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Carol Coventry Samples Counting On Love
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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. All right. I am super excited to be joined today by Carol Coventry. Carol Coventry is the romance writing alter ego for historical novelist Susan Coventry. A quarter of a century working in the medical field has taught her that after any tough day, nothing soothes the spirit like a guaranteed happily ever after.
Escaping to the Regency era is like a mini vacation, and after she [00:01:00] spent so much time there, she felt like a native and began spinning her own tales of historical romance after winning the grand prize in drag. After winning the grand prize in Dragon Blades Write Track Contest, Carol published Counting On Love, the first in her series, the Taverstons of Iversley.
Carol, I'm so excited to have you here today.
Carol Coventry: Good to be here.
Katherine Grant: So you are reading for us from counting on Love. What should we know about the story before we get started?
Carol Coventry: Okay, so this is Counting on Love. It is the first in a four book series, as you said, that Taverstons of Iversley and it's a slow burn and what I call a low steam, but not no steam love story and the blue stocking heroine and a beta hero.
So what you need to know first is that the heroine Lady Georgina Stewart, is a Duke's daughter, and she's being courted by Lord Jasper Taverston who is the heir to the [00:02:00] Earl of Iversley. And Georgiana is beautiful and charming, and Jasper is handsome and charming, and everybody in the tongue thinks they're gonna make a perfect match.
But what the people don't know is that Georgiana is a math genius, and it's something that she has had to hide all her life because ladies don't do math. And then the other problem that she's having is she's finding Jasper to be a bit dull. However, Jasper invites her to the family's country estate and she goes, and there she meets his two brothers, Crispin and Reginald.
Reginald is the third son and he's considered to be the brilliant brother. He's a Greek scholar. But he has recently been tapped by Jasper to straighten out the family's account books. And they're in a mess because the steward just recently died. So. So that's kind of where the story is picking up.
And I said it's a slow burn, and that's because Georgiana is being courted by Jasper. So she and Reginald are very careful in how they interact with each other and they kind of fall for one another's intelligence and personalities before they'll realize [00:03:00] or admit to each other that there's a growing sexual attraction between them.
So I'm going to read from the scene where Georgiana realizes that she's falling in love with Reginald.
Katherine Grant: Awesome.
Carol Coventry: The library door was wide open and so were the curtains. Reginald was seated on a spindly chair that matched the one in the second little nook. Georgiana knocked lightly on the doorframe, then went in. Reginald's head came up from his ledger.
He didn't look particularly happy to see her, but neither did he look displeased. She held up the plate. "Crispin was in the breakfast parlor trying to read a newspaper. He sent me here with these for you. I must have been annoying him." "Crispin is shockingly easy to annoy. Come in, come." He stood up. "Whereas I am pleasant to anyone
bearing Cook's rolls." She crossed the carpet and joined him in the nook. Then she realized at once that she shouldn't have. He wasn't wearing a cravat and the top button of his shirt was undone. She set the plate down, intending to leave directly, but the ledger over which he had been hunched was surrounded by scratch paper and scribbled calculations, and she couldn't [00:04:00] tear herself away.
Of course Reginald would notice her lingering. She imagined it was hard for him not to. Leaving a plate of rolls should only have taken a moment. He gestured to the papers. "Does this mess make your head hurt?" She knew he was not referring to the splash of papers, but rather the inefficient figures upon them.
But she refused to be so thin skinned as to now imagine he was mocking her. "I confess it does. Why are you spending so much time on accounts? Surely you have a steward." He rubbed his double cheek. This sleepy, somewhat rumpled look was oddly attractive on him. Of course she'd never seen a gentleman so mussed.Yet t somehow she didn't believe
she'd find disheveled attractive in any other man. Faith. This train of thought was terribly inappropriate. She forced herself to focus on his words. "We did. The man passed recently and hadn't been keeping keeping up for several months. I don't think it was top most in Jasper's mind until he saw how muddled it had become."
