574. Historical Romance with Mimi Matthews

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello and welcome to episode number 574 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell. My guest today is Mimi Matthews. Mimi has joined me to talk about self-publishing historical romance and about being one of many lawyers or former lawyers who write romance. We also talk about chronic pain, recovery, disability, and the joys of rereading. Plus she shares some of her all-time favorite historical romances. I will have links to everything we talk about in the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast – but I bet you knew that.

I have a compliment! This makes me so happy.

To Central Park Owl: Did you know that if you look at your travel history on a world map, words begin to appear in the paths you’ve taken in your life, and among the words in your route history are “terrific,” “hilarious,” and especially “kind.”

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Support for this episode comes from Wattpad. You might recognize the name Anna Todd from her number-one bestselling After series: massive global hit, made into a movie. Her appearances overseas cause lines around city blocks of readers eager to meet her and thank her in person for her books. Did you know she’s written a new romance trilogy? It’s true! The first two books in the Brightest Stars are out now, and if you are looking for summer reading, well, listen up. The Falling and The Burning are available now just in time to heat up your TBR. Set against the backdrop of a military base, both books feature emotionally powerful stories about slowly falling in love with another person and with yourself. Colleen Hoover is a big fan of Anna Todd’s heart-stopping new trilogy. She raved about the first book, The Falling, saying, Anna Todd is my go-to for a story I know I will love and characters who will live in the heart long after the last page is turned. Look for The Falling and The Burning by Anna Todd and buy your copies wherever books are sold.

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All right, let’s do this episode. On with my conversation with Mimi Matthews!

[music]

Mimi Matthews: Hi, everybody! I’m Mimi Matthews. I’m an author; a lawyer; a dog, cat, and horse mom. I write both historical nonfiction and USA Today bestselling historical romances set mainly in the mid-Victorian era. I’m probably best known for my Parish Orphans of Devon series, but, and also for my new Belles of London series from Berkley Penguin Random House, which is currently in progress. Oh! And my standalone novels, The Work of Art and Gentleman Jim, which I know are reader favorites, so probably known for them too.

Sarah: That’s fabulous! I have so many questions now. I have noticed that there is an interesting number of attorneys and recovering attorneys writing romance.

Mimi: Oh my gosh, yes. I’m not surprised.

Sarah: I have a theory why that is. I have a theory why that is. I’m going to share my theory; you can tell me what you think. So my husband –

Mimi: Okay.

Sarah: – is also an attorney, and when he went to law school, you basically learn a language, right? You learn how to think and how to write and how to –

Mimi: Exactly.

Sarah: – understand legal language. But when you are writing something for the, the world of law, whether it’s court or you’re doing a filing, there is a structure that you absolutely must follow: this part goes here; this part goes here. You can make any banana-crackers argument in the middle there –

Mimi: [Laughs]

Sarah: – you can say whatever you want, but you have to follow the structure, and then inside you’re making an argument, and a lot of romances are basically effective arguments that these two people will live happily ever after and have achieved their relationship, you know, the, the perfect relationship for them.

Mimi: Oh, I like that theory!

Sarah: So that is my theory.

Mimi: I think that that probably could be a hundred percent correct, and certainly, like, I think that the way lawyers think and that the way they craft arguments –

Sarah: Yep.

Mimi: – and especially – I mean, I feel like all my author’s notes are basically just defensive brief, so –

[Laughter]

Mimi: That’s why they’re so long! It’s funny; I saw a reviewer say once, I don’t believe any of this – it was with my, with an Indian hero novel, The Siren of Sussex – and they were like, I don’t believe any of this could have happened, despite all the author’s notes showing how this in history actually happened – [laughs] –

Sarah: I’m sorry –

Mimi: – and I thought, So much for my defensive brief! It did not work! But yeah, I –

Sarah: You tried! [Laughs]

Mimi: I, I know! They’re like, I don’t care about your evidence; this just didn’t feel right to me. [Laughs]

Sarah: Well, that feeling you’re feeling might be racism! [Laughs]

Mimi: Racism! Yeah, it was – I, I’ve said this before, like, and I always feel like I don’t know if my publisher’s like, Stop talking about this, but man – well, I’m half Indian, which I, you could probably tell when I sent you my personal email when I was having email problems.

Sarah: Yeah.

Mimi: My real last name is an Indian last name, and this is the first book I wrote with that, a hero and his cousin who are literally the same as me, so I took some of the, the commentary very personally, more than – I think I’ve got a pretty thick skin with all my other books, because it’s like, you know, I write it, it’s out there, and after that it’s sort of in the hands of readers to deal with as they will.

Sarah: Right, and you, you can’t, you can’t really change it.

