646. Swashbuckling and Historical Romance Classics with Elizabeth Hoyt

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello there! Welcome to episode number 646 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and we are taking a slight break from the end-of-year listener episodes to bring you Elizabeth Hoyt. This episode was so much fun! I’m so excited to share with you. Like, literally, I’m bouncing in my chair. We’re going to talk about writer’s block; we’re going to talk about emotionally constipated heroes and the special place for sunshiny heroines. Side trips include the magic of writing about people who very slowly reveal themselves. We talk about K-dramas, we talk about Georgian social history, and then she takes us through a list of some of her favorite classical historical romances. I could not have had more fun, and I hope you enjoy it too.

Now, please note: there are two content warnings for this episode. However, I have to record this part before I figure out where, after I move the files around, they are actually, like, located in the timestamps. It’s a whole thing. Basically, I’m going to tell you about them at the very, very end of the intro, but there are two content warnings I want you to be aware of, and I’ll get back to those in just a moment.

In the meantime, I want to give a compliment! Yes, so much fun! This compliment is for Colleen H.:

You are a good person. You are a thoughtful human, you are a great friend, and a truly fabulous dancer. I asked around, and the vote was unanimous.

If you would like a compliment of your very own, have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. New members get bonus episodes, a wonderful Discord community, and the, I am told, satisfactory knowledge that you’re helping to keep me going and make sure that every episode has a hand-compiled, handcrafted transcript from garlicknitter – hey, garlicknitter! [Hi! – gk]

I also want to say hello to Natalie, one of our newest members in the Patreon. Hi, Natalie!

We would love to have you join us. Go to patreon.com/SmartBitches.

All right, I have timestamps for CONTENT WARNINGS. First, I want to make you aware that at 29:40, there is about a one-minute conversation that includes discussion of weight stigma and anti-fat bias. At 56:10, there is about a fifteen-second conversation about mentioning of trauma and death in a fictional work. I will also put these in the show notes so you can double-check.

I do want to know, though: does this provide enough information for you? Is there a better, better method I should use? Please let me know. You can comment at Smart Bitches or email me at Sarah@smartbitchestrashybooks.com.

And now, let’s talk to Elizabeth Hoyt.

[music]

Elizabeth Hoyt: I’m Elizabeth Hoyt. I write historical romance books. They’re usually, how are they different than other historical romance books? They’re a little bit more action-y. Maybe there’s, sometimes there’s a mystery in there. They are in series. The first two series you could read out of order. Maiden Lane you can’t; you really – well, you can, but it’s, you miss a lot. And I also think I have intense emotion in my books, or at least try to.

Sarah: And they’re –

Elizabeth: I think that’s the heart of any romance novel.

Sarah: Oh, absolutely. A lot of emotion, and also you are mostly in the Georgian period, too, which is, makes you –

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: – a little bit different.

Elizabeth: All of them are in the, in the Georgian period. It’s really not that different, except I think the dresses are prettier. So – [laughs]

Sarah: Listen, I am a person of ample chest, and empire waists are not it for me. Unless I want to look like I’m about to topple over, an empire waist does not do it for me. I could not, I could not do Regency.

Elizabeth: Victorian gets really weird.

Sarah: Oh yeah!

Elizabeth: The cone-shaped skirts and the weird sleeves and, and the hair, the hair gets sad. [Laughs]

Sarah: It really does.

So congratulations on the publication of No Ordinary Duchess.

Elizabeth: Thank you!

Sarah: It has been, it has been a, a minute since you’ve –

Elizabeth: It’s been a lot, actually.

Sarah: Been a minute.

Elizabeth: It’s been, I think, couple years. It was not easy writing this book. I went through a lot personally in, in my family and in the world –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – and I had a bit of time where I could not write at all.

Sarah: Oh no!

Elizabeth: That was very hard, ‘cause it was stressful and then stress-inducing that, you know, it, it’s a circular thing.

Sarah: Oh, for sure!

Elizabeth: You know, I can’t write! But I better write! You know, that kind of stuff.

Sarah: I should be writing!

Elizabeth: So –

Sarah: But I am not writing. I should be writing, but I’m not writing.

Elizabeth: Yeah, exactly.

Sarah: Yeah, that’s exhausting.

Elizabeth: It got to the point where I was paralyzed: I couldn’t even sit down with my computer. It was just –

Sarah: Oh!

Elizabeth: – really bad. And I kept trying. You know, I’d try and go back. At one point I wrote an entire scene and threw it out, and I’ve never done that before. And I looked at it, and I’m going, This is just – nothing’s happening in this scene! [Laughs] Had a lot of banter; nothing happening! Anyway, so finally, last year I got back to writing, and unlike the other times, I enjoyed it, which had not happened for a very long time. So I got back into really enjoying words and the characters I, I was writing and even trying to get the plot in there. I’m not a very good plot, plotting author.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elizabeth: But my editors keep me on my toes, so.

Sarah: Oh, that’s, that’s what they do, right.

Elizabeth: Yeah. I, I need editing, and I, and I do appreciate my editors.

Sarah: Oh, for sure. Well, welcome back!

Elizabeth: Thank you!

Sarah: We’re so glad you’re back!

Elizabeth: [Laughs] I’m glad too!

Sarah: I, I got an email about No Ordinary Duchess, and I immediately reported to social media and was like, This is not a drill! There’s going to be a new Elizabeth Hoyt novel! Ah! Like, Kermit flail! Absolute joy!

Elizabeth: Such an actual physical book this time! Yeah.

Sarah: I’m so excited that you are back, and I’m so interested in talking to you about this book and about historical romance.

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: So I have a bunch of questions. Now, I don’t like to spoil a book when I’m doing an interview, ‘cause obviously I’m going to time the release of this to when the book comes out, so I don’t, like, go deep into plot and character and, you know, character evolution, because that’s kind of a spoiler, and I like people to go in without a lot of preconceived notions.

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: But you mentioned writer’s block and getting back into creativity and finding, like, pleasure in writing again, so can you tell me –

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: – more about the process of writing this book? What, what was your, what was your entry? Were you starting with an old manuscript, or did you start new and be like, Let’s just do whatever I want?

Elizabeth: It was, no, it was the same manuscript, same characters, and I guess I had to think about the characters and what I was trying to do. The male character, as you know, has a different arc than some of my other – not arc so much as, as a personality –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – than other of my heroes? That was a bit of a challenge, and I wanted that challenge. And of course – so he’s really dark and angsty, and of course I got a very sunny, almost naïve heroine, but she’s not naïve. It only looks like that on the circus, on the surface.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: And, and getting the love between them, it’s, that’s all, it’s always, you know, and it sounds so trite, doesn’t it? I write romance novels, and I’m interested in love. [Laughs] But, but it is. It’s, you know, how these two people connect in every novel I’ve ever written. I’ve always had the point where one, both end up revealing themselves to the other –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – and how special that is and that you – I think most people only reveal themselves to a very small inner circle, you know, of who you truly are. There’s your outer face, and then there’s the circle of your friends where you can get mad. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yes.

Elizabeth: You can get upset, can grieve openly.

Sarah: Yeah.

Elizabeth: And I think I have that in every novel. I think that’s important to me. This is, I think, the first one where I actually articulate it in the book? There’s a character who talks about it?