"But surely he doesn't expect you to be his steward." "Oh no. Jasper's experience expectations are more in line with my father's. [00:05:00] Fairly medieval ones. First son, heir, second son, soldier." She finished the triad. "Third son to the church." He nodded. Then yawned before sitting wearily back down. "Jasper has a man in mind to take over, but he wanted the books a bit cleaner before handing them off."
"And then?" "Then?" "What will you do with yourself?" She couldn't really see him as a clergyman. "What would you be doing if you weren't pouring over these ledgers?" He hesitated, then gestured to a leather case on the floor. It was the clasped one she had noted before. "In there, I have a manuscript in ancient Greek that was presumably meticulously copied by monks a few hundred years ago, if bastion is correct."
"Frederick Bastion?" "Yes. By God. How do you-?" "My brother Charles has mentioned him. I've only heard the name. Sorry, go on." He gazed it her a moment as if he were going to say something different, but then continued. "If he's correct, there was no one alive today who knows what these manuscripts say." " Plural manuscripts?"
"He has 12 of them." "And you are going to learn what they say." [00:06:00] Oh, now this... goose flesh rose on her arms. "Well, a few pages of one." He rubbed his hands down his thighs and smiled ruefully. "After that, I suppose I will settle into a living at Framingham." But he tapped the ledger. "I have forbidden myself to work on the Greek until I get these accounts sorted."
It occurred to her that she could sort them out for him, but putting her nose into the Taverston's finances would be... it would be heinous. It would also be fun. "Are you even almost finished?" "I thought I was." He shook his head. "I was rattled yesterday by that mistake of eight versus five. What if I'd been sloppy reading others handwriting?
So I've been double checking some of the receipts and they look correct. But what if they're not? I really don't want go through them all again. Then I remember what you said about patterns." "What I said?" "Yes, most of the expenses are for the same thing over and over. If the cost was the same each time, I wouldn't have to sum it up all each time."
"Well, obviously, but?" "But the cost is not always the same. Sometimes it's more, sometimes less. I'd have to look deeper [00:07:00] into the invoices to see why. And well the devil, it's too boring to contemplate." She laughed lightly. "I can imagine." "So I went back to assuming that the entries I made were correct and just tallying them to get the whole thing finished."
He pointed to his scratch paper. "And I shouldn't have been working on it so late because none of my sums came out the same. Twice." "You should have gone to bed." "Yes, but then here's the worst of it. When I started this whole project, I thought I'd be clever and start by looking at the account books from five years ago.
Bradwell was taking care of things then, so I decided I would simply do as he did." "That makes sense." "But because I have become so hopelessly muddled that I can't even add and subtract anymore, I thought, last night I thought I'd go back to that first book and just tally the columns." He frowned. "Like a schoolboy exercise."
"I'd call that a drastic measure." She picked up one of the rolls and broke off a piece, but she was fidgety, not hungry, so she set the bread down. "I hope you weren't redoing all the books for the past five years." "It wasn't my intention, but..." now he pulled his hand through his hair. "I was up all night."[00:08:00]
She tried not to think of him sitting there through the night. There was something more intimate about that than picturing him in bed. Which she would never do. Reginald opened a worn book with a frayed cover and pushed it in front of her. On the desk he pointed to a column. "Please tell me I'm wrong."
Georgiana drew a breath debating whether to look, but she knew she was going to. It was either look at the page or at the base of Reginald's throat, right there in front of her. She turned to calculating the costs and revenues and then compared her result to the total that had been recorded at the bottom.
"That is incorrect." The significance of that fact gave her a cold, heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Have you another ledger? Another year?" He pulled out another from a short stack on his desk and opened it to a page he had dog eared. "Six years ago, randomly selected quarter. This page." She ran her finger down the column, then looked into Reginald's pallid face.
"Oh," she said full of sympathy, but unsure what else to say. They were each off by 30 pounds. If that was true of every quarter, the books were off by 120 pounds a year for who knew how [00:09:00] many years. "Damnit," he swore. "I'm sorry. I should not have burdened you. God, if I wasn't so tired. I never, I'm sorry. It's inexcusable.