Mimi: No! That’s exactly it: it’s not a collaborative process; you don’t do a revision after all the – [laughs] – reviewers write the reviews. But yeah, so that was hurtful. The, there were a few that I did see early on, because it was my first, it was the series debut with Berkley, and I felt such a, I felt such a weight of I really want this to do well, and –

Sarah: Yeah.

Mimi: – you know, I didn’t want to let anybody down. Like, I wanted to show that I could do as good for them as I felt I had done with some of my indie series, and so I read more of the reviews than I normally would have done?

Sarah: Ooh!

Mimi: So there were a couple that was like, it just made me, somebody actually said, It made me uncomfortable to see the hero and heroine together, and I couldn’t put my finger on what made me uncomfortable, and I mean that’s sort of like, yeah. So that didn’t feel great, because, again, probably oversharing, but there were a couple people who said similar things like that when my mom and my birth dad were married when I was young in front of me. Like, to my –

Sarah: Oh, great day in the morning!

Mimi: – to my mom! Yeah! Well, people were, I like to think people are more sensitive today, but I don’t know.

Sarah: Yikes!

Mimi: Arguably – [laughs] But anyway, all that to say, Yeah, I think that a book is a little bit like an argument for a Happily Ever After –

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Mimi: – and I think you have to show your evidence that this is a believable Happily Ever After, and it’s like telling a story, and I think a lot of, when you’re writing a brief – so I did ethics defense, and when you’re writing –

Sarah: Ohhh!

Mimi: – you have something called a high-low brief, and part of it, you’re sort of telling, you, you know, you’re persuading somebody that this wasn’t so bad, what an attorney did, and I feel like a lot of that is like – [laughs] – just writing a novel, like writing a story, but I think – I have to stop saying “I think” before I say everything – I, I watched an interview that I did the other day, my first video interview, and I caged everything that I said with “I think” first, and I thought, Gosh! Me and my lawyer wiggle-worm-ness! [Laughs]

Sarah: No, that’s, that is absolutely a thing, and, like, my husband and I have had arguments about it because I’ll be like, Hey, do you think this? And he goes, Well, under most circumstances I think –

Mimi: Exactly! Yeah!

Sarah: – and I’m like –

Mimi: It could go either way! It depends!

Sarah: – Just, just say yes or no! And he’s like –

Mimi: Like, what –

Sarah: – I can’t do that!

[Laughter]

Mimi: I find myself falling into it a lot. It’s like, look, just make a commitment; just say something definitively.

Sarah: You know, pursuant to our earlier conversation vis-à-vis these particular sections of code and then, you know, perhaps under these circumstances –

Mimi: Exactly! [Laughs] It really does – well, you know –

Sarah: – maybe it’s possible.

Mimi: – I think law school really does take you in as a human –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Mimi: – and then they just break you down during your first year and start to rebuild you by your second year, and then in your third year you’re sort of churned out speaking a whole different language. Like, you’re rewired.

Sarah: Yep.

Mimi: But I, I think one of the attractions of romance to lawyers, both reading it and writing it –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Mimi: – is there is a sort of security blanket in that happy ending that you’re promised as a reader –

Sarah: Absolutely.

Mimi: – and there, there’s so much where the answer is unclear in legal things. You know, it could, like we were saying, it could go either way.

Sarah: Yeah.

Mimi: And there’s so much in the cases, the more personal elements of the cases, like, I was in the Animal Law Society in law school, had to read some things which I, I wish that they were not in my brain. You know what I mean?

Sarah: Yes.

Mimi: They’re upsetting things.

Sarah: Yes.

Mimi: And coming back to romance, there’s a level of self-care with reading stories like romance where sometimes they’re, the characters really go through it. They can –

Sarah: Yeah.

Mimi: – go through some terrible stuff. It doesn’t mean the story’s not realistic because they have a Happily Ever After. I mean, they really struggle a lot of the time –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Mimi: – but you have that, that security of knowing it’s going to be okay in the end, and there’s something really soothing to your brain about that –

Sarah: Yes.

Mimi: – especially if you’re in a high-stress job or your life is feeling really chaotic, what-, whatever you do in life.

Sarah: Yeah.

Mimi: You know, stay-at-home mom, schoolteacher, clerk at a store, whatever you’re doing, there’s something really healing about reading a romance, and I think that’s sort of one of the things that draws so many lawyer readers to it is, like, high-stress job and really need the self-care where you can decompress and where the world makes sense a little bit more because it ends with this, there’s happiness at the end, that it means something in the end.

Sarah: Yes.

Mimi: You know, what, what you’ve suffered comes together and it has some value in the end, as opposed to it all being, you know – [laughs] – for nothing –

Sarah: Yes.

Mimi: – endless suffering.

