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Alice Murphy Samples A Showgirl's Rules for Falling In Love
[00:00:00]
Katherine Grant: Welcome to the historical romance sampler podcast. I'm your host, Katherine Grant, and each week I introduce you to another amazing historical romance author. My guest reads a little sample of their work, and then we move into a free ranging interview. If you like these episodes, don't forget to subscribe to the historical romance sampler, wherever you listen to podcasts and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
Now let's get into this week's episode. I am super excited to be joined today by Alice Murphy. Alice Murphy is the pen name of a writer from the deep South. A university lecturer, a disability rights advocate, and a lover of classic Hollywood movies and cheese steaks, she also writes contemporary romance novels, television, and films under her given name.
Alice, I'm so excited to have you here with us today.
Alice Murphy: Thank you so much for having [00:01:00] me. I am such a huge fan of the podcast. I have found so many books from it, so I am absolutely delighted to be here.
Katherine Grant: Oh, I'm so glad to hear that. So you're reading for us a historical romance that is out this week.
A Showgirl's Rules for Falling In Love. So what should we know about the book and also about the little scene that you're gonna read for us?
Alice Murphy: Yeah, so a showgirls rules for falling in Love is actually, it's a dual timeline romance. So it's predominantly historical, but it has this really delicious contemporary romance sort of framing it.
So in the modern day we have a historian who is asked by a man to investigate what he thinks is kind of a torrid love affair that one of his ancestors has. He's like, you know, go back, do all the research and tell me if my great, great grandfather and this showgirl were really in love.
And so she does that. She digs through the historical records and she is actually the one who is writing the [00:02:00] historical romance portion. And that is, a showgirl who, you know, she's kind of this plus size, you know kind of starlet of the vaudeville scene slowly finds that she's getting less and less work, and so is her very diverse group of theater makers.
Because of conservative newspaper interests that are sort of attacking them as being, outside of the norm and not safe for " wholesome American eyes," you know? And so what she decides to do is she decides to seduce this theater Impresario who is opening this new big pleasure palace on 34th Street, and she's like, well, I'm gonna seduce him and I'm gonna make him, do everything I want.
Which includes hiring me and all of my friends to Star in his Vaudeville Spectacular. But of course, she thinks this is gonna be kind of a cut and dry business transaction. I'll give you what you want, which is me, and you'll gimme what I want, which is my career. And of course, they sort of unravel each other and, and fall in love.
We [00:03:00] know from the very beginning that these two characters don't end up together. They don't really have a happily ever after. But Phoebe, our historian in the present day, she has the pen and so she gets to decide how their love story ends, for everyone who's gonna read this story in the future.
And so this book is like a sort of fearless defense of the happily ever after and writing our own happily ever afters. And this scene I'm gonna read is where Thomas and Evelyn, our two historical figures meet for the very first time after he has just watched her on stage and she's blown him a kiss in the audience
'cause she knows that he's like rich, handsome man. And she's gonna try and hook him. So this is their first interaction where he comes to her dressing room to meet her for the first time.
Katherine Grant: Awesome. That's so exciting.
Alice Murphy: The man from the opera box was Thomas Gallier. She was certain of it. Sure, there might've been about 50 yards and a hell of a lot of stage light between them, but it was her job to know where her next meal could come from and if what she read in the [00:04:00] papers was true,
Thomas Gallier looked like a 12 course dinner. Blowing kisses was one of her signature moves. She didn't originate the practice, certainly, but she'd learned over time that men couldn't resist being singled out in a crowd. They all, without exception, had a pathological belief that they were somehow exceptional, an obsession with being the one and only chosen out of an endless stream.
So it didn't surprise her when there was a knock at her dressing room door. In fact, she was waiting for it, expecting it. She would've been disappointed, maybe even devastated if he hadn't come. " Hey Evelyn," a gruff voice stagehand called, "You've got a visitor." For a moment, she considered how to play this.
