it is, they’re sort of like Wonder Woman in the, in the, in the fact that they’re, it’s, it’s an all-woman society, right? So they’re ruled by women. Like any society, there’s political machinations going on, so at the beginning of the book, for instance, so in this society, there once were thousands of them, right? But because of witchcraft –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – not witchcraft, but because of witch, you know, hunting – which was historically in Scotland in the 17th century, they had a heck of a lot of killings; it was really bad – but in my books, because of that, they’re now down to, down to the hundreds, so they’ve been decimated, right? And when that happens, people react different ways, right? So I’m having it so that the, the, the council, the people who are in charge, there’s three women, you know, elders who are in charge, and they’ve come to the decision that what they need to do is to draw back, and everybody should come in and, you know, huddle closer in their little, they’ve got a little compound way in the north of Scotland, and just go up there and, you know, be defensive. The heroine believes that they should do the opposite, that they need to, you know, have a few people at least in England where the Parliament is and, and try to, you know, at least do some undercover work to try to keep the laws, you know, in their favor. So you’ve got the, the political things going on there, and I think that’s a little bit like, you know, if you look at the beginning of Wonder Woman where, you know, there’s different ideas of what, you know, should you, should you go into the wider, wider world or shouldn’t, or should you not?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: I do have in my book that, it’s mentioned that there are men in their community, very few, but there are. I don’t explicitly say in the book, but I kind of figure that they were descended from Druids and that they’d been around for thousands of years, and this is the remnants of, of these people.

Sarah: So these are organiz-, this particular organization in your world has existed for a very long time over several generations, and new people are brought in, and then they bring in people after them.

Elizabeth: Yeah, a few. Not a whole lot of people.

Sarah: What do they do? Is that something that you can talk about yet, or is that too much of a spoiler?

Elizabeth: They, so they have a compound, and within that compound there is, there is self-, there is self-reliance, so they have people who are beekeepers and, you know, they – but on the outside –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – they, they help people in distress. So for instance, at the beginning of the book, we find Freya is rescuing an earl who is, like, one; it’s a one-year-old baby earl, and it’s because the, the mother has been widowed, and –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – the earl’s uncle, who is the brother of his previous father, has kidnapped the baby and is holding him so that he can have control of his assets, really, and the mother has no legal recourse. I mean, you know, you’ve got to control the baby, then you know –

Sarah: Then you control the mother.

Elizabeth: Right, right. So –

Sarah: It’s the, it’s the pattern of abusers since forever.

Elizabeth: Yes, exactly, and – yeah. So she’s, she’s returning the baby to the mother so the mother can not only control the baby but also the resources. So it’s like that, where they’re, they’re helping – when they can – they’re not a very big organization, but when they can, they’re helping abused women; they’re helping women in, in, you know, trouble; that kind of stuff, so they’re going out – they’re also, and I didn’t go into it in this book, but there’s going to be, at some point, a whole thing about childbirth, because obviously a lot about witches were that they knew about childbirth, they knew about women’s contraception, they knew about women’s bodies, which was–

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – at different points in, in history where it’s almost illegal, you know, to have the knowledge of fertility, I guess, was not considered, you know, you weren’t supposed to do that, you know? Weren’t supposed to have that power.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: Men were supposed to have that.

Sarah: Right. What is your method for plotting out twelve books? Like, that’s a lot of books! Is this how your brain thinks? Does your brain sort of create a world at thirty-five thousand feet and then zoom in for each one?

Elizabeth: Kind of. I mean, I say twelve books, but it changes rapidly. So the first book I immediately had a character and a romance that I had not planned on. [Laughs] So this happens all the time, you know, like –

[Laughter]

Elizabeth: It’s like, okay, the first book has already changed. So I, I have sort of an arc going on that I know where I’m going to? So, for instance, I saw in your questions that you’re going to ask about Scotland. Well, most of this book does not take place in Scotland. Later books will.

Sarah: Ah!

Elizabeth: And I’m planning to move, you know, to, to have an entire, you know, couple books in, in Edinburgh, but this book won’t. But yeah, I –

Sarah: Ah.

Elizabeth: – I have sort of over-arching themes, and things I would be interested in talking about, sort of, and I do actually have romance in the books, even though we’re not discussing that at all.

[Laughter]

Sarah: I have questions; don’t worry!

Elizabeth: There are heroes! [Laughs]

Sarah: I’m going to get there.

Elizabeth: This is probably detrimental to my career, but I kind of have to have something that I’m interested in in order to write it. I get bored easily, so it has to be interesting to me; otherwise, I, I can’t write it.

