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Edie Cay Samples Into The Breach With You
[00:00:00]
Katherine Grant: Welcome to the historical romance sampler podcast. I'm your host, Katherine Grant, and each week I introduce you to another amazing historical romance author. My guest reads a little sample of their work, and then we move into a free ranging interview. If you like these episodes, don't forget to subscribe to the historical romance sampler, wherever you listen to podcasts and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
Now let's get into this week's episode.
I'm super excited to be joined today by Edie Cay who writes award-winning steamy feminist historical romance. Edie obtained dual bas in creative writing and in music from Cal State East Bay and her MFA in creative writing from University of Alaska Anchorage.
She's been a professional musician, bookstore employee, and a healthcare worker. And she's also a founding member of the Historical Fiction [00:01:00] Collective, the Paper Lantern Writers. There, she writes blogs, conducts interviews with amazing historical fiction authors and helps edit and publish their anthologies.
Edie, I'm so excited to have you on the historical romance sampler today.
Edie Cay: Thank you
so much for having me.
I'm very
excited
to be here.
Katherine Grant: Yeah, I am thrilled to hear some of your work. What are you reading for us today?
Edie Cay: I am going to be reading the first chapter from Into the Breach With You, which is the third book in the Ladies Alpine Society.
All four books are in the series are out right now and Kindle Unlimited. And I thought this would be the book out of the whole series that shows a little more of the personalities because this book is where they actually get to Zermatt. They are actually climbing the mountain in this book.
So here we are. It's chapter one. This is Justine's book and Justine is of the Four Ladies. She is the daughter of a merchant. So she is not of [00:02:00] the aristocracy, but they have wealth, so they rub shoulders with the aristocracy sometimes.
So this is 1869, Zermatt, Switzerland.
Justine Brewer didn't mind a lot of things. She didn't mind the cold. She didn't mind her friends being so in love that they draped themselves endlessly around their sweethearts or overhearing their whispered saccharine sentiments so often that it made her teeth hurt. But what she absolutely did mind was being forced to sit still for three days straight from the ferry across the channel, to the train from Calais to Paris;
the train from Paris to Straussberg, the train from Straussberg to Zurich, and the donkey ride from Zurich to Zermatt. She was gonna crawl out of her bloody skin as it was. She already wished she were climbing the mountain herself instead of being strapped onto the back of a donkey, like a piece of luggage, feeling the cold and observing
how the snow gathered on rocks and trees until finally, finally, the valley unfurled and beyond was the stately, [00:03:00] snowy, scooped out peak of the Matterhorn. It loomed above all other peaks, and on the cold clear day, it glowed with its hard, bright white angles. The donkeys ambled down into zermatt, the church steeple at the far end
lording over the shadowed valley, a pale echo of the mountain beyond. The town itself was not large, but well established. The snow crusted on the rooftops of the wood and slate alpine houses, which were utterly unlike English cottages. They all possessed a tightness and squareness each window and shutter at right angles,
not a single board leaned even a centimeter out of place. There were few people out on the streets, all wrapped tightly in woolen scarves and hats, barely anything but eyes showing against the chill air. When they finally arrived at their end, Justine was too impatient to wait for someone to help her down off the donkey.
She slid off herself and threw the reigns haphazardly. But oh, that air, nothing had tasted as good as this air crisp and fresh and cool. She felt like she could drink it. [00:04:00] She was even more anxious to run, to feel that air deep in her lungs to replace all that fetid air of the three days worth of enclosed trains. In front of her Ophelia and her father,
Lord Rascombe, dismounted. Another train of donkeys pulled up behind them, hauling all the luggage and climbing equipment they'd brought from London or picked up along the way, one step closer to the top of the Matterhorn. If she weren't positive Ophelia would get annoyed with her for wandering away, she would've gone on a walk around right then.
She stamped on the snow, hearing the cold crunch of it under her boots. Fraulein, a man said to her, indicating the way into the hotel the building was freshly built. The light colored board still smelling of trees. The rugs were new and Justine thought about how much melted snow these would absorb over the years.
