This podcast is a proud affiliate of Libro.fm. By clicking on this banner, we may earn a proceed of any purchases you make, in which case, we thank you very much!
Annabelle Anders Samples Hell's Belles
[00:00:00]
Katherine Grant: All right, I am super excited to be joined today by Annabelle Anders. Annabelle began publishing books in 2017 and left her day job a year later. Since then, she has published over 40 full length Regency romance novels, with one of them receiving the Distinguished RITA nomination in 2019. She also wrote a [00:01:00] novella in our collaborative series, The Scandals and Scoundrels of Drury Lane.
Annabelle writes at her home in the small town of Grand Junction, Colorado, with the help of her two miniature dachshunds and husband of 30 years. She is happy to have finally found her place in life as a writer. Annabelle, thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm really excited to get to sit down and pick your brain.
What's left of it these days. So you're reading for us from Hell's Belles. What do we need to know before we jump into the scene?
Annabelle Anders: So while I was writing this book my glasses kept breaking and it made its way into the story. And so my hero is she is the ultimate blue stocking and, and my hero is one of the biggest man whores I've ever written.
So they're driving out to a house party. He had to climb in the carriage because it started [00:02:00] raining and they've arrived at the estate and everybody's climbing out of the carriage. And so that's where the scene is, is going to start at.
Katherine Grant: Awesome.
Annabelle Anders: Okay. As the doorway cleared, he gestured to Miss Goodnight to precede him. Her brown eyes flew wide open, as though she'd not expected gallantry. Even with the blasted spectacles, he noticed her eyes now. She rose, crouched over, and edged sideways to make her way past him.
Just as she did so, the carriage jostled, and with nothing to grasp to regain her balance, she tumbled onto his lap, dropping her bag onto the floor. "My apologies, my lord." Her breath fanned against his throat as she gasped her regrets. Despite all her bristle and intellectual outrage, she was still a woman.
Marcus couldn't possibly ignore this fact with her squirming around on his lap. Soft bum, tiny waist, he not considered before what she hid beneath her petticoats and drab dresses. For one outrageous second, he imagined what her thighs would feel like wrapped around his waist. The tender skin between a lady's legs [00:03:00] never failed to arouse him.
When she pulled back to peer up at him, Marcus had to blink himself back to reality. Except, one of her eyes looked perfectly normal, but the other was hugely magnified behind the remaining lens. The glass had fallen out again. A little freakish, to be sure, but she also appeared adorably confused and more than a little lost.
Marcus couldn't help but laugh. Her face scrunched into a scowl, drawing even more hilarity from him. "Lord Blakely, I'm glad you find my handicap so amusing." She turned her attention to his shirt front. Lowering her face closer to it and her curious hands began searching his person. "It must be here somewhere."
It took him another moment to realize she wasn't so suddenly overcome with his masculine assets so much as to fondle him, but that she was searching frantically for her lens. Tiny fingers explored down his sternum, past the waist of his breeches. Good God, did the woman not know what she was doing? She dropped to the floor and now kneeled before him, her fingers probing still.
His [00:04:00] thighs. Around his lap. The seat. "Hold still, woman," he finally ground out. And then, crunch. "Oh no!" She froze. Apparently she'd forgotten all manners, all sense of social boundaries. As one of her hands rested on his no longer, well, uninterested. "It's moving." "Ah yes." Marcus wasn't sure whether he got to cover his face in mortification or turn the chit over his knees for a good spanking.
"Your mentula." "My what?" "It's er Latin," she mumbled, but hadn't yet withdrawn her hand. In fact, she appeared somewhat mesmerized, as though she'd like to investigate further. A swim in a frozen lake. Vomit. An unemptied chamber pot. It took all of Marcus's imagination in order to conjure images so that he could bring himself under control.
"You." His voice came out sounding strained nonetheless. "You crushed your lens. Have a care not to cut yourself." Gripping her elbow, he lifted her ever so carefully from the floor. That dazed look on her face finally twisted into horror. Marcus ignored it. Instead, he [00:05:00] bent over and retrieved what was left of the lens, all seven pieces of it.