She'd entertained plenty of men in her dressing room before men who would go on to buy her furs, take her for dinner and dancing or to introduce her to other men who could get her booking. On those occasions, she played it all very cool, very coy, very refined, almost aloof. But lately those meetings took up less and less space on her social [00:05:00] calendar, and she couldn't remember the last time any of them had wanted to continue their dalliances in public. Of all the men she'd met, none of them had ever been in a position to help her quite like Thomas Gallier,
and considering the holes in her stockings and the sprawling emptiness of her future, she didn't have time for subtlety. "A handsome gentleman caller, I hope," she crooned. A beat of assessment from the other side of the door. "Eh, he is all right." Evelyn knew that wasn't true. Thomas Gallier was one of those rare creatures of the Manhattan jungle: a genuinely good looking man of means. Most wealthy men, Evelyn would characterize as interesting to look at.
They were fine enough on their own, but it was the gleam of gold watches and pearl cuff links that really made their features shine. Thomas Gallier, on the other hand, would've been the handsomest ditch digger just as easily as the handsomest millionaire.
There was a marble quality about his tall and built frame. His smooth features too were worthy of Michelangelo. [00:06:00] His dark hair hung slightly roguish across his forehead like a painting of a tempting devil. "Well, can the gentleman wait? I'm afraid I having a stitch of clothing on." A lie. With a robe thrown over her costume,
she was as close to fully dressed as she ever got backstage, but no harm in giving him a little bit to chew on before he entered her den. A moment later, she crossed the door and peeked it open, intending to only give him a brief look at her to heighten the suspense. Unfortunately, something infinitely more devastating occurred.
She realized he was even more handsome up close than from afar. A little tired maybe, but with crystalline green eyes that could make you believed he loved you and only you right there on the spot. The kind of handsome that made knees weak. The kind of handsome that could be very, very dangerous to a woman like her.
"Miss Cross, it's a pleasure to meet you." He started out innocently enough cordial, refined, even professional. That deep English accent of his didn't hurt matters. Then his eyes traveled down, [00:07:00] down, down the nearly bare curve of her shoulder and southward to more exotic locales. "The pleasure's all mine, Mr..."
"Gallier," he said, his eyes snapping up and his body coiling in that practiced rigidity so common in the higher quarters of society. "Thomas Gallier, that's right," she said ushering him in. "I think I read something about you in the papers." Gallier chuckled. Nice smile though she wasn't sure it was particularly genuine.
"I can assure you anything you're reading there is a pack of lies." "Oh, even the ladies column about you being, what was it? They called you A handsome man with a constraint of passion that leaps like flame into desire." "They wrote no such thing." "No, you're right. I must have read that in a book somewhere. But it describes you quite well.
You can understand my confusion." This was a dance she knew well, the steps so rehearsed she could do them in her sleep. She would flirt a little. He would assess her legs. In the year of our Lord 1897, if your legs held a man's attention, he was as good as [00:08:00] yours.
And then they would get down to the particulars of their exchange, her company for his help in a polite, roundabout way that left both of their consciences clean. But Thomas Gallier didn't fit the mold, not the way she wanted him to. Standing near the doors of waiting to bolt, he stood out like a gray rain cloud amidst her wardrobes, frilly feathers and pallette hues.
As a partner in this dance, he stumbled, never quite committing to her tempo or letting her lead. Strange that men were often so happy to be lured to their own destruction. Gallier cocked his head. "Do you think you're flattering me?" "Is it working?" "I can assure you it's not necessary." "Flattery isn't ever necessary Mr.
Gallier, but I find it's a bit like alcohol. Good for lubricating all sorts of interactions." Not her most subtle of approaches. The man cleared his throat and averted his gaze from her while taking sudden interest in a virginal white gown, dipped in red, hanging from her dressing screen. "Speaking of alcohol," she said [00:09:00] when it became clear he'd lost his words,
"maybe we could celebrate your visit with a glass of champagne." "I'm not one to drink." "Shall we sit then?" "I would prefer to stand." Damn him. Now he was making her stumble time for a new approach. "Well then, do you mind if I sit?" "By all means," he said flat, but polite. With his attention elsewhere, he freed Evelyn to situate herself on the chaise lounge stretched across the far wall.