Sarah: Understandable. So how did you get, approach this new series? What was this, what was the point of entry for this new world, and does the series have a name? Is it the Secret Order of the Wise Women Society?

Elizabeth: It’s not; actually, it’s the Greycourt series, which is based on the two families. I actually started it with the two family idea, and then I started wondering about the heroine Freya and what she’s been doing all this time, and, and instead of just having her in limbo, not doing anything for fifteen years, I had her, you know, have an entire backstory that led to a secret order of women. But yes, yeah.

Sarah: Sounds good to me! I mean, sure, yeah!

Elizabeth: But I, I started, I kind of like, this is actually very similar, I thought about later, to my Four, Four Soldiers series? I like the idea of a, of an event in the past that has scarred people and, and torn people apart, and hopefully by the end of the book, and then by the end of the series, everybody is brought back together again and healed, you know?

Sarah: Right. That makes sense. This is a, a big shift from Maiden Lane in some ways, and also not in other ways, considering the length and the inter-, and the complexity and the larger story that’s going to sort of thread through all of them. What is the process like for you to, to develop and plot a world like this?

Elizabeth: Well, it starts several years in advance. Like, when I was writing the last few Maiden Lane, I was thinking about this. ‘Cause I spent a lot of time just in my head thinking and thinking and thinking about what I’m interested in writing, the characters, where I want to – a lot of it is the world. So I wanted to move into Scotland and to Edinburgh, actually. I think it’s an interesting city, and I don’t think it’s been used enough. Also, I’m hoping that I can go to Edinburgh and do research and maybe, like, do an entire tax write-off for that. I’m –

Sarah: That’s an excellent plan.

Elizabeth: Right? You know, and –

Sarah: That’s a very good plan.

Elizabeth: From now on, maybe I should do that for all of my books? You know, just, you know, zero in on cities I want to go to. But a lot of it is that, and also characters. So I’m interested in what has wounded people, I guess? So I’ve got an upcoming character who’s very cold and, and, and riddled with guilt. He’s the hero, the third hero of the series. I’ve got the brother who’s lost a hand.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: He’s got a mechanical hand, so that was a lot of fun researching that, even though that’s, like, way in the future?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: But a whole thing about him and, and he’s basically a scientist. So I wanted to do these, these particular characters? Oftentimes the characters I think about are, are the male, the hero characters, but what I’m interested in –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – about them, so. Yeah.

Sarah: With the research for this book – obviously, this one’s not in Scotland, as you say.

Elizabeth: I did a lot of Scottish research, though, anyway, even though it has nothing to do with this book. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah, that’s okay! I mean, I have gone down many a disconnected Wikipedia rabbit hole, just ‘cause my brain was curious. So, I mean, you get paid for it! That’s awesome!

Elizabeth: Well, not actually for going down the holes, though!

[Laughter]

Sarah: So what did you read that, that surprised you? What was some of the research that you really enjoyed?

Elizabeth: Oh, let’s see. I did – [laughs] – well, a whole, a whole bunch about witches, including some weird stuff about, oh gosh, about, I don’t want to get into it too much, but about Pres-, Presbyterianism and weird off-branches of – and I’m a Presbyterian myself – weird off-branches of Presbyterianism during the 17th and 18th centuries, and the bad guys are kind of based on that. My editor doesn’t like to have me say anything about any particular religion for the – but they are kind of based on a real guy, these real guys. Anyway, I have, I’ve got an entire list of stuff, and I could put them into a, a folder. I’ve got here wax anatomical figures. I can’t, I don’t know if I’m actually going to use that, but that was interesting. I’ve got – oh, here we go! – this is a good one: runrig farming. In Scotland, it’s a medieval farming technique? [Laughs]

Sarah: Ohhh?

Elizabeth: That may – and lowland clearances – I may go into that. I’m thinking about, that was early clearances in Scotland, because they began way – I thought they were, like, in the 18th century, but according to my research they started, like, in the 17th, and it kept on going, so.

Sarah: That must have been fun.

Elizabeth: Or not, yeah.

[Laughter]

Sarah: What were some of the things that you found really fascinating in your research about witchcraft and witches?

Elizabeth: One of the things was how much educated people believed in it? I mean, the whole, I think it’s called a Malle- – I mean, I’m going to mispronounce this – the Malleus Malefictia, something like that? – it’s Latin, obviously – Hammer of Witches [Malleus Maleficarum]. And I think that was James the Something-or-Other, either – he didn’t write it, I don’t think, but he, he read it, and he really believed in it, and it’s like, all these, these people who were, who were very, you know, who had some, some – it wasn’t just the common people. People who were educated really believed in witches. It’s kind of amazing, you know, to us.