"I'm afraid you'll have to locate that other pair, Miss Goodnight. This one's quite beyond repair." She'd begun scrambling around, collecting the books that had spilled from her bag. Mostly romantic drivel, he saw, except for Hell's Bells. Did her mother know the extent of this hoyden's reading? The memoirs of a woman of pleasure?
He could not quite make out the author before she hastily stuffed it into the worn but sturdy bag. "Can you see to walk with only one lens?" She seemed disoriented, but he wasn't sure if it was from her unanticipated examination of his mentula or her impaired vision. "I'm fine, quite fine." She refused to look in his direction, choosing instead to feel around the door in order to climb out.
When she did so, the sunlight reflected off the remaining lens in her spectacles and nearly blinded him. The sensation reminded him of when one of the boys at Eton had used a magnifying glass to torture insects. Marcus blinked and then, afraid she'd tumble to the pavement below, [00:06:00] grasped her by the waist until he was certain she'd exited safely.
Katherine Grant: That is a lovely spicy tension scene for us to, to want to know what happens when they get to the end of that carriage ride.
Annabelle Anders: It was, it was, it's funny how things from your life will make it into the books, and it was one of those times I seriously kept having a lens fall out of my glasses, and my husband kept fixing it, so it's kind of one of the themes is his caring about her having glasses, like he, one, that's one thing I like when you take a bad boy, and you have him doing something that's just really caring that you wouldn't expect.
So Marcus is always will be one of my favorite characters and Miss Emily Goodnight is definitely one of my favorite characters too. Cause she's just, they're both so far on their spectrum of blue stocking and rake. So
yeah, to bring them together is fun. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Katherine Grant: Well, I've got a lot of questions [00:07:00] and more to talk about with you, but first we're going to take a quick break for our sponsors.
Annie R McEwen: London, 1820, Amelia's hat shop in Chelsea, her dream, her life, a spark from a bonfire and all its ashes. Nothing left but one woman who's sick of lies, one man who's lying for love, one night it's all they've got. Is it enough? The Chelsea Milliner from Annie R. McEwen, available everywhere.
The Historical Romance Sampler podcast is a proud affiliate of libro. fm
libro. fm is a really cool audiobook retailer that offers the same selection of audiobooks at the same price that you would find at that other really big audiobook retailer. But instead of sending your money to a giant monopoly, your money with your purchase of Libro.
fm audiobooks goes back to the local bookstore of your choice. That way you can purchase [00:08:00] audiobooks but still support your local literary community.
Also Cool is their Kiss Club, which features romance audiobooks on sale every month.
If you're ready to sign up for Libro.Fm, I've got a good deal for you.
Using the code HISTORICAL, as in Historical Romance Sampler, sign up for a new membership and get three audiobooks for the price of one.
Check out the link in my show notes if you want more information. And now, back to the episode.
Katherine Grant: I am back with Annabelle Anders, who just read a sample from Hell's Bells, her Rita nominated novel. So one of the things that you mentioned before reading and also after is that marcus is I think the word you used was man whore? Yes. Do you find yourself attracted to specific types of characters?
Or is he one of the only man whores that you've written? How do you think about that when you're going to think about your collection?
Annabelle Anders: It's evolved for me definitely, depending on the trope. And as I change as [00:09:00] a person. So I realized now, even though he's a bit of a man whore, I think so many of my heroes are really marshmallow heroes.
I try to write the alpha holes and I just can't do it because I can't, I know that that is a thing that so many people like, but I just remember reading the old Harlequin romances, and of course they were all single POV so you never knew these guys and these guys seemed so mean and cold. And I mean, in some ways it was very romantic, but I got really tired of it at a young age.
So one thing that is kind of an interesting thing, I think about this book, but about Marcus in particular is in the first, couple chapters of the book, my heroine watches him with a widow. She watches how he functions in a ballroom. And then of course she goes and hides in the library.