"The long of the short of it is this, Miss cross," he began, still directing his speech at the gown instead of her. Did he know she'd once gotten a ticket for indecency for performing in that gown? Her writhing in the role of sensual Salome had popped one of the pearl buttons down the front, exposing her super structure to the entirety of the Atlantic City theater's audience.
Surely not, or he wouldn't have been trusting it to keep his eyes pure. "The Empire Theater is opening in three weeks. I've my pick of performers, mind you, and there's plenty of remarkable talent in the city. No doubt about it. [00:10:00] You should see them coming in and out all the time. Audition after audition, acts of the highest caliber."
"I have no doubt." His gaze flickered to the mirror, which lined the room's longest wall and gave a full view of everything he'd been unable to see with his back turned. His words fell out in a tumble then, rushing to end this interaction before he could fall into her trap.
Poor thing, didn't he know the only way to defeat temptation was to succumb? "But after some deliberation and a considerable amount of thought, I believe you would look just fine on the umpire's marquee, just fine. As I said, I've my pick of performers, so I won't be hardballed, but if you're interested, I could offer you a fair wage top billing.
And why are you sitting like that?" In a blur of a man, he turned on his heel to give her just what she'd wanted. His full attention. His full lustful, frustrated, attention focused squarely on her body, arms raised up over her head in a lazy repose.
She propped herself up on a pile of the chaise longue's pillows, so her [00:11:00] gorgeous breasts straining against her corset were the most pronounced part of her. Everything else from her bare wrists to her stocking clad legs were sprawled and open, ready to receive. She didn't flinch from his gaze. "Because I want you to see me sitting like this,"
she said. Wordlessly, his eyes traced her waiting form, then made the return trip back to her lips where they settled. "Miss cross?" That was a question. "Mr. Gallier?" That was an answer. "I've offered you what you want," he said, words shaking from some unseen effort deep inside of him. "You don't need to do this."
"In my experience, a man's promises aren't worth anything until after the glow of seduction is gone." It was the truth. Listening to lovesick Men was a hereditary sickness. A sin of the mother passed down one to which she would've never succumb. She needed something from him. She was going to do what she needed to get it.
Simple as that. If those facts bothered him, so be it. And indeed bother him [00:12:00] they did. He flinched. His face turned to stone. "Miss cross, I should like to make one thing perfectly clear. I do not mix business with pleasure no matter how much I may want to. Tomorrow, I will be at the Empire on 34th Street with my associate to see your act promptly at noon.
Is that understood?" She blinked. "Sure." "And one more thing." "Yes?" Maybe she imagined it, but she was certain the lines in his face softened just barely, just enough for her to notice, just enough to give her hope. "This isn't you. I don't know who exactly you are, but I do hope she shows up tomorrow instead of whoever this is." With nothing else to say,
the man departed. Evelyn listened to the sound of his footsteps carrying down the hall. Then she raced to the window to watch his figure eventually exit the theater below and enter awaiting carriage. It was only when that carriage disappeared into the sea of Manhattan streets that she finally slumped, letting her mask slip.
At first there was anger. How dare [00:13:00] he lecture her about who she was when they had only just met when he didn't have any idea of her life or her character? Outside of a few moments on the stage, she was used to patronizing men, but somehow Thomas Gallier's condescension, particularly stung. But it wasn't just his condescension,
she realized, looking up at that cursed Banting's advertisement now lit by a pair of spotlights in the night, because under her anger there was pain.
He didn't want you.
That pain said he rejected you because he didn't want you just like everyone else in the city lately. She reexamined every moment of their encounter, scanning for anything she'd done wrong, any missteps she'd taken, but it all kept coming back to that little insecure thought.