Sarah: Wow!

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: It is also fascinating to me how much sex and sexuality played into the obsession of witchcraft.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: I remember seeing recently, right around Halloween, and I wish I could cite my source – I’ll have to look it up and put it in the show notes – that accusing women of witchcraft, and specifically accusing them of, of sexual acts, acts with the Devil, meant that these people could basically take a deep dive into their own sexual prurience and blame it on someone else.

Elizabeth: And I was actually very young. It may have been the Malleus Malefact- – whatever it’s pronounced – but there’s this tract, it’s a famous one written by monks, and it goes into great detail about what exactly these women are doing with the Devil.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Right!

Elizabeth: You guys are way too interested in this, you know?

Sarah: Right?

Elizabeth: Yeah. It’s very, it’s very interesting. I also know that there was, in the Middle Ages, not, not only this whole sexual thing, but it, it’s a whole misogyny thing, because there was a priest –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Elizabeth: – in a town in the Middle Ages that was totally wiped of women. All females were just all killed.

Sarah: Oy.

Elizabeth: ‘Cause, because they were all, you know, not only women witches but their temptation, you know? Which is witchcraft, so you know, they’re tempting good men into sexual thoughts. You know, women themselves are evil, I think is some, is, is in some very conservative, you know, extreme religious thought, you know?

Sarah: Mm-hmm. Women themselves are the root of evil.

Elizabeth: Yeah!

Sarah: That’s pretty common across a lot of denominations, unfortunately.

Elizabeth: Yeah, it’s true, yeah, and not just Christianity, other religions as well. And, and also you, I was talking about how prevalent it was. There’s also, there was a whole thing about, and this is a little bit different, but witch’s marks? Not on the body.

Sarah: Yes.

Elizabeth: There’s things about witches, you know, telling if somebody’s a witch because of birthmarks, but there’s also this thing they used to do where they, they would score marks into wood when they were building a building to, to keep witches out, and they’re all over these medieval buildings in, in England. So either the carpenters were, were superstitious, or just everybody was. It was something you just did whenever made a building is that just, you know, automatically put a witch’s mark in there and make sure that nobody, you know, no witch could get in or –

Sarah: Right.

Elizabeth: – or curse it.

Sarah: I know there’s also witch’s doors in Vermont –

Elizabeth: Are there? Yeah.

Sarah: – which are these doors that are actually set – it’s called a witch window – and it’s basically a window that’s installed so that it is parallel to the roofline, so it’s like this crooked window on the side of a house, and they’re generally called witch windows. Sometimes they’re called Vermont windows, but they’re called witch windows. The idea was that witches couldn’t fly their broomsticks through tilted windows. Now, I would imagine that if you were an actual witch who could fly on a witch-, on a broomstick, you could fly through anything you needed to, ‘cause you’re already flying. Like, what’s the hard part here?

Elizabeth: Well, but also, could they get in the ground floor windows though? [Laughs]

Sarah: Apparently! Like, this, this is not a well-thought-out, you know, piece of, piece of folklore.

Elizabeth: Like, that’s interesting.

Sarah: Yeah, it’s – witches show up in weird places.

Elizabeth: In England they have these things, you know, the, the white horse and other – I don’t know if you know what I’m talking about, but the chalk drawings? And those things were maintained for centuries, up into the present day. So the locals had to, ‘cause you have to keep on scraping off the vegetation, off the white – it’s, it’s a layer of chalk underneath the vegetation, and you have to keep on scraping it off in order for it to be maintained? So people through the Middle Ages, through the Renaissance, through, you know, the 17th century and the Victorian era, maintained these obviously pagan symbols in their local area, which I find fascinating. No one said, no, we’re not, we’re going to get rid of – and you know there’s a crude man of something or other, which is a guy with his balls out, and he’s got an erection, a huge, giant – have you heard of that?

Sarah: Yeah.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: Yes, I have.

Elizabeth: And no Victorian said, we’re going to get rid of that guy with the big erection, so I think that’s really interesting! That that, you know, was maintained all that, centuries, you know?

Sarah: Yep. Now, your heroine, Freya, is living under an assumed name. Now, I know from all of the historical romance, historical fiction, and, and my own Wikipedia and online research rabbit holes that society was very small and very obsessed with itself –

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and who was in and who was out. How difficult would it be for someone like her to disappear in, in, in plain sight and reinvent herself at that time period? Was that relatively simple, or did she have to, you know, deploy the Wise Women to help her out with that?