Sarah: Yes. One thing I like about the heroine is that she is very optimistic and very sunshiny, and yet deeply educated and fully aware of how people are, and, like you said, it’s very easy to dismiss her as this, a superficial society –

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: – girl, and she actually –

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – she has a lot of very hidden depth, and so does the hero, so watching them reveal themselves to each other is extremely delicious. I think one of the things, if I can tell you about yourself, that you specialize in is that you spec-, you are very good at interior emotional evolution. So it’s not like a, a character’s going to suddenly change their whole mind or their whole viewpoint. You are going to watch them change their perspective and watch them grapple –

Elizabeth: Oh, thank you!

Sarah: – with that, and I, I personally love, I love interiority, so thank you. [Laughs]

Elizabeth: Oh good! Well, thank you! That’s a very nice compliment. You know, that’s what I’m trying to do, right?

Sarah: That’s the goal! [Laughs]

Elizabeth: Yeah. That’s the goal!

Sarah: So I’d love to know about creating Elspeth. She’s, like I said, very headstrong; she’s independent. She’s very aware of the perils of life for women, which was something that I really found frighteningly relevant right now? Like, she –

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: – knows intimately about the perils that other women are in and is trying to do her part for that. And she’s also very open with her emotions. She’s very emotionally fluent, and then she meets up –

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – with, with Julian, who’s kind of a little constipated in that department until they –

Elizabeth: Oh, a little, yeah.

Sarah: Yeah.

[Laughter]

Sarah: He’s a little bit emotionally backed up; he needs some emotional Metamucil.

Elizabeth: Metamucil? [Laughs]

Sarah: What can you tell me about developing Elspeth?

Elizabeth: Usually it’s my heroes that I focus on, but in order to have a good hero, you need a heroine that’s going to match him.

Sarah: Yes.

Elizabeth: So I like sunshiny heroines? I’ve done one or two before. I often like the shy introvert heroine a little bit more, but the sunshiny ones, I think, have a special place because it’s, it’s easy to look at them super-, superficially. You’re happy all the time; you must be kind of shallow, you know?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: And we started with, she appears very slightly in earlier books where she’s, you know, new to London and kind of agog, but then as I got into the character, I started thinking about her backstory. She was in a situation where she had charge over a very large library and had read pretty much all of it, I would think, from a young age. So she would know a lot! I mean, she, at this time period, had every – not every book, obviously, but a very, a wide variety of books without censor.

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Elizabeth: There could be also sorts of things, and if you could read in, in different languages, which she can –

Sarah: Yeah.

Elizabeth: – I think most very educated people could read in several different languages at this time period. So to think about how much you would know, and then, of course, she comes from a, a place where it’s, she has a freedom to live a life without male constraints –

Sarah: Yes.

Elizabeth: – put it that way. So although London is new to her, the outside is new to her, living, making her own decisions is not. I, I kind of walked a tightrope here, ‘cause you don’t want to have a modern heroine who’s going, Oh, well, I believe in women’s lib! Because we didn’t have women’s lib then! This is before Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, even –

Sarah: Yeah.

Elizabeth: – wrote, you know. She was a, one of the first women calling for equal rights. There’s, there’s no word for it!

Sarah: Nope! There’s no vocabulary for that.

Elizabeth: So I wanted to make sure that she was in her time period – kind of a foreigner, but in her time period – but still noticing the things that I think a foreigner would notice, you know? And how, one of my favorite parts is where the hero offers his arm, and she has an internal dialogue about, Why is it that the, you know, in London the women have to lean on men? [Laughs] Wait, what, they can’t walk, you know? So yeah, I had that.

And then, speaking of editors and how they can really help –

Sarah: Yes.

Elizabeth: – one of my editorial notes was…try to remember – was, the editor was interested to know what Elspeth felt to be free to do what she wanted. So in her own area, she could kind of make her own decisions, but there were constraints in the society she was living in. When she goes to London, those constraints are removed, and for the first time she realizes she’s more free than she was before, that the, the course she had set herself was not necessarily the end-all of what her life could be. And, and she’s fascinated by London. She’s, at one point she’s interested in the architecture she’d only read about, you know?

Sarah: Yeah. And now she’s seeing it, which is important –

Elizabeth: Yeah!

Sarah: – for her, for her. I mean, I think for her intellect she has to see and experience things. It’s one thing to read, read, read, but now she’s like –

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – Wait, all of my senses are engaged! Wow, this is amazing!

Elizabeth: Exactly, yeah. That maybe her initial goal of going after the MacGuffin she’s going after and going back home is not actually what she wants to do!

Sarah: No.

Elizabeth: And so I tried to put that in. I think it made her and the book more well-rounded.

Sarah: For sure. And it’s also a very brave choice to be happy, to have all of this knowledge of the world and people and how they treat each other and, and how many people are in perilous situations, and it, it’s actually very, a very defiant happiness, I think, for her, because she’s fully aware of the circumstances of other people and herself, but she is choosing every time to be optimistic and enjoy her curiosity and to be happy, and I think that’s a very brave choice. The more you know, the harder it is to be happy, and I’m sure people around her are like, How are you so cheerful? What the hell?

Elizabeth: [Laughs]

Sarah: Especially Julian. He’s like, I must not show any emotion, but you’re making me feel a lot of them, and I don’t like it. [Laughs]

Elizabeth: Yeah, yeah. And he puts her down a couple of times. There’s a scene wherein I started getting lost ‘cause you, you have a question later on about what my favorite historical romance all-time are –

Sarah: Yeah.

Elizabeth: – and I started getting lost in that. There’s a scene that twenty, thirty years ago would have ended totally differently, where he puts her down, basically, ‘cause he’s trying to drive her away.

Sarah: Yes, he’s trying to push her away. He does that a lot.

Elizabeth: Yeah. But one time he’s particularly verbally cruel. Twenty years ago, thirty years ago, that would have ended with her crying, inevitably, and in this one she becomes serious and just says, Hey, you don’t know me, and you don’t know how strong I am, basically.

Sarah: Yeah.

Elizabeth: And I think being able to say that as an author, first of all is very freeing. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yes!

Elizabeth: It makes up for all the things I read as a teenager where the heroine was, was a wet tissue. But yeah, I think it’s one of the times it brings him up short, because she is his equal! Even though he doesn’t initially see that.

Sarah: Yep. And she’s also not going to let him be cruel! Like, You can be a grumpy ass, but you are not going to put me down! That’s not cool!

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: You don’t – and she, and he’s, he doesn’t know what to do with her standing up to him, which I really like. [Laughs]

Elizabeth: Yeah. I think she knows he’s trying to deflect with his cruelty. It’s not what he actually means; it’s that he’s, he’s getting nervous, basically.

Sarah: Aw, isn’t that cute! You’re projecting!

[Laughter]

Elizabeth: Yeah! And she’s like, No, we’re not going to do that.

Sarah: No, we’re not doing that.

One thing I’m fascinated by with your writing is that your series has a larger plot that develops and changes but is sort of overarching –

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – the whole thing, and when you’re talking about Maiden Lane, that’s a whole lot of books, ma’am. That was a lot of books. But –

Elizabeth: Twelve books, yes. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah, that’s a lot of books. Like, can you imagine somebody going to their editor and be like, So I have this idea for a twelve-book historical romance series.

Elizabeth: Oh, I did say that! No, uh-uh.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Was it supposed to be a trilogy and it just kept going?

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: Okay, is that, you know that happens.

Elizabeth: It was, it was a trilogy. I think we, we sold it as the first three books – no, the first three books aren’t that men in, in, in Georgian England.

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Elizabeth: I don’t know how I sold the first three books, but I did. I remember Susan – what was her name? The woman who was in charge of buying for Borders.