I just hoped I was wrong. And you would." She waved his protest away. "How many have you checked?" "Three quarters from randomly pulled years, and they're all off." He nodded. "Not always by the same amounts, but usually close. Maybe I'm wrong." He heaved a sigh. "But if I am, it's not by much. I was concentrating on the numbers without paying much attention to what they were for.
So after I talked to you, I realized I should be looking for patterns but..." he waved a hand towards the bookshelf where she had seen rows and rows of old ledgers. "It will take years." "If your steward was dipping..." "But he wasn't. Not bradwell. I would stick my life on his honesty and his competence. I can't make sense of it."
She said nothing. His father's steward had been stealing from the family and now the man was dead and nothing could be done, and his father was dying. Reginald wanted to do this one simple thing, and it had devolved into a nightmare. He murmured, "and I feel as if I could just decipher the [00:10:00] books." "Oh, Reginald."
Her heart broke for the man because she knew he wanted to do what he loved, what he lived for, and was instead trying to reconcile himself to doing what was expected. Gently, she said, "It's not ancient Greek. You can't translate it." No, no, it's not Greek. Unfortunately, it's numbers." "I-" "oh God, Georgina. No, I'm not asking you.
Of course I'm not. I'm just bemoaning my own inadequacy. I know Bradwell is not an embezzler, but something is not right, and I'm concerned. This is something that will come back to haunt Jasper. He should at least know there's something hidden, and the answer is in those books somewhere, the money came in, it went out.
It has to add up." He could not have seduced her more effectively than that. "I'll help you." "I can't ask that." "Reginald, you can't put something like this in front of me and then snatch it away. It would be as if Bastion took away that manuscript and said, nevermind." He looked at her hard, then shook his head.
"Bradwell was the family's accountant for 47 years. 47. Do you know how many ledgers that spans? Jasper's not gonna let me lock you away in the library-" [00:11:00] "Reginald-" "for hours at a time, days on end. He has a million things planned." "Reginald, I don't think he'll notice." She looked down at her hands and willed them not to tremble with excitement.
"It won't take me all that long." Lady Georgiana Stewart realized she had just made an unimaginably arrogant statement about her own mathematical abilities. Yet the scholarly gentleman sitting before her did not shy away grimacing with distaste. He smiled. It was not only the turn of his lips, but the way his sky at thus blue eyes suddenly appeared to be lit from behind crinkling at the corners.
It took her breath away. He said, "I won't get in your way. Just tell me what you'll need." Oh, at best, she'd expected him to hand her a stack of ledgers and fire off a plotting set of instructions. Then breathe down her neck. What else could she have expected him to do? But this man, this unbearably, marvelous, sensible man, ceded control over a problem with a smile to a woman.
It came to her all at once. A revelation. This is the one. Her mind began rolling back to every interaction, every moment they'd shared since he'd frightened her awake and they'd [00:12:00] contrived to lie to their loved ones she had known then. And later when he took it upon himself to put that horse out of its misery.
And when he had watched her do sums in her head and been impressed rather than appalled, rather than intimidated. Well, no, it was easy to look back and believe she had known all along, but she knew she hadn't, and she couldn't be in love with him. She had only known him for less than a week, but she could love him given time.
At once came the horrified realization that she would love him given time. She could not marry Lord Jasper Taverston.
Katherine Grant: Woo, what a pivotal scene. And I don't know that account books have ever been so sexy. Well, I have a lot of questions for you, but first we're gonna take a quick break for our sponsors.
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Katherine Grant: I'm back with Carol Coventry, who just read a very fun and mathematical excerpt from counting on love. So I just adored being in the headset of [00:14:00] Georgiana who finds it fun to do accounts and is lusting over her math as much as she's lusting over Reginald.
And it just occurred to me that they didn't have calculators in the Regency. And how on earth does anyone handle that? So I guess I'd like to start by finding out, I know that you know, as Susan Coventry, you write historical fiction, and so what is your approach to research when you approach historical romance and did you, for example, go down a rabbit hole on, do they have calculators?
