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Charis Michaels Samples You May Kiss the Duke
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 welcome to the podcast today Charis Michaels. Charis is the USA today bestselling author of 12 historical regency romances for Harper Collins Avon. Her books answer the question, so how did you two meet? In an era with no dms or swiping left and right. She loves smart humor, fairytale whimsy, and wild plots that force proximity.
She studied journalism at Texas a and m and lives in the DC metro area with her family. Charis, thank you so much for coming on today.
Charis Michaels: Well, it is my absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. I am really excited. I'm a big fan of your writing. I'm excited to talk to you about your books, this book, and also your career.
But to get started, you're reading for us today from You May Kiss the Duke. Is there anything about this book or the scene that you want to clue us into before you start the reading?
Charis Michaels: Sure. I'm
holding up the book. This is my sixth book. It came out about 2017 or 18, I believe. It sort of smack dab in the middle of my career.
And I like to read it when I am asked to read aloud because it just has seems in it that really lend itself to dialogue, which I think is really fun. This book is part of a series where three friends that are women, marry three friends that are men, which is something I will never do again. But it sounded like a good idea at the time.
And the three women are best friends. They live in the countryside and they wanna move to London, but they can't because they're single women. So they think if we marry we'll have the freedom to be in London, but they don't want husbands, so they trade their dowries for men that are not gonna be around.
So they're looking for like gentlemen, sailors, sea captains, that sort of thing. And they advertise for these guys. And this is. And then ultimately they fall in love with these sort of conveniently arranged, advertised mail order husbands. And this is the third book. And the reason this woman wanted to move to London is she's being beaten by an uncle who inherits the house that she lives in with her family after her father dies.
And so the third friend who wanted to do this sort of dowry trade, sea captain gone all the time arrangement, agreed to marry her because he never planned to get married. He needed the money, and it sounded like a good way to help this woman out because when he first meets her, she was being beaten by her uncle, and he's this like avenging, vigilante spirit.
And so he agrees to marry her and then sail away, and they really only see each other a couple of times a year to trade mail. However, she writes books and as part of her research writing books, she discovers him in a hospital morgue. His body, he has a very distinctive tattoo on his arm that she saw the day they got married, just peeking out of his sleeve and she was walking past his hospital morgue on other work four years after they had been married, but
really estranged and she thinks that looks like my estranged husband's tattoo. And she investigates further and it's him and she investigates further and he's actually not dead and he's piled in this morgue. So she hauls him home and she starts nursing him back to health and consciousness. And ultimately he had a stab wound that was infected and some really slipshod care put him in the morgue 'cause he was presumed dead when really he was. Really almost dead. So the tropes here are what I call Florence Nightingale, she's nursing him back to health and she's a terrible nurse and actually not really that either. Very nurturing or carrying and little grossed out by blood.
And then also convenient marriage. And then there's a class difference because even though he's become very rich as a sea captain, he started out, his mother was a prostitute, which is alluded to in the scene, and he really rose up through society. Anyway, so that is the setup in this scene, which originally I thought I was gonna read an earlier bedroom scene where she, where he first awakens and he realizes he's in her care.
But when I was preparing, I decided to read a scene where she's in his room, he's in the bed, he's bedridden, he's much better, but still bedridden, and she's asking him about his tattoo, and that's where the scene picks up. And so that is where I will start reading.
Women had been asking to touch Stoker's tattoo for as long as he could remember.
It elicited a thrilled sort of reverence from every female, from rescued prostitutes to old grandmothers to little girls. He'd gotten the damn thing because it alarmed him to be mistaken for a gentleman. Imagine his surprise when so many females were invigorated by the notion of what a gentleman was not.
Now he was given no choice but to offer his arm to Sabine. He'd watched her reach out, watched her trace his, first one finger, then five fingers when she'd slid her hand around his bicep. He'd stopped watching and closed his eyes. For the first time since he'd regained consciousness, the burning pain in his side left him The earth shrank to her
cool caress.
"Am I hurting you?" She asked softly.
No, he thought, but he said, "yes."
"How?" She demanded. "How is this hurting you?"
He thought: by killing me, by teasing me, by offering me something that will not happen. And he said, "this cannot happen."
"What cannot happen?" She asked. Her hand was gentle on his bicep.
Slowly she began to fan her fingers out. A feather light touch of unfolding sensation. Stoker cleared his throat. "You were curious about the tattoo and now you've seen it." She looked up, trying to read his eyes. He leveled her with what he hoped was his most intimidating scowl stoker.
She asked, "do you feel like I'm taking advantage by touching your arm when you've asked me not to?
I should never want to take advantage."
"Sabine," he began struggling to find the correct words. "You cannot take advantage because the benefit of you touching my tattoo or my arm or any part of me would be entirely mine. So you needn't worry about taking anything from me or a misbegotten balance of power."
"Really?" She looked confused. "The only gain? Because I quite liked it too. You're very strong, but you're also very controlled. It's intriguing. I can't say why I want to touch you so much, but I do." She stroked him again with her fingers.
"What are you doing?" He rasped.
"I don't know," she said honestly, swiping higher nearly to his shoulder.
"May I speak freely?" He asked. It was a reasonable question that came out in broken cracked terms.
"Can you?" He narrowed his eyes. And now she would be coy? Without thinking, he reached up and snatched her hand, trapping her fingers against him.
"Madam, he spoke quickly, lowly in confession. "Forgive me if I'm making assumptions or misread your intent, but the touch of your hand and the look on your face
do not feel curious or clinical or friendly. Do you know how it feels? It feels sexual." There. He'd said it. He'd meant to shock her with bold, coarse talk. He doubled down. "Do you know what that means?" The cream of her skin turned pink and her beautiful lips opened in a pouty o. Slowly she shook her head.
"Tell me what it means." She asked then boldly. Confidently, she moved her hand beneath his, wrapping it around his forearm. Stoker's vision shrank to her fingers, sensation froth beneath the skin. Of course, she would make him bloody say it.
"Are you a virgin, sabine?" He heard himself ask.
It didn't matter. It wouldn't matter, but it would inform what he would say next. His mouth went dry. He wondered if he would manage to hear her answer over the pounding of his heart.
"Of course," she said. Stoker was pulled under with a wave of relief.
" Of course," he repeated. He paused, picking around the chaos in his brain for words that might safely end the journey on which they somehow found themselves. "At the risk of explaining something you already know,"
he began, "sex, when you have it is transactional. It's like a transaction."
"A transaction." She repeated this as if he'd said, sex is like a garden rake.
"Yes," he said. "Sex is something to which women consent in exchange for something they require, such as money or protection or respectability, or even a child."
Sabine scrunched up her face in distaste.
"Is that what you believe?"
"Sabine," he sighed. "I, perhaps more than any man alive, have seen the beginning, middle, and end of every facet of human desire. This isn't an opinion. It is what I have known since I could hear my mother at work across the room while I was meant to be asleep on the floor. Sex was a transaction into which she entered
again and again until it killed her. I have rescued countless girls from a similar fate. I have seen it dressed up in luxury and diversion and flower trimmed romantic trappings. I have also seen it reduced to minutes, nay seconds against ally walls, but every time I have seen the same basic trade, a man's pleasure
for some payment to a woman. It troubles me to assume so much and offend you with my bluntness, but it cannot go unsaid. I hold you in too high esteem to enter into any such transaction with you." He looked away, unable to hold her gaze. It was too much to hope that she would flee from the room. It was too much to hope that she would slap him.