Sarah: Yes. I know one of my reviewers, Carrie, says that romance is a safe place to put her emotions, and as a person with anxiety I completely understand that, because no matter –

Mimi: That’s a great way of putting it.

Sarah: – what emotion – exactly! – like, what emotion experience, emotional experience I’m going to have inside the book, I know that it will be okay. So I know –

Mimi: Yeah.

Sarah: – that I can go through those emotional experiences with the characters and know that it’s going to be satisfying and happy.

Mimi: It’s almost cathartic! Even the paths –

Sarah: Yes!

Mimi: – that will make you get really, that you’ll cry. Like, a lot –

Sarah: Yeah.

Mimi: – there’s some romances, and even some of the most upbeat romances – I can’t remember the name of this one, but it’s a Tessa Dare book, and she usually writes ones that are, they feel very upbeat to me, and I read her in times of, like, great sadness in my life –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Mimi: – like after losing a pet or something, but she had one and there was just a line in it, they’re walking down a street – it’s one of her, is it her duchess? I can’t remember, but the, the heroine’s a seamstress –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Mimi: – and she marries a duke –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Mimi: – because the wedding dress of the person he was supposed to marry gets rejected, and she’s trying to collect money to get the dress. Anyway, but there was some scene in it where they were just walking on the street and they have this very brief exchange, and I just started crying –

Sarah: Yep!

Mimi: – my eyes out. [Laughs]

Sarah: I’ve been there!

Mimi: But yeah, that happens to me a lot with romance, and I really think that it’s like a, a, it’s like a release of a stress ball.

Sarah: Yeah.

Mimi: You know, just, it’s, it is a very healing genre, which is one of the reasons I love it and why I love reading it as much as –

Sarah: Yes.

Mimi: – as writing it.

Sarah: Yes. And when you are dealing with a genre that traffics so deeply in empathy, you’re –

Mimi: Yeah.

Sarah: – you’re, the books are asking you have to feelings. Like –

Mimi: And I think that’s –

Sarah: – that’s part of the purpose!

Mimi: Yeah. I think that’s amazing. And so it always is disappointing to me when you see – which I’m sure that you, having written on this critically, have already thought of this – [laughs] – in way more depth than me, but it’s always extremely dispiriting when you see think pieces or, like, you know, reducing romance to, you know, just the sex scenes –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Mimi: – for women like this is just some titillating genre –

Sarah: Yep.

Mimi: – that has no other value than, like, mommy porn?

Sarah: Yep!

Mimi: Which I feel like, I think there’s value in that as well – [laughs] – even if that’s all it is, but –

Sarah: Hell, yeah! It’s pretty awesome that books can, you know –

Mimi: Exactly!

Sarah: – turn your crank; it’s pretty great!

Mimi: Exactly, yeah!

Sarah: I’m not going to knock that, but yes –

Mimi: Yeah!

Sarah: – it is very frustrating.

Mimi: But there’s so much, yeah, there’s so much more to them –

Sarah: [Sighs]

Mimi: – and I don’t like to see people being so dismissive about it?

Sarah: Yeah. Every February I’m like, Everybody get in the bunker. I’ve got wine.

Mimi: Yeah.

Sarah: Come on in.

Mimi: Yeah!

Sarah: We’re just going to ignore the world. We know it’s coming.

Mimi: And the other thing is, there’s always something of somebody saying somebody, whoever is the latest person who’s sold really well is re-, has reinvented the genre?

Sarah: Oh yes!

Mimi: Or something?

Sarah: What is with that?

Mimi: That’s the other thing! Yeah, which, I mean, I think, No, it’s just that this is the first you’re aware of the genre!

Sarah: Yeah!

Mimi: Or you’re aware of that, but it’s like, it is a very different, I mean, from the, even from the  books from when I was a kid. It’s all, it’s changed so much.

Sarah: Yeah! It’s, first of all, it’s constantly being reinvented, and at the same time, can you really change that much about romance? The formula is pretty clear.

Mimi: It’s one of the reasons people read it!

Sarah: Yes! [Laughs]

Mimi: The safety, the security of that, that formula, yeah. And my gosh, if you find an author you like or an author that really speaks to you and they have a huge backlist, that is like the best feeling ever! [Laughs]

Sarah: That is the best feeling; it’s the absolute best feeling.

I want to ask you about publishing historical romances. I have many questions.

Mimi: Sure, sure!

Sarah: You were one of the first authors who I saw self-publishing prominently and effectively in historical, because as we’ve spoken about before we started recording, historical can be a very challenging genre when it comes to doing things differently, and –

Mimi: Yeah.

Sarah: – reader expectations follow often a very white supremacist narrative that I think is still being unpacked? And you have published so many historical romances! Would you be willing to share, like, what led you into self-publishing historicals?