Elizabeth: Well, I, there’s two things: one is that her family, so she’s from a family of a dukedom, so normally, no, she couldn’t do that, but her family has been ostracized, so they’re not in society?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: They haven’t been seen in society for a generation, so nobody knows –

Sarah: Ohhh!

Elizabeth: – she never came out. Had she come out, no duh, she would never have been able to do this, but she was ostracized –

Sarah: Of course.

Elizabeth: – because her brother was assumed to have killed somebody.

Sarah: Oh, that would be the end of that.

Elizabeth: And back then, a duke, no, they wouldn’t have hung a duke, even if he was assumed to have killed a, another aristocrat. They’d just ostracize him. So because of that, it wasn’t like they had, you know, personal papers. The other thing is, she’s not assuming the identity of another aristocratic lady. She’s assuming the identity of a, a lady’s, a companion/chaperone.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: So she’s, like, one, a couple steps down the social ladder? So people are less interested in her ‘cause she’s not trying to marry into society? I mean, if she’s trying to marry into a family then they’re going to want to know about her pedigree, but she’s not, so I think it’d be actually very easy for her to do this – [laughs] – without any help.

Sarah: I’m also guessing that for Freya it helps that, as someone who is a companion or a governess, she’s in that weird between state where she’s slightly higher than the downstairs servants, but certainly not a member of the family?

Elizabeth: Yes, uh-huh.

Sarah: Which is a very lonely sort of almost liminal space in society.

Elizabeth: Yeah, and I think I touch on that a little bit where you’re kind of in limbo, and she’s been in this limbo for, I think, I think I settle on five years. It’s been a while, but she’s been doing this thing where nobody really truly knows who she is among the people where she is –

Sarah: Right.

Elizabeth: – and she has, I mean, she’s, she’s, I, the people she’s with, she’s fond of them and they’re fond of her, but she has no true friends, right? She hasn’t really gotten close to anybody, so it’s – and so when the hero comes along, there’s a point where they start talking, and she realizes she can talk about anything with him, and it’s really this freeing thing, where she can talk about herself, her true self and her true feelings, and it’s, it’s just like this weird, freeing thing, and I think that’s true in real life too. When you can, when you, when you – I think a lot of my books are about peeling back the exterior, you know?

Sarah: Yeah.

Elizabeth: ‘Cause I don’t know about you, but with me, there’s a, you know, there’s a façade you have every day, you know, where you, you don’t reveal yourself to everybody.

Sarah: Yes.

Elizabeth: And there’s a very few people that I reveal myself truly to, and, and it, when you are with those people, there’s a re-, relaxation, you know? You can let your hair down.

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely.

Elizabeth: And so for her, it’s the, the, that’s what happens with her and the hero. She can let her hair down and be herself with him.

Sarah: That’s, one of my favorite aspects of romance fiction is when characters are, decide to be their true selves with whomever is with him, and there’s almost always, especially if there’s a, a, a lot of internal conflict or even just conflict between the couple, there’s always a lot of risk involved in doing that. It’s risky to be yourself.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: It’s always risky, and in some situations it’s even more risky.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Initially it’s very risky for her, because if he tells everybody who she is, not only –

Sarah: She’s out.

Elizabeth: She’s out, but not only is she out, but she’s lost her, the chance to get the bad guy, to find something about him and to somehow scuttle this bill that’s going to bring back witch hunting. And –

Sarah: Right. So there’s a big, big risk and a little risk.

Elizabeth: Right, exactly, yeah.

Sarah: That makes sense. And of course that risk is only compounded by the fact that she’s attracted to somebody she shouldn’t be attracted to –

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: – ‘cause he, he’s going to get in the way of her, of her goals.

Elizabeth: Exactly, yeah.

Sarah: With, with your characters, I know that one thing I hear many readers talk about when, when they come, when it comes to your books and your series is that they’re a unique sort of blend, because there’s adventure and a mystery, multiple sections of society, different characters with very different motivations and ideas, and there’s a lot to talk about in terms of what, how do you describe these? They’re historical romances with adventure, mystery, and ass-kicking. Like, ass-kicking historical is not necessarily a genre.

Elizabeth: It should be, though, I think. [Laughs]

Sarah: It should be, though. I would be so in it! What, what do you think makes your books unique? And I realize this is a terrible question to ask an author, because it’s like, hey, here’s how great I am! But what do you think is the sort of unique alchemy of your, of your books?