Was it too much to hope that she would say, 'very well? I'm grateful to finally know the truth of it.' He glanced back to her. Yes, it was too much. She was staring at him as if he had just explained that Sunday would not follow Saturday. "But are you certain that everyone views relations in this manner?" She asked.
He ran a hand through his hair and scratched the back of his neck. And now she would force him to elaborate. Now they must debate the topic. "Sex," he lectured patiently, "is viewed in every possible light, I'm sure, but few people have seen what I have seen. As much as I am loath to admit it, I really am somewhat of an expert."
"An expert on sex?"
"An expert on the motivations and ramifications of sex."
She snotted and looked at the ceiling thinking this over. Stoker tried to watch her, but her pensive expression so stark in profile was too beautiful, and he looked away. After a moment, she said, "What of your business partners, Cassin and Joseph Chance?"
"I beg your pardon?"
" One cannot help wonder about the Earl of Cassin and his Countess,
my friend Willow. Or what of Joseph and my friend Tessa? Willow and Tessa have been quite open with me and they reported nothing transactional about sex with their husbands."
Stoker sighed. "I have not discussed it with Cassin or Joseph, but I have no doubt they have managed it with decorum and respect and made the effort very worth it for their wives."
Now her expression was even more confused. "This is nothing like they described it to me."
"I don't like to speculate on the relations of others," he said.
She stared at him. He could see the wheels turning in her head, but she did not seem embarrassed and she did not seem chastened or threatened. Now she said,
"and so you never engage in the transaction of sex? I mean, you yourself?"
Now I will expire, he thought. "Sabine," he pleaded.
"What? Surely you cannot mean to demand that I reveal my virginal state, but refuse to discuss yours."
"I'm not a virgin," he said quickly, praying this was enough.
"You are racked with guilt because of the advantage you've taken of the women in your past.
Is that it? It all began so innocently she wished to touch your tattoo and then it spiraled into fantastical sex for you, not for her, because she only wanted to touch your tattoo and then earn some reward?"
"Sabine." He groaned.
"I want to know! You've been so gracious to educate me and now I'm captivated and I want to hear all of it."
"Sex with me never begins innocently," he said. He couldn't look at her. He stared at the paper in his lap. From the corner of his eye, he saw her agitated posture perk up. Her full attention. Of course.
"So you pay for this non innocent sex," she theorized.
"No, never. Not in as many words if you must know."
"Oh, I must know."
Stoker squinted at her, working to string words together that would end this. He sighed heavily and said, "the women I have taken to bed have all been carefully selected to require nothing, expect nothing and want no part of me after I've gone. They are generally widowed. Or older or both. They are independent beyond traditional standards.
For most women, that is, they are so privileged in rank or wealth, they do as they please. And so the transaction is, I cannot say exactly, it's never been an ideal arrangement. These interludes taunt me, actually, and the reason for this entire excruciating conversation is to avoid anything of the sort
for you. You will not be haunted, and I will not have the sin of defiling you on my conscience. We made this deal from the beginning." He glared at her. She looked back with a pensive expression.
"So you really do find this conversation excruciating."
"Yes."
"Well, I quite like it," she said, "although one thing is unclear, how does my touching your arm have anything to do with sex?"
She accompanied this question with a flutter of her cool fingers on his skin. Stoker's body surged in response, and he made a pained growling noise. "This is what I said from the first, Sabine. You cannot run your hands up and down my arm. You cannot caress and lean in and look at me with wide-eyed bloody wonder.
You are too innocent to know it, and I cannot fathom what has come over you. But this is how sex begins. No man could withstand it, least of all me. I'm sorry."
Sabine crinkled up her nose and fluttered her fingertips again. "And what if I wish to challenge your theory that sex is always a transaction or an exchange?
What if I'm to say this is not what I've been told at all?"
"Then I would be forced to say that you know virtually nothing about it. And I know quite a lot actually. And I'm sorry."
Sabine sucked in a breath, a flash of anger, deepening her fingers. "I detest being told that I don't know something, even if I don't."
"Well, you don't and it's a gift. Be glad you don't know."
She was shaking her head. "Tell me I have something to learn. Tell me I'm wrong. But please never say I don't know anything about it. It's infuriating. It goads me on. Actually..." she closed her fingers around stoker's arm and he ground his teeth.
"Do you know what infuriates me?"
He gritted out. "Being bloody taken by surprise, being unprepared, casting around for a solution to a problem that I could not have anticipated, and your sudden interest in my bloody tattoo and your hands on my skin and asking provocative questions about sex has taken me wholly off guard. So forgive me if have not been gracious or articulate or clear.
You've consistently claimed to want no part of any man, myself in particular. And yet, your hands are everywhere."
"Come now," said Sabine. "Everywhere?" Was she teasing him? Could she not see the loosening grip on his self-control?
"Look," she said, "I'm sorry if you're surprised, but maybe I'm surprised too. I've not given your tattoo a second thought until now.
I've never thought of touching you, and certainly I had no intent of discussing sex. You were the one who, who..." Her voice had risen. She was sucking in air to speak, but now she stopped. She blinked, she let out her breath and leaned in. "Actually," she told him, "that last bit was a lie."
What? Thought Stoker. This sounded like a trap.
"What if," she went on, "I tell you, I am interested in touching your arm and your shoulder and leaning in and giving you..." and here she paused and stoker's heart stopped "...a kiss. What if I tell you that?"
Stoker's brain went completely blank. He saw only white. His last useful thought was of whipping off the covers and staggering from the room down the hall and into the street.
"Sabine, no," he managed.
"I hate being told no," she said defiantly.
Katherine Grant: What a fun scene. Oh my gosh. This Put the song, people will say we're in love from Oklahoma in my head where they're like, don't send me roses. Don't look at me that way. Don't do this. Ah, that was fun.
We're gonna take a quick break for our sponsors and then I'm gonna ask you some questions.
Katherine Grant: I'm back with Charis Michaels, who just read from You may kiss the Duke. This was, as I said, a very fun combative scene in a like there's so much denying that they're feeling any attraction towards each other while they're both obviously feeling attraction towards each other.
And I found that really fun. I think it's a really interesting look at, I'm not sure if we wanna call it purity culture, but the, the sexual environment of Regency where, you know, the woman must remain a virgin until she's married and, and yet the man is exposed to all these different types of sex. And stoker growing up with a prostitute as a mother has this very kind of negative view.
He only sees it as a transaction. He has no recognition of the emotional. Side of it that can make it, you know, positive. At what point did you decide to explore this dynamic and, and was it something that you kind of consciously brought to the page, or do you think it came out as you were writing?
Charis Michaels: Well, when you're gonna write a book that has explicit sex, or at least sex described on the page for a chapter or two chapters, I think the way sex is viewed in a larger context is a really needs to be a really important part of the plot. And so somebody always has a hangup with sex in my books so that we can explore that in addition to just describing the sex that they have, as well as work through it during those love scenes.
So Sabine in this book is actually, she's a virgin because she's sheltered, but she's rather adventurous as the book goes along, and he is the one stunted and warped. He grew up in a brothel. He then got into the work of rescuing prostitutes with a charity that was explored several books ago in his teen years.
So he had a mother who sort of took care of him across the room while she was quote unquote working, and then he busted into all these brothels and rescued prostitutes. So he sees, he is, he doesn't come to sex in a way that feels like it can be mutually beneficial. And that's why he's talking about it being transactional.