Sarah: Oh, Sue Grimshaw.

Elizabeth: She listened to my pitch.

Sarah: Yeah.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Listened to my pitch for Wicked Intentions, the first of the Maiden Lane books, and she just paused a minute, and then she said, Well, but, but can you write like Robin Wells? Is it Robin Wells? The small town, you know –

Sarah: Robyn Carr.

Elizabeth: Robin Carr. Thank you so much. I’m sorry.

Sarah: That’s okay!

Elizabeth: …Robyn Carr. Can you write like her? And it’s kind of like, it’s like asking Robyn Carr if she can write like me. I mean – [laughs] – I could, I suppose, but I don’t want to!

Sarah: That’s a weird question!

Elizabeth: And that’s what she was looking for. It was very hot right then.

Sarah: I, I am, I am so wilded out by the idea of Sue Grimshaw asking you to write like Robyn Carr. Like, what?! How?! [Laughs]

Elizabeth: I don’t know. My editor was there, and she just kind of looked blank. [Laughs]

Sarah: Like, What? When you were writing this series, you have these large –

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – overarching plots that evolve and multiple mysteries and different things that come in from prior books, and then you have a, you know, your specific books that have plots of their own, and this series in particular, the Greycourt series, this book kind of picks up some of the things from book one, which –

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: – that was in 2018. I don’t remember –

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: – 2018, so I don’t know how you remember 2018.

Elizabeth: Not well!

Sarah: I have no memory of it. [Laughs]

Elizabeth: What – so yeah, with Maiden Lane, I don’t know if it was ‘cause I was younger –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elizabeth: – or, you know, my, maybe my memory’s going; I don’t know. But I had actually most of that in my head.

Sarah: Wow!

Elizabeth: Except for names. I had a database of names I…’cause otherwise I kept on naming the maid – what was I naming her? – Meggie. Meghan or – not Meghan – Maggie!

Sarah: Oh God!

Elizabeth: All the maid, maids were named Maggie after a while. It’s like, Oh, I’ve got to stop doing that. Not to mention, in Georgian England there’s like four main male names. There’s George, William, Thomas – that may be it. I mean, there’s only a few. Didn’t want to name everybody George. A few, but not everybody.

Sarah: Yeah, that’s too many. And there were a lot of Georges in the Georgian period; that’s why it’s got its name.

Elizabeth: Not, no –

Sarah: There were a couple of Georges.

Elizabeth: Yeah. There were four kings named George. So with this book I said to myself, I’ve got to do this smart and actually have a bible. So in the bible I’ve got a place for characters, one for places, one for dogs.

Sarah: Oh, very smart! Very smart!

Elizabeth: …dogs. And the characters have everything that they’re linked to, like, you know, if it’s a main hero, all the places he lives in and that kind of stuff, and they should each have descriptions. Not all of them do, but they should! [Laughs] And then a timeline; I did have a timeline with Maiden Lane. I, I more worried about things about what people know when?

Sarah: Oh, that makes sense.

Elizabeth: ‘Cause in this case, it’s kind of a mystery. So I’m going to make sure, you know, this is all, that the backstories are safe?

Sarah: Yeah.

Elizabeth: Even if told from different views? [Laughs] Things like that, mainly.

Sarah: How many pages is the pet section? That’s a very important section.

Elizabeth: Oh, it’s only three or four because right now I don’t have that many book, pets.

Sarah: That’s, that’s true; there’s not a lot of pets running around.

Elizabeth: Well, sometimes I don’t have any dogs, and that’s so confusing to people.

Sarah: I wanted to ask you also about historical romance generally, because it is in a –

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – very different place than it was even five years ago –

Elizabeth: Uh-huh.

Sarah: – and it is shocking to me how few historical romances I’m seeing now, like, when it used to be the biggest piece of the genre, you know?

Elizabeth: I hate to say I laughed when I saw that, because I have been deliberately trying to stay away from news. You know, just anything.

Sarah: Sorry! [Laughs]

Elizabeth: So I didn’t know that it’s been going down –

Sarah: Sorry!

Elizabeth: – but I laughed, because here’s the thing: when I sold my very first book, The Raven Prince –

Sarah: The Raven Prince.

Elizabeth: – yep – it took about a year longer than it should have because the very first person who was interested in, in it, the editor, her, I believe the sales team would not let her buy it.

Sarah: Ohhh no!

Elizabeth: She was kind of in a lower position as an editor, too. And at that time, people, you know, if I went to a conference and they said, you know, What are you writing? I’d say historical romance, and then they would look at me like I was an idiot and say, Don’t you know that’s dying?

Sarah: Oh gosh.

Elizabeth: Historical romance is dead! And at that time chick lit was very, chick lit and then contemporary –

Sarah: Ohhh yes.

Elizabeth: – small-town contemporary were very, very big! And it’s, it’s cyclical. You know, it may die altogether; I don’t know. But my royalties went way up for the last several years. This last one went down. However, I do think people in times of stress and anxiety often turn to escapism –

Sarah: Yes.

Elizabeth: – and fantasy romance and historical romance are the ultimate escapism.

Sarah: Yes.

Elizabeth: You’re in a different world. You don’t have any of the – I’m not ever going to write about COVID. It doesn’t occur in my books, you know? [Laughs] So it’s, it’s, I think they may go up again, frankly, during the next couple years.

Sarah: I subscribe to what I call the Bruce Springsteen Theory of Publishing?

Elizabeth: Hmm?

Sarah: There’s a song lyric:

>> Everything dies and that is a fact, but maybe everything that dies someday comes back.

But I also think that you occupy a unique place in historicals as well, because you’ve always included a, like you said, an action, almost a thriller element? Like, there’s real danger and peril in some scenes –

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and you are incorporating a lot of mystery, and it’s not cozy –

Elizabeth: No –

Sarah: – really.

Elizabeth: – I don’t like cozy mysteries. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah, I can kind of tell, because –

Elizabeth: Isn’t it awful?

Sarah: – ‘cause the romance can be very cozy, but the mysteries are always more, much more gritty.

Now, I have some questions from members of my podcast Patreon. Alanna –

Elizabeth: Uh-huh?

Sarah: – wanted to know how you chose the time period for Maiden Lane. They say:

>> It struck me when I was listening to them that they’re set in an era of British history that not many historical writers lean towards, and it was one of the reasons I was fascinated by the series.

Now, you mentioned earlier the hair and the dresses and the fashions and the three whole guy names for characters, three whole names for everybody.

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: What drew you to this historical era?

Elizabeth: Well, actually, I think first of all was the swashbuckling.

Sarah: Oh yes.

Elizabeth: So my earliest books were in the, I think, 1740s. All of my books are between like 1740-something and 1770-something. There is a series of Hollywood movies, a lot of them starring Errol Flynn –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – that were just fun adventure swashbucklers, where the heroes were these people who, you know, were fighting these huge sword battles, you know?

Sarah: Yeah.

Elizabeth: And I always loved those. I love Scaramouche, I loved Captain Blood, and I kind of want to set my stories in a time period when you could have swashbuckling, when, especially my first series, the, not the four soldiers but the princes, the three princes –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – they’re carrying swords all the time, up until I think 1770s or so, and the probability of having a duel is much higher –

Sarah: Oh yes.

Elizabeth: – than in the 19th century.

Sarah: Ohhh, that’s quite true.

Elizabeth: By the 19th century they were beginning to think of that as kind of old-fashioned, and also outlawed. And so I, I just, I wanted to have duels; I wanted to have fun chase scenes. And then I got into the Ghost of St. Giles, which was all – [laughs] – which was all running around and swashbuckling too. So I like that!