Her carpet bag was already waiting at the front desk along with Ophelia's. "Guten abend," the man at the desk said he was older, perhaps in his sixties with frothy snow, white hair and a round face. His cheeks were pink, which contrasted with the bright blue ice chip [00:05:00] color of his eyes. "Herr Bruller." "Good afternoon," Justine said not understanding a word that was spoken.
Instead, she looked around waiting for Lord Rascombe to speak with the older man. There was a staircase that obviously went up to guest rooms and another doorway that gaped open through it. She saw tables and chairs. She pointed, then mimed bringing a fork to her mouth for eating. The man's eyes brightened and he dotted. "Ja. For essen."
It looked pleasant enough, simple accommodation, but that's all they needed. She was looking forward to her simple dresses, the solitary runs in this delicious crisp air. No dances, no balls, no dinners, just mountains. Lord Rascombe approached, pulling letters out of his coat pocket. The men spoke in German, which Justine ignored, and instead looked about at the plotted plants in the red and yellow, painted designs on the exposed beams above her head.
Ophelia joined her. Justine pointed upwards. "The English never decorate a ceiling." "Untrue," Ophelia [00:06:00] said, sniffing. "All is well?" Justine asked. "I should like a bath." That's all Ophelia said. Justine didn't respond because she didn't need to. They'd endured the hell of puberty together. Their first menses, for Justine's first blood came as she shared a bed with Ophelia and would've been the most mortifying event in the world,
had Ophelia not been so drattedly kind about it. While Justine had received the taunting of Ophelia's older brother Tristan, now thankfully wed and thoroughly besotted with Eleanor. It wasn't as if Justine hadn't given as good as she'd gotten until Tristan had told Justine's nickname to his influential friends, and it became of work for the scandal sheets, but it didn't matter to Justine and Ophelia stuck by her through it all, even though the other girls told Ophelia to cut ties with Justine because of her reputation.
Ophelia always told him that Justine was an innocent. In the matters of men? Yes, absolutely. In the matters of other mischief? Perhaps not. And her older brother, Francis, Tristan's schoolmate, was of no help whatsoever. He didn't defend his little sister at all. It [00:07:00] didn't help that no matter what kind of gown Justine wore her slim waist, short stature, and buxom endowments made her look as if she were hoping for a tumble in the hay.
The only true resistance to this presumption was to laugh at them. She did. She'd gotten used to needing to be unkind, needing to be loud and forceful, and in one particularly horrifying instance when she was at her debut, being very well seen so no one could carry her off. "I like the red bird motif," Justine said, still staring at the alpine ceiling.
"It's cheerful." "It's bloody," ophelia said Justine looked to her friend, anxious indeed to be so judgmental. It wasn't like her. Justine was about to say something when there was a thunder on the stairs and the rest of the Ladies' Alpine Society came tearing into view. Eleanor flung herself on Justine while Prudence embraced.
"Ophelia, we've missed you." Eleanor squealed. Their quiet and withdrawn, knot tying genius. Eleanor was capable of squealing? Marriage had loosened her. "Who [00:08:00] are you and what have you done with Eleanor?" Justine admonished, but Eleanor moved aside and Tristan moved in for a hardy embrace, something he had never done before.
Puzzled, Justine suffered his affection. "Bad news." Tristan uttered the nickname he'd bestowed. "Arsehole." She said the only name he'd ever earned. Tristan laughed and let her go, leaving her to greet prudence and then have a very awkward handshake with Mr. Moon, their expedition accountant, who was not supposed to be here but had followed Prudence.
Not that Justine would blame him. Prudence was the kind of American goddess embodying all the things English women wouldn't dare do. Smiling at strangers, for one. Prudence was tall and moved easily in her skin with a confidence that even Justine envied. Justine took Prudence's hand and squeezed it. "Darlings,
it's lovely to see your gorgeous facies. Well, except yours, Tristan. It's abominable as usual." Tristan was considered one of the best looking men in London. He shared his golden hair and doll like blue eyes with Ophelia and their mother, as well as an easygoing [00:09:00] disposition that was often construed as sweet.