Mimi: Oh, sure, yeah! It’s sort of a roundabout story. So I, I did – so firstly I’ll say this: I had an agent when I was very young. I, I wrote my first book when I was thirteen –

Sarah: Whoa!

Mimi: – got my first agent, I got – yeah, it was, it was a contemporary Young Adult romance, though I was, you know, technically like a young adult, so I don’t know if it was – [laughs] – see, I was just writing my thing. But I got an agent when I was eighteen, Helen McGrath, who has since passed away, who was, I found out later, was, like, classified as a dealmaker. I had no idea when she signed me.

Sarah: Wow!

Mimi: And it was all really exciting, ‘cause I knew nothing, my family knew nothing. We have history of clinical depression in my family, it’s just hereditary, and so I have a lot of sort of sadness? And when I was young, in addition to just generally being young and all the turmoil you go through –

Sarah: Yep.

Mimi: – so I would just write in a sort of way like that’s sort of how I coped with any feelings. But then, you know, that book didn’t sell. I wrote another book, and it was a different genre and wasn’t Young Adult, which was sort of the reason Helen signed me, and things just sort of drifted away, and I went to school and then college and law school, and I was really healthy and so I was out doing a lot of things, and I just didn’t write because I didn’t have that need –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Mimi: – anymore because I wasn’t as sad? And then after I got hurt and the failed surgery with my neck while I was recovering in 2011, 2012, I had so much despair because it was not getting better and –

Sarah: Yeah.

Mimi: – because I suddenly couldn’t drive. I moved home because I wasn’t able to function on my own; just lost all my independence. It was a really, really bleak –

Sarah: That’s really tough.

Mimi: – depressing time –

Sarah: Yeah.

Mimi: – to – I mean, losing your physical independence. Just the basic stuff, I mean just being able to drive.

Sarah: No!

Mimi: Like I need something; I’m going to go to the store. And so it brought me back to writing because it was like a coping mechanism, and by that point Helen had passed away, and I thought, I’m going to just start writing. I had an idea, so I wrote, it was a contemporary romance, and when I finished it I thought, Well, what am I going to do with this?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Mimi: And I thought, Well, I guess I have to – [laughs]

Sarah: I got a whole book here; what do I do now?

Mimi: Yeah, I guess I have to get another agent, so I sent it out and then got another agent, and then the next thing I wrote, ‘cause I just have no consistency, was a historical romance, and –

[Laughter]

Mimi: – and so she started shopping it, and while I was shopping it around she was like, she sent out a thing from the literary agent – this is not the agent I have now.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Mimi: This was a different agent, and it was like, wanted to know where you were at on social media, what your numbers were. I was not on social media at all. Even in law school when they were doing face boosters I refused to join Facebook because I was like, It’s a virtual clutter, and I knew people who had been on it and there were issues with, like, in the groups and people having problems, and I just thought, I don’t need this in my life! I don’t want this in my life.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Mimi: And so my agent at the time was like, You need to be on Facebook; you need to have a website; you need to be on Twitter. And it caught, I was like, for twenty-four hours I felt sick to my stomach. I didn’t want to do it, and, but once I started doing it I thought – usually I always let myself sweat something for twenty-four hours of sheer panic, and then I’m immediately like, Okay, let’s knock this out; let’s get this done. So I joined everywhere –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Mimi: – and I set up my website, and I thought, at first I thought, Well, should I write something on a blog or contribute something? And there was, the very first thing I wrote was the, RWA at the time, before it imploded – [laughs] – they had a Georgette Heyer birthday celebration, and they were asking for people to write about one Georgette Heyer book, so I wrote about a book and submitted it, and after that I just start writing a blog on historical, anything that interested me historically, Victorian era, Regency era, but it eventually distilled down to only Victorian stuff?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Mimi: And I did that just while I was out on sub, and I did not realize my blog would get so popular, but it got, like, a WordPress Editors Pick, and then it got picked up in syndication at Bust magazine –

Sarah: Heck yeah!

Mimi: – and then I ended up getting a book deal for two nonfiction books with a British publisher, Pen and Sword, and all this time, my book’s still out on submission, and stuff’s happening; editors were interested. So nobody was like, This is just, your writing – [laughs] – is garbage; we don’t want this –

Sarah: Hmm!

Mimi: – but what they wanted was sex scenes, and this book was The Lost Letter, which was the first book I self-published, and I didn’t immediately go that route because I was still in the mindset of Just sell it, ‘cause I don’t really know anything about going the other way, and I even revised it at one point and added sex scenes. I don’t have an objection to them in theory. I read, obviously, a ton of books that are pretty, pretty heated.