Elizabeth: Well, I, see, originally I thought it was depth of emotion, but I think it may actually be the ass-kicking.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elizabeth: That’s what my editor says. I think there was one book where she’s like, well, you don’t have enough mystery here. You’re known for your mystery. I’m like, really? And you know what, people who read this book, the mystery part? And I’m not, not going to say anything besides the mystery part because it’s, it’s a, it’s a spoiler. The mystery part is based on a real thing, so –

Sarah: Ooh!

Elizabeth: – no matter how much you think it’s unlikely, it’s real! I’ll have to put somewhere, maybe in my newsletter, a link to this real guy. Anyway. So, yeah, I think it’s, I think it’s depth of emotion – I hope it’s depth of emotion, anyway – depth of character, and maybe ass-kicking, ‘cause I, I like the, the swashbuckling and stuff. There’s a duel in here, too, between the heroine and the hero.

Sarah: Oh nice!

Elizabeth: Yeah, it’s good. It’s a good one. She wins.

Sarah: Oh, even better!

[Laughter]

Elizabeth: I don’t think that’s too much of a spoiler.

Sarah: It’s, it’s difficult, I think, to – with some genres, for example, historical romance –

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – contemporary romance, for a while now, the names of the genre headings have been too broad to fully describe what it is that readers –

Elizabeth: Yes.

Sarah: – want or find in them –

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: – so I, I rather like the idea of saying, you know, this is ass-kicking, swashbuckling historical romance.

Elizabeth: Yeah, because, I mean, it’s not that, I’m not, I’m not Julia Quinn, I mean, and the whole genre –

Sarah: Right.

Elizabeth: – of light, fun comedy romance, which is great, you know, those are great romances, and it’s not this, you know, if you pick a book like that, it’s not going to be the same as my book that’s a little bit more –

Sarah: Oh, no, not at all, not the same in the least.

Elizabeth: I, but I don’t know, I, I agree, I don’t know exactly how you would sub-sub-genre, you know –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: So you’ve written a lot of heroes and a lot of heroines and a lot of characters.

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm?

Sarah: What are some elements of an ideal protagonist for a romance novel?

Elizabeth: Well, first it has to be a real character, meaning –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – that there’s got to be something wrong with him or her.

[Laughter]

Sarah: They have to have some kind of annoying flaw!

Elizabeth: There’s just something wrong with them. [Laughs] The hero in this one has got some PTSD. You need to have, I, I think, layers. Like I said before, you need to have an outside and an inside, and maybe several insides, you know?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: To go into them.

Sarah: Like layers of clothing.

Elizabeth: Yeah! Exactly, yeah. And I, you know, I teach a class on, I don’t know if it’s actually character – I think I’ve done one on heroes and stuff – and I keep on saying, you know, tall, dark, and handsome is not a character? [Laughs] You know. It’s, I, I think a lot of times, especially romance, we talk about, you know, what they look like. So they all have six-pack abs, even though they’re a duke and it’d be pretty hard to have a six-pack back then. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah, it would be a bit of a challenge, wouldn’t it?

Elizabeth: I mean horseback riding does give you some nice muscles, but I don’t know about six-packs.

Sarah: [Laughs] Certainly not waxed and shiny man chests.

Elizabeth: Yeah, that, yeah. Yeah. [Laughs] I think people are sometimes hesitant to do characters that are unlikeable initially?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: Right now I’m writing a character who is full of himself? [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh yeah, okay.

Elizabeth: He thinks he’s, he’s very smart, and he’s, like, too smart, if that makes sense. You know, he’s –

Sarah: Oh, I completely understand.

Elizabeth: Yeah, he’s too smart for himself. So initially he, he may be a little unlikeable, but I think, I think that’s kind of a fun character to write, you know? The guy who’s so smart that he’s outwitted himself.

Sarah: Yep.

Elizabeth: So –

Sarah: Because that person, when they finally re-, reveal or sort of discover their real selves, they may have to – probably will have to – confront things about which they’ve been really dumb.

Elizabeth: Yes, exactly. My, my favorite example of that is Christina Dodd, who unfortunately is no longer writing historicals, but she wrote the one that was based on Sabrina, like, the movie? Do you know what I’m talking about?

Sarah: Mm-hmm. Yes, I do know the movie.

Elizabeth: So she wrote a book, a historical – and, like, the name, I’m sorry, es-, escapes me right now – that was beautiful. It was, so the, Sabrina is the poor girl who is a daughter of a servant of, of a big house, right, and she’s in love with one of the sons of the house, so she goes away to Paris – I think in the movie she’s Audrey Hepburn – and she becomes –

Sarah: Yes.