And just from a technical standpoint of writing in any love story, you need really deep conflict. And having a guy with a big hangup on sex is a lot for my characters to chew on and work through. And so. And Sabine was beaten before, not in a sexual way, but just in a, by an uncle who liked to backhand her.
So she has a distrust of men that's not tied to sex, and she's only able to actually become emotionally intimately involved with him when he's almost too sick to lift his head. So he's a patient in bed and she's feeding him soup, which he hates, and she's got a footman to come in and sort of take care of his personal needs.
But other than that, he's like a invalid and she's having to take care of him, and it's the only way she can get close to a man and not feel like she might be in physical danger. And then when she gets over that, she's ready for more. Because of course, even though they were married in one afternoon after hardly knowing each other, there was that instant attraction.
And she sort of kept that hidden away. And he loved her from the beginning because it's a Charis Michaels book.
Katherine Grant: Mm-hmm.
Charis Michaels: So they both were harboring this incredible attraction, but they had to, the plot had to get them to a place where they could start feeling safe enough to explore it. A lot of times in my books, the man has the hangup with the sex and the purity culture has really affected him
more than her. And I'm not really sure what inside me puts it down like that. But I love a buttoned up, uptight guy for whatever reason, being unraveled by a bold woman, I guess. And that's what happens in this book.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. Well, I think it's really refreshing to see it be the the man who is, working through issues in relation to sex, because part of purity culture is heaping all of that responsibility onto the woman's shoulders.
We must protect our own virtue. And and so for it to, to be the man's problem is kind of shifting that dynamic in a, in a way that's also real. I mean, you know, men do have sexual hangups in real life.
Charis Michaels: Yeah, and I think he was viewing it as chivalry and his version of honor, even though he didn't see himself as a gentleman, you know, he thought this is the way that I need to be honorable and
it takes a while and it's sort of a fun discovery to figure out, actually, if I'm gonna do right by her, I'm gonna be a standup guy, but I'm also gonna make sure that she feels pleasure. So I don't it, it doesn't have to be. There are just so many different, it's a spectrum and yes, to learn that. And that's what we did over the course of the book.
Katherine Grant: Yeah, that's lovely. You clearly have such a grasp on the romance genre, and as I was researching you ahead of time I know why.
So you worked for Romance Writers of America as an editor of the Trades Journal, among other things back in the nineties, if I'm right. What was it like to work there and do you think it prepared you at all for your career as a romance author, or did you end up discovering that, you know, life as a, an author is different than you expected?
Charis Michaels: It was the absolute dream job. I went to college in Texas and the, the national office of RWA was just up the road, two hours away in Houston. And I had a senior PR class where we had to work, like get ourselves some sort of internship. And this is before the internet. And I was like literally in my college library looking at
all trade associations in America that might have to do with publishing because I wanted to eventually either work in publishing or be a writer as a journalism major. And then I found the National Trade Association for Romance Novelist, like just up the road. And so I wrote to the woman who would become my boss and ask if I could come for a summer or two weeks and.
As a lifelong romance reader, of course I was only 20. So how, how long had my life been in the four years since I had been reading romances? I was just a super fan. So the very first national convention that summer was the keynote speaker was Judith McNaught. And if you know anything about old school romance, like back in the day, 89, 90, 91, she was the, she was just the, she was the Taylor Swift of romance writing.
And she was my absolute favorite. And I got to meet her and I got to meet so many authors as part of working the national convention, which was just one week. But when I was back in the office, I was on the phone to all the various authors all the time and it was an absolute dream job.
It was a wonderful community of authors, published, unpublished, aspiring and it gave me a look at the backside of how you approach an agent, approach an editor, what they were looking for, how, why it's so, so important that books be defined as romance or women's fiction or thriller, or. You know, that's not really important to the reader, but it's super important in publishing and to a writer to know what lane you're in.
And I learned it's incalculable all I learned. I loved it.
Katherine Grant: Aw. And my last question for you is, how does your creativity work? Do you get pulled into thinking about the dialogue in a scene? Do you get pulled into, oh, I wanna write this trope? Do you get pulled into specific characters? How does stories begin for you?
Charis Michaels: Well, I try to be very commercial about it, and that sounds mercenary, but like, I'm not doing this so that my mother can read it. I would like to, if I'm gonna make the effort, I want to sell it, and I wanna see my book in the stores and I want to make money. So I always look at, how am I gonna market it?
How am I gonna describe it in one sentence, in a way that beguiles people and pulls them in? And how am I gonna keep it current and relevant? So I'm never gonna write about anything that is indulgent just to me. I'm looking at the zeitgeist and I'm looking at. What's something known and fun that I can put my own twist on that people will hear about in a very fast little Instagram post or snippet and think, oh wait, what was that?
I need to hear more about that. So I've really made a study because I've so many ideas I have. People are always like, oh, where do you get your ideas? Ideas are not the problem. I have journals and journals and journals of ideas of how two people that hate each other can meet and fall in love. So it's just a matter of framing them in a way that is commercial.
So Claiming The Princess is my book that's coming out in three weeks.
And it follows the trope of Surprise! You're a Princess because it's book three and a series about exiled royal people. And in this book, the Exiled Royal baby was exiled when she was so young no one told her that she was a princess, and she was raised by a kindly old couple in the woods.
And when the hero comes, he has to tell her we're engaged. And also you're a princess. And so the story goes on from there. So the marketability and the commercial pinpoint there is like, that's a fun trope when you're dealing with historicals. You, you don't have to have something that's quite so current
recognizable, but you do have something that you need, do need something that's universally appealing to people who like to read love stories. And I think the trope of surprise, you're a princess is something that that is intriguing to to those types of readers. One of my favorite examples of this is like Tessa Dare's castles ever after series idea.
It was about people who randomly inherited a castle, which you love, but just even the, the poetry of castles ever after. We love castles. We love happily ever after. We love the idea of inheriting property that we didn't know we were gonna get. We love the idea of moving into that property and then someone coming along and saying, wait, this is mine.
And having him be a hot guy. I mean, it's just genius. And so what I start with is how can I make it sound so fun in a little bitty five second snippet so that you're intrigued? 'cause all I have in terms of everyone's attention is five seconds until they sit down with a book. So that's how I start. And then I can slide in any number of, I like to do enemies, lovers. I like to do class differences. I love bodyguards. Mm-hmm. Slide it into that. I hate the term cutesy, but that really commercial, marketable, flashpoint framework.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. Wow. That's a really good way to approach it. And I think now is a good time to move to our game. Love it.
Or leave it. [
Musical Interlude]
Katherine Grant: All right. Do you love it or leave it? The protagonists meet in the first 10% of the story.
Charis Michaels: Love it. It's absolutely essential. I like them to meet within three pages.
Katherine Grant: Ooh. Do you love it or leave it? Dual point of view narration.
Charis Michaels: I love it in historical romance. I am currently pivoting and trying to write a modern day set rom-com, and it is only in the female point of view, and it was hard at first, but I'm finding my, finding my feet with it, I guess.
Katherine Grant: All right. Do you love it or leave it? Third person, past tense, narration.
Charis Michaels: I love it for historical Regency. This other book I'm writing is first person present and it was a challenge, but I think I'm getting the hang of it, I hope.