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Mimi: So I added a sex scene. It, it sort of ruined the tension; it screwed up the whole arc of the story, ‘cause it, it didn’t make any sense. They also told me that all my historicals going forward had to have, for their publishing house, that they expected them to be like duke, earl, you know, they needed to be titled. People wanted to read about –

Sarah: Right.

Mimi: – titled people –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Mimi: – which mine weren’t. Anyway, so in the end I got an offer, and by that point I’d seen so many people going the indie route or as hybrids –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Mimi: – and I thought, I’m just going to do it and see what happens! I had a pretty big platform at the time –

Sarah: Yeah!

Mimi: – and so that is what I did!

Sarah: Perfect!

Mimi: Yeah! And it, the best decision that I ever made.

Sarah: That’s awesome!

Mimi: Like – [laughs] – the best decision I ever made! So yeah. So that was how it started, and after that I did another sort of short novel, and then I did The Matrimonial Advertisement, which I think was like my breakout, my breakout novel, and then after that everything’s just been very busy. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah! And you’ve also, I think, set a lot of trends in terms of self-publishing historical, like –

Mimi: Oh, have I?

Sarah: I think so, because when I see one of your covers, before I even see the name on ‘em, like, Oh, that’s a Mimi Matthews cover.

Mimi: Yeah, nobody had covers like – that’s actually a funny story – nobody had covers like mine, and again, it sort of stems a lot from my ignorance? [Laughs] And because I was writing a style of book that wasn’t around at the time, which was, I guess you would call it the secular closed-door romance?

Sarah: Yep!

Mimi: You know, it’s not religious, it’s not – and they’re not – there’s a whole subset, mostly in Kindle Unlimited right now, which I think they refer to themselves as clean romances, right, just clean.

Sarah: Yeah.

Mimi: They’re very, very chaste. No judgment! They’re just like an, extremely chaste romances, which leads to sometimes me getting emails of people who read mine and think my books are dirty, ironically.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Mimi: But – I know. It, it’s strange, yeah, but, so I didn’t really fit into that sort of mold, and so I decided I was just going to go with the more historical fiction vibe. Initially, like, my Parish Orphans covers are just more like historical fiction, and I just like it better! And I’ve done a little different for different ones, but in general, yeah.

Sarah: Yeah!

Mimi: All just based on what I like. I’m just totally motivated by selfishness! [Laughs]

Sarah: You know, and it works, so keep going.

You mentioned focusing on your writing and focusing on your stories, so I want to ask you about your latest, and now I’m concerned that because you are a rather prolific author that I have identified your next title incorrectly. So what is your latest book, and did I get it wrong when I emailed you questions? And if I did I’m sorry.

Mimi: Appointment in Bath!

Sarah: Yes!

Mimi: Appointment in Bath is, that’s the next book in my Somerset Stories series. So Appointment in Bath is part of a different series –

Sarah: Yes.

Mimi: – than the one I’m writing for Berkley. Berkley, my series for Berkley is Belles of London.

Sarah: Yes.

Mimi: What happened with Appointment in Bath is it’s part of a series called Somerset Stories which is a new sort of idea, because it, the Somerset Stories series is purely fan service. I had written The Work of Art and Gentleman Jim –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Mimi: – and I actually haven’t done an indie historical romance since Gentleman Jim came out.

Sarah: Yeah!

Mimi: And because I signed that year with Penguin Random House and there was a non-compete clause – [laughs] – so I couldn’t write anything else indie, but this year in October of 2022, Belles of, The Belle of Belgrave Square came out, and I don’t have another book out with Berkley until January of 2024 –

Sarah: Oh!

Mimi: – so there was this really long, you know, period with no books, and a lot of my readers were not happy that they had to wait so long, and I thought, Wouldn’t it be fun – because they’re sort of set in this, my only two Regency novels, The Work of Art and Gentleman Jim, they took, they take place literally in the same timeframe – and I thought, Wouldn’t it be fun if their kids met, and –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Mimi: – from both novels! And I thought my readers would really love that, and they’ve been so supportive of me with my health stuff, and then my dad passed away in 2021. They were just so incredibly kind, and I thought, This is something that I wouldn’t have ever considered doing before, but I think the readers will really love it, so I wrote what I call now book three – [laughs] – like The Work of Art and Gentleman Jim are re-, retroactive-, retroactively book one and two. So I wrote Return to Satterthwaite Court, which was book three, and then Appointment in Bath. And then there’s two more – the rights to all of them have already sold to, to Audible and also some of the translation rights, so, but I hadn’t anticipated any of that. I thought it was just going to be purely read-, some fun for the readers. But –

Sarah: That’s fantastic!

