Extras: The Inside Take
This is where I tell you interesting connections between characters as well as cool historical facts that you might enjoy. But do be aware that these are written for people who have already read each book; the outcome of the books are no secret. Please do not read any of The Inside Take posts if you're wary of knowing who is paired with whom!
Inside Winning the Wallflower
When I was in middle school, I was a wallflower, though we didn’t use the word. At that point there were only two or three boys taller than me in the class, and I was mortified. It was actually quite cathartic to give my mortification to Lucy, and then bestow her with a fortune (and […]
Read More →Inside Storming the Castle
I’m the kind of writer who can’t seem to think in terms of one book: I invariably design a world that takes up three or four books. This leads to a virtual web of connections between my books. So what I offer below is something of a family tree, a way of chasing the characters […]
Read More →Inside The Lady Most Willing…
Connie, Julia, and I had so much fun writing this book. We met in New York City and hashed out the parameters of our plots. Then later we holed up in a Seattle hotel, and wrote like crazy, sharing our ideas and characters. I think the joy we had writing together—as great friends—came across on […]
Read More →Inside The Lady Most Likely…
Everybody wants to know how Julia and Connie and I came up with this idea…honestly, I can’t remember exactly. At some point Julia and I realized that it would be great fun to go away together and write a book. We needed to add another writer whose work we not only admired, but whose voice would mesh with ours. […]
Read More →Inside Enchanting Pleasures
The Pleasures Trilogy should be read in this order: Potent Pleasures, Midnight Pleasures, Enchanting Pleasures. Update from 2014: A neurologist (and reader) named Nancy wrote me with some fascinating information that explains the footnote in Dr. Oliver Sacks’s book regarding sex and migraines, which inspired Quill’s dilemma. Apparently, it is an orgasm that triggers headaches in coital […]
Read More →Inside Midnight Pleasures
The Pleasures Trilogy should be read in this order: Potent Pleasures, Midnight Pleasures, Enchanting Pleasures. Sophie came out of my conviction that Regency misses were not all that missish (if so, there wouldn’t have been a nearly 40% pregnancy rate upon marriage during the period, which there was). So Sophie is a regency Bad Girl! as the song […]
Read More →Inside Potent Pleasures
The Pleasures Trilogy should be read in this order: Potent Pleasures, Midnight Pleasures, Enchanting Pleasures. This trilogy began as a duet: the tales of two girlfriends, Charlotte (Potent Pleasures) and Sophie (Midnight Pleasures). I started writing Potent Pleasures when I was on sabbatical from my job (being a Shakespeare professor). I worked on my academic book during the […]
Read More →Inside Your Wicked Ways
My heroine, Helene, decides to cut off all her hair. She employs the same hairdresser used by Charlotte in my very first book, Potent Pleasures! I adore Cinderella makeovers and have to stop myself from putting a version in every novel. I got the idea to open the book with a chapter of letters from a […]
Read More →Inside A Wild Pursuit
Sebastian’s mother originally began as a truly tough, nasty character (I wrote Sebastian’s visit with his mother, now Chapter Six, first). But I’m not much good at writing truly villainous types – and how did Sebastian become so great if his mother was a true horror? – so before I noticed it, she wiggled her […]
Read More →Inside Fool For Love
The Duchess quartet should be read in this order: Duchess in Love, Fool for Love, A Wild Pursuit, Your Wicked Ways. I wanted Simon to be a challenge: a man who wore lace, appeared to be without any money, and had no title. Thus he was a man who had none of the obvious testosterone markers that signal HERO to […]
Read More →Inside Duchess in Love
If you’d like to see more of Carola, read the novella “A Fool Again.” Since this book takes place after Duchess in Love, Carola and Tuppy are happily married. Tuppy doesn’t appear, because he’s off fishing, but Carola is happily knitting tiny booties! The Duchess quartet should be read in this order: Duchess in Love, Fool for Love, A Wild Pursuit, Your Wicked […]
Read More →Inside Pleasure for Pleasure
Josie’s sisters – Tess, Annabel, and Imogen – married in the three books that precede Pleasure for Pleasure. The proper order of the four books is: Much Ado About You, Kiss Me, Annabel, Taming of the Duke and, finally, Pleasure for Pleasure. But they read perfectly well out of order as well. Josie quotes the poet Andrew Marvell to Mayne, teasing […]
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