I also, Maiden Lane, the beginning, maybe throughout it, is about the Gin Wars, which was a true historical time period when gin was like the first hard liquor that was made in Britain? So they had always had beer.

Sarah: Mm-hmm?

Elizabeth: Much of it small beer, which is watered-down beer. You know, children drank that.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: And then they had gin, and it was cheap, it was everywhere, and people had their lives ruined over it. And so I was, you know, interested in writing about that –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – you know, this problem they were having at this time period.

Sarah: So it was both the, the swashbuckling and –

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – the big, big problem that affected all of the classes.

Elizabeth: Yeah. And also the social – I mean, I suppose in, in Regency England of course you could have different social mores –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – but-18th century London I believe at one point was the largest city in the entire world. It was the place to be. People were, like, it was, you know, tripling and doubling in, in people, so all these people were coming in, some of them from all over the world. You had the super, super rich who literally gilded their walls, put gold on the walls, and you had the super, super poor who were dying because of gin that was, I think it was a penny a cup or something like that? They sold them by the cup.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: And I’ve, and everything in between!

Sarah: Yeah.

Elizabeth: You know. There were, really was a middle class of merchants and, you know, ministers, those kind of people. And I just found it fascinating. I like all of the different layers.

Sarah: I, I also love how this connects to your Pinterest board? You have one of the best author Pinterest boards in the world? Like, outstanding fun –

Elizabeth: Thank you!

Sarah: – to look at. Are you still, are you still on Pinterest? Is it still your happy place?

Elizabeth: I haven’t done it recently, but I, I used to love making boards for my books, ‘cause it gave you – I don’t know if you noticed, but all of my heroine pictures, supposedly, are all from paintings? All the heroes are contemporary actors. [Laughs]

Sarah: I noticed that! Like, I noticed the work in progress for No Ordinary Duchess: there’s these gorgeous paintings of buxom, red-haired ladies with –

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – like, large bodies, and it’s just so great. And then – [laughs] – and then at the top –

Elizabeth: I can’t remember who I have got…

Sarah: We’ve got, we’ve got Derek Jacobi and Julian Greycourt. Looks like the guy who played Darcy – McFadden.

Elizabeth: Really!

Sarah: Yeah, I think that, I think that’s him. I’m looking at – nope, that’s Lee Pace. My bad! I get those two mixed up. So you’ve got –

Elizabeth: Oh, Lee Pace, yes.

Sarah: Lee, yeah, Lee – you’ve got Lee Pace –

Elizabeth: [Laughs]

Sarah: – and you’ve got, you know, all of these beautiful, buxom, nude lady redheads, and then –

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – hot modern guys! I, I approve –

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: – this message; this is great!

Elizabeth: [Laughs] The hero I’m writing right now – so it’s the book after this one – I’m basing his personality – not necessarily his looks – on a Korean actor, ‘cause I’m very into Korean, K-dramas. He’s the guy, if you saw Train to Busan – I don’t know if you saw that or not? – the guy who’s the family man who, he’s got the pregnant wife?

Sarah: Ohhh!

Elizabeth: Big, muscle-y guy. And he plays a lot of roles where he’s basically a big muscle guy –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – just goes in and beats people up, and he’s never afraid –

Sarah: Yep.

Elizabeth: – and he never loses. [Laughs] And the other thing: he just keeps going, you know? And I kind of wanted that physica-, physicality –

Sarah: Yeah.

Elizabeth: – in my hero.

Sarah: Fabulous! I also love, you have a whole board of faces that are just face, facial inspiration for your characters, and there are –

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: – so many Korean actors and so –

Elizabeth: You can tell I got into, to K-dramas. [Laughs]

Sarah: – so many cheekbones? So many cheekbones! Like –

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: – exquisite cheekbones everywhere.

Elizabeth: [Laughs]

Sarah: It’s, it’s really fun to get this little glimpse into, into your, into your process. Like, it’s really fun.

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: How does Pinterest help you?

Elizabeth: Well, I’m a very visual person –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – so that helps. I’ve got also boards on historical things, ‘cause that’s, a lot of dress and stuff I get from actual paintings or –

Sarah: Yep.

Elizabeth: – illustrations. And then for the guy, I want to have something that reminds – often it’s not the actual actor; it’s a part he’s played once.

Sarah: Yep.

Elizabeth: Or a certain vibe, I guess, you know, that he gives? Same with the women: I wanted for Elspeth to be this wonderfully fat woman who enjoys food, who has no problem with eating food! She loves it! And enjoys indulgence I guess is what I want to say, ‘cause so often we, as women, are told not to indulge, not do “bad things.” I had a friend for a long time; we’d meet for coffee, and she’d get, you know, cake, and she’ll say, Oh, I’m being bad. I’m being bad. Finally I said, Do you realize what you’re saying? Any time you get something you enjoy, you’re being bad? I mean, that doesn’t – no! You’re not being bad; you’re enjoying something!

Sarah: Yeah. For sure. But that language was –

Elizabeth: [Indistinct]

Sarah: – baked in, especially –

Elizabeth: It really –

Sarah: – was really baked in. Like, the, the, the should and the should not and the shame was very much –

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: – part of, you know.

Elizabeth: I think we still have it. I think it’s just turned in different directions. Now you, we have to be well. Now you have to, you have to be thin for some things. You have to be a perfect wife for some things, perfect mother.

Sarah: Never lose your cool –

Elizabeth: So.

Sarah: – never get upset. Which –

Elizabeth: Oh no. ‘Course not.

So the board for the books, you may see, I’ve got a hero, heroine –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – but I also have other things. I have maybe the area, the castle –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – maybe themes that you don’t know about and may not have made it to the book, but may have. Who knows? Colors, sometimes, that I’m interested in, in different characters or places. Themes throughout the book. There’s a whole lot of things you can do in that; they’re almost subconscious, if you just let yourself look –

Sarah: Yeah.

Elizabeth: – you know?

Sarah: I particularly love the Georgian knickknacks board.

Elizabeth: [Laughs]

Sarah: There is just some weird stuff. There’s just weird – lots of pomanders and long, narrow spoons for scooping the marrow out of bones. Like –

Elizabeth: Yeah!

Sarah: Like, wow!

Elizabeth: …stuff.

Sarah: Weird! And lots of, lots of figurines of ladies curtsying.

Elizabeth: [Laughs] You know.

Sarah: Now, I do want to ask, since you brought it up, what are some of your favorite K-dramas?

Elizabeth: Oh! Oh! I’m so glad you asked, but the question is can I remember the names? Mr. Queen – not the best romance.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: But it’s very, very funny. It’s historical. Most of the ones I like are historical, although there’s one…oh, Flower of Evil! That was it. Oh, I, I happen to like, you know, drama and, and mysteries that are exciting. The hero, he doesn’t really feel, and he doesn’t know to, how to be like everybody else.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: There’s a scene where he tells his wife, who he loves desperately, that he wanted to become the man she would love –

Sarah: Aw!

Elizabeth: – the one she wanted. So he, his entire façade is a façade because he’s trying to be the man she wants! And I just thought it was such an interesting idea of what love is –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – how it changes throughout that movie, that series – it’s a series.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: And I thought it was the most interesting meditation on love –

Sarah: Yeah.

Elizabeth: – I’d seen in a really long time.

Sarah: And when you are trying to create a façade that isn’t you to appeal to the person that you love, there’s honesty –

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and dishonesty at the same time.