Carol Coventry: So yeah, I always for both the historical fiction and the historical romance, I always way over research and spend far too much time doing it. I love the research aspects and I think with historical romance more so than with historical fiction, the trick is leaving most of that out.
When I started with the historical romance, I got most of my feel for it by just reading other historical romances. And it wasn't until, so I felt like I had a [00:15:00] framework for it, but it wasn't until I start writing that I go, oh, I need to know this, or I need to know that. And then I would really dig into the research.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. And so, so you were researching as you were writing, and what is your personal approach to the tightrope of historical accuracy versus telling a fun story?
Carol Coventry: I, I really want to be as accurate as possible. There are times when your, your research doesn't really bear out what you think you knew.
And then it's tough to go with, well, if everybody thinks this, should I just stick with this or should I throw in this? Throw this loop in there that goes, well, I have some actual research that I'm never gonna be able to explain to you, but that I know that this is right. So that's kind of where I find the tight rope to walk is when to go with your gut versus what you just read.
Katherine Grant: Do you have an example of that?
Carol Coventry: One of the examples would be when the London season would occur. And most often [00:16:00] we think, well, it starts in the spring and runs through the summer, and that makes it a lot nicer than to imagine people slogging through the wet and the snow.
But when I was looking at, okay, so when did it start and when does it end? And it was more variable than that. And kind of earlier in the from my understanding earlier on in the regency period. It was not as set as it was later on in the Victorian period. And it, it really corresponded with when Parliament was in session because that's when all the Lords and ladies had to come back into London to be there for parliament.
And so that's when they would have their parties. So sometimes it would happen over the winter if they would be there in the winter. And so then I looked up. When was Parliament in session during this, you know, 1812? 1813 And they were in session over the wintertime. So I had the season start start in the winter, which was difficult because then you are picturing them slogging about in the mud.
So.
Katherine Grant: Yeah, I've, I've run into that as well, where it's like, wait a second, [00:17:00] I have this idea of the season as a concept. And then when you match up the dates, it's like, oh. Mm-hmm. Also, like, if it's really hot, like, weren't they leaving and, and was everyone there? It is interesting to, to match up the historical texts with the genre texts.
Carol Coventry: Mm-hmm.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. So Counting On Love is your first historical romance. You'd been writing historical fiction before that. So I'm curious, what does writing historical romance afford you? The author creatively or personally or whatever, compared to writing historical fiction?
Carol Coventry: The thing I love about historical romance is the guaranteed happily ever after.
And when I started reading a lot of romance, it was really for that escape. And that is kind of, you go through it and you get all nervous about it, and then you go, they're gonna end up together, so relax, they're gonna end up together. And and the focus is really on that love relationship. And so it's two [00:18:00] it's really kind of two different sides of my brain.
The one that just wants the relaxation and the fun dialogues. And then the other side that goes with history is really a lot more complex than that. And there's a lot of unpleasantness in historical fiction and a lot of that you don't really wanna bring into romance. So romance is my escape.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. And you mentioned that this is low, but no steam. Is there steam in your historical fiction and do you approach steam differently when writing your historical romances?
Carol Coventry: Yes, I, I think I go with about the same level of steam in both. And that's, well, I guess, you know, the book that I'm having come out in November.
In November, that's not romance. There's love in there and there's references to sex, but you never see them, like it's very closed door. And then the regency in the romances, you know, I have the door like ajar and you can kind of peek in, but you're not in there with them. So I don't, yeah, I [00:19:00] don't think my approach is all that different in the ro with the steam level in romance versus general historical fiction.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. Was it fun for you to kind of say, oh, I can lean into this and open that door a little bit? Or was it and un an awkward, uncomfortable?
Carol Coventry: Yeah, it's more uncomfortable, you know, and I think it's because I'm always thinking about readers that I know, you know, and so, I mean, that was really difficult for me while I was still working, you know, in the, and thinking, oh, I don't wanna go in and see these people tomorrow if they've read my sex scene last night.