And then he and the widow show up in that library. And I describe her watching him. [00:10:00] And my first editor had come to me and she used to work for trad publishing and she said, you can't have this scene in this book. It's a romance. You cannot have him with another woman. And I was like, Oh my God, but that's what the whole story is based on.
And I had written the whole book and I had a different friend who was doing indie publishing and I'm all indie now. And she said, Ann, you're writing an indie book. You write it however you want. And that was pretty freeing for me. And so, yeah, so, you know, that sometimes, you know, it's one thing I like to try to get in my book is some sort of scene that you just won't find in other scenes.
I like the characters where They might be saying one thing, but they're doing nice, sweet, loving things, kind of in the background or, you know, kind of comes out eventually. So they're almost lying to themselves and their actions are
telling. Yes.
Yes. They gotta be cool.
Katherine Grant: Well, so you mentioned that you used to read Harlequins. Who are some of the authors that have most influenced your writing or your career?
Annabelle Anders: [00:11:00] I never would be a writer if I weren't a reader first and definitely that would be Judy Blume when I was like a kid and I don't know if you've watched the documentary of her life as an artist.
Every author retreat I go to, I force the whole group to watch Judy Blume. If you get a chance to watch that documentary, it, it's just like, like just how much she affected people. But anyway, that pulled me into reading initially. And then, I've read contemporary for a long time, and my mom gave me a Mary Balogh book for Christmas probably around, like, 2010, 2011, and I read Mary Balogh's entire backlist.
I love her style of writing, and so much so that when I wrote my first book, I submitted it to publishers because that's what you were supposed to do at that point. The editor sent it back to me and I had totally written it in Mary Balogh style. It's like, there's like a past past sort of thing she gets going on and she's like,
you can't do this. And I was like, Oh, I was like, I guess I'm not Mary [00:12:00] Balogh. But definitely she pulled me in. And then, you know, Lisa Kleypas. And some Julianne Long , What I Did for a Duke, there's like a scene in that book that if you ever haven't read that book, it's just got this one scene that I, if you read it, you'll know what you would know is it's just so there's these nuances, I think, that are so key in historical romance, where they're saying things and they're doing different things.
And I'm trying to lean into that. It's tricky to try and, you know, when you're trying to produce a lot of books really fast, but I've kind of tried to slow down a little bit and lean into that sort of thing a little bit more.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. So speaking of, you have published 40 full novels, plus novellas, I know since 2017 and we're recording in 2024, so that's seven years.
So how do you stay inspired and curious enough to keep coming back to the page?
Annabelle Anders: Well, I have to be reading. Ironically, I have a [00:13:00] really hard time reading historical since I've been writing historical so long. I think it's my imposter syndrome where I'm just like, Oh, and I don't want to be using other people's ideas.
I, even though it doesn't, It shows up unintentionally. You'll be reading a book and you know, there's only so many scenarios you can have in historical and you, I find like that my, you know, I don't want to avoid a scenario because I read it in somebody else's. So I read a lot of contemporary, but I have to be reading in order to be writing.
I find if I get into a reading funk, it's harder for me to write. And I have to say, I wrote more in the beginning. I'd actually written three or four books before I got published. And when I, I bartended at the same time, I was bartending at a hotel here in town, and what was interesting about that was writing was my fun thing. It was my side thing and I would be driving to work thinking about my story. I'd be waiting on people writing down ideas about my story and slow times. And so [00:14:00] when I quit, I had to really make an adjustment because then suddenly writing is work.
And that has been a struggle. And so I say, I try to get my motivation from reading just other contemporary stories. And then I went to England in May, which was very inspiring. I have to say of all the books I've written set in England. I had been to England when I was 17 for about 12 hours.
It's like a stopover. So I really didn't know what England felt like. I went with Nicole Locke and Deb Marlowe and Virginia Heath showed us around, which was just magnificent. Amazing. She showed us around for, we, took us all around the Cotswolds and Bath and we met up with Kate Bateman and It's just so and a couple other authors over there.