He didn't want you.
That was until she remembered something, something she'd missed during that first run of their little drama. Something that made her think all hope wasn't lost for him, for them. After all, "I do not mix business with pleasure," he'd said, [00:14:00] "no matter how I may want to."
Katherine Grant: ooh, that was so tantalizing. Thank you. I'm so glad you enjoyed. Absolutely. I did. There was so much there. I have a million questions for you but first we're gonna take a quick break for our sponsors.
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Katherine Grant: I am back with Alice Murphy, who just read from [00:16:00] A Showgirl's Rules for Falling in Love, which is out this week. Super exciting. There's so much from this delicious scene that you read and then also from the background that you gave us on the book that I want to talk about.
I love that we have a starchy hero. Who doesn't love a starchy hero?
Alice Murphy: One of my favorites.
It's so great and I think the reason I love it and, and the reason that I love this pairing in particular. She's like very cynical and very like transactional in her relationships, which comes out of, you know, being a girl who grew up like in a theater world of men. Like she knows what she has to do to get what she wants.
And he's also like very controlled and very rigid and he's just a man who's wrapped up in a little tense ball of self denial. And the best thing about putting those two people together is because he doesn't buy kind of her bs, she has to kind of become a more true version of herself for him [00:17:00] and because she is like relentlessly trying to get him to
kind of give in to desire that she knows he clearly has, he becomes a more true version of himself. You know, he, he lets loose, he kind of gives into things he wants more. There's a scene where they go to Coney Island and she buys some cracker Jacks and he's like, I can't remember the last time I ate something just for the pleasure of it.
And I think that's what's beautiful about romance and the thing that I love about romance the most is watching two people become more true versions of themselves because of what the other person brings to the relationship. And that's what, that's what I think makes Thomas and Evelyn just such a fun couple to read and certainly a fun couple to write.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. Yeah. And so you developed these characters because you are the author of this book, however, your other character, you said her name was Phoebe, she fictionally developed these [00:18:00] characters and wrote this, yeah. This story. So how, how was that for you in terms of your writing process and then in terms of, you know, I'm assuming Phoebe is not a complete self insert of you, so, so differentiating how Phoebe related to the characters versus how you relate to the characters.
Alice Murphy: Yeah, so that's one of the things that I love the most about the frame story is, you know, Phoebe starts to fall in love with Armitage, who's the guy who was hired her to do this research and he doesn't anticipate she's gonna write a book about it. And so the kind of knockout, drag out fight they have at the end is he's like, this is my family's legacy.
Like I'm a public figure. You can't just like write a book about this. And she's like, well, it's not fair. If I don't publish this, then they're gonna be lost forever. And I don't want that for them. And I care about these figures from the past that we've all kind of erased and forgotten not just Thomas and Evelyn, but
[00:19:00] evelyn's diverse group of theater friends. And so when I was writing Phoebe writing this history, it was all about teasing out the parallels. So, the things that she might've wanted from Armitage that she didn't get, she gives to Evelyn via Thomas. And the version of her that she wishes she was, because she's not as confident as Evelyn, she doesn't say what she wants as much as Evelyn.
She kind of gets to live out her fantasies of being that person through fictionalizing this history. And then of course there's the Happily Ever After Element, which she ultimately does give to Thomas and Evelyn in, I would say spectacular form. It's like if you love that like kind of big last scene of Moulin Rouge, like where all everything hits the fan I think you're gonna like the ending.
So it, it was, for me, it was all about, because I don't actually really see much of myself in either of these characters. So it was really about, I [00:20:00] think Phoebe is the core because Phoebe then projects everything about herself, her relationship, onto Thomas and Evelyn while still incorporating these like, quote unquote historical facts about their relationship.
Katherine Grant: Did you write Evelyn and Thomas's story and then Phoebe and Armitage's story?