Elizabeth: – you know, sophisticated or something, and she comes back determined to, you know, say, hi! to the, the young guy and seduce him. Well, he has an older brother who’s like, yeah, no, you know, you hussy, I’m not going to let you do that, and of course it’s the older brother and, and the young woman who get together. In the movie, it’s, it’s, who’s – it’s, he’s, like, really old, and she’s really young; it’s kind of gross. But in the book – [laughs] – in the book, he’s, like, this really grumpy jerk, and he keeps on thinking about how he’s going to, you know, he’s going to get her; she’s not going to do this. You know, he’s so smart, and at the – he seduces her at one point and, like, everybody hates him. The servants hate him, his guests, and it’s like he – and you could tell that he knows he’s really fucked up. [Laughs] And it’s just such a wonderful – to me, at least – it’s just such a wonderful point to the book, where he’s like, oh yeah, I fucked up. And, and he’s lost her love, you know? So. I like those kind of books. I like, I like a flawed hero. I don’t like heroes who are too perfect.

Sarah: Among your characters, do you have a favorite that you like to look back on and then go, oh, I wish I could write more about them? Or do you have a world or a scene that you’d like to go back to and explore? I mean, you’re the write; you can if you want. Are there any of, are there any that you’d want to go back to?

Elizabeth: I really did like Val in Duke of Sin, speaking of really flawed heroes. He was kind of a sociopath, possibly a psychopath, and he was a lot of fun to write. He was also one of those heroes where people either really liked him or really hated him. I’ve had people come up to me and say they hated him. [Laughs] But he was also, since he really didn’t give two fucks about anything, he would do anything, and it was, it was a lot of fun to write him. He was the kind of hero where you really didn’t need motivation for much, because he could just do anything, and I could justify it that way with my editor, you know. He doesn’t need motivation to do it. He’s, he’s Val.

[Laughter]

Elizabeth: So. Anyway, he was a lot of fun to write, but you can’t write every character like that, so – sadly.

Sarah: Plus, when you have characters that are fun to write, like you said, if you get bored easily, it’s, it’s, it’s fun to hang out with them.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: So you’re not, you’re not going to be bored if you’re writing characters like that.

Elizabeth: Yeah. If I wrote, if I wrote every character like that, I probably would get bored, actually.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elizabeth: He was fun because, I think he appeared in a scene – yeah, he did, he appeared in the end of a book, and then there was a scene in the next book where he’s with a bunch of other guys who’d become heroes, and they’re, you know, having a serious discussion, and he’s, I think he’s, like, putting marzipan in his, his tea. [Laughs] He’s just throwing candy in his tea and, like, looking at it –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elizabeth: – and being like, so? And it’s, it’s just, you know, he’s being Val, so yeah. He was a lot of fun to write. I think I’m going to have fun with the one I’m writing now, because, like I said, he’s so full of himself. He thinks he’s so smart. [Laughs]

Sarah: That’s always fun, to undermine somebody who thinks they’re the smartest person in the room.

Elizabeth: He also thinks that he’s, like – his name is, by the way, is Gideon Hawthorne, so you can look for him in this, the first book he’s in.

Sarah: All right.

Elizabeth: He also thinks that, you know, he’s, he, that he’s ruthless. He’s, he’s, he’s, you know, sure that he’s a bad guy, he’s ruthless, and he has no heart and you know, and of course that’s all wrong. He’s not a Val.

Sarah: Your books are all parts – well, this one and the Maiden Lane series – these books are part of a series, but they can be read as standalone, which is –

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – marvelous for readers, especially if you’re writing a long series. You want to be able to bring in people as you go. What are some of the essentials for you to making it possible for a series of connected books to be read as standalones? What are the essentials for that sort of to happen?

Elizabeth: Well, I think the ma-, I mean, the main thing is that your, your hero and heroine in, in that book have to be self-contained –

Sarah: Right.

Elizabeth: – in that you can have stuff that happened in earlier books, and I do, but it has to, it can’t be anything that’s so important that people feel like they’ve missed something, you know?

Sarah: Right.

Elizabeth: I mean, I did have, in the last series I had, with Scandalous Desires, there was a, a fairly important point that made people want to – that was the one with Mickey the pirate – want to read that book, but I don’t think you had to have read that, the earlier books. That’s when he forced her out to the street.

Sarah: Right.

Elizabeth: Made it look like she slept with him? I don’t think you had to have read that in order to have read her, their book. So you want to make it so that it’s self-contained and that it’s a, a real Happy Ever After at the end? So you don’t feel like you’re, that you have to read the next book in order to get their –

Sarah: Right.

Elizabeth: [Laughs] You don’t want that. So you want the whole book just to be self-contained.

Sarah: Right.