It was just, it was amazing. And I came back. I was so inspired. I spent a week in Cornwall. So I had to put Cornwall in my book that I released after I got home, but it's been harder. I mean, I'll be honest, like going through hitting menopause as a person with ADHD, the last couple of years have been really, really [00:15:00] rough to just try to stay creative and keep producing especially as I'm doing it as a living but finally feeling like, and I'd gotten COVID a few times and there's like a COVID fog, but it's, it's kind of crazy.
Like I, one hand is like the waitressing was great. Cause I got all my footsteps in, I was like moving around all the time. But I hated having to work for someone else. Yeah. But you know, you know, writing is ultimately, it's a job when we do it and you have to figure out ways to keep everything functioning properly.
So absolutely. Yeah, no.
Katherine Grant: And something that stands out to me is I've spoken to some other authors who have also written, you know, dozens and dozens of books, but most of them have actually written different eras or genres and yours are 40 Regency romances. A lot like Mary Balogh. What is it about the Regency era that keeps you or are there other genres that, or other eras that you're interested in exploring and you just haven't [00:16:00] yet?
Annabelle Anders: Well, one thing I've totally slowly moved into the 1830s. Some people would arguably say that's, you know, but I feel like I'm kind of still in like, so their clothing has changed a little bit. I think it will be fun. Eventually I might, I probably will hit the Victorian age and get some trains going in there, a little more industry.
But part of it too, was I liked to, you know, I can switch from Victorian to Regency really easy as a reader, but I, I, I generally, if I'm not reading contemporary, I want to just read Regency. I don't know if that's my generation or what. I'm not, I have a hard time switching to like Edwardian or medieval.
I, I don't know what it is. I just love the, I love the Regency I don't know. Maybe it is just I'm so steep. I got, I literally read so many Mary Baloghs books over and over again. Yeah, I don't know what it was about her. It's a hard time in my life. And so it was a very comfort [00:17:00] escape for me. So I'm very attached to that, I think.
But also I don't want to jump around to a lot of different genres because I want my readers to kind of know what to expect when they're going to pick up one of my books. It's going to be set between 1815 and 1834, depending on when I wrote it. So yeah.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. I also got hooked into historical romance by Mary Balogh.
Annabelle Anders: Did you?
Katherine Grant: Yes. And there are two elements of her writing that I think really worked for me. One is, for the most part, Maybe not including her earliest stuff, but the stuff that I was reading, it's good people trying to do good things. Usually they're trying to honor their family in the best way possible.
And the conflict is which thing honors my family without making me unhappy, right? And then it's, it's also got this quality of like, like quiet moments rather [00:18:00] than big crazy things happening. Like, it's most likely that they're just going to have a dinner and yeah, maybe in the wildest one, someone gets kidnapped, but for the most part, it's just like.
Just like people living their little lives.
Annabelle Anders: Definitely, definitely like the later ones. There is a, man, she's got some of those earlier signet romances. They have some plots that it's just like, I'm like, oh my God, I can't. I was like, I don't know when those must have been written in the early eighties, but yeah, I definitely I, I'm with you on the
there is, there was a very quiet, a very slow burn aspect. And I really, I'm definitely turning into very much a slow burn author myself. I have a few books where it jumps right into the sexy sexies, but and I always will try to have spicy scenes in my books. But definitely slow burn has become more of a
a signature of mine, I'd say in the last couple of years. So yeah, I like the slow burn aspect at Mary Balogh except for there's that one [00:19:00] book where it starts where they're walking through the park and there's a storm and she hates the guy she's walking with and they end up going taking refuge in a like a little What are they called?
Little folly or something. Yeah, and they and to calm her down. Of course, they just he had sex with her But like then they don't talk to each other for like the next 70 percent of the book, you know It's like but it's no, it's very yeah, I like that just yeah, so it could go either way As far as yeah, so
Katherine Grant: yeah.