But Justine knew what an arsehole he was and had no inclination to stop telling him so. "However," Justine continued, "a bath is crucial. Where might the bathing facilities be located?" Won't you need to unpack first?" Eleanor asked. "No need," Justine chirped, gesturing to the carpet bags she'd set aside. "We have our changes of clothes at the ready."
"I can show you the way," Prudence said, picking up one of the carpet bags. "Follow me."
A bath, then a dinner of sausages and potatoes and sauerkraut, and they were in their beds, a small portable iron brazier glowing to keep them warm. Justine shared a room with Ophelia, each in their small beds, and while her friend fell asleep immediately, Justine felt like it was the middle of the afternoon.
She was ready for tea and gossip, or even a training run. It had been ages since she'd been allowed to move properly. She lit the small oil lamp next to her bed and tried to read, but even her mind was restless. Eleanor had given her a book about Mary Queen of Scots, which normally would've been interesting, but Justine could not [00:10:00] concentrate, not when her body screamed for permission to move.
A young lady should go wandering about a hotel in the middle of the night. It wasn't done because it wasn't safe, but she would die if she had to lay still any longer. With a jealous glance at Ophelia's sleeping form, her angelic face arranged like the porcelain dolls her mother gifted her every year,
Justine got out of bed. She put on her heavy woolen stockings, her dowdiest dress meant for climbing mountains in, and an extra shawl that she tied about her shoulders and waist. She pulled on the warm wool lichen slippers and crept out of the room where she discovered it was very cold, very cold indeed. The iron braziers heated the rooms individually, but the passage noise were freezing.
Justine would need to find a fireplace quickly and perhaps a dose of local flavors that could help her fall asleep. Was she a nightmare for chaperones? Yes. Was she bad news as Tristan Bridewell had said so many years ago? Possibly. Would she lose her mind if she didn't wander the Alpine in right this minute?
Absolutely. Carrying [00:11:00] her oil lamp with her down the passage and down the stairs, she followed the heat. It was easy to feel the drafts as they circulated through the building. As she got to the bottom floor where the innkeeper had greeted them, she could feel the warmth emanating from the dining room where the door was now closed.
She followed it, opening the door without thinking what would be behind it. It had been where they ate dinner that night, where breakfast would be served in the morning. It was just a dining room. But when she opened the door, all she could see was a man's shoulders, powerfully built, achingly obvious.
Outlined by firelight, the man whipped his head around, holding a shirt to his chest. "Oh my," Justine breathed, her heart thundering at her discovery. She was, anyway, unable to move or to quit staring. Recovering from his shock, the man relaxed, pulled the shirt on and vaguely tucking it in before pulling up the leather braces that had been hanging at his sides. "Guten abend, Fraulein."
"I" Justine trailed off. "I don't speak German." The man nodded, looked aside for a moment [00:12:00] and then began again this time in English. " Good evening, miss. Do you need something?" His accent was clipped, and in the firelight, his line forehead became even more pronounced as he frowned. "Hmm. Not right. I mean to say, may I help you?"
"Oh, your English is very good," she said, hoping a compliment would somehow make amends for her bursting in on him. "Thank you," he said. "May I help you?" Justine frowned for a second, then realized why he was insisting on helping her. It was the middle of the night and she was prowling around like a burglar. "Oh, do you work here?"
"Ja," He said With a chuckle. "And you do not." "No," she said. Then she realized he wasn't wearing socks or shoes, and she was suddenly embarrassed. Justine brewer, of bad news brewer fame, was embarrassed. "Then what are you doing out of your bed?" He leaned forward and the light hidden so she could see his features more plainly, and it [00:13:00] was awful.
He was even better looking than Tristan had ever been. This man had unkempt and unruly blonde curls far longer than what any Englishman would wear. He had light eyes and a jaw that had cut glass. Of all the damnable things. Now, she would end up hating him. Handsome Men were often atrocious in her experience, but he hadn't seemed to imbue his words with any innuendo.
He wasn't mentioning her bed with the idea that he might be getting in it. He was merely asking. How unexpected. "I couldn't sleep," Justine said, uncertain as to how to feel. Suddenly he blinked and nodded as if it were a substitution for words. "Do you not read?" What was he asking, if she was literate? "Of course I read," she snapped, but then she realized where she was a remote town in the mountains.