So so I find that as long as I don't think about people actually reading it, then I'm, then I can write sex. Otherwise I don't wanna think about it.
Katherine Grant: Yes, yes. I'm very familiar with that. And in your setup for this book and also it was kind of coming through in the text, you know, Georgiana and Reginald actually are reacting to each other in a different way than society expects [00:20:00] attraction to work, which is that Gianna is attracted to Reginald 'cause he's
this brilliant person, and he's attracted to her because she's brilliant, not because she's this cheerful, beautiful debutante that is the perfect match for his brother. And I heard that and I kinda had this filter of like, oh, you're exploring Sapio sexuality or Demisexuality. And I wondered, did you
have those, you know, labels for lack of a better word in mind, or is that something that I'm bringing and applying and projecting onto your characters?
Carol Coventry: I very much had those two labels in mind when I was writing, and that was part of, I wanted to see if I could do it. But then after I had written a book, I'm like, I don't wanna put those labels on them because I don't want...
I don't wanna get it wrong, you know, I don't wanna be saying, oh, this is a sapiosexual and a demisexual, and have people go, yeah, you dunno what you're talking about. So I stayed away from the labels, even though that's kind of what I was going for.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. Well I'm not an expert, but I think you, you, you conveyed that.
Right? And I think, you know, I've written a character [00:21:00] before where I didn't really want to say this is what a demisexual person experiences, but I've also found it really interesting to try to write that character in the context of romance books because we have so many beats that are expected by readers and are like physical markers of attraction.
Mm-hmm. So how did that go for you as you were exploring these two, you know, alternate versions of attraction coming together?
Carol Coventry: Mm-hmm. I think this is why it took them a while to get together because I, I really needed them to see those aspects in, in each other that would eventually kind of pull on those lust strings.
Right. I mean, it's, it it took a while, but they, they got there because they were. They were entranced by one another and then the sexual attraction came after that.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. That's really [00:22:00] cool. So who are some of the historical romance authors that you kind of think about when you're writing historical romances that you wanna emulate or who are influencing your work?
Carol Coventry: I kind of cut my teeth on Georgette Heyer. I, I don't even know how to pronounce her name, but she was the one that really made me start reading a lot of romance. I just loved her stuff, reading it, you know, now I, there's things that are problematic about it that you kind of have to like look away from now
'cause she wrote way back in like the twenties. But more recent things. I love Mary Balogh. I love the depth of emotion that she can bring out in her characters. I love Mimi Matthews, you know, I think she's got really great plotting and she also does closed door kind of romances so she can pull out that kinda sexual tension without going into the sex.
I like Mary Lancaster who, she kind of writes she writes really nice, just regency romance or historical romance, but she also [00:23:00] does historical mysteries where you can kind of follow the couple as they through. A couple of that's fun of I love that too. So yeah, I mean, I think the, the ones that I would like to emulate the most are the ones that really get dialogue and kind of, that banter really well.
That's, that's what I, that's what I love reading and it's what I would hope to be able to write.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. Is that what kind of hooks you into a story or do you start more from characters or a plot idea?
Carol Coventry: It starts for me in the writing. It starts more from like a scene. I'll have like a scene in my head and I, it's usually the reconciliation scene that kind of comes into my mind first.
And so then I gotta kind of work back from that to go Okay, why did up, you know, and what brought them to this point. So I really, I do kind of start with characters and a single plot point, and then. Go from there.
Katherine Grant: That's cool to start with. That breakup gives you a lot of momentum to get there.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think we can move [00:24:00] to Love it or leave it.
[Musical Interlude]
Katherine Grant: All right. Love it. Or leave it. The protagonists meet in the first 10% of the novel?
Carol Coventry: I'm gonna swim against the current on this one and say, leave it. Most books that I read and the books two through four that I wrote, they do, they either know each other from the beginning or they meet right at the beginning.