Katherine Grant: All right. Do you love it or leave it? The third act, dark moment.
Charis Michaels: I love it just because it extends the book a little bit longer
when you don't want it to end.
Katherine Grant: Do you love it or leave it? Always end with an epilogue.
Charis Michaels: I love an epilogue, but frequently when I finally get to the end, I'm like, enough. Can't write anymore. There's nothing left to say. I write so long. These books are meant to be 75 to 80,000 words, and I'm always pushing one 20, a hundred.
Katherine Grant: Oh, wow.
Charis Michaels: Yeah. So like it as a reader, don't like it as a writer.
Katherine Grant: All right. Love it or leave it. Always include your research in the author's note.
Charis Michaels: I love an author's note and I tear it up with the author's, author's note. So yes, I love it.
Katherine Grant: And are there any other rules I didn't ask about that you like to break?
Charis Michaels: I guess all of those rules are not broken for me. I, I, this is unpopular, but I don't. I don't like an unlikable
heroine. I just, I will never pick that book to read. I enjoy likable people in my life. I don't love to hang out with unpleasant women that are always in a bad mood or bratty.
And I don't like my heroines to be like that. So, and it's not that they're not, you know, don't have bad days or don't
have challenges, but they're usually pretty adorable, for lack of a better word. That's just a Charis Michaels book for you.
Alright,
Katherine Grant: well thank you so much for playing. Love It. Or leave it.
And thank you for coming on. Where can readers find you and your books?
Charis Michaels: My books are in stores or on at any online real retailer, like Barnes and noble.com or amazon.com. My local independent bookstore here in Alexandria, Virginia is called Old Town Books, and the website is old town books.com and you can order from their website and I will run over to the bookshop and sign it and put some swag in the package.
So that's Old town books.com. And you can read excerpts of my books and worry about me on web. My website is charismichaels.com. And then I hardly ever go on Facebook anymore unless I have a book out, but oh, more often I am on Instagram at Charis Michaels.
Katherine Grant: All right. And this episode's coming out at the end of October, and you have a book coming out then too, which you mentioned It's Claiming the Princess.
Charis Michaels: Yes. Claiming the Princess.
Katherine Grant: All right, so everyone go claiming the princess and don't forget to pick up the book that we heard today. You may kiss the Duke. Yes. Thank you again, Charis.
Charis Michaels: This has been awesome. Oh, it's been so much fun for me. Thank you so much for all your research and wonderful questions and
your interest.
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!
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.
This is a very special episode of the Historical Romance Sampler. Today I am joined by Mary Lynne Nielsen. Mary Lynne is a romance enthusiast who has loved the romance genre for many decades. She has been an enthusiastic reader. She has been mistress of ceremonies at romance conventions. She collects romance art, which if you're watching the videos, you can see some of that behind us right now.
And currently she shares her thoughts on romance, on social media at the handle @emmelnie. And I will link to that in our show notes so that listeners can go straight there. And yeah, I am getting ready to release the widower without a will. So I put out a call to my readers to say, does anyone wanna interview me?
And Mary Lynne volunteered. So thank you so much, Mary Lynne.
Mary Lynne Nielsen: You're welcome.
Katherine Grant: I am excited to share this book with everybody and to be interviewed by you, but first the reading. I will set this up. So The Widower Without a Will is about Lord Preston and he takes in a widow in his neighborhood, Martha Bellamy, who was the Rector's wife.
Now she's the widow. She's been turned out, which is part of the standard procedure for how clergyman handed over property. And so Lord Preston takes her in. And in this scene, they just reviewed the old rectory house because the new tenants say that she owes them money. And so Lord Preston has tried to kind of come in and protect her and say, you know, you're treating this widow poorly.
He's not super proud of how he acted because he kind of got out of control in his anger towards the new rector, and so this scene picks up with, they've just left the rectory and they're dealing with the aftermath.
Martin could have kicked himself for how poorly he had managed the afternoon. He had envisioned it as a great triumph, one in which he would school Mr. Sebright in generosity, while also displaying his prowess in negotiation to Mrs. Bellamy. Instead, he had insulted the Sebrights at least twice and now made Mrs.
Bellamy cry. Well tear up. She was far too fastidious a woman to sob in his arms. He didn't know why he had failed so spectacularly. This negotiation was nothing compared to the compromises he had supervised just this past year to reform the penal code. Yet in this, Martin had let fly the cold words that he ordinarily managed to keep from jabbing at his adversaries.
Perhaps it was because Mr. Sebright was such a pompous ass, and unlike the Dukes in London who had their positions, whether Martin liked it or not, Martin was the reason Sebright had the living. Thatcham was saddled with a rector more interested in tea sets than sermons because Martin had done a favor to Lord Harewood without researching the man's character.
Mrs. Bellamy was suffering such humiliations as being asked to pay to reupholster her own sofa for someone else's use because Martin had failed to find a worthy rector for Thatcham. And then as they were leaving, Mr. Sebright had been so presumptuous as to reprimand Martin for his behavior. Martin didn't want to be the kind of man who was insulted when an inferior acted out of turn.
He didn't want to be the kind of man who believed in superiors and inferiors, yet this was the world they lived in, and he was Sebright's superior in every respect, and Sebright dared to upbraid him for his conduct. He shouldn't have let it rob him of good manners, but it had, and now as a result, Mrs. Bellamy stared at him with red wet eyes.
"If he gives you any further trouble, be sure to let me know." Martin said, in an attempt to soothe her.
Turning towards the window, she pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. "Oh, I'm not concerned about that. There is not much more trouble that the Sebrights can give me." Martin didn't know if he should pry. So often
the polite thing was to pretend the person in front of you wasn't crying, but when the person in front of you was your friend? When she was someone with whom you had held hands for comfort?
She tucked the handkerchief away, her tears under control. "I didn't consider that it would be upsetting to revisit the house that was so recently mine.
Grief comes in surprising manners, doesn't it?"
Grief, of course, because her husband had died six months ago and Martin had dragged her back to the rectory to poke around every nook and cranny. He would've done better not to play the knight in shining armor. Leaning back against the carriage wall, he replied, "It does.
Even now, 15 years after Lolly died, I can be paralyzed just by the waft of a particular scent." Lilacs usually since they had been Lolly's favorites.
Mrs. Bellamy asked, "would you tell me something about Lady Preston?" That was the question of someone practiced in comforting others. Yet Martin found himself reluctant to answer.
He never minded talking about her with the children, but that was through the lens of her as a mother. He reminisced about her with Maulvi and Mrs. Chow, remembering anecdotes without needing to explain to them the context of her personality. The whole Lolly, the delightful, stubborn, intelligent, independent woman he had loved, was a secret of his heart, and she had died so long ago.
The grief Martin carried now mingled with fear that if he could magically resurrect Lolly, she would not recognize the person he had become. But he wanted to give Mrs. Bellamy a reply. "She had terrible allergies in the springtime. She was always sneezing and in section unladylike manner." It was, of course, the spark that had forged their 20 year union.
"She was born in America before it became independent and would've stayed there as a revolutionary had her father allowed it. She almost returned to Boston instead of marrying me, in fact."
Mrs. Bellamy's brows rose.
"I would be shocked, save for how revolutionary you yourself are, sir."
"I am a reformer to be sure," Martin rushed to correct her, "but I do not go so far as to envision a revolution of government."
"Did Lady Preston?"