There were likely many people here who did not read, and it was an activity one did to help a person fall asleep. Oh, she was being an arse. Oh, don't be an arse. Don't be an arse. She chanted to herself. [00:14:00] "Then why not read to sleep?" "Are you shivering?" She asked, noticing a tremor as the light caught a billow of his white shirt.
"Yeah, I'm very cold." "Then stand closer to the fire. Are you daft?" Without thinking, she pushed him back towards the impressively large decorative iron stove with its open, glowing grate. He let himself be guided, her hands on his shoulders. Justine was very aware of how much taller he was than her, and he stared down at her amused.
"I am to help you," he said, "I am trying to be of service." "Well, you won't be of service to anyone if you catch your death," justine snapped. "Do you not have thicker blankets?" He chuckled again, a soft rumble from his chest that was more akin to a cat purring than a man laughing. "Why? When I am next to a big fire?" The heat was powerful. Already,
justine's forehead prickled with sweat. She dropped her hands from where they had inadvertently started to droop to his chest. Oh dear. It was firm and solid chest, not at all like the soft padded London men. She was accustomed to [00:15:00] chasing her, but then she realized that his clothes were damp. "Why are your clothes wet?"
"You ask many questions. I ask one, will you please answer my one question, and then I promise I will answer whatever question you have. Promise." Justine looked up and blinked at him. She felt strange, like the world had tilted in some way. Was it vertigo from the altitude change? Was she becoming ill? She was likely ill from all her travels, but there was nothing on God's green earth that would persuade her to go to bed
now. She felt like she needed to run for a full day to be rid of whatever energy possessed her right now. "Fine. What's your question?" "May I help you?" He asked his word slow and emphasized. "Oh mm, no, I just can't sleep. That's all." She trailed off not knowing how to describe the sensation in her limbs, so she shook them to demonstrate.
"Ah." he nodded as if he not only understood her flailing [00:16:00] but could sympathize. He held up his hand. "Moment." He padded off into the darkness, and there was something about being able to see the bare bottoms of his feet that made Justine feel as if she were doing the most inappropriate thing possible. Her? Bad news brewer who'd repeatedly stolen whole bottles of sherry from her parents' wine cellars to consume with Ophelia getting drunk and playing stupid games
as the room spun? Bad news Brewer who wore two dance cards so that the men who filled the same dance lot could argue or possibly fist fight over who got to have the waltz with her? Bad news Brewer who once climbed the ancient oak at the bride Wells London townhouse to dance on the slate tiled roof because stupid Tristan had said she would be too scared?
And that same bad news brewer was worried that the bottom of a man's foot was too much. What was the world coming to? "Get a hold of yourself," she whispered to the giant iron stove. He appeared out of nowhere holding a bottle and two of the tiniest wine glasses in the world. "Hold what?" [00:17:00] Justine shook her head. "Nothing."
He gave her a confused smile and Justine was reminded of prudence, who smiled at every bloody turn of the day because she couldn't stop that facial tick. Bloody Americans and bloody Swiss, but he didn't question her, only raised the bottle and the glasses and said "Brandy." "Of course," Justine said, relieved there would be an activity even if the activity was drinking some kind of alcohol, which had been drilled into her since practically birth, that a young lady did not do so in the company of men, and for good reason, because the middle of the night was a strange time bound by its own rules, populated by its own sounds and the dictums of day had no business interfering with whatever nighttime prowling discovered.
Which was precisely why Justine preferred it. The man poured two glasses and handed her one. She accepted it and sniffed at the goldish looking liqueur. It smelled like apples and honey in the low burn of alcohol. Frankly, it smelled delicious. He held his glass out as [00:18:00] a toast, "Prost." "Bless you," Justine said, knowing it was rude, but he smiled at her. "Cheers."
She didn't move to touch his glass with hers, so he did with her. She didn't realize it was something she should have done, but she knew for next time that touching glasses was preferred. Here she sipped tasting what seemed like a very nice French apple brandy. "Is this from here?" She asked. "Locally made?"