But I think it's, to me, it's more important that the reader gets introduced to the two characters right away than it is that the two characters get introduced to each other right away. And that's what, in Counting On Love, it takes a while before they meet because she's meets Jasper first. And what I really want is my readers to fall in love with the characters first, and then watch them and go along for the ride as they fall in love with each other.
Katherine Grant: Hmm. All right. Love it. Or leave it? Dual point of view narration.
Carol Coventry: That's a Love it.
Katherine Grant: All right. Love it or leave it? Third person past tense.
Carol Coventry: That's also a, a love it. [00:25:00] For romance especially, I think that just works best.
Katherine Grant: Love it or leave it? Third act breakup or dark moment.
Carol Coventry: I love that there is a dark moment and a substantial breakup that you think, oh, they're never gonna get back from this.
But I don't necessarily think it has to be in the third act. I think it can happen a couple, even a couple times during the book, so
Katherine Grant: Oh, interesting, interesting. Love it or leave it? Always end with an epilogue.
Carol Coventry: I'd say leave it for that. Also, I don't need an epilogue for every story. I do, kind of like at the end of a series to have an epilogue and kind of a little wrap up and see where all the characters are, but I don't need one every book.
Katherine Grant: All right. Love it or leave it? Share research in your author's note
Carol Coventry: That for me in a, in the romances, it's a leave it, but in general historical fiction, then it's a Love it.
Katherine Grant: Oh, interesting. Is there a reason why you don't like it in romances?
Carol Coventry: Well, you know, I, I kind of, like I've said, I try [00:26:00] not to overburden the romances with all the great stuff that I found during my research.
And I don't wanna just use the author's note as just a dump to put in all that stuff because I couldn't work it into the story. It's just too much. So, and that with the happily ever after, it kinda feels like it's done. When the story's done, it's done. So that's it. Whereas with general historical fiction, there is so much more stuff and you wanna say, okay, this, you know, why I chose to use this piece of history versus that one.
So it just seems more like there's more of a need for it in, in the general stuff.
Katherine Grant: Interesting. All right. And are there any other romance rules I didn't ask about that you like to break or play with?
Carol Coventry: So the one that I did, that I played with mostly in the next book in Holding Onto Love is timeline or chronology.
And usually with romances I don't know if it's a rule, but what generally happens is you start at the beginning and march on through to the end and, in holding onto love, it doesn't do that. And so I, I like playing around with with the [00:27:00] timeline and the structure. It starts kind of right where Counting On Love is ending, but by that time, the two characters, which would be Jasper and, and his mistress have broken up.
And so the timeline, the present timeline of that book is that they're have to get back together. You know, they're apart and they have to get back together, but there's also the whole story, the whole backstory of them falling in love in the first place. So that's this kind of goes back and forth in chapters so that we can see 'em in both timelines.
And that's not something that I generally see in romance, but I wanted to try it in this one. So, so I broke that rule, I guess.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. That's very interesting. I am curious to to read that and see how that works out. Well, thank you for playing. Love it. Or leave it. I have enjoyed hearing about how you approach these romance rules.
So where can our listeners find you and your books? The Taverstons of Iversley.
Carol Coventry: The best place to find more is to go to my website at [00:28:00] susancoventry.com. That will have a link kind of at the top of the page to my newsletter, so you can get hooked up with that. I also have a blog at susan coventry blog spot.com, where I review a lot of books. So if you wanna kinda see what I'm reading which is all over the map you can look at my blog, but the starting place would be my website.
Katherine Grant: Awesome. And I will put a link to your website in the show notes. So listeners you can head on. And click through.
Carol Coventry: All right. Thank you.
Katherine Grant: Carol, thank you so much for coming on. This has been a blast and I'm excited. Counting on Love Is Out, is Holding Onto Love Out?
Holding Onto Love is Out. And then the third book in the series, waiting For Love comes out March 14th.
Okay, so by the time that this episode airs Waiting for Love will be out as well. So listeners, you can go consume three outta the four books in the series and get really excited for book four, so All right, well thank you so much. I appreciate you coming on.
Carol Coventry: Well, thank you for having me. It was fun.
That's [00:29:00] 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!