And when you think about these 40 books that you've written, do you feel that you can identify any common themes or questions or signatures that you have in your
work?
Annabelle Anders: Definitely. My best books always come back to the idea that the heroine thinks she's not good enough. Yeah. And I have a few books where I've written where they're more confident heroines, but I've never been a super confident person as far as a flirt or, you know, comfortable around,
like men and stuff like that to where I have [00:20:00] confidence in myself. And so the idea that as I like to take it, it's part of it is the hero falling in love with her. And part of that is what gives her the confidence, but a lot of it, I feel like she has to find that confidence from inside of herself.
And so that's kind of there's a, a song by
alanis Morissette. And it's called That I Would Be Good. Okay, like that, "that I would be good even if I did nothing that I would be good even if I got the thumbs down. I mean, it's just like if I were sick, if I gained 10 pounds," the whole notion of that, like the heroine is good enough, but everyone's told her her whole life made her think she's not good enough.
And so. The hero is a big part of it, but she has to realize that herself as well. So actually my current reading binge is women's fiction.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. Yeah. That's really interesting. And so you, you, you said that actually you read a lot of contemporary romance, then you got hooked into Mary, but when you decided to start [00:21:00] writing historical romance, what made it?
What drew you to writing historical?
Annabelle Anders: So I'm a person who likes baths and I'd be sitting in the bathtub and I'd be thinking, there's so many books covered the exact same thing it feels like over and over again. And I would think of different storylines that I would want to do and have something a little different happen in them.
And I was like, what if you took, and this is part of where I get from like contemporary, sometimes a contemporary twist, but you throw it at a historical character and you have them get there. And then when you research it, you find out it very much was a thing. One of my books called The Perfect Debutante is a book about the heroine is a cutter.
And people tend to either love this book or hate it. But, you know, I had a personal experience with it from a member of my family and I had to learn about it and, you know, I just, the more I learned about it, I was like, Oh, I've got to have a heroine this way. And so I kind of addressed it and, you know, [00:22:00] it so, so there are, there's things that seem like they're very modern things, but they go back.
If you go back and you actually research it, not very much, you know, we're human. So a lot of this stuff is just happening over and over again.
Katherine Grant: Yeah, yeah. And so I, on a more fun research note, I heard the, in your scene, she has the Latin word, mentula. And I was like, okay, so that means you had to look up. Oh yeah.
What did they call it in Latin? So, tell me more about your research process in general for your books.
Annabelle Anders: My research process. So I. You know, it's really changed because I have always been a pantser and I think when I had time to really meditate on every story more, I was able to keep. And so
my research ends up being, I will get to a certain problem or a certain event in one [00:23:00] of my books and think, Oh, I need to see if this is even a thing. And then I fall down a rabbit hole. And there's been times where it kind of will direct so much of what ends up happening in that story. But I like to first think about how the hero and heroine are going to meet.
I'm big on having them meet in the first chapter because I don't like to wait several chapters to see the characters together. So I'm not a very patient person. Although, although I have to say in like one of Mary, Mary Balogh's last series, they, she had so much backstory in the first like 40 pages and I was reading it and I was thinking only she can get away with this because I trust her.
And I kept reading and that was so, and you know which one I'm talking about, it's her most recent series. Yeah. And I kept reading it. Yeah. Yeah. And in the. At the end of that 40 or 50 pages that I read, I realized that she'd set up that entire series with all that backstory, but I had to trust her to get through it.
Cause normally I would not [00:24:00] trust a book that I started reading that had them apart that, that long. So yeah, so generally I do a meet cute and then I have an idea, I think more in terms, I had been thinking more in terms of tropes after I wrote my first series because my first series was no tropes at all.
I wrote not knowing what you're supposed to be doing as a writer, which is a great thing. I think it's a great thing because then I learned. But that's really hard to market in, you know, like people really like tropes, but what, what, when you don't have a trope in your book, like you just came up with something wild and those books are some of my funnest books.