He shook his shaggy blonde head. "Imported from a calvados for the English. For you." Justine laughed. "Of course, the Swiss import French liquor for the English." "You like it?" She giggled. Oh God. She giggled. "Of course, Calvados is excellent." He gestured to the seat near the fire clearly, where he had draped his clothing to dry. "Sit please."
She moved towards the chair, but then stopped her heavy woolen dress swinging against her ankles. "Where will you be?" He gestured to another chair farther back in the dining room. When he saw her concern, he reassured her. "I will bring the chair to the [00:19:00] fire." She nodded, taking his glass from him as she sat, giving him the opportunity to use both of his hands to move the chair over.
He placed the stiff back wooden chair closer to the fire and took his glass from her, taking a hefty swig, nearly emptying it. He looked at her expectantly. "You're not saying that I should..." she mimed tossing the glass back as he had done. "Ja," he said, his rumpled golden hair somehow adorable and not at all making her want to hate him for being pretty.
"Young ladies shouldn't," she protested before feeling very stupid about explaining what proper British ladies did as she sat in a Swiss Inn at the foot of the Matterhorn. She was doing the extraordinary. She was full of daring. So with a smile, she tossed back the brandy with a swift motion. The apple liqueur burned, delightfully down her throat.
He laughed and clapped for her. "Brava.". He finished his glass and poured another for both of them. "Warms you up for the temperature and for the conversation." "I have to warm up for a conversation?" She watched the liquor [00:20:00] spill into her glass. " Maybe my English is not so good after all." He said. "I suppose not.
I don't even know your name. We should at least be introduced." Was she flirting on purpose? There were so many times she'd been accused of flirting that she didn't even know the meaning of the word anymore. Scandal Sheets reported that she flirted if she shook someone's hand or laughed at a joke. She flirted when she did what every other young lady did.
But if bad news Brewer did it, the action was somehow imbued with extra meaning. "Do we need names right now?" He asked. "So I know what to call you better than, oh, you there." "Is it?" He asked, stretching his legs out in front of him and crossing them at the ankles. And Justine noticed his thighs. She was not a person who noticed men's thighs, but his were powerful and as thick as her waist.
This was a man who could build you an inn. Her mouth was unexpectedly dry. So she sipped again at the her brandy, steadying her breath. "If I know you, then I must treat you as a guest and not as a ghost roaming the hotel at night." [00:21:00] He chuckled to himself. "I want to be off duty just for these hours."
"I hadn't thought of it that way."
She had never served anyone, never worked. She was obsequious to exactly no one and planned on keeping that way. But to live a life of service, whether a maid in a big home or in a simple Swiss mountain inn had to take its toll somehow. "Then that's fine. Or as my American friend might say, OK." He pulled his chin back and looked at her askance.
" What does this mean? The two letters together?" Justine shrugged. Another gesture she wouldn't have used if they had been properly introduced and not been drinking brandy in front of an open grate of an enormous iron stove where she could discreetly admire his very pretty thighs. The open V of his shirt, the way his leather braces clung to his shoulders.
"No clue, but she says it all the time. I believe it means something like, yes, but not as formal or certain of a yes." The man pushed his lips as if he looked as he looked into the fire, considering the new Americanism. [00:22:00] "Interesting. I will try it. Maybe it is a useful thing. Yes, but with a circumstance."
"Exactly. Like yes, but I have opinions." "OK." He tried it out. She grinned. "OK." He clinged his tiny glass to hers and the crystal rang out in the dining room a clear sound that seemed loud enough to raise the dead. "OK." We'll end there.
Katherine Grant: Wow. What a zinger of a scene.
Edie Cay: Yeah. It keeps going. It's longer, but that's a lot.
Katherine Grant: A lot to read. Well, I loved the sense of character that we get from Justine and the terrific meet cute that we're in the middle of. So thank you so much for reading it. Yeah, absolutely. My pleasure. I loved, I loved sharing Justine. Yeah. We're gonna take a quick break for our sponsors and then we'll be back with more questions.