Elizabeth: But as a series, you can, you know, you can have recurring characters; you can have bits of arcs that are going to continue. So for instance, in the second book I don’t have quite as much of the, the Wise Women, but I do continue women’s autonomy. So the, the heroine of the second book is the friend of Freya’s. It’s Messalina –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – and she starts a woman’s, an intellectual salon for women, only women, much to her husband’s dismay. The husband is Gideon Hawthorne, ‘cause he, he forces her into marriage ‘cause he’s sooo evil!

[Laughter]

Elizabeth: He thinks he’s really evil. [Laughs]

Sarah: And he’s going to have to confront the fact that he’s actually a squishy cinnamon roll of a guy inside?

Elizabeth: Yeah. [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh, that is terrible! Oh, what are we going to do?! That’ll be delicious.

Elizabeth: Yeah, I hope so.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elizabeth: So yeah, recurring characters, recurring themes, but the book itself is totally self-contained so you don’t feel like you’re missing something. I also once read a series; it was, I think I was reading it for a contest, and it was, like, the eleventh in a series – [laughs] – and they had a part in it – and I hadn’t read the series, right?

Sarah: Right.

Elizabeth: And so they had a part where they had everyone from the previous series come together for something, and they named them all, and I was like, what the hell? Who are all these people? What are they doing?

[Laughter]

Elizabeth: And it was like, I’m sure for the people who’ve been reading this series that was fun, but if you just started that book it was, like, totally overwhelming.

Sarah: Like a Rockette line of previous characters come –

Elizabeth: It was! And in walked the, you know, fifth brother so-and-so and his wife and their three children, and –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elizabeth: Okay.

Sarah: Start their own lineup and start kicking! [Laughs]

Elizabeth: And some people, you know, they’ll say, well, why don’t we have so-and-so? Well, I only reintroduce another character if there’s a reason for them to be there? They have to have –

Sarah: Right, they’re not going to show up and make a cameo like, hi! I’m back here! Hello! Well, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. And if you’re going to have character development contained in one book, you can’t spread the, you, you can’t spread the character development across multiple books or you’re causing readers to be invested in multiple books in order to get the satisfaction of that story.

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm, yeah.

Sarah: That makes sense! So what historical and adventure stories are always inspiring to you?

Elizabeth: Oh. Well, when I was younger – some people ask me why I started with the swashbuckling stuff. It was things like Scaramouche, although, although if you watch the movie, the bad guy is so much better than –

Sarah: Isn’t that the worst?

Elizabeth: The hero, the hero is – what’s his name? – Granger. He’s such a big lunk, ‘cause it’s a lot of, I watched it for Thief of Shadows? The actual, there’s, okay, so there’s a duel in Thief of Shadows that takes place in a theater, and it’s based on the actual duel in the movie, which is, you know, in the theatre, and the good guy is played by a big, huge lunk, and the bad guy is played by a guy who’s known for his dueling ability. He’s so swift and elegant, and it’s like, that guy should be the hero! I don’t really care if he’s shorter! He’s so much better at it!

[Laughter]

Elizabeth: So Scaramouche, which takes place during the French Revolution, the same guy who, he also wrote Captain Blood, which is, I think, during, it’s earlier than that. The Scarlet Pimpernel is always fun. The things where there’s action I really like, so I’m more like of a Jane Eyre than a Pride and Prejudice person.

Sarah: I understand!

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: I get it. So I always ask this question.

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm?

Sarah: What books are you reading right now that you would like to tell people about?

Elizabeth: Well, I’m actually not reading romance right now, so I don’t know if that’s going to – [laughs] –

Sarah: That’s absolutely fine! A lot of people who write romance don’t read it while they’re writing; it makes total sense!

Elizabeth: I’m reading Neil – I, I act-, I share a Nook account with my two daughters. So my elder daughter reads nonfiction, and it’s really dry, but my younger daughter reads a whole bunch of stuff. A lot of YA, but she also had a bunch of Neil Gaiman on there, so I thought I’d try, she had American Gods, so I’m about halfway through American Gods –

Sarah: Ooh!

Elizabeth: – which is interesting but a little bit dark. Don’t know if it’s, I don’t think it’s going to have a happy ending. But it’s still, he’s, he’s got a really interesting voice. I’m also reading – and this is kind of out of left field – I watched In the Depths of the Sea? It’s the one with Hemsworth, and he’s in a whaling boat with a whale, and didn’t get good reviews. [In the Heart of the Sea]

Sarah: Oh!

Elizabeth: And it’s based on the Essex that is based, that Moby Dick was based on?

Sarah: Right.

