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Eliana Piers Samples Good Duke Gone Wild
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Katherine Grant: Welcome to the historical romance sampler podcast. I'm your host, Katherine Grant, and each week I introduce you to another amazing historical romance author. My guest reads a little sample of their work, and then we move into a free ranging interview. If you like these episodes, don't forget to subscribe to the historical romance sampler, wherever you listen to podcasts and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
Now let's get into this week's episode. I am super excited to be joined today by Eliana Piers. Eliana is an award winning and international best selling author who has been writing and singing stories since she was five years old. After feeling inspired by authors like Julia Quinn, Tessa Dare, and Minerva Spencer, Eliana decided to test her quill on the page.
Writing [00:01:00] about love and how two people come to connect and share parts of their souls with each other is now an obsession. She loves thinking about what makes people fall in love. It's not worth it if you don't laugh, learn, or love while you're in it. Eliana lives in Canada, where she drinks an iced cappuccino every day.
Eliana, thank you so much for joining the podcast.
Eliana Piers: Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here.
Katherine Grant: Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you and hear a little bit of your work. So I know you're reading for us today from Good Duke Gone Wild.
Eliana Piers: Yeah, that's my most recent one in the Good Duke series and I, I kind of have a special relationship with it.
So I thought it'd be fun to read from that one. And I'm kind of jumping in mid scene. So I'll just give a little context that Agatha is the main character and she's at a ball. She just finished talking with her sister and she's kind of looking over at her uncle right now who's talking with a man who will be her love interest.
So I'll [00:02:00] start from that point. Her uncle Bernard always made time for her, perhaps knowing his sister as he did. His wealth was extensive and his knowledge decidedly more so. When she caught sight of him, she noticed that he was talking to a man dressed in a pirate's costume.
His back was turned to her, so she wasn't sure the identity of his conversation partner, but she didn't mind to wait. Slowly, she made her way to the perimeter of their conversation. Her uncle made eye contact and gave a subtle nod, which she returned. "This is the last one," agatha overheard the pirate murmur.
Her uncle only nodded, and then the pirate merged back into the crowds. "Aggie," Uncle Bernard drolled. He pulled her into a soft side hug, not caring how informal the greeting was. "How are you this fine evening, my dear?" "Good, and you?" He patted her forearm. "Just discussing the merits of utilitarianism versus the universal moral law."
It certainly hadn't sounded like Uncle Bernard had been wrapping up a discussion on ethics, but if that was what he was leading with, she wouldn't turn down [00:03:00] the offer for stimulating conversation. "Bentham and Kant again?" "Always," her uncle smirked. "I'm not sure I'll ever be satisfied with an answer." "That is quite unfortunate, uncle.
It might be a tormented life you choose to lead, since we all desire pleasure, don't we? Unanswered questions don't seem conducive to a life of satisfaction and pleasure." "True, but life is riddled with unanswered questions. The sooner one can accept that fact the sooner one can move on and enjoy the other parts of life."
That was one of the reasons she loved her uncle. He told it like it was and he didn't temper his speech merely because she was a woman. As much as he could, he treated her like she was an equal and he was always open minded to discuss ideas and their consequences. "You're right uncle, I suppose that's why I'll always seek you out for your wisdom."
His amused smile softened her heart. If nothing else, she always had her uncle to converse with, to actually carry on a conversation of substance. To challenge her intellect, gain knowledge, and exchange ideas. Perhaps if she did that enough, she would gain some of the real world [00:04:00] experience she needed for her writing.
Even she didn't believe that. Under normal circumstances, Jude would have quit the ball directly after his conversation with Bernard. He had received his orders, as strange as they were, and he was free to start them early should he care to set sail tonight. And he would have done so had he not overheard the brief exchange between the uncle and his niece.
Those few short phrases tossed between the two had furrowed their way under his skin. Most women at these balls were dressed to impress a duke, snag a husband, and submit themselves to their future marriage. Countless conversations he had undergone over the years still tortured him with their mind numbing tedium.