Katherine Grant: [00:23:00] So I'm back with Edie Cay, who just read a terrific sample from Into the Breach With You from the Ladies Alpine Society series and, I loved so much about that scene, but I have a question about the series in general because the description of it talks about how it's specifically set during the golden age of mountaineering.
Yes. So I didn't even know that was a period of history. So can you tell us a little bit more about that and how you stumbled upon it or mountaineering towards the golden age of mountaineering?
Edie Cay: Yes, absolutely. So the golden age of mountaineering is when basically European travelers started climbing the big mountains in Europe and then beyond.
So in 1865, Edward Whimper became the first to successfully ascend and descend the Matterhorn. It was considered Europe's deadliest mountain at this point because it killed almost everyone who attempted [00:24:00] it. So in 1871, it was the first time a woman ascended. Lucy Walker.
She ascended a day before an American, Meta Brevoort, made her way up from the Italian side, so women were absolutely climbing during this time period. Women often climbed with husbands and brothers, but there were other climbs that they tried to do that were just women. And so I have some articles that are written by women. I actually have in book four, I do have Ophelia writing an article where she takes out pronouns and just gives everyone initials, which is exactly what another woman had done so that she could get her articles published.
And they were like, oh, what, what an amazing ingenious exploration team. And then later on they found out that it was all women and they were mad about it.
Katherine Grant: So where in doing this research and discovering these stories, did you begin coming up with your stories?
Does your research work in tandem with your creative [00:25:00] process?
Edie Cay: It works in tandem. I have climbed some mountains, not like the Matterhorn, but I have hiked mountains in that sort of area. My family likes to go to what is Tyrol. At this time period that I write about Tyrol was its own little separate nation.
Mm-hmm. And it's, own culture, so it has its own version of German that they speak. They wear
lederhosen. It's closer to how I portray the Swiss culture. And if anyone speaks German, they will note in, into the breach and into the sky with you that they are speaking Swiss German, although our hero from into the breach is actually from Augsburg, so he's actually from a Bavarian town, so he speaks more German, German.
As opposed to Swiss German, which was its own whole thing. Yeah. I wanted to write about mountains. I just wasn't entirely sure. And so I started looking at how [00:26:00] women encountered them.
But I knew that I wanted to have a group of women who were close knit, who were friends, who are of different levels of class, different levels of experience and how they approach the problem of mountaineering because mountaineering is just a test of how uncomfortable can you be and still not give up.
It's a test of discomfort. Yeah. Can you stand this cold? Can you stand being this hungry? Can you stand being this tired? And with these women living in the 1860s and seventies, they're enduring a huge shift of how the world works, at least in, in Western culture.
This is a huge shift. This is when Europe becomes the Europe we know of. This is shifts politically. This is shifts of class system in England as the aristocracy is losing money and industrialists are coming up. We're in the age of the train. Distances are becoming shorter. We have the [00:27:00] colonization that is starting to have its reverse travel where you're getting more and more not just English in places like India, but also
immigration the other way as well. So world is changing. The role of women is changing. There are like suffragists who are starting to emerge out of the political framework in England. And I feel like even though I don't always touch on some of those subjects, I want these women to be portrayed as a part of that tumult.
That young women are often on the forefront of and criticized for being on the forefront of but they really are. They make the change.
Katherine Grant: Yeah, and one question I have for you, because you are very involved with the Paper Lantern Writers, which is historical fiction. What do you think historical romance does that historical fiction doesn't? Like what does it afford creatively and vice versa? What does the bigger umbrella, historical fiction afford that historical romance might not?
Edie Cay: So [00:28:00] the one of the reason why I'm so drawn to romance is because romance is the only genre in which women get to win everything. So when I write a heroine like Justine, you know that she's gonna win. She's gonna get the guy, she's gonna get her mountain. She's gonna get a happily ever after she's getting what she wants.
Whereas if you encounter that personality in a historical fiction book, she might be dead by the middle of the book because her recklessness or her lack of fear is not going to be received well. And it's an easy way to put conflict into the middle of your book by having her assaulted or disappeared or something like that.