Elizabeth: Yeah. I have a hard time watching historical movies, ‘cause I’m always like, I don’t know about that neckline.

[Laughter]

Elizabeth: So he’s with his wife, and I’m like, I don’t know about that neckline. But anyway, but it was Hemsworth. Oh, and they made the actors lose a lot of weight. I’m like, that can’t be good for you! Don’t do that! Anyway. So because of that I started reading Moby Dick, which is much more interesting than I, much more fun than I thought it would be. It’s very funny, parts of it.

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of our episode. If you would like to get in touch with me, you can email me at [email protected], or you can call and leave a message at 1-201-371-3272 and leave a message telling me what you’re thinking, ask me some questions, tell me a bad joke; it’s all good.

If you want to find Elizabeth Hoyt, you can find her on her website at elizabethhoyt.com. You can find all of her social media channels and sign up for her newsletter too.

This podcast was brought to you by The Bride Chooses a Highlander by Adrienne Basso. The rugged Highlands of Scotland, 1335: Marriage between clans is a matter of property and power, rarely love. But the only daughter of Laird McKenna, Katherine, longs for passion and finds it when granted the choice to choose her own husband in Adrienne Basso’s third McKennas novel. The unconventional Lady Katherine McKenna has been granted a rare privilege: the right to choose her own husband. It’s a more difficult task than she expected. When at last she agrees to a betrothal, it quickly goes awry, leaving Katherine alone in the wilds and rescued by Laird Lachlan MacTavish. She’s captivated by the proud, brooding chief who shows her such tender care. But with their clans on the brink of war, the honorable Lachlan resists his attraction – until Katherine proclaims to her family that they will wed. Amid a world on the brink of clan warfare, can the love that Katherine has searched so long for stop the fighting and avert disaster before it’s too late? The Bride Chooses a Highlander by Adrienne Basso is on sale now wherever books are sold and at kensingtonbooks.com.

The transcript this week is brought to you by our new options for sponsoring this here podcast in 2019. You can sponsor an episode, a month of episodes, or book the intro only or the outro only. We have more options, lots of price ranges, and I like the opportunities to be accessible to everyone. If you are interested, please email me at Sarah, S-A-R-A-H, at smartbitchestrashybooks.com, and I can tell you all about it. Your support here and in the Patreon keeps the site going and keeps the show going, and I am very thankful that we are still together every day talking about romance. Thank you for that.

If you would like to join our Patreon community to focus your support on the podcast, that is cool too! Monthly pledges start at a dollar a month, and every pledge makes a deeply appreciated difference. Our Patreon is at patreon.com/SmartBitches, and if you join now there’s a big old thread talking about what we should do for 2019, so let me know what you think!

The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater. This is Adeste Fiddles by Deviations Project. This is “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,” originally composed by Tchaikovsky. You can find this album at Amazon, and you can find Deviations Project at their website deviationsproject.com.

Coming up on Smart Bitches: next week’s going to be so much fun! Tomorrow, Saturday, we have Whatcha Reading?, our favorite monthly post where you tell us what you’re reading, we tell you what we’re reading, and then we all buy more books. Plus, this week we are starting our end-of-year highlights, beginning with my post on my favorites books of the year, including romance, nonfiction, and historical mystery. I have a post on music to listen to while you’re working based on my own recommendations, and then it’s time for all the 2018 Best Ofs. We have 2018 Cover Snark, our most popular 2018 reviews, and our most popular podcast episodes of the past year as well. These posts are all compiled based on the reviews, posts, and episodes that you were the most interested in this year, but if your favorite isn’t there I hope you’ll stop by and let us know in the comments which ones you loved the most. Next Friday we have the first of our two-part annual podcast episode wherein all of us chat about the books we loved in 2018 and then look ahead to books and topics we want more of in 2019.

Thank you again for listening to the podcast, for visiting the site, and for, most of all, being part of the Smart Bitches community.

I always end with a terrible joke; this week is no different. Hold on to your chair or whatever you’re sitting on, or if you’re not sitting, just hold on to something, ‘cause this one’s terrible. This is another one from librarian James Stubbs. Thank you, sir!

What do you call Santa’s helpers?

What do you call Santa’s helpers?

They’re subordinate Clauses.

[Laughs] I just imagine, like, this general groan of ohhh, yeah. If it, if I, if I hear a virtual groan, then I know it’s a bad enough joke for the podcast. Subordinate Clauses. Little tiny Clauses! [Laughs more]

On behalf of Elizabeth Hoyt and everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful, wonderful holiday season. We will see you back here next week.

[charming music]