Elizabeth: Yes. And they explore that in that series! I really loved it! It does go very up and down, not – it – K-dramas are kind of weird in that they’ll have, they’ll have humor, drama, comedy – I just said comedy – romance, you know, action, mystery, all in one thing, and often you need to google them, because they won’t have a happy ending.

Sarah: Yes.

Elizabeth: What looks like a nice romance, and you get to the end, and it’s not happy –

Sarah: No.

Elizabeth: – drives me up the wall. That one, Flower of Evil, does have a happy ending, just FYI.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: ‘Case you want to watch it.

Sarah: So one of the other questions I have is from Clay, who is a librarian –

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm?

Sarah: – and they asked:

>> There are a lot of voices that are suggesting that your beloved books, you should purchase them in physical format because the digital is becoming more and more ephemeral. Is there a book that you would want to add to your personal collection, or a book that you think is an important addition to a physical collection?

This is a very librarian question, and I dig it.

Elizabeth: It is, isn’t it? Yeah, I looked at that. The thing is I have quite big eyesight problems; I can only read books really on devices these days –

Sarah: Me too.

Elizabeth: – can enlarge the print, yeah.

Sarah: Yeah, I call it great-grandpa size.

Elizabeth: Yeah, it’s very big, mine. [Laughs] But reading it, having read that, and making any book, I think I would really be interested in getting, one of my founding books –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – was a, a fairytale book called The Wonder Clock?

Sarah: Ooh!

Elizabeth: From Howard Pyle. And he was an illustrator, book illustrator from, I think the turn of the last century? If you look up pirates, you often get one of his, I think they’re watercolors –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – of a pirate. He did Robin Hood, he did pirates, he did a couple of early historicals, and he did, he wrote line illustrations for this book, and oh my goodness. There’s one – mind you, I was like ten maybe when I got this book?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: There’s one of a guy in profile, and he’s got, like, the perfect Grecian profile, you know, where the nose is totally straight? Oh!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elizabeth: And it’s also, also, he’s the one, it’s called the, The Good Servant or something like that? And he’s having his hand cut off by the prince who wants him to, you know – it’s actually the same story as I’ve got in The Leopard Prince –

Sarah: Yeah!

Elizabeth: – version of that, where the prince is saying that you’ve got to do all these things, and the good servant says, Okay, I’ll do this; I’ll do this. You know. I think he gets his hand back, maybe? I don’t know. But it’s a happy ending in the end. So he’s this very noble-looking, you know? With this – I, I think probably, you know –

Sarah: That one?

Elizabeth: That one! It probably has to do with all the rest of my romantic life –

Sarah: Yeah.

Elizabeth: – and everything! [Laughs]

Sarah: That’s your origin story?

Elizabeth: Defining moment.

Sarah: Instead of having –

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: – a villain origin story, you have a romance author origin story? It’s that one illustration of that guy’s nose? Yep.

Elizabeth: [Laughs] Yeah.

Sarah: Sorry, sir, your whole new, your nose has inspired many a book. Well done!

Elizabeth: Yeah. Yeah, so I’ve got a copy, the one I had from childhood, but it’s falling apart –

Sarah: Yeah.

Elizabeth: – ‘cause it was, you know, on those pages that don’t do well. I don’t think they even have a hardcopy in print anymore, ‘cause it’s a really old book!

Sarah: Yeah.

Elizabeth: But if I could get a hardcopy, I would. I definitely would.

Sarah: That’s cool.

So what are some of your favorite historicals of all time? Do – first of all, let me ask, do you read in the genre? ‘Cause I know for a lot of authors they don’t read the genre that they write in because it sort of mud-, muddies the waters of their brains.

Elizabeth: Yeah. About the second or third year I was writing, it occurred to me that I was going to have to sacrifice historical romance, and it was a big moment, ‘cause that was, that was my happy place…

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Elizabeth: And yeah, I can’t really read them. I read them for blurbs when someone asks for a blurb. I think the last one I did was a year or two ago, which was Marry Me by Midnight by Grossman, somebody Grossman.

Sarah: Felicia Grossman, Marry Me by Midnight.

Elizabeth: Yeah! Mm-hmm! Yeah, I love that book! It’s so excit- – I mean, I found it very interesting as, as somebody interested in history and also the cultures! You know, I – anyway, love that book. It was a reverse Cinderella, which I thought was very clever of her.

But yeah, I don’t read them very much anymore, so, which is really sad.

Sarah: It is!

Elizabeth: So I made a list, but they are ooold books!

Sarah: That’s okay! My, my theory is that a book you haven’t read is a new book.

Elizabeth: Yeah. The thing is, I think I, I would caution anybody reading these.

Sarah: Oh yes.

Elizabeth: I think they’re fine, but old books, in, in, in, especially in romance can be problematic –

Sarah: Ohhh yes.

Elizabeth: – so if you see a theme that you don’t like, you know, drop it. Just ‘cause I liked it doesn’t mean that you should. Anyway, so ones I got were Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale.

Sarah: Oh my goodness.

Elizabeth: …somebody read that one before.

Sarah: Oh, that’s such a good book. It’s so unique.

Elizabeth: It’s amazing!

Sarah: It’s so unique! I have never read a historical romance like that one.

Elizabeth: And, you know, her other ones are like that too; they’re just totally unique! I don’t know if she did really well monetarily with her books, but almost all of them are favorites of people, because they’re just, she builds a world within each book that is separate from everything else, and it’s just complete and wonderful. So in that book she’s got, I think a duke; wasn’t he a duke?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: Who basically has a stroke, but they don’t call it a stroke, ‘cause they don’t know what it is –

Sarah: Yes.

Elizabeth: – and he gets sent to the loony bin, which of course is terrible. And then the heroine is, is she a Quaker? Or did they not say what she is?

Sarah: Yes, she is a Quaker, and she has been the messenger between the duke and her father, and I think they correspond about math, as you do.

Elizabeth: Yes, they’re mathematicians.

Sarah: Yeah, they’re math, they’re math dudes, and they’re corresponding about math, and she has been running the letters back and forth, and I think she finds out that he’s been sent to the asylum and is like, No, that’s not going to work, and goes and rescues him.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: Or tries to.

Elizabeth: Because he has – I’d forgotten the name for it, but his wits are, are all there, and he’s a very intelligent man, but he can’t speak very well.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: What is it, aphasia?

Sarah: Yeah.

Elizabeth: Is that the word? Yeah. So, and of course back then, not being able to speak well, that meant obviously you’re, you’re intellectually disabled.

Sarah: Yes. There is a scene in that book that I still remember? I think –

Elizabeth: Which one is that?

Sarah: The duke and some dudes – I don’t know where the dudes came from – are plotting. They’re plotting to, I think, rescue Maddy, the, the heroine, or get her out of something, and they’re having like this little meeting about how they’re going to do the thing, and his speech pattern is very distinct, and it is mostly like noun and verb. There’s all, not a little filler word. His, his –

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: – communication is very, very, like, specific, and the other guys start talking to him in his language, and they start responding with that same speech pattern in the dialogue, and I’m just like, Oh my God, I love this book!

Elizabeth: I don’t think I ever noticed that! I don’t remember it.

Sarah: I love that scene so much!

Elizabeth: I’ll have to reread, because yeah.

Sarah: I mean, do you feel like crying? That’s a crying book.

Elizabeth: It, it really is! Yeah.

Sarah: That’s a crying book.