Mimi: Yeah, it’s been fun! It’s interesting to revisit novels which I never thought I would revisit, and it’s almost like having to go back and restudy my own stuff to remember how the voices wee, like what sort of voices they had, and how they looked, and just to fall back into that. Because usually when I finish a book I am, like, really done with it. I mean, that’s sort of it for me.

Sarah: Yeah.

Mimi: I don’t think a lot about, you know – I’m very impressed by authors who can do a series for like twenty-plus books and keep it all organized, because I find it very overwhelming – [laughs] – to keep it organized.

Sarah: Well, if you have their kids, then you can just sort of be starting over, in a way.

Mimi: You know, that’s what I thought too, but in Return to Satterthwaite Court I knew everybody was going to want to see the couple from Gentleman Jim, so they’re in it a lot –

Sarah: Yeah, that’s true.

Mimi: – and the same from Work is, The Work of Art. But I’m looking forward to, Appointment in Bath they weren’t, they had a few scenes, but they weren’t as present –

Sarah: Yeah.

Mimi: – and I was like, Thank God – [laughs] – because it’s very hard, and it’s very hard especially because a lot of my books, the family members are, are not as nice?

Sarah: Yeah.

Mimi: And that’s part of what propels the change that the main character makes is, you know, various things in their family, complicated things, but when it’s a hero and heroine from previous books, you know, they’re great.

Sarah: Yes. They’re perf-, they’re the best parents ever.

Mimi: They have to be, they need to be great. The best parents, yeah!

[Laughter]

Mimi: They’re, you cannot make the kid be like, Oh, God, my parents! I can’t wait to leave!

Sarah: If you would like to be a good parent, consider being the hero and heroine of a romance novel. You’ll be perfect!

[Laughter]

Sarah: So tell me about Appointment in Bath. What are some of the things that readers will find inside this book?

Mimi: Appointment in Bath features the daughter of the villain from Gentleman Jim, who was an awful, awful man, so she’s dealing with the effects of being raised by basically a bully –

Sarah: Yeah.

Mimi: – and she has a little bit of a stammer that emerges when she gets anxious. She’s mostly on her own, a little bit more in her own head, shy, but she has a tremendous strength in her. The circumstances just haven’t arisen yet for it to come out, but it does come out in the story. And then the hero, Ivo Beresford, is the second son of the hero and heroine from Gentleman Jim, Maggie and St. Clare, and he is so interested in the future that a lot of times he sort of neglects paying attention to the past and, and the, the long-lasting effects that things that happened in the past can have, which makes him at some times insensitive. But I’ve been describing it as sort of a Romeo and Juliet story, but with a happier ending, and –

Sarah: Always a good move.

Mimi: – [laughs] – it’s, it’s sweeter, I would say, than some of my previous books, and one of the reasons is because they’re the youngest main characters I, I’ve ever written. The heroine, Meg, is eighteen, and the hero is twenty-three, so it was a little bit tricky for me who, I’m in my forties, writing characters that young and trying to put myself into that mindset a little bit more, and then also to have them making some of the mistakes you make when you’re young that as an older person you’re like, What a dumb thing to do.

[Laughter]

Mimi: But I felt like it was really authentic to the, the, the way their story went.

Sarah: Oh, for sure.

Mimi: But I’m hoping readers will love it.

Sarah: If the response to the prior books in the series are any indication, I think everyone will be very much on board.

Mimi: I hope so! Sometimes I think Gentleman Jim was, like, the book that after I wrote it, I should have just retired from writing.

[Laughter]

Mimi: I feel like it was the height of my powers, and after that I was just sort of like, Oh, time to, time to stop! [Laughs]

Sarah: What are some of your absolute favorite historical romances, new or vintage? Any era is fine.

Mimi: I love, I do love Georgette Heyer novels. I don’t love Georgette Heyer, because I think she’s problematic. [Laughs]

Sarah: [Laughs] That’s a really good way to put that, yep.

Mimi: Yeah.

Sarah: I know exactly what you mean.

Mimi: Oh yeah! And exactly the specific book. But I’m a big fan of Venetia. I –

Sarah: I’ve listened to that so many times.

Mimi: Oh my gosh. I find it really soothing, and I like the hero, and, but I think what draws me to that one, and also Frederica, my other favorite, is, it is a strong, competent main character –

Sarah: Yes.

Mimi: – and she’s sort of in control of her world. She’s sort of sensible and no-nonsense –

Sarah: Yes.

Mimi: – and she’s maybe not as experienced of the world, ‘cause they’re usually still pretty young, but – and then the hero, you know, is always initially maybe cold, unfeeling, or maybe irreverent in some way, like Damerel in Venetia, but just the way that they warm up and show, you know, their integrity or what they’re willing to do for the heroine and the heroine’s family – a lot of times for the family as well –

Sarah: Yeah.