Alice Murphy: So this is actually one of those fun editing things. So I had an amazing editor named Erin McClary who, when I brought the book to Union Square and they decided they wanted to buy it there was actually only one chapter of Armitage and Phoebe, and it happens like right at the end, and it was like 30 pages long.
It was sort of like, you know, like when you read a Fanfic and it's like five times she said no. And one time she said yes. Right? And it's like these little, like micro scenes of a relationship. That's sort of what it was. So Phoebe narrated throughout the whole thing, but then she only got one chapter and Erin McClary was like, I don't think that's the strongest choice for this book.
I [00:21:00] think you need to have them throughout. I think you really want people to care about these two because that's what makes ultimately Phoebe deciding to rewrite the ending. Because we wanna care about the way the ending goes, we need to have more of them. So it was a really big kind of restructure lift to then implant more of Phoebe and Armitage throughout the story and kind of bolster that historical narrative.
Katherine Grant: So that's very interesting. So I can really relate to this idea of like family genealogy and you discover like, is there this scandal or whatever because my family is
very into genealogy and there are many different scandals that I'm like, I want to research that. So at what point did you come to this story inspired to write with a modern narrator, bringing the modern gaze onto the historical? Mm-hmm. Or did you kind of find that as you were writing because you were already, were interested in this period?
Alice Murphy: So it was weird when I first. I was really into, I was very contemporary brained because [00:22:00] I love historicals, but I was very intimidated by writing a historical, and so originally what I was going to do was, you know, this book is inspired by a real life vaudeville troupe called Billy Watson's "Beef Trust," which was a group of dancers all over 200 pounds.
And I was like, that's such a cool entry point for a story. But again. Historicals were scary. So I was like, not gonna do that. So the idea was originally it was going to be almost like Julia and Julia, you know the book about like the woman who does all the Julia Child recipes. And so it was gonna be a modern day kind of romantic coming of age story about a woman who does like burlesque classes through the lens of this Billy Watson "Beef Trust."
And then like around the same time as I had that idea, a lot of people were writing sort of contemporary, growing into your own self-confidence narratives and as like a plus size woman, I was just sort of like, I don't know if, I think we've had enough of [00:23:00] those, I think, and I didn't know of a way to crack it that felt unique and like really relevant and important in this
current moment. So then I was like, you know what? It's time. We're gonna do the historical thing and that's just gonna be what it is, and if it fails, then you failed and you're in the same place you are right now, so maybe you'll succeed. Who knows? And so I started to write the historical narrative.
And what ended up happening was, as I was researching, I just realized that a lot of what we have been taught about these historical time periods is extremely conservative, extremely white, extremely heteronormative.
Totally ignores the contributions of disabled people, and the queer community, and certainly people of color. And this particular moment of history was an inflection point where we had had kind of a liberalizing force. And vaudeville was a huge part of that because then you had these very diverse performers who traveled the country and brought new ideas to these smaller American communities. And then [00:24:00] the backlash to that came with these very regressive newspaper interests who then turned their power against these marginalized communities. And what I had found when I was kind of coming up as a historical romance reader, like I, I first fell in love with historical romance through like Alyssa Cole's books, for example, an extraordinary union.
And what I found they really came up against, you know, you know, Vanessa Riley's had this, Piper Huguley's had this, you know, Courtney Milan, like, they have all talked very candidly about how readers will contact them and be like, your happily ever after is impossible. It's not historically accurate. Your books are, you know, historical fantasy basically.
And no matter how much they would correct the record and be like, no, here are my source here. Here's a huge blog post about where I got this history from. People would still just contend with them and say, you know, this isn't real. [00:25:00] This isn't right. Because they have a conception of history rather than a truth of history.
And so, you know, one of my favorite expressions is some philosophical problems or debates should be dissolved rather than resolved. And so when you realize that people who have these historical blind spots, there is nothing you can say to convince them that this is the truth. They don't want the truth, they want the narrative.