Elizabeth: It, it’s one of those books where you go all over, ‘cause you, at, at the best points, you’re just, like, grinning because it’s just so wonderful.

Sarah: And then it gets…

Elizabeth: They overcome a lot. [Laughs]

Sarah: Cry – yeah. Oh yes, they do.

Elizabeth: I also included Mistress, for very – by Amanda Quick –

Sarah: Ohhh.

Elizabeth: – for a very specific reason. So that’s Jayne Ann Krentz –

Sarah: Yes, it is.

Elizabeth: – using her, one of her many, many pseudonyms. She used Amanda Quick for historical.

Sarah: Yes.

Elizabeth: And this is one of the earlier historicals? And the reason I have this on here is because I think I read it in the early ‘90s, and up until then I read a lot of historicals, but there’s a scene where the heroine has pretended to be the mistress of a well-known awful earl or duke or, you know, aristocrat.

Sarah: Yeah.

Elizabeth: It was out of the, out of the city, so nobody knows where he is, and she’s just, you know, pretending, and she’s kind of light and bubbly! And somehow she’s inveigled into the carriage of the guy who she’s been pretending to be the mistress of.

Sarah: Yeah.

Elizabeth: Now, up until this time, I knew what was going to happen next scene. He was going to forcibly kiss her and then rape her. Because that’s what happened in all the historical books prior to this.

Sarah: 1994! Yep! Prime –

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: Prime dubious consent era, yes.

Elizabeth: Yeah! Instead, they banter! And then I think he leaves her alone! It’s, I was just like, it was so, first of all, different than what I expected!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elizabeth: Like, wonderful! You know?

Sarah: Yeah.

Elizabeth: Her, her early – well, actually, all of her books – have a lightness –

Sarah: Yes.

Elizabeth: – and a humor that really, I really like.

Sarah: They’re very, like, effervescent and bubbly –

Elizabeth: Yes.

Sarah: – in their plot.

Elizabeth: Even if the hero was really dark and broody, the plot, the heroine, the romance, they’re all very wonderful.

Sarah: Yeah, the heroine of that book is named Iphiginia Bright. Like, that is the most –

Elizabeth: Oh…

Sarah: – bubbly heroine name! Iphiginia – I think I’m saying that right – Iphiginia Bright. Okay! Got it. Understood.

Elizabeth: [Laughs] Yeah, she’s, she’s really good.

Then I – tell me if you don’t have time for this.

Sarah: I have got time for every book you want to name. Please, this is, I’m having the best time right now! [Laughs]

Elizabeth: I get, okay, I fell into a hole looking at these books, ‘cause what I do is I go to Goodreads? This is the only thing I use Goodreads for is to track what I’ve read, but also to track the books I like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – so I can remember what they are? There was a period when I was absolutely obsessed with Untamed, first book; Forbidden, the second book; and Enchanted by Elizabeth Lowell.

Sarah: Oh!

Elizabeth: You may not have read these, because –

Sarah: Yes, I did!

Elizabeth: – I think she got cut off, because it’s a medieval –

Sarah: Yep.

Elizabeth: – and she went to writing, I think, contemporaries, which were also really good. Especially the ones with jewels or pearls in the title? Those are really good. But these are medievals; they’re, I believe, right after William the Conqueror, and of course it’s the Normans coming in, taking over land from the Saxons.

Sarah: Yeah, Saxons.

Elizabeth: And so there’s a lot of upheaval, and it’s about these guys coming in, and I think the women are Saxon and the guys were all Norman? Really liked those. I read them over and over again. At one point I was checking them out of our little teeny-tiny library that’s all we have near living? I tried to check them out at least once every six months so the library wouldn’t throw them away.

[Laughter]

Elizabeth: I don’t know if that did anything, but – [laughs]

Sarah: That’s a good strategy. What’s funny is, there is a writer now named Alice Coldbreath; I believe she self-publishes –

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and her whole thing is medievals, and she loves medievals, and they’re all very slow burn, they’re very much steeped in culture and social limits and things like that, and whenever I go and look at, like, different reader recommendation lists, especially on Reddit, people are going on and on about how great Alice Coldbreath is.

Elizabeth: Coldbreath –

Sarah: Yep.

Elizabeth: – I’m writing that down too.

Sarah: Yeah.

Elizabeth: I don’t know why the medieval died! I just really don’t! I mean, you got big guys in, in armor. What’s not to like? And huge swords –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Elizabeth: – I believe. [Laughs]

Sarah: But the hero, the hero of Untamed is Dominic le Sabre.

Elizabeth: Yeah. That probably means something.

So my next one is Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas. Of course there are tons of Lisa Kleypas’s I love. That one is a reader favorite, so if people haven’t read that one, then they really need to. It has Derek Craven in it, who you may have actually heard of, because that hero is so iconic, I guess, in, in the romance world. He’s a very cynical – I think he comes from the lower classes, doesn’t he? He’s rich now because he’s, he’s a –

Sarah: Gambler.

Elizabeth: – he owns a gambling den, yeah.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: So he’s, it’s very dark, very cynical – [laughs] – and the heroine is this writer with glasses who comes trip-trapping into London to – I can’t remember why she was in London, but she’s, you know, naïve, from the country, and all happy, and he’s like, I can’t be with you ‘cause I’m too dark and awful. It’s a wonderful book; it really is.

Sarah: I think – you remember how when Fifty Shades of Grey came out, people were obsessed with Christian Grey?

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm?

Sarah: Sales of grey ties went up. Like, my kids’ pediatrician was obsessed with Christian Grey, and then she found out that I run a romance novel site and, like, the whole appointment was telling, was her telling me how much she loved Fifty Shades of Grey. I feel like Derek Craven is the same type of hero for historical romance, where so many readers are like, Nope, that guy, and then the other Kleypas  hero who – St. Vincent.

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: From the –

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: – Wallflower series, who kidnaps and then marries the heroine. I think those are the two, like, the historical heroes that you hear the most about, even –

Elizabeth: Yeah!

Sarah: – gosh, this was 1994.

Elizabeth: Yeah. I think all these recommendations are from the ‘90s. I’m just so behind. [Laughs] But I enjoyed them all.

Sarah: That’s thirty years old!

Elizabeth: Yeah. But it’s still –

Sarah: What happened? Where did time go?

Elizabeth: And she’s such a good writer.

Sarah: So good.

Elizabeth: I don’t know. I’ve got a few more if you have time…

Sarah: I do have time. I’m having the best time.

Elizabeth: I’m glad, ‘cause I love talking, talking this stuff.

Devil’s Bride by Stephanie Laurens. All these are not really new stuff, but –

Sarah: I love that book! I love that book so much. I have, I have read that book, literally I have a paper copy with the original back illustration where Honoria has, like, this incredible, massive cloud of curly hair –

Elizabeth: [Laughs]

Sarah: – and the hero has the worst mullet ever. I love that book so much, because the heroine is valued for being able to run a household competently –

Elizabeth: Yeah!

Sarah: – and caringly and seeing the servants as people and, like, it’s very much a fish-out-of-water, back-in-the-water story? I love that book so much. I must have read it a hundred times.

Elizabeth: It’s, you know, I’ve heard it described as, I mean, her heroes are kind of of a type.

Sarah: Oh yes. There’s a mullet.

Elizabeth: And I heard it described as, these are heroes who really want to marry and have children.

Sarah: They are obsessed with family!

Elizabeth: Yeah!

Sarah: They are obsessed!

Elizabeth: They just have to pick the right heroine, you know?