"No." Suddenly Martin couldn't quite remember. He and Lolly had engaged in so many debates about policy and political theory and strategies to accomplish their goals. She had often played devil's advocate to push Martin to fully consider an issue, but had she ever truly advocated for a republic to replace the monarchy? Could he not remember or had he not paid her attention?
If she did, he did not want to pursue that line of thinking. A little defensively, he asked, "and what of Mr. Bellamy? I met him a few times, but I never had the pleasure of getting to know him fully. How would you describe him?" The expression on her face had it been curiosity, sympathy, disappeared, replaced by the nothingness that she had worn before their friendship blossomed.
"He was a good man who tried to do his best by those around him." And she must still be deep in her grief if she needed to rely on such a platitude to reply. Martin remembered how hard it had been to bear even the mention of Lolly in the first year after her death, though of course she had occupied his every thought.
How foolish that he had been worrying these past few days about what Mrs. Bellamy thought of him. She wasn't thinking of him. Her heart still belonged to her late husband. Martin pushed away an ugly feeling that he feared was envy. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to dwell on so painful a topic."
"It is not painful for me to speak of him."
She looked out the window, her eyes on something far away as she selected her next words. "I don't think I was crying just now for Kenneth, but for the life I had that I can never have again." And Martin felt as if she had reached into his soul to pluck out words he would never have found himself. Without knowing what he did,
he crossed the carriage to sit beside her and take her hand in his. She blushed. "Is that terrible of me? Do you think?"
"It's human, which makes it both terrible and beautiful." He wrapped one palm beneath her hands and the other above them holding onto the precious person She was. "I grieved Lolly deeply for years, and I still miss her.
But what I grieve now is my children being young and my life being unlived and optimism about the years unfurling before me."
She leaned into his grasp. "I miss being someone. Even on my worst days, I was Kenneth's wife. He relied on me. The village relied on me. I was a help, not a burden. And now I'm-" Those tears flooded her eyes again.
"I'm an old woman that Mr. Sebright did not recognize, even though he turned me out of my home just last week."
He couldn't help it. He cupped his gloved fingers around her chin. "You are someone, Mrs. Bellamy. You are someone spectacular."
Her lips parted, but no words came. They were both leaning in and, though a dim warning somewhere in Martin's head tried to stop him, with a soft jolt of the carriage,
they kissed.
He had not shared a romantic kiss with anyone since Lolly died and oh, how that first touch flooded his body with youth. Mrs. Bellamy tasted of white wine- or what he remembered of white wine from before he gave up continental imports- a delicious dry sweetness that he wanted to inhale with every breath.
He couldn't help but linger, especially not when her hand slid behind his ear to hold him close, and her thumb swept across his cheek in a tender caress. When the carriage jostled, he grasped her waist and remembered what it was to hold someone against his body. Bliss blanketed his mind, quieting his thoughts, so that he felt only a fuzzy joy of lips, tongue, fingers, knees.
He had told himself all these years he did not need a woman's touch. He had not considered how much he wanted it, and he especially wanted this woman. The woman whose lips he plundered and whose skin set his own on fire. Mrs. Bellamy, his friend, who somehow knew his deepest regrets and still admired him.
Her breath grew ragged, so did his. Their hands remained on his neck, her waist, his chest, their clothes did not loosen. Her hair did not shake free from its coiffure yet the kiss continued growing more delicious with every second, and Martin began to believe it would never end. Then the carriage slowed. The voices of workers calling to each other in the fields filtered through the windows.
A horse neighed. And Martin remembered decorum, propriety. The fact that Mrs. Bellamy was a widow in his care, not a wife to be enjoyed the pleasure of kissing her, was almost too strong for his principles to break through. But Martin had lived six decades as a man of principle. Somehow he withdrew his hands from her waist.
He loosened hers from around his face and placed them in her lap. Worst of all, he forced his mouth to separate from hers. They smiled at each other and their fingers, devils that they were, intertwined. It was only at the last moment when the carriage entered the sweep in front of Northfield Hall where anyone from the household could see them
that Martin returned to the bench opposite hers.
What a wonderful kiss.
How terrible that he had let it happen.
How horribly he already wished it could happen again.
As Boyle opened the door to help them out, Mrs. Bellamy said, "Thank you for your assistance this afternoon, sir."
"I'm at your disposal, Mrs.
Bellamy."
She smiled and he smiled, and Martin knew it would be up to him to resist her from here on out
Very well done. Thank you.
Mary Lynne Nielsen: So it's interesting, this particular passage highlights some of the things that are really outstanding about this book, which, first of all, that it's an older couple. And as a woman of a certain age myself, it's really refreshing to read about an older couple with memories, with past experiences.
With all of that happening and particularly interesting to me is that Martin has been your protagonist before.
Yes,
he's your protagonist in the, the prequel novella, the one that sets up all of the children that he has, and you meet his wife, you meet the lady Preston, from whom he had those children, and how he became the sort of man that he is, in particularly his quote unquote radicalization, which is something I wanna get into.
But I think it's really interesting to see how it highlights the stage of being where you've had a past lover, where you have to address those past marriages and those experiences. He's referring to his past experiences. She's referring to her husband and what he did for her, and I think that it brings up some of the things that are beautifully interwoven in the book.
And I really did love the book. I should start by saying that.
Katherine Grant: Thank you.
Mary Lynne Nielsen: But I think that that's one of the elements. So what made you want to go back to Martin when you'd written his, his HEA thank you very much earlier on and then come back again?
Katherine Grant: Actually, when I first started thinking about this series, this book, the Widower Without a Will, was one of like two books, maybe three of them, that I knew I was going to write. In my first series the Duchess Wager and the Husband Plot, I was coming up against these themes that I wanted to come back to of aristocratic people in England saying, wow, I have a lot of privilege. What do I do with that? And I did not want to have to continuously write how they were discovering this privilege and continuously have them educating the people around them about it.
And in the Duchess wager, one of the big conflicts was this parental conflict where she kind of has to tell her father why everything he holds dear is now kind of she, she finds it problematic and she's going to depart from that way of life. And so having written those stories in the Duchess Wager and the husband plot, I was thinking about my next series, and I really wanted to develop this idea of a family that they were all on the same page.
They wanted to be living a responsible life with their privilege. They wanted to be doing good in the world with what they had, and yet they still would have conflict because of the generational change in what we consider to be necessary. One generation starts progress, and by the time the next generation picks up the mantle,
progress has changed so that the trajectory is changing a little bit. And the first generation is saying, Hey, I don't like that trajectory you're going down. And the second generation says, well, this is the necessary trajectory. Like obviously, why don't you see this? And there's, there's always this, these cycles of change and these generational differences in how we approach change.
And I wanted to make room for that.
Mary Lynne Nielsen: We see it
today. Absolutely.
Katherine Grant: Yes. We definitely see it today. And so I knew that was kinda my end game for this series. And so then I wrote The Baron Without Blame, which is the prequel novella number one, because I needed to set up why this family operates the way they do.
And I also really wanted to push back on what we see in romance and historical romance, which is the widow or the widower, they've never experienced love before. They were married, but it was a bad marriage. They were married, but they never had sex. They were married, but you know, they've never had a true love.
And I personally, I understand some readers find it really comforting to believe that there's only one true love, but for me it's more comforting to believe that if you lose your partner, that's not it for you.