Mimi: – is really appealing to me, but I also am really a sucker for any romances that have a Gothic element?

Sarah: Ohhh yes.

Mimi: Even if it’s making fun of Gothics, like Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Mimi: I love that. Or, like, highly dysfunctional Gothic elements like in Wuthering Heights, where they’re both just really horrible people, but –

Sarah: They are such a mess.

Mimi: – I just, they’re a mess! I just think the language of that story, like every time I read the language, it’s one of those books that when I read it I think, What am I even doing as a writer?

[Laughter]

Mimi: ‘Cause that writing is just so, it’s so beautiful and so lush –

Sarah: Yeah.

Mimi: – and I really like to read that sort of evocative language. I recently read – it’s not a sort of a, a fully romance genre, but it’s got romantic elements – I got to read an advance copy of Chanel Cleeton’s new book, The House on Biscayne Bay –

Sarah: Oooh!

Mimi: – and it’s like historical Florida, Gothic, creepy house, hidden passageway, an alligator who shows up in the road. It’s very – [laughs] – it’s very creepy! And there’s enough romantic elements in it that you sort of keep turning the pages and, you know, following the relationships, but –

Sarah: Yeah.

Mimi: – I would say for just like, I don’t want to call them basic historic, but undistilled historical romance –

Sarah: Yeah.

Mimi: – you know, not historical fiction elements, and not so much the really older classics, I, I love Evie Dunmore’s series, The League of Extraordinary Women, because I feel like that it has so much Victorian authenticity in it?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Mimi: And I got to read an advance of her latest, The Gentleman’s Gambit, which is amazing.

And I also got to read recently an early copy of Felicia Grossman’s new Victorian romance, Marry Me by Midnight? I don’t know if you’ve heard of that one.

Sarah: I have. There is a –

Mimi: It’s like a reverse Cinderella. [Laughs]

Sarah: There’s a hero with a kippah on his head on the cover, and I stopped in my chair.

Mimi: Isn’t that amazing? Yeah! It’s a reverse Cinderella story.

Sarah: Yes! I love it.

Mimi: He’s sort of like the Cinderella. Yeah, amazing, amazing. And, like, I feel like things that bring more diversity to the genre and also show – I like to see things that show that London was a richer sort of tapestry than just everybody in Mayfair at a ball.

Sarah: Yeah.

Mimi: Like, there were all kinds of elements. It wasn’t just like you see a lot, I think – I, I feel like this is a mean criticism. I don’t mean it in a mean way; I just mean, like, these are the things we a lot of times like to see in historical romance, and as a result there’s been a lot of them where it’s either the London ball scene or sort of the East End slum scene, and sort of, you know, gambling dens and things like that, but there’s so many more work, working class; middle, middle class-ish – they didn’t really have a middle class, but not titled people.

Sarah: Yeah.

Mimi: And all kinds of people: it was really a diverse city, and I think there are so many stories that can be told with these people in them, and the more that people become used to seeing these stories and reading them, the better for the genre, I feel.

Sarah: Oh, I agree. Have you read The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies?

Mimi: Not yet! Not yet, but I saw the cover for it, and it’s with my same publisher, and I think we might even have the same publicist, publicist, the author and I. But yeah, it looked really good to me. My disclaimer is, I have not read every romance author, because that’s the other thing is I never have a lot of time, and rather than reading new ones, I will constantly return to my old faves.

Sarah: Oh yeah, me too. And also –

Mimi: And then worse –

Sarah: – do you have any idea how many books have been released since you and I started talking?

Mimi: There’s so many all the time, and so many that look good.

Sarah: [Laughs] Yes!

Mimi: And they’ll, they’ll have a blurb and I’ll think, Oh my gosh, that sounds amazing! And not even just historical romance: I see other ones all the time and I’m like, Oh my gosh! There was recently one, I think I shared it as, like, on my TBR list in my newsletter, called, I think it’s called Scarlet, and it’s like The Scarlet Pimpernel, but with vampires; it’s Genevieve Cogman? And I was like, Oh my gosh – [laughs] – I have to read this book! But I just, like, literally have not even a spare minute. Then when I do I’m like, I need to read something before bed, and I just go back to one of my –

Sarah: You go back to what’s familiar, ‘cause you –

Mimi: An old favorite, yeah!

Sarah: Well, like we said, when you know what the emotional experience will be, you know it’s a safe place to return, because –

Mimi: Yeah.

Sarah: – you’re still going to, I mean, it’s, it’s wonderful how powerful books are when rereading still works.

Mimi: It’s amazing, yeah. And then I also find you pick up so many things on rereads –

Sarah: Yes.

Mimi: – even if you’re a really close reader the first time –

Sarah: Yeah.