Sarah: Yes! [Laughs]

Elizabeth: And up until then, most Regencies were about the hero running away.

Sarah: There were –

Elizabeth: He hated the marriage mart –

Sarah: – so many rakes! Rakes everywhere!

Elizabeth: Yeah, yeah, and these are the exact opposite. I mean, they have been rakish in the, in the past, but –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – right now they want – and his specific goal as a duke is he needs to get somebody who can run his dukedom, he’s, the house of the duke, could be the hostess for things, you know.

Sarah: It’s a job. It’s a whole –

Elizabeth: Yeah, exactly!

Sarah: – it’s a whole-ass job.

Elizabeth: It’s, it’s great, and he really does value her.

Sarah: Oh, he, he values her more than she values herself. Like, she’s just like, I’m just going to leave England. I’m going to go look at pyramids; I’m going to travel. And he’s like, The hell you are! What are you talking about?

Elizabeth: [Laughs] Yeah!

So the next two are kind of problematic, because I do think the hero ends up, before he commits to the heroine, sleeping with someone else.

Sarah: [Gasps]

Elizabeth: It used to happen all the time in books.

Sarah: Oh, they, they were very, they, the whole point of reforming the rake is that they have to be rakish to begin with.

Elizabeth: Oh my goodness, some of them are just –

Sarah: Sticking their prongs everywhere.

Elizabeth: Yeah. So the first one is Ruthless by Anne Stuart. That has the darkest hero I have ever read –

Sarah: Wow! That’s saying something!

Elizabeth: – bar none. That’s it, yeah. He is, if you like devilish heroes, he’s the one you want to go to. He’s the head of, I think a made up, but based on – the devil’s, the satanic club, the devil’s club back in, in, I think it’s a Georgian, yeah.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: And so he’s, you know, he has wild parties. He’s just awful. But at the same time, he’s really compelling.

Sarah: Oh yes.

Elizabeth: Amazingly compelling.

Sarah: Oh yes.

Elizabeth: I think she did a couple more with his son, and I just couldn’t handle it, because it’s like, I can’t see this guy as a father, as an older father! [Laughs] It just seemed –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: He’s always going to be young and virile and –

Sarah: The Cynsters from Stephanie Laurens’ series, there are now books about the grown children of all of the –

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – original heroes, and I’m like, I, I don’t know if you can do that.

Elizabeth: Yeah, I’m never going to do that. My heroes are all young. And virile.

Sarah: Yes. And they stay the same age.

Elizabeth: Yeah, exactly! Exactly, yeah. But Ruthless by Anne Stuart, I, I really recommend it if you like – if you’ve read my Duke of Sin? I happened to look on, I was looking on Goodreads, ‘cause I’m looking for the titles and, you know, all that, and right under Ruthless was three recommended titles. So one was my Duke of Sin.

Sarah: Fair enough!

Elizabeth: So if you like Duke of Sin, you’ll – she actually, I think she wrote me a letter.

Sarah: Oh!

Elizabeth: I was so touched that she liked Duke of Sin, which makes sense, ‘cause that’s a very dark hero.

Sarah: Yep. The recommended books on my page right now are Duke of Sin and To Have and To Hold by Patricia Gaffney, yep, and then something called Lady Gallant by Suzanne Robinson, which I’ve not heard of, and When Angels –

Elizabeth: Oh my God! That’s the next one I’ve got on my list.

Sarah: Okay, tell me everything! I don’t know about this one.

Elizabeth: Okay, this is a really sad story. So Suzanne Robinson, I realized after I read all her historicals, has stopped writing historicals but was still alive. She started writing mysteries, I think because she, she couldn’t sell her historicals. People, buy the books from the authors you like, because that what happens when they can’t sell them!

Sarah: Yep.

Elizabeth: They have to stop writing them sometimes. So Lady Gallant is during Elizabeth the First’s rule.

Sarah: Oooh.

Elizabeth: So the time period, people have problems with the – it’s so romantic, because there’s this thing about the, the guy who can basically recite poetry competitively, if you know what I mean?

Sarah: Yes.

Elizabeth: Who can, who can, you know, is, is just well, well read and witty and goes around being – it’s like Chris Marlowe type of thing, and in fact the hero’s called Kit in this one. And the heroine is extremely naïve and sweet and nice, and the hero at one point believes that she’s a spy against the queen. And, like, when he finds out she’s not – this is, I suppose, spoilers, but it’s not the end – all his friends are like, You did what? You thought she – she’s innocent!

Sarah: Come on, bro!

[Laughter]

Elizabeth: Exactly! It’s got the best grovel scene ever, I think –

Sarah: Ooh!

Elizabeth: – that I’ve ever read. So if you like grovel scenes where the hero has made a really bad mistake and needs to somehow make it up to the heroine so she won’t leave him –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: – this has got it.

Sarah: Have you watched the television show My Lady Jane?

Elizabeth: No, what’s that?

Sarah: Okay. Unfortunately, it was not renewed, but it is most of the first half of a book called My Lady Jane. There’s a whole series about Jane, Lady Jane Grey and Mary. In this retelling of history – okay, I won’t spoil very much, but this is so, this is so up your street – the whole series is an alternate telling of the life of Lady Jane Grey, who, like, didn’t live past being crowned queen more than like a –

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: – a week or so. She was beheaded. In this version they’re like, Well, to hell with that! She lives! And the, the, the premise is that she is in the court of her cousin Edward, and he’s very sick, and they’re all very uncertain, and Mary is bonkers, and Elizabeth is very quiet but is watching everything that’s happening. It is very much the Christians and the Protestants?

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: This is a small spoiler.

Elizabeth: Catholics and Protestants.

Sarah: Sorry, Ca-, sorry, excuse me. Catholics –

Elizabeth: They’re all Christians…

Sarah: Sorry, Catholics. Wrong C word there.

Elizabeth: [Laughs] Yeah.

Sarah: So Catholics and Protestants, but in this case it’s humans and shifters, and some of the people in this time period can shift into animals. She has an arranged marriage to a guy who she thinks is a complete dolt, and they have got mad horny pants for each other. It is opulent –

Elizabeth: [Laughs]

Sarah: – it is silly, it is so much fun, and it goes in places where you’re just like, Yeah, okay, sure, I’m along for the ride. All right, sure; whatever you want to do here is fine.

Elizabeth: Oh, that sounds wonderful! I’ve been reading more fantasies.

Sarah: You will love this! It’s really –

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: – really fun. Like, I put it on and my, my older child and my husband were like, What is this? I’m like, Just trust me! By the end of the first one they were like, So we’re going to watch the next one, right? And I’m like, Yes, of course we are!

Elizabeth: [Laughs]

Sarah: It, it would be entirely up your street.

Elizabeth: Okay, well, I’ll have to look for that…

Sarah: I think it’s on Amazon Prime; I’m pretty sure it’s a Prime show.

Elizabeth: Okay.

Sarah: Yeah. Do you have any other books that you want to tell me about?

Elizabeth: Not of historical romance at the time, although I could, you know, keep on going another hour doing that. I think your last question was what I’m reading right now.

Sarah: Yes! Are there any books you’re reading right now that you want to tell us about?