But as I started writing more, I did kind of lean more into tropes. So I have tropes. I'll have ideas of how to go about the tropes. I did kind of my last couple of series of kind of have overarching threads, kind of mysteries and you know, Which is fun, but, but harder to write and be leaning into your tropes in the romances as much.
So I definitely plan for in 2025, I'm going to be more as far as just family [00:25:00] connections, if, if they're, if they're in a series so that I can lean more into the relationship, more lean into the character's growth. And that's a part of just me as a person changing the way I look at it. So it really is kind of amazing how much, you know, and that's why any author that I read kind of, I like to try to read their first books first and then kind of see where they go as they've grown.
I am a binger when I find an author that I like, man, I'll just read all of them. So,
Katherine Grant: yeah, no, I agree. As, as much as we are writing as part of our living, it is also like we're compelled to write, not because it's such a lucrative business, but because it is, you know, part of the way that we exist in the world and make sense of the world.
And so naturally, the way that we orient towards the writing and the way that we use the writing and the way that we need to write changes as we change.
Annabelle Anders: Right. You still, I mean, you have to feel it. That's the whole thing. And I mean, I, Even, you know, like, even like writing the tropes and like, I put out a ton of books, I think it was in [00:26:00] 2020, where I totally burned myself out, man.
And and I try to, I've just tried to go back to where I'm trying to lean into each book. I'm not setting myself such fast deadlines. And just trying to, lean into each scene and enjoy each scene more. When you're just kind of trying to write, write, write, write, write I feel like sometimes, you know, I go back and I'm like, oh, still it's, it's what I wanted to write.
But sometimes I'm just like, I'm not feeling it as much, and I want to feel it more for my own sanity.
Katherine Grant: Yes.
Annabelle Anders: Yeah. I don't know if that makes any sense. That makes
Katherine Grant: total
Annabelle Anders: sense to me.
Katherine Grant: So. Yeah. Well, I think it's a good time to move to our game, love it or leave it.
[Musical Interlude]
Katherine Grant: Okay. Love it or leave it. We kind of already know the answer to this one, but I'll ask you. Love it or leave it, protagonists meet in the first 10 percent of the novel.
Annabelle Anders: Definitely. Definitely. Yep.
Katherine Grant: Love it. [00:27:00] Love it or leave it. Dual point of view narration.
Annabelle Anders: Yes. Love it. Love it. I love to read, but I got to say, since I've been reading these women's fiction books so much, those are single POV.
I think it's harder to stay in single POV as a writer. Because sometimes you want to get something across. It's a lot easier if you jump to the other male, female POV you. Which also part of the reason I like that, like initially I read all those Harlequins, where you never knew what the guy was thinking until the last three pages of the book, where he finally admits that he loves her.
You know, I really want to see that relationship more. I think you see it more from both sides, especially in straight up romance when you have dual POV. So love dual POV.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. All right. Love it or leave it. Third person past tense.
Annabelle Anders: I think historical has to be third person past tense. I, as a contemporary reader, really tossed around the idea of doing first person I've written some first [00:28:00] person contemporary novellas that were past or present tense.
And the hard thing is when you go back to third, it's really hard to stay in one of them. But I feel like with historical, the way we're setting up the world, especially in Regency, there's a formality to it. And I don't know, like, about younger readers, if they would be more open to, to the first person, I do feel like having written some and reading a lot in first person, it causes me to get a deeper third person.
Like I do want to have a deeper third person, past tense POV. And I, I like, you know, just, just really trying to still make the reader feel like they're in my heroine's brain.
Katherine Grant: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. All
right. Love it or leave it third act breakup or dark moment.
Annabelle Anders: Hmm. I think in historical. You kind of got to love it.
I know there's a lot of contemporary books out there that are kind of [00:29:00] abandoning that. I've had some that are close to not having the black moment. I hate when the black moment, it cannot just be a misunderstanding. Because it drives me bonkers. I, my sense of reality cannot withstand that. But I do like to have something that pulls them apart and then they both have to make a strong decision to be back together.
