Naturally, she also once had a girlhood crush on him.
See the cover below and then read on for a sneak peek of her next book.
Its vaguely about two families that have a tragedy in the past.
Credit: Grand Central Publishing
They were once good friends.
The arc of the series is healing that wound.
Is that present?No, no.
Grand Central Publishing
I thought about that for about a second.
In this book, you have a secret order of Wise Women.
Why do you keep returning to them?I dont know.
The Lords of Chaos, that came out of, this sounds awful, but the wholePenn State thing.
That seems so over the top and ridiculous that such famous men could have hidden something so atrocious.
Thats happened before, and it will probably happen again.
After that, you have to find something else, and this is a little bit hard.
So I thought of a whole secret society of bad guys.
With the women, its almost a flipped thing.
I used to love to read stories where the heroes were Knight Templars.
Well, this is the heroine, and theyre part of this empowering feminine group.
It has to be secret because at the time politically that wouldnt work.
Were you inspired by any actual secret societies in Georgian or Regency England?Not for the women.
So, that part is historically accurate and currently accurate.
I dont know of any female societies.
Although now they think they werent as bad as they thought they were.
Their reputation was worse than reality.
Im thinking specifically of Raphaels past inDuke of Desire, but that seems to be present here as well.
Why do you gravitate towards this darkness?The stakes are higher if you have an emotional well there.
Then, it gives gravitas and it gives sympathy to the characters if theyve been hurt terribly.
And have children and be a dukes daughter.
But that all exploded around her.
So a lot of this is about grief, about losing that.
My books are more about family.
We need it, and we can get that.
Its hopeful, and we can heal our wounds and live happily ever after.
My mother, actually all the women in my family are very strong people.
Fortunately, weve gotten past that.
He has to match her.
And if shes really weak, hes going to just run right over her and who wants that?
I like a clash of wills.
I like people who are equally strong.
I think its sexy.
Its kind of like foreplay a lot of the time.
Because most of what people read are Regencies, and the Regency model was Georgette Heyer and Jane Austen.
People assume that thats the only way people were.
First of all Im writing in the Georgian period which was a little bit more wild.
Society didnt quite have these really cut and dry rules.
Sometimes I wonder how cut and dry those were, even in the Regency era.
It makes me think.
Thats not quite true.
Its a law.It may not be a good law.
But people would be assuming everyone is doing that.
[Laughs] This is terrible.
Its one of the first widely distributed pornography books.
They were really quite lovely.
The other thing I thought was really funny was, theyre totally nude but theyre both wearing wigs.
Is there something you loved about writing the book?
Or a particular challenge?I really loved the heroine.
She kind of reflected my emotions for the last year because of politics and the world.
She starts the book with a burn-it-all-down attitude.
That was fun to write.
The hero was just kind of like, Is she insane?
Why is she so angry?
Of course he doesnt recognize her.
I was having a really hard time with the conflict between these two.
It comes down to choice for her, which I think is very appropriate for our time period.
Even now in 2018, I think theres a little bit of that thats still true.
Im hoping not to make it too academic because thats never fun but I like that as a conflict.
At this particular moment, romance is doing some long-needed grappling with issues of diversity and inclusivity.
I havent done a main hero or heroine, simply because Im a white middle-aged lady.
I dont feel like I could necessarily give voice to that person well enough.
But I have done secondary characters.
Acknowledging that there were Jewish people, there were black people certainly, and all these other people.
London at this time period was a world city.
There were people from all over there.
They werent necessarily widespread, but they were there.
So theres that acknowledge that there are more people than just WASPs in the world.
Sit with them at the conference without getting up.
I cant believe that was a thing.
There are people out there who just do not get it.
We, who are the majority, need to check that that we acknowledge that we have peers.
Its not a patronizing thing.
Its that these people are equal to us, and theyre out there.