Elizabeth: Well, I’m reading The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo. I go to look her up, and I didn’t realize that she is the writer of The Ghost Wife? Or The Ghost Bride, I think, which I saw on Netflix. It’s a pretty good movie, but if I had, if I’d known this was a third? This was recognized, this was recommend-, recommended by my daughter, who is fluent in Chinese, although this is written in English.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: But she likes cult-, you know, Chinese culture. So The Fox Wife has got shapeshifters who, it’s, it’s an old part of Chinese fantasy, religion maybe?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: Of fox shapeshifters who are devious, just like in Western ideas of foxes. They’re tricksters.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: She’s like, I think it’s very interesting that they’re both – anyway, it’s about a female trickster whose – and this is not a romance; it does, I, I doubt it has a happy ending, so beware – whose child is killed, and so she goes out into the world to find the person who did this and get revenge. It’s an interesting mythos in and of itself. I just, and I’m really enjoying it.

Sarah: I have a recommend-, I have a recommendation for your daughter if they are, if they are super into Chinese history. It is called Jade Dragon Mountain, and it is a mystery. It is written by – it’s a series! It’s the Li Du series, and it is historical China –

Elizabeth: Uh-huh.

Sarah: – and Tibet in 1708. It’s in Kindle Unlimited, so if she has Kindle Unlimited, all good. It is about the imperial librarian in exile who goes to a border town, and there’s a murder, and he’s got to figure out who did it.

Elizabeth: That sounds like something I’d like. I don’t know if she reads that many mysteries. She reads a lot of nonfiction, actually.

Sarah: That might be up your street too.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Sarah: Everyone listening to this episode is going to be like, Sarah, enough books; I can’t add anymore books to my TBR. What are you doing? [Laughs]

Elizabeth: Well, how else do you find out about books, you know? Get recommendations. But yeah, mystery and history and a different culture? Yes, that’s –

Sarah: Sign me up!

Elizabeth: So the last thing I’ve got on here is something that I bet nobody in your readership is going to be interested in, but I think it’s funny. It’s called – are you ready for this? – A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland: with The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides by Samuel Johnson. This is Dr. Samuel Johnson, 1771.

Sarah: The Samuel Johnson of the dictionary.

Elizabeth: The, the, yeah. So he’s going to go to Scotland with his friend Boswell, who’s his good friend and ends up being his biographer. Boswell is actually, I think, an editor or something and tells Johnson, No, you don’t want to do that, because they’re just all savages – [laughs] – which I think is very funny.

Sarah: My dude! [Laughs]

Elizabeth: Yeah. They’re just all backwards savages. Even though at this point, I think Edinburgh’s becoming one of the world’s biggest medicine and science places, but whatever, Boswell. And so he starts touring Scotland. Turns out there’s a lot of poor people, but not speaking English! What the hell? [Laughs] They’re, sometimes he gets, as far as I can tell this man is touring Scotland without writing letters ahead. He just shows up and hopes somebody will take him in. And the aristocrats do! And then he complains about the food they give him.

[Laughter]

Sarah: You can’t complain about free food! That’s just wrong!

Elizabeth: I know! I know. He’s really funny. He’s on one of the islands, and they’re having, sounds like oat cakes; you know, unleavened –

Sarah: Yeah, oat cakes.

Elizabeth: …I find tasty. I’ve been to Scotland several times. No, he doesn’t like, it’s unleavened, it’s hard; don’t like that. He also thinks, I’m at the point now where he’s talking about the, the inhabitants, who are just lazy, because there’s no trees planted out there. [Laughs] Why haven’t they planted any trees on, I don’t know if it’s Isle of Skye or what, but you know – I think, I think Isle of Skye has trees. It’s one of the other ones where it’s barren probably since antiquity, if not forever, because there’s such winds coming across it?

Sarah: Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure! Trees aren’t going to grow very well.

Elizabeth: [Laughs] Yeah! He’s really funny!

Sarah: You’ve got to be a very specific kind of dude to complain about free food when you just show up on someone’s porch and be like, Hey! Can I sleep at your house?

Elizabeth: This, at one point he says Boswell tells them they need to get going ‘cause they’ve stayed too long – [laughs] – one place.

Sarah: Wow.

Elizabeth: Eating, eating them out of house and home.

Sarah: Well, I mean, they, they had prodigious appetites. [Laughs]

Elizabeth: Yeah. I think, but I think the, the host is, are actually enjoying him, because he was considered one of the most learned gentlemen of that age, you know.

Sarah: Yeah.

Elizabeth: So it’d be fun to have an exotic guest, I guess.

Sarah: Yep. And then his friend, who’s, like, totally obsessed with him. Yeah.

Elizabeth: Yeah. In a very normal way.

Sarah: Sure, absolutely, totally normal obsessive friendship. It happens. Like, you just travel –

Elizabeth: [Laughs]

Sarah: – travel around the world with this guy that you then, like, write about. Yeah.

Elizabeth: Have you read Boswell’s biography?

Sarah: I have read portions of it in class; we were doing analysis?

Elizabeth: Totally – he just worships him!

Sarah: He is so in, like – I don’t know if it’s platonic love or just regular old – he just loves this guy.

Elizabeth: Bro love. I don’t know.

Sarah: Guy love, between two guys! Yeah.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Normal guys.

Sarah: So –

Elizabeth: Guys who like England.

Sarah: A lot. And don’t like Scotland a lot.

Elizabeth: But they’re going to go see it. [Laughs]

Sarah: Thank you so much for doing this interview. This has been so much fun, and if you ever want to come back and just talk about historical romance, just email me. I would be delighted to just hit Record.

Elizabeth: I’d love to do that. I just love talking about these things, yeah.

Sarah: Oh, I will hit Record, and it is all you. You could just tell me all about the books you’ve read and how bonkers they were like. I would, actually, I would might, I might assign you a quest to find the most bonkers historical in your reading list. Like, what is the most –

Elizabeth: Oh, dude, I can do that. That’s easy. That’s Bertrice Small.

Sarah: Oh! Yes, it is!

Elizabeth: That’s an entire ‘nother podcast. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yes. Yes. Okay, so coming up in 2025, Elizabeth Hoyt’s going to come back, and we’re going to talk about Bertrice Small!

Thank you so much for doing this. Where can people find you if you wish to be found?

Elizabeth: They can find me at my email, Elizabeth@elizabethhoyt.com. For mental reasons, I am no longer on Twitter, X, Facebook, all the other platforms…

Sarah: You make good choices; you make real good choices.

Elizabeth: I, you know, I’m a lot happier for it. My website for the nonce is down, but it should be open by next week. We’re doing some changes. It’s elizabethhoyt.com. You can also find me there.

[outro]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you so much to Elizabeth Hoyt for making time in her schedule to talk to me. I had the best time, and yes, I’m going to ask her to come back and tell me more about historical romances. I hope you could tell how much I enjoyed that part. I really was having a great time, and I hope you enjoyed it too.

Fear not; I will have links to all of the books that she mentioned, unless they’re not in print. The Howard Pyle book might not be in print anymore, but I will link to all of them, never fear. I wrote them all down; I would never leave you hanging like that. And I will have links to Elizabeth Hoyt’s Pinterest boards, which are among the greatest Pinterest boards in the world, I think. They’re like really top five for me; they’re really fun.

I always end with a bad joke. Are you ready? This is truly awful, and you can bring it home to your family if you’re visiting family and friends for the holidays. You can tell them and tell me how much they hated it. Are you ready?

Why don’t you ever see Santa at the hospital?

Give up? Why don’t you see Santa at the hospital?

Because he has private elf care.

[Laughter] That one’s really bad, right? Super bad. That is from /dadsaysjokes. I hope you will tell me how much the people in your life hated that joke.

On behalf of myself and all of the cats in my office, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend, and we will see you back here next week.

[end of music]