And that kind of completes their character growth to that point. But yeah, so for me, I have to say love it.
Katherine Grant: All right. Love it or leave
it.
Always end with an epilogue.
Annabelle Anders: I know readers love it. And when I don't do it, I get in trouble. I, when I read a book, I, once the characters get together, I kind of lose interest.
So, I'm so bad, I'm so bad, but I know, I know that, before too, when I was just reading books and not writing them. I don't know if it's my ADHD that got worse or what it is, but I did like to [00:30:00] see them together. And so I have to go back to that time of when I liked that because I really think readers really want epilogues.
And when I've added bonus, bonus epilogues readers really love those. So I really try to, to do that and just put myself back in that. I'm, it's funny cause I, that, yeah, when I read though, I'm like, Oh, they're together. Figured that one out. I'm done.
Katherine Grant: That is funny.
All right, love it or leave it. Always share research in your author's note.
Annabelle Anders: I only share something like that if I have defied what research tells me. Like I, I know I had, I think I had, Might have been Silent Night in a Christmas novella. I did once and I was like, nope, I realized this was not a thing at that point. But you know, for such and such a purposes, I did have a trigger warning in the book about the cutting because I, you know, I don't, that could actually harm the reader.
I, that's the only time I've ever done a, a trigger warning is cause I [00:31:00] understand that if people read about it can actually trigger them into cutting again. So but yeah, I, I not many author notes for me, honestly I do the research but I get so caught up in the, the characters, their motivation that I, I think that's I, I don't know.
I like, I find things out in the research that I think are interesting. I don't know. I just kind of get, I get antsy. I'm kind of a, I'm kind of just getting it out there, getting it out there, getting it out there. But certain things, yeah, I've done a few.
Katherine Grant: Yeah, no, I understand. It's actually a lot of work to keep track of all of your research and then write it up in a way that people will understand and then get it into an author's note in a short enough format so that it won't take up, it won't be another novel.
And, and then like by the time that you're writing the author's note you're like, I just need to get this to my advanced reviewers.
Annabelle Anders: Right.
Katherine Grant: Okay, well, and are there any romance rules I didn't ask you about that you do you like to break or push the [00:32:00] envelope on?
Annabelle Anders: I think my characters.
I cannot glorify the way that the, the dukes and stuff, the way they were making their money, the imperialism. And so I always like to have my, my good guys are like, they're trying to figure a different way to make money so that they can make sure that they're, the people, they're, they're They're good landlords so that their tenants are safe.
And, you know, I cannot, I cannot justify in my mind glorifying a bad guy so That would be the rule that I do break. And you know, of course then my heroines, you know They're really spunky. So they'll do all sorts of things and you know, it's it's It's interesting. I think there's times where you can be a little more subtle with it Mary Balogh, I think was really good at being Later in her books where the heroines had this agency and she gave them a very subtle form of agency.
And I think that's the trick with historical. You want to give your heroines agency, but it can't be too in [00:33:00] your face. So unless they're kidnapped, of course, and they're just off by the beach somewhere.
Katherine Grant: Right. Right. No, absolutely. Well, okay. Can you tell us where listeners can find you and your books and what book they should be looking for?
Annabelle Anders: Absolutely. I'll be finishing up it's the Rakes of Rotten Row, which is a six book series. And my recent release of that was the Bond Street Bachelor Which is got seen set in Cornwall where I pulled from my trip to Cornwall.
Oh, I love Cornwall. Anyway and so so they're all standalones and those books are available wide right now So you can find on barnes and noble kobo amazon and if you go through, you can read all the, the books in the series now, and then you could just be just caught up by the time Regent Street Rogue releases in January, which will wrap that series up for me.
So
Katherine Grant: awesome. Well, thank you so much. This has been really lovely to chat with you. I appreciate you coming on.
Annabelle Anders: . I [00:34:00] really appreciate it. It's been, been a pleasure.
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 reading!