And so what I decided was, I actually don't care if you believe it's historically accurate, but someone is gonna tell you it's historically accurate. And so what I did was I invented Phoebe as an authority figure who comes in and says like, these are the historical facts. This is the historical record, and here's how I'm fictionalizing it.
I wanted a book that contended with both aspects of that debate and ultimately comes on the side of, I don't care. I don't care what you think about the history or how [00:26:00] I present it because I am also developing my own narrative, right? If regressive forces can do it, then so can I, and mine is gonna be closer to the truth.
But it's also gonna be a celebration of joy and of community and solidarity and fighting to move our culture and society forward.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. Well it also sounds like since she decides to give them a happily ever after, she also represents the part that kind of gets left out in those like high quote unquote debates. Mm-hmm. Which is that none of us are writing nonfiction. Yes, we are all writing fiction. And so yes, it is. Fantasy.
Fantasy, meaning we are all inventing this. And so some of it is more pulled from true history and some of it is more pulled from genre history and some of it is just pulled from our, you know if you wanna talk about a collective consciousness or a muse or whatever. Mm-hmm. Like we're allowed to write whatever we want in our books, and you can [00:27:00] enjoy them whether they're historically accurate or not.
Exactly. All right, well okay. I have one more question for you before we do love it or leave it. In your research did you discover anything about how the conception of body image and whether it has changed or not changed since 1897?
Alice Murphy: Yeah, absolutely. At this particular moment in history, in like the 1870 to early 1890s, you had a much more celebratory image of the plus size woman in particular because it was a sign of immigrant success, right. You know, there's this idea of kind of the, the shivering, huddled masses coming off at Ellis Island, starving and oppressed and thin, emaciated, whatever.
And then the contrast to that is, well, you come to America and you are successful and then you are able to feed your children and then your daughter [00:28:00] is like beautiful and buxom and healthy and she glows. And you know, there was like this kind of famous thing about, I think it was President Garfield, I'm not sure.
Where they always celebrated the fact that like his favorite food was beef and he looked so healthy and prosperous and it was a celebration of like the kind of conception we have of America as the land of plenty and the place of opportunity and you can grow and succeed here and come from a land of starvation and then be in a place of bounty.
And then there was a series of economic panics in the late 1890s that contributed to very anti-immigrant rhetoric, particularly in the newspapers. Which then they kind of reframed fatness as a sort of like the idea of like welfare queens, like these immigrants come to this country and they take our jobs and then they're fat and lazy and they don't contribute.
And it almost overnight totally shifted via [00:29:00] propaganda to like the demonization of the fat body. Which is how, you know, you get like. The Gibson girls, which was like a turn of the century kind of fashion ideal of like very slim, very slender very like quote unquote "American ideal." And that really fascinated me was how the fear of the other intertwined with economic panic and the need
to put the blame on someone who was not a rich robber baron, who was really the problem, not the immigrants who were hardworking and, and here to make better lives for themselves. You know, that need to protect wealthy interests and find a scapegoat ultimately really did you know, color our perception of
fat bodies, and we even see it today, you know, when recessions happen thin bodies get much more celebrated. We see it currently on like, quote unquote "skinny tok." You can really tell how the economy is doing based on how we feel about plus size women in particular or plus size female [00:30:00] presenting bodies.
So yeah, it certainly is, it was not only interesting to discover that, but then to watch the cycle in motion.
Katherine Grant: That's really interesting to to know that this is a cycle through history.
So I knew that there was anti-immigrant rhetoric back in the 1890s and that it's been cyclical or whatever. I had no idea that anti-immigrant rhetoric is also linked to how we as a society generally think about bodies. Mm-hmm.
Alice Murphy: Exactly.
Katherine Grant: All right. Well, I think it's time to play. Love it or leave it.
[Musical Interlude]
Katherine Grant: Do you love it or leave it? Protagonists meet in the first 10% of the novel.
Alice Murphy: Love it.
Katherine Grant: Love it or leave it? Dual point of view, narration.
