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 The Taming of the Duke
Cristobel’s songs come from a wonderful collection of seductive verse: Bawdy Verse: A Pleasant Collection, edited by E. J. Burford and published by Penguin in 1982. The songs in his collection date from around 1400-1786; I judged some too wild for our delicate contemporary ears Josie distorts Shakespeare on page 113, as Annabel points out. She’s […]
Read More →Inside Kiss Me, Annabel
Annabel is the second of the Essex daughters to marry; her eldest sister Tess married in Much Ado About You. In that book we learned quite a lot about her husband, Lucius Felton, which explained precisely why he acts with such prompt generosity in this book. Lucius will always use his financial resources to find an […]
Read More →Inside Much Ado About You
After Much Ado was published, a reader named Ashley pointed out that Lucius Felton and Lucius Malfoy, from the Harry Potter series, seem quite similar in their overall appearance, “snake-like” qualities, and the fact that they both carry canes. She also noted that the actor who plays Lucius’s son, Draco, in the movies is named Tom Felton. […]
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 Ugly Duchess
The Ugly Duchess is based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, The Ugly Duckling—but that fairy tale wasn’t published until several years after the date of this novel. My excuse is that I’m operating in fairy tale time. I may not give my characters magic wands, but I claim the right to weave my own improbable illusions. The […]
Read More →Inside The Duke is Mine
The Duke is Mine is structured around the fairy tale of The Princess and the Pea. I started off writing the story happily enough (I love the scene when Olivia arrives in the middle of the night), but I quickly ran into trouble with that pea. How on earth was I going to maneuver Olivia in a room […]
Read More →Inside When Beauty Tamed the Beast
If you’ve never seen the Fox T.V. show, House, M.D., then you are missing a treat. It was while watching Hugh Laurie’s brilliant performance as an irascible, egotistical doctor that I started wondering what it would be like to be a doctor back in the 1800s—with just that same amount of self-assured arrogance. A bit […]
Read More →Inside A Kiss at Midnight
A Kiss at Midnight is based on the fairy story, “Cinderella.” My father, the poet Robert Bly, was always fascinated by fairy tales, and finally wrote the book Iron John (a rewriting of the fairy tale, “Iron John”), so in a sense it’s a family business. When my dad was working out the ideas behind […]
Read More →Inside A Duke of Her Own
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 This Duchess of Mine
This is the fifth book in the Desperate Duchess series. So, although it stands alone, some characters, such as the Duke of Villiers, appeared first in earlier books. Villiers’s story, A Duke of Her Own, is the sixth book in the series. Every book in the Desperate Duchess series opens with the party that closed the previous book. […]
Read More →Inside When the Duke Returns
This is the fourth book in the Desperate Duchess series. So, although it stands alone, a number of characters appeared first in earlier books, such as the Duke of Villiers, and the Duke and Duchess of Beaumont (Jemma and Elijah). Jemma’s story, This Duchess of Mine, is next in the series. Every book in the Desperate […]
Read More →Inside Duchess By Night
This is the third book in the Desperate Duchess series. Although it stands alone, there are a number of characters that appeared first in Desperate Duchesses, such as the Duke and Duchess of Beaumont (Jemma and Elijah). The Duchess series has a formal structure: each new book opens at the same party that closed the previous […]
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