Mimi: – you, different perspectives and – I mean, heck, you know what? I do this with TV shows too. Like, I will rewatch the same miniseries so many times. Not always like on a constant loop, but I’m a constant rewatcher.

Sarah: Oh, me too.

Mimi: I rewatched the new adaptation of Howards End – newish; I mean new to me. I think it might have been out in 2016, 2019, but the new adaptation of Howards End –

Sarah: Mm-hmm?

Mimi: I’ve rewatched that so many times.

Sarah: Pining. Pining!

Mimi: And ev-, pining, and every time I get so angry at Mr. Wilcox. Why would she marry him?

Sarah: Yep.

Mimi: Can’t she see? [Laughs]

Sarah: Yep! Every time.

Mimi: Yeah, but you know what I think, in times of stress in the world, when there’s lots of things in the greater world around, especially during long periods of political turmoil –

Sarah: Oh yes.

Mimi: – I found a lot of comfort in either reading old favorites, or the other thing I started doing, reading mysteries where bad people in the end got held to account! [Laughs] I really needed to see stories that at the end had justice for –

Sarah: So satisfying, right?

Mimi: – people who did bad things. Yeah, yeah, that was really important to me, that a lot of, a lot of mystery reading.

Sarah: Yes. Thank you so much for doing this interview. Where can –

Mimi: Oh, you’re so welcome!

Sarah: – people find you if you wish to be found?

Mimi: Well, let’s see. So probably the best place is my website at mimimatthews.com.

Sarah: Yep.

Mimi: There’s all the info about me and my books there, and plus I hit my history blog, which has tons of articles on everything that you wanted to know about Victorians, and probably lots of things you never wanted to know.

[Laughter]

Mimi: You wish you could forget! And then I’m also at the usual places: Facebook, Twitter, and more recently Instagram? And yeah, I think those are probably the best places, and newsletter info and everything like that is on my website as well.

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Thank you to Mimi for hanging out with me and talking all about all the things. I will have links to where you can find Mimi, plus all of the books we talked about in the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

I have a joke, and I have some sad news. So first we will do the sad news. I wanted to let you know that we had to say goodbye to Zeb, the smaller of our two dogs, who is the one that most frequently was heard in the background of this podcast. He even had his own line in the transcript, thanks to garlicknitter, so if you’ve ever read the transcript and saw Zeb: Bark! That would be him. We will miss him very, very much, and since he was an unintentional guest on many, many episodes I wanted to share the news here. It’s the worst part of pet ownership, right? It just, it just sucks. Just sucks out loud. But we were very lucky to have him for as long as we did.

One more thing – I almost forgot! I have some additional news. Next week is a Heaving Bosoms crossover episode! Melody and I connected to recap and discuss Dragon Called by Cassie Alexander and Kara Lockharte. Now we’ve done this before, and we always have a really good time. This book is available on Kindle Unlimited if you want to read beforehand, and it’s a very quick read. Her episode will drop on Monday, and then my episode will drop on Friday. And I’ll give you a taste of the cover copy so you can decide if this is for you:

“Desperate for money after her deadbeat brother left her holding the bill for his bail bond, night nurse Andi agrees to take on a mysterious one-time nursing gig. When she finds out her employer is ruthless billionaire and all around a*****e Damian Blackwood, she’s determined to get the job done and get out as quickly as possible.

“But nothing is as it seems” – well, it never is – “when a monster attacks” – oops – “and she is saved by an honest-to-god dragon. A golden scaled, sixty foot long, violent dragon…who is clearly Damian’s other half. Her world is spun sideways but she can’t forget the way he looked at her, like coveted treasure he’s desperate to steal away for his hoard.” [Laughs] “The way he reacted when she discovered his secret. The way that when he was human again he…asked her for a date.” Dun-dun-duh!

“Fierce and independent Andi doesn’t trust easily. The expensive suits, fancy cars, and spooky castle can’t hide the truth: Damian is extremely dangerous, not to mention a monstrous beast.”

But there’s a dragon, so you knew I was on board, right? Right, of course. So the first half will drop on Monday in the Heaving Bosoms feed, and the second half will drop on Friday, and I hope you enjoy and will come along with us.

And now, onto a terrible joke. Are you ready? Here we go:

What do you call a Spanish man with a rubber toe?

Give up? What do you call a Spanish man with a rubber toe?

Roberto!

[Laughs] So bad! That come, that comes from Reddit, from zaniil, and I’m deeply grateful for that joke because, I mean, even when you’re really sad, bad jokes are, they’re just, ah, chef’s kiss.

On behalf of everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful week, and we will see you back here next week!

Smart Podcast, Trashy Books is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at frolic.media/podcasts.

[end of cool music]