And then the rest of the characters get to converge around and put their hands in their hips and, you know. In a romance, you don't have to worry about getting attached to her because you know she gets to win.
And that is why [00:29:00] I'm drawn to historical romance, and that is what you get to have in historical romance that you don't get to have in other historical fiction. So I feel like in historical fiction though, the thing that I sometimes wish that I could do in my historical romances is give the broader picture to have more than just the couple. To be able to write
A Ken Follett style tome where I get to encompass, you know, 20 years and the full political religious landscape. And yes, I would love to have, be able to have the room for that, but that doesn't really work with the romance genre because romances have a pretty set word count.
You need to keep that pace going. Although I do really appreciate in terms of a writer. The, the pacing that romance allows. I really, really like that. And each book, I do try to focus on different aspects of the pacing so that I [00:30:00] draw certain sections, but other sections are quite quick. And I like to play with that so each book has a different feel.
Katherine Grant: That's really interesting. That's a good segue into Love it or leave it to find out what rules you like to play with.
[Musical Interlude]
Katherine Grant: Alright. Do you love it or leave it? Protagonists meet in the first 10% of the story.
Edie Cay: Oh, yes. Love it. Love it. I wanna know who's, I wanna know who's getting it on.
Yes, please.
Katherine Grant: All right. Love it or leave it? Dual point of view narration.
Edie Cay: Yes. I love it. I love being in both protagonist's point of view because I enjoy seeing the anxiety of both characters.
Katherine Grant: Lovely. Love it or leave it? Third person past tense.
Edie Cay: Yes. The first person present tense makes me feel weird. I don't, I [00:31:00] not my favorite.
Katherine Grant: Love it or leave it? Third act, breakup or dark moment.
Edie Cay: I mean, yes. It doesn't, but it doesn't have to be like a really big, dark moment. Like it doesn't have to be like they're being chased by bad guys.
Like it could be they lost the artifact or you know, I don't know. It could be even something madcap and silly and I would still be in for it.
Katherine Grant: Love it or leave it? Always end with an epilogue.
Edie Cay: Always is a strong word. I really like epilogues. I usually do epilogues because I always like that... I think it's originally from Animal House, the movie where they put in the end, like what they all ended up being going on to be.
And I really like it, so I do like, I am gonna say Yeah. I love it for epilogues. OK.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. Love it to leave it? Always share research in your author's note.
Edie Cay: Yes. Yes. I [00:32:00] love sharing my research and also because I write about outlandish things that I don't think people would believe me if I didn't like back it up with sources.
Katherine Grant: And are there any other romance rules I didn't ask about that you like to break?
Edie Cay: I love to break gender rules. I love having a woman who pursues. I love having the man being the proper one. I love her being the black cat and him being the, the golden retriever. Yeah, I love, I love breaking those
rules. And I love having the weird aristocracy, like people talk about with historic wars. They're like, oh, there's so many dukes and there's only so, you know, they like to pull out these things about how unrealistic it is. But there were a whole bunch of weirdos that were also titled, and so I wanna write about the weirdos.
There were all sorts of crazy out, outlandish, daring [00:33:00] people who had a Lord or a lady in front of their name, and they did all sorts of weird, outlandish things and yeah, like were they invited to all the parties? Maybe not, but some of them were weird stuff that people did, and they were like, well, that's just him.
They, he just does that.
Katherine Grant: Yeah.
Edie Cay: So I, those are my, those are my favorites.
Katherine Grant: Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Where can our listeners find you in your books?
Edie Cay: Yes always at my website, Edie Cay.com, which is also where you can sign up for my newsletter. It goes out twice a month.
And I include my book recs and places to get discounts and deals on other books, including not just mine, but other people's as well. And a little bit of newsy bits about what's going on in publishing and things like that. And then also Kindle Unlimited has Ladies Alpine Society. So you, if you're in Kindle Unlimited, you can go ahead and read there.
And as for my own books that I self-published before the When the Blood Is Up series, which is about women's prize fighting that you can get from my website, Edie [00:34:00] Cay.com or wherever books are sold.
Katherine Grant: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Edie. I really have enjoyed our conversation.
Edie Cay: Yeah, me too. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
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