Mary Lynne Nielsen: No, it's true. I was raised by this adage from my mother, which is when you decide that you're ready to be married, and that can be a very conscious decision or a very subconscious decision, it is usually the next person you meet who is of like mind, who is at that stage, and again, all the spectrum you can be on that you will probably marry.
Mm-hmm. Which by definition doesn't necessarily mean that you will only marry one. And I think that that's absolutely true to embrace the return and that that's why I, in a lot of other times when you do see that there's an earlier marriage, the earlier marriage is brushed away. We'll, we'll make an allusion to it even if it was a good marriage and that I've seen Carla Kelly comes to mind as an author who does that, but you don't delve into it.
You acknowledge it, but you don't interweave it. And it's a very conscious part of what goes on with both Martin and Martha. To see them both acknowledging this, I think was, was very, very interesting. But the passage also brings up a, a lot of interesting topics.
Obviously the first and foremost, which you put in your newsletter, is the acknowledgement of utopian communities and how this is all interwoven with the utopian communities. And that's been a theme throughout the series. But I was very interested to see that you started this not knowing about Robert Owen.
Because I was kinda like, wait, what? Because I actually had thought the opposite. I had thought, oh, she's right about him, and then all of a sudden this note comes in your newsletter. And I'm like, what? Are you kidding me? Which is amazing because that's the, I knew it from the colony that he set up in Indiana.
Yeah. Having to gone to college out there, I'd heard of this experiment or failed experiment, and I think one of the things that, and again, everybody should go get your newsletters, go look on the website, go read the articles. You've got great blog posts on that, that, that they can dig into. Who was this nobleman?
And there were multiple who thought they could create these utopian communities, and more importantly, why did they fail? And the big magic here. Is money. And one of the things that I liked about this book is it very much addressed the monetary challenges of maintaining these kinds of communities. They demanded enormous amounts of income to be able to support families, et cetera, but the businesses weren't necessarily driving that.
So one of the things that's being acknowledged here is that at a certain point. Robert has to weigh out his interest and what he's gonna do. And one of the Robert, hello Martin. One of the things he struggles with, I think the most I'm thinking of Robert Owen, that's interesting to me is he's a progressive, but he isn't.
Mm-hmm. And there's this acknowledgement throughout the book that he noble and he knows he's noble and he thinks of that even when he's looking at, you know, martha versus Lolly. He notes that Lolly is a well, but she was the right class. There's one line that I highlighted where he literally just sort of said she was the same class as me.
This woman is not, his brain is going there and he's consistent. Mr. Maulvi is a great example of how he can't quite get past the employer employee relationship, even though he actually is well past it. He can't acknowledge it. He's also possibly one of the most really burdened with his own guilt and lack of self-worth.
I mean, he's, it's mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa a lot of times. Why were those characteristics important for you to bring out at Martin of this age versus what you see when he is younger?
Katherine Grant: One of the key propulsion elements of this book is the book that happened before it, the Miss without a Mister.
His youngest daughter, Caroline, has been in love with Eddie Chow her whole life. They're basically the same age. Eddie Chow is the son of the couple that kind of inspired Northfield Hall and they grew up together. Caroline always assumed because she was raised to believe in this utopian vision. She assumed that class boundaries had been eradicated and she was gonna marry Eddie and they were gonna live happily ever after at Northfield Hall.
And then in her book, her father lays down the law and says, no, you can't marry him. He's not of our class. You are not gonna be able to have a happily ever after. And a lot of stuff happens, a whole book happens. But Martin is kind of forced to realize that his children see the world differently than he does.
And so he is not healed from that wound and is still trying to process everything that happened with Caroline throughout this book. So I think that's why he is feeling that he's always doing the wrong thing and that everything is always his fault so completely in this book. I also think something that I didn't consciously write, but that comes out for me every time I reread it, is Martha
is such a partner to him. She just kind of sees his burden and kind of lifts it. And sometimes she's able to say, this is not your burden. Leave it alone. And sometimes she's able to say, okay, well what are we gonna do about this? And I think that's something that Martin had in Lolly and has had with Maulvi to a certain degree.
But he's losing Maulvi, his, his steward and best friend who is. I think hopefully it's not a surprise from he's an old man and he's facing the end of his life. So, so Martin has lost these partners who would kind of call him on his overthinking and his anxiety and his making it about himself.
And the other part of it is I kind of wanted to explore the narcissism involved in being a leader, in having a vision, in doing something. Like there's a certain element of, if you are going to say, I am turning my estate into this utopian you know, world and. Whether you want people to pay attention to you or not, and you're doing it like there's some narcissism in there and then, you know, he's born into the baron role.
So there's definitely narcissism baked into that and I,
Mary Lynne Nielsen: but it's
also baked into the care and nurturing. One thing I wrote down is Preston and guilt taking on all the responsibilities. Think back to like the ancient times when you had your serfs and you cared for them. The, the whole noble class was raised to think that we are supposed to be the benefactors.
And for some people they weren't. They were totally taking advantage of it. But that's not who Martin is. Martin is, I'm supposed to take care of everybody. And that's part of his breakdown is, is he has to deal with the fact that. As in the previous book has caused him an enormous amount of guilt. The other thing I love, Caroline has the same problem.
She is not over it. And I was, it was funny 'cause I was like, I'm thinking about, wait a minute, and I wanted to go back and look at her book and realize, oh right, the epilogue is like two decades ahead. Right. And it's like, of course the space is left there for this incredible bitterness. She still feels, she might have her HEA with Eddie, but there's a lot going on around her that's not resolved and it's right there in this book.
And that to me was one of the things I really appreciated with seeing this thread continue through of that guilt and of that pain. Another thing that really leapt out to me in this passage, the one that you chose to read, is it addresses another thing that is so particular to women of the time and even women of our time, to be honest,
which is the precariousness of a widow's situation. And you look at Martha and part of what you said about her being a partner to, to Martin is. She spent 30 years being the partner. The job of a Rector's wife, I speak as the daughter-in-law of one, is you've gotta be there for everybody.
You've gotta do things for your parish, you've gotta do things for your community. And she does that. And yet she is put the moment her husband passes into this crazy, precarious situation. And there was a quote that I pulled that where it, where you wrote, "to lose a a husband is to lose everything and to lose a wife is only to lose your heart."
And I thought it's so beautifully expressed that a man didn't have his financial situation shown about, and the scene you read illustrates that so well. There are possessions she left in the house that she just didn't take because she was in such a nebulous spot. She had nowhere to go. What did she do? All of a sudden, it's the property of the new rector and they're telling her to fix her own furniture that she left in the, and you're reading this going, this is this twisted man.
This is bonkers and I'm sure it's factually true. But it's a fascinating little tidbit in that scene to point out. This is the precariousness of her situation and indeed the situation of any woman. You were completely reliant on that time, on the husband's salary and so much work against you to get a job.
She was in that spot. What is she trained to do? She is literally trained to be a help meet in a big way. She's not trained to, per se, to manage a house or do all of that. She does all of that. But her job was being a help me. So when she, you say she slots in so well to Martin, it's what she's trained to do and I thought that was such a nice choice to illustrate this particular situation and how that, how that could work.
Was that a deliberate choice on your part to make her a pastor's wife in that particular role?
Katherine Grant: You know, I don't remember when I got that idea specific for her. I always knew he'd be with a widow, but I don't know when I realized she'd be a rector- but I do remember coming across the research that a clergy man's wife and family upon his death would be turned out when the new person was installed and that new person had to be installed within six months.