The exact color of a gown when he had one time gone out of his way to compliment the lady on her red dress, and she had corrected him, stating it was crimson. The weather of a summer season, namely, and how, and somehow inexplicably surprising, as if the woman hadn't observed the pattern of summer weather over the last almost two decades.
And of course, the gossip. He shuddered, that being his least favorite of all. If he did, perchance, find a girl willing to chat and she [00:05:00] spilled gossip, that was his cue to pass the baton on to someone else. He was just not interested in hearing someone, who he didn't really know, talk about someone else, who he surely didn't know, do something to a third party, who he also didn't know.
He had tried that life and left it behind for privateering. And if some, some being many, mistook him for a pirate, so be it. Either way, it meant that they would likely not be making attempts to secure his attentions. If his reputation had to suffer in order for him to avoid title seeking women, he was content to make that sacrifice.
But that one little conversation had nudged something within him that he thought had died. The fact that something within him had budged at all indicated life was still present, but perhaps had only fallen asleep. So acting contrary to his natural inclinations and habits of the past decade, more or less, he followed the niece in hopes, that was exaggerating the feeling, of having a stimulating conversation with her himself.
And perhaps he would even ask her to dance. What harm could come from one conversation? [00:06:00] It would be refreshing. And he wanted nothing more than to be refreshed. It sounded like the kind of experience he needed right about now. Chapter four. "So, into Kant, are you?" Oh no. Dread filled his body, one shovel full of dirt at a time.
He could feel the dirt piling up, heavy, grimy, threatening to tumble out of his mouth, except it already had tumbled out in the form of that atrociously horrendous bacon brained question. Had it really been that long since he had tried to woo a woman? This couldn't be considered wooing. This was scaring.
Or worse, scarring. The last time he had even attempted to banter with a woman, he was absolutely sure it had been more smooth than this asinine approach. Surely, he had said something more charming about her dress, her eyes, her smile, or something. Anything. A large part of him, also known as his dignity, wanted to slap his hand over his eyes and just walk away.
At least he could keep his pride intact and recover alone. No one the wiser. She would never even have to know [00:07:00] who he was or who had asked the question. The question to beat all ridiculous questions. What the devil was he thinking? That had to be the worst line he'd ever used on a woman. What was he hoping her response would be?
There was no great reply to such a dim witted question, so all things considered, her answer wasn't terrible. "Can't? What can't I do?" The blank look on her face was nothing like he had seen when he had observed her speaking with her uncle. Certainly, she hadn't been sparkling or over emotive with him, but she had borne a sliver of a smile.
It was obvious that she was comfortable and content speaking with her uncle, whereas right now, here with him, she was awkward and almost irritable. He wanted to blame it on his moronic question. "You read Kantian Ethics?" "No." and that bland look that was at first forgivable was now vexing.
"You never discuss his categorical imperative?" He was no longer resenting those shovelfuls of dirt. In fact, he was almost welcoming them. Perhaps if he had enough of a [00:08:00] pile, he could be completely disguised underneath it, and then he could burrow a tunnel out of this conversation. And why stop there? It only made sense to continue tunneling out of this damn ballroom.
Her eyes went wide at his question though, and he thought for a split second that just maybe he had caught her in a lie. Though at this point, only God knew two things. One, why she was lying, and two, why he even cared to catch her in it. There was only one thing he hated more than lying, and that was ignorance.
For this woman to be the bearer of both meant that she may as well have been waving two large red flags in front of a raging bull. He, of course, being the bull about to charge, and she the matador, though why he wanted to sign her that much power over him was beyond bewildering.
This whole encounter was proving to be disastrous. Just like every other run in with other women at a ball, or soiree, or music hall, or anything. It was part of the reason he was a privateer in the first place. Part of it. But then the vexatious double dealer grabbed his hand, and before he could register what she was saying, she was already pulling him onto the dance floor.[00:09:00]
He was fairly certain now, absolutely positive actually, that she had asked him to dance, but the question made about as much sense as his, "Into Kant are you?" question. Ladies didn't ask men to dance, it was unheard of. Then again, it was also unheard of for women to be discussing the philosophy of ethics, so really, what did he expect from this woman?