Alice Murphy: I love it and you'll find it in a showgirls Rules for falling in love.
Katherine Grant: Yay. Love it or leave it? Third person, past tense.
Alice Murphy: I love it. Also, here we are. Well this one's actually interesting 'cause it has both. It has a first [00:31:00] person past and it has a third person past.
So very fun.
Katherine Grant: Hmm. In your contemporaries, are you first person present?
Alice Murphy: No, it depends. So sometimes I do third person past, sometimes I do first person past. I have trouble with present tense. Just 'cause I'm not good at writing it. So I almost never, I almost never use it.
Katherine Grant: Fair.
Fair. All right. Do you love it or leave it? Third act breakup or dark moments?
Alice Murphy: Absolutely, yes. You don't even have to finish the question. I am here to feel bad and then feel great. I love, I love it when books make me feel things and I think. You know, my husband always looks at me and he's like, are you crying right now?
Like, what, what bad thing is happening in the book? And I'm like, no, I'm crying because they got everything they wanted. And like the struggle is what makes that getting everything they wanted. Just like the best cry in the world. So yeah, I love a third act breakup or dark moment. You can pry it from a cold, dead hands.
If the third act breakup has no fans, then I am gone from this earth.
Katherine Grant: All right. [00:32:00] Love it or leave it? Always end with an epilogue.
Alice Murphy: No, don't, no, leave it.
Katherine Grant: All right. Love it or leave it? Always share research in your author's note.
Alice Murphy: I love it, but I
don't think I did it. I think I mentioned in my author's note, I put, I have an author's note on my website.
And then in my acknowledgement at the end of the book, I kind of a thank you to a lot of these sort of forgotten vaudeville figures, you know, and I thanked them for like, not only their contributes the contributions to the art form, but also to what they brought to the book.
But I, I haven't. I have a huge document. I think it's like 30 pages long that I guess I could share with people, but I don't think they'd want to read it. So I guess make it a newsletter bonus. Exactly. A love it and leave it, I suppose for that one.
Katherine Grant: Alright.
And finally, are there any romance rules I didn't ask about that you like to break or push boundaries on?
Alice Murphy: I mean, I guess [00:33:00] I, we probably should put a spoiler tag on this episode 'cause the twist of the HEA is like the biggest twist in this book. But I think, you know, when I first brought this book to my agent, my first question was like, do you think this book has an HEA? And she was like, no, it definitely does.
Like, 'cause they do the rewrite. But it has been, you know, interestingly controversial 'cause a lot of people are like, well, it's not a real HEA and my response is, none of this is real. It's all made up. But I, I do think this book really grapples with the HEA as a concept. But I think it leaves people feeling like they've gotten one.
So yeah, spoilers a bound everybody. Sorry, it's too late to let you know now. But yeah, the HEA.
Katherine Grant: Alright, well that is a really big one to play with, but I'm actually very excited that you did. I think we always need to play with rules to see are they still, you know, worthwhile and what do they serve the art form and, and all of that, so.
Alice Murphy: Mm-hmm.
Katherine Grant: So, yeah. Thank [00:34:00] you. We're gonna have to wrap up even though I feel like I could ask you another million questions. So a showgirls Rules for Falling in Love is out on May 13th. And where can readers find the book? And also where can readers find you?
Alice Murphy: You can find me at Alice Murphy books on Instagram and Alice Murphy books.com.
You can find the book anywhere fine books are sold. Please support your local indie booksellers and you know, I think the audio book is supposed to come out soon as well. So if you're an audio girly, we have a great reader. And yeah, you can find it
anywhere books are sold.
Katherine Grant: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Alice, for coming on.
This has been a real delight.
Alice Murphy: It has been amazing. Thank you so much. And thank you
to all the listeners out there. All my fellow historical romance sampler listeners!
That's it for this week! Don't forget to subscribe to the Historical Romance Sampler wherever you listen, and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Until next week, happy [00:35:00] reading!