So that research and the idea of the Dilapidations bill, which was a real thing that people received that was for me, like, well, that's a very dramatic moment. Like that's when I was like, the opening scene is he's driving down the village road and he discovers that she is homeless. Basically, that scene popped into my head pretty much as soon as I learned about the Dilapidations bill, and I think it feels very natural
that she's the rector's widow because going back to like Martin has the role of nobility with the idea of I must care for people, and the rector is also supposed to be a member of the community that is caring for other people, so they should be partners in. Like caring for the community. And Martin hasn't really had that partnership with Rectors for various reasons that I honestly don't completely explore in this book.
But you know, I, I think that's why Martha is such a good match for Martin because they both have this community focused. We're gonna care for other people with what we have.
Mary Lynne Nielsen: With the skillset in essence, that they've each been given. One of the things though that I really loved was the, when they chose to use their first names and that there is a steady progression. And in many books, that's an assumption that's, that's taken, you know, it's just suddenly one person starts using it of the other.
And here it's very conscious and each is thinking very heavily about it. She's craving it. He's trying to keep the lines up that he has no ability to keep. And how does, how does that tie in? And it's a really nice way of illustrating that. That, that division, you know what, what, how he keeps her separate even in the house, but she's in the house, you know, which he could have found somewhere else.
He didn't, what was going on, even in that moment to say the house is where she belongs. And that is kind of an interesting aspect of it to me. The other thing, and you, and you touch on it when you were discussing the relationship between Martin and Caroline in particular, but Martha has a similar situation, and this is not a spoiler 'cause it has right at the beginning of the book, we, we get into something that is very sensitive.
And I think you addressed it very well, which is that Martha has lost her adult child to suicide after the death of his wife and daughter, a wife and daughter that Martha did not want him to marry. In an inverse of Martin's situation, the daughter that the woman that her son married is of vulnerability.
In the same way that here's Martin going to Caroline. Thou shalt not with Eddie. Here's Martha going to Lucas. Thou shalt not with Lady Imogen. So we have this absolute balance of look, it's both sides. You know, the upper class thought this of the middle to lower class, the middle to lower thought, this of the upper. When you look at Martha, she's struggling with what happened to her son and what her role was, and that's a really great thread that starts at the beginning of the book and carries through.
I also thought you handled the introduction of how something like that would've happened. At the time, what you were deemed to be, what happened to someone who was a suicide was beautifully done because in part, that's a large part of the impact on Martha. What made you want to choose to tackle something that is a very sensitive subject and in particular that had a very interesting interpretation and meaning in that time versus our own?
Katherine Grant: It started off kind of simply that I had this premise that Martin was going to take in a widow, and I needed to figure out why she wouldn't have family that would take her in.
And so then I was looking into my imagination about what might have happened to her family. Did she never have children? Did she have children? If so, what happened to them? And then I was also trying to figure out what year exactly I wanted to set this. And I came across the legislation that changed in 1823.
The penal code was updated. Previous to 1823, a person who was lost to suicide, the law was that they would be buried by the crossroads with a stake through their heart. And honestly, when I read that, it was a very
Mary Lynne Nielsen: old law too. It wasn't like. Right. That had been there for hundreds of years.
Katherine Grant: It sounds medieval.
And when I read that I was like, they couldn't possibly have been doing that in the regency period, but I looked up newspaper articles from like 1815 in Bath and they did, they said, you know, he was buried at a crossroads. They didn't say explicitly in every newspaper article that they were buried at a crossroads or that they had a stake through their heart, but they did say it.
And so that felt to me kind of momentous because Martin would be part of the reform of that. And yet, it's one of those things where the reform comes too late for people and tying into him wanting to do good, but it's not enough and, just kind of shedding light on that. And then it's a, a rich literary foil that her son kind of went down the same path as Caroline, but had tragedy instead of a happily ever after.
So I feel sorry that I sacrificed Lucas to that, that literary foil, but that's how I, that's how I got there.
Mary Lynne Nielsen: Well, it, it presents an admirable aspect, which is that you, you have to remember that, you know, he had a love that was very rich and wonderful for him. So rich and wonderful for him that it caused his reaction.
So in essence, you know, he had that joy and that's the important thing to remember in that what in the scenario you set up. But also I think what's fascinating about it to me is how the unaddressed situation can curdle inside. It's curdling for Martin and Caroline who simply struggle to have a civil conversation where they're not baiting at one another even though each is not trying to, they're each doing it all over the place.
And yet you look at Martha, she longs for the conversation. She longs to know that and to, you know, suffer what she had to suffer.
And it is to me a very interesting choice because it teaches you so much about, because I knew about the old Crossroads things, but I was thinking of it as medieval. My revelation was, you are kidding. It's still on the books and you know, all the rules around it made sense when you look at a time when the church was very big and the sense of damnation and where one went in the layers between purgatory and limbo, and hell and, all this stuff
were very much in people's minds. They genuinely thought, yeah, that's happening. The actions make sense, but you apply it to a time where you're now past the enlightenment, you're past all that, and yet here this thing still is on the books.
And so now let's turn to something a little lighter 'cause that was a heavy one. Let's turn a lighter one. Sex. Yeah. Okay. One of the things that is so much fun in the central scenes in this book is that we're dealing with older people sex. And one of the things I loved that you put in, I hope you don't mind me saying this one, is that they need lubricant.
It's not, you know, insert, you know, tab A into slot B. It is not happening that way. They need a little help, and yet it's done very naturally. Both of them kind of know, which I kind of wondered about a little bit on Martin's part. I was like, man, he is a little savvier than one would think if he's been kind of sitting over here in this chair for like 15 years.
Dude, what are you reading in that library? But anyway, you know, it's, it's a wonderful touch. Let's talk a little bit about older people and sex. What were you thinking of when you approached it for this particular story?
Katherine Grant: I wanted it to be something that felt true to these characters. And I also didn't want to kind of bog down or create pain.
Like, I didn't want the readers to be distracted by like, oh, she's not wet enough. It hurts. I wanted it to be just kind of natural because this book has so many heavy parts to it that I really wanted the sex to be joyful.
Mary Lynne Nielsen: Were there any challenges to writing from an older person's perspective for you, for that?
Katherine Grant: Well, I, I mostly was going based on like what I've read about people's experiences.
I, I occasionally did have to like, rework some beats. You know, for example, at one point he picks her up. And then his back hurts and he can't lift her that high. And that I knew, like as I was writing it, yes. But there were a couple other scenes where I read it, I wrote it, and then I went back and I was like they can't physically do that.
I think there's a carriage scene where originally I was going to have it be kind of a, a full-on encounter. Mm-hmm. Okay. And then I realized they didn't have time or supplies. And so I,
Mary Lynne Nielsen: is this the one with the Cape? I don't wanna say much more.
Katherine Grant: Yes. The cape. Okay. Yeah. So. So then I was like, well, what else could they do?
And the Cape was involved. But yeah, so the biggest challenge I would say was thinking about, what would Martin have on hand for that first encounter to recommend as a lubricant? Because it's not like the, the handbooks that I have from those times that are like, this is the lotion for your skin.
They don't say, you know, this is good for sexual intercourse. So I ended up kind of inventing that there was some lotion that would be appropriate for sexual purposes as well. So that's a little bit of a fudge. But other than that, I was really just trying to imagine, you know, what bodily obstacles there might be.