What he thought he would get, he didn't. What he didn't expect, he did get. At this point, he wasn't sure he could distinguish left from right, so he went along with a dance, which was another one of his not best ideas, because a person really ought to be able to distinguish left from right when embarking on a dance.
Even a simple one. Amidst the befuddlement and therefore extra concentration on his steps, there was an ample opportunity for conversation. But he did find himself nodding or answering yes to a few questions. Though he couldn't be sure he recalled the questions, so his yeses might have been better answered as noes.
" So you're a pirate?" "Yes." He checked his feet, darted a look up, grabbed her hands and spun her around. "That means you have a ship?" [00:10:00] Nodding, he passed on her left and checked his feet again. Scanning the couples, he verified that he was indeed executing the right move. "So you travel around the world?" "Yes." "You must see a great many variations in culture."
He wasn't sure if he nodded to that question or even vocalized an answer, because at that moment the man on his right bumped into his shoulder and Jude had to regain his footing. Had that been his mistake or the other man's? "Are you leaving for somewhere soon?" "Must be," he mumbled. "And you enjoy gaining all those new experiences everywhere you go?"
What was she talking about? What kind of new experiences was she alluding to? That smirk led him to believe she was referring to something salacious. But she couldn't be, could she? Certainly, she was not intimating anything scandalous. But Jude was most definitely lost in the conversation. Something about traveling and being a pirate.
How had they deviated to bedroom experiences? And really, what was with her smirk? She hadn't been smirking the whole time. He was absolutely sure of that fact. Well, he was quite sure of it. Or [00:11:00] at least, he was partially sure of it.
He might bet his mate's great coat on it, but not his own. Another bump from behind had him pressing his body against hers in a most improper way, causing her hand to squeeze his tightly. Relying on him to regain his balance, her eyes met his. Wide, vulnerable, curious. The look slammed into his chest, and he coughed to ease the tension.
It was something he so rarely saw in a woman. She seemed open. When most women viewed their future as a set path that they merely needed to find and follow, he had a sense that this woman was looking to forge her own path. Her gaze dropped to her shoes, and he thought he felt a slight tremor in her hand.
After a deep inhalation, she looked up into his face, and he felt as though she were now wearing two masks instead of one. Then she had to go and do the one thing he abhorred the most. "Did you see what happened at the Ashbourne wedding?" Gossip. "No." He would indulge this single question and that was it. Her eyes flared at him and he knew she [00:12:00] expected more conversation from him.
Even the oh so simple, "did you," would have been more than enough. Damn it, he expected it of himself, but he wouldn't yield on this point. If she had an unstoppable compulsion to gossip, so be it. She could gossip all she wanted for the remainder of this dance.
He would nod his head and spin her around, hopefully spinning her more than enough to diminish the chatter. This irritable woman had turned him into one irritable man, and he did not like it one bit. She was just like every other vapid lady. The second this dance was over, he would dash out of here. As courteously as possible, but he'd be gone, never to see her again.
"Are you alright?" "Yes." He must have given her an examining glance, because she expounded upon her question. "It's just that you haven't said much." "There's nothing to say." She cried out, as he realized he had just stomped on her toe, and in her delicate slippers that must have been painful. "Apologies," he grumbled.
"Should we sit?" "I'm fine," she gritted out with an unwavering smirk on her face. "It happens all the time. I have strong enough [00:13:00] feet to endure a dance or two with a bumbling oaf." "Now wait just a minute." "Thank you for the dance, you saved me from an undesirable dance, though I'm not sure how gallantly you rescued me."
She dipped her eyes to his feet. "All things considered." "I said I'm sorry." "Have a good night." She tipped her chin and dashed off. Wait, just a minute. He was the one who was supposed to have done the dashing. No, no, no, no. This would not do. He was a captain of a large ship with an intimidating crew, which he led.
He was the one who was in control at all times. Not that little slip of a woman who had asked him to dance. Who the devil did she think she was? No, this would not do it all. She would not get the last word on this. Not now. Not ever.