Mary Lynne Nielsen: Right? And, and it is, it is something that actually matters because of it's what you deal with when you get older. The, you know, the things that you could do in your twenties. It is just mother nature is going, nope. Ain't happen now.
Katherine Grant: Well, and I didn't want there to be any awkwardness or even the feeling that they needed to talk about how it's not a problem.
I just wanted them both to be like, Hey, I'm excited for this. Whatever it's gonna turn out to be.
Mary Lynne Nielsen: Yes. And they have, they, they're excited. This is,
Katherine Grant: oh, are they excited.
Mary Lynne Nielsen: And I think that one of the, the things also that you acknowledge that is a lot of fun to see is they don't have to worry about anything.
You know? Yes. Especially at this time when birth control was arbitrary to say the least. They don't have to worry. They're older, they're past a certain stage, nothing's gonna happen. So they can treat things differently because they never have to consider that consequence. And sometimes I get frustrated by historicals that do I need to consider constantly know.
But on the other hand, reading books where they're very young and nobody ever thinks about this, and you're like, time out. Time out. Hello? Hello. Aren't you supposed to be worried? Aren't you supposed to be smart enough to be worried? Is something that I found, you know different and refreshing because that's often a frustration for, for me as a reader, is to see.
There's like no acknowledgement of anything that you really should be thinking about. And in this case, the fun of it is that didn't have to happen. Right. And so you could just have them being, doing what, as you say, having fun doing what they wanna do because they're not at that stage in life where consequences matter.
And that's a huge thing I think that's highlighted here that I think is a lot of fun that you actually wanna do. The other thing I wanted to talk about a little bit was expression. The interior monologue, what these two say versus what they do, and talk about the opposites. Again, these, these two think one thing and say another, think one thing and say another, and it's huge.
Was that a deliberate decision on your point?
Katherine Grant: I don't think I ever said explicitly to myself that's, you know what I'm going to do with them. Martin, Lord Preston, has always had a very rich interior overthinking, and I think he always feels there are very few people that he feels he can be completely open with because he always feels a responsibility for the people around him. And so I think part of. What he finds with Martha is an ability to be open with her even when he didn't mean to be. And that's one of the, the magical parts of their relationship.
But he is very out of tune with his emotions and what he's allowed to do.
Mary Lynne Nielsen: Anger management issues too. But yeah.
Katherine Grant: So, yeah. But with him, I think I wanted to explore letting him be a person who does good things, but is a very imperfect human. And then with Martha, I think again, there's certain element of she's protecting herself because she's been living in this scandal for a long time.
And then she's protecting herself because she doesn't think she can ask for what she wants. And so she. She has to kind of, she's tempering what she says, but I also feel that Martha, I really didn't want there to be a lot of, like, I'm afraid to say how I'm feeling in this book because they are older people who have been in long relationships and have learned how to
do that before. And so Martha in particular stands up when she really feels something strongly, but it, she kind of has to get to the point where she feels that it's worth saying, and then she says her piece and she kind of accepts the consequences.
Mary Lynne Nielsen: It's one of the things I most liked about her is that she is the one who can more readily address and accept.
Martin, just the man is hopeless. I mean, he's so bad at this and you know, she is much more in touch with that interiority and able to bring it out. Whereas he tends to have a very strict division and it ties back into the, this is the role I have, this is what I'm supposed to be, and that challenge. Is one that he has to confront over the course of the book.
So there's that being woven in, in addition to the struggles with his children and maintaining the community and doing what he can with that and that acknowledgement of that difference. For instance, one of the things I really liked was showing Martin's relationship to the Chows, Eddie's parents and the, the people who really sort of made Northfield Northfield.
Right. You know, they're the ones who started it out. And it's a very subtle thing in the book, but it's illustrating how he evolves in his treatment and relationship to them. I do wonder if she officially retired. I just gotta say.
Katherine Grant: I forgot to, to tie up that end.
Mary Lynne Nielsen: We, that needed, yeah, we needed that changeover.
But you know, it, it's an interesting contrast to be able to use that, you know, if you've got Mr. Maulvi as one example of the opportunity that the ship kind of sails versus the opportunity that he can address. It's a subtle thing, but it's very, very important in showing his evolution versus the more overt ones like his children and Martha, et cetera.
And so the thing I wanna say is, what would you like readers to take from this book, having read it?
Katherine Grant: I would hope people are inspired to think about a couple of different things. On the one level, this is the end of the series and it is, it's a romance, but it's also tying up this family's story.
And the family story is very central and I hope that it feels satisfying if you read this, the series from beginning to end, that there's an arc to the whole series. And so I, I hope that feels satisfying and for me a lot of times, the focus on the romance relationship, we see a lot of like wonderful families and wonderful found families, but it almost feels like there's a, a vacuum.
Like the romance is in a vacuum where there's happiness all around. There are just functional relationships and then like the, the romance has to figure itself out. And I was really interested in exploring a family that they all love each other, they all want to be happy, but they, you know, are encountering the things that we encounter and they have to kind of figure out how to.
And then with this book specifically my big theme that I was writing towards was this idea of kind of generational change and how Martin had progressive ideas as a young man, he's been living by his ideals, he's been trying to advocate for change, and now as a 60 something year old man, he feels like somehow his ideas aren't enough to the next generation who are demanding even more.
And can we get out of our own way? Is that natural? Is it okay for him to be imperfect? There are a lot of things that even when I reread it and get to the end, I'm like, oh, but Martin, you're still doing this. But, but I think, you know, we're all human. We're never gonna be perfect. Is that okay? And yeah, the, the general series question is what does it mean to have ideals and try to live by them?
And so hopefully there are some thoughts around that.
Mary Lynne Nielsen: And I think that's one of the nicest things about it. And I think the fact that this book in particular really delves into the concept of the utopian community in a really, really big way is, is one of the nicer aspects of that question of how do you hold to your ideals and that things cannot necessarily be perfectly achieved, whether that be in your professional work or your personal life?
And you know, you see that, that there's still things with some of his children where there's bitterness that he didn't even realize had been festering for quite some time. And that is one of the aspects that I think illustrates that all. Even though things are good, they're never perfect. And if they're perfect, they're boring.
And so that's, you know, one of the things that you look at in this book in particular and see very nicely illustrated, is that evolution and that continuing pathway and the sense that you have, that it will continue beyond the book. They're not done. They're, they're still figuring it out and that's one of the, the nicest aspects that we have within it.
So I'm gonna just say this was an incredibly enjoyable read. I would like to just share maybe my favorite quote from the book. I'd love that. I mean, it's very short so I can do that.
It's from Martha's perspective, "she had craved Martin for weeks, had been beside him for hours, had kissed him for minutes, and it took only the sweetest amount of time for her body to shatter into the deepest orgasm of her life."
And I think that's such a nice summation of the path of the book. Weeks, hours, minutes. Only a sweet amount of time, because that's really Martin and Martha's trajectory, right? They have been through the weeks and the hours and the minutes, and now they're hitting at this very late point in their life, the sweetest amount of time.
Katherine Grant: Hmm.
Mary Lynne Nielsen: And that's one of the nicest things about The Widower Without a Will.
Katherine Grant: Aw. Thank you so much, Mary Lynne.
Mary Lynne Nielsen: Very much appreciate the chance to get the early copy and give it this kind of perusal. It's, it was fascinating to do. Thank you.
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