Katherine Grant: Ooh! What a great setup for some Darcy esque groveling. Yes. Well, I have a lot of questions for you about Good Duke Gone Wild, as well as yourself, but first we're going to take a quick break for our sponsors.
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I am back with Eliana Piers, who just read a sample from Good Duke Gone Wild. And you kind of set it up saying you have a special [00:15:00] connection to this story.
So I want to start by asking, what is that special connection?
Eliana Piers: Yeah, of course. There's two things that kind of connect me to this character and to this story. It is about a woman who feels sort of confined in a place and in a role and maybe like a little stunted.
So she's tried things and they didn't work. And she's getting criticism from areas that obviously she would rather not have. And that's from her mother. And then she's like, no, I'm tired of this. I'm just going to. I'm going to seek out the experiences I want. I'm going to do it. I don't care what anybody thinks.
I don't care what sacrifice it takes. I'm going to just go for it. And I relate to her in aspect that she wants to just go for it, that she's tired of the place she's been. And she's hearing some feedback on her. She's an author, by the way. So she hears feedback on being an author and she's like, I'm going to do what it takes to be better.
So that's where I relate to her. I'm not in the other areas that, that I might've [00:16:00] mentioned more specifically to her. And then also I, I have a special relationship with this because this book had some interesting reception from readers. Some people really liked her and some people felt that she was aggressive.
And I love that because what is more true than a woman coming across as aggressive when she just goes for it? And there's a line, right? Where we're, where we think as women, okay, is it aggressive because I'm a woman or is it aggressive because as a person that was just aggressive? So that I, I really find such an interesting like real world experience.
Katherine Grant: Oh yeah. That is interesting. It is hard when heroines that we write are, I've had the experience where I write a heroine. I'm not aware that she's unlikable and then my readers let me know and I'm like, Oh, poor thing.
Eliana Piers: Yeah.
Katherine Grant: So there was a line in Agatha's point of view where she said something about how she wanted to get real world experience for her writing.[00:17:00]
So do you think it's necessary to have real world experience in order to write?
Eliana Piers: That is a really good question. I think we, we tend to write what we know and yet we're writing historical romance. So like, what do we know about historical romance? Right. But we still tend to write what we've experienced because we have the closest emotional ties to it.
The closest like intellectual processing of that experience. So that just tends to come in, I think, at least for me into writing. But I would say that you don't need to experience something to write about it. You just tend to include like the way you've processed through feelings or the way you've processed through thoughts and decisions and everything.
And so that kind of comes into play.
Katherine Grant: I related to that line because I started writing novels when I was 12. And so there was a lot of, my parents were very supportive of me, so I was like writing these full novels and like taking them, you know, to teachers and [00:18:00] stuff. But there was. This, this sense of like, well, I have to wait to be an adult to actually be able to write something that will resonate with other people because I don't know what life is.
And I do think as I've grown, there's just more nuance to my writing. It's not just these fantasies that I have.
Eliana Piers: Yeah, exactly. When you go through life and you, you come out the other side of an experience or the other side of an event in life, it totally shifts your perspective.
You hopefully feel like you've gained some wisdom about something.
Katherine Grant: Yeah, and empathy for other people as well. Yeah, for sure. In this scene, there was also this underlying theme of ethicists and ethical philosophy and, and all that. So first of all, were you inspired by The Good Place at all?
Eliana Piers: Okay, I love that show, but no, that didn't, that didn't actually come into my mind at all.
But I do love that show. I actually just talked to my husband about it the other day and I said, we need to make sure we watched all the episodes.
Katherine Grant: Yeah, yeah, [00:19:00] absolutely. Okay. And so then I'm curious you know, in introducing Kant and Bentham to this text what thematically are you hoping that readers will take away?
Eliana Piers: So I got a minor in philosophy in my university studies and I love the idea of discussing ethics. And I just love the discussion of it. And I, I love the idea of walking through hypotheticals and walking through, like, what would that mean if we applied that? So, I think that it, it was kind of a subconscious thing that that came out in this particular scene, but obviously, like, it's somewhere deep in me as well that, that's probably why it came out.
I've had the idea of philosophy of ethics in a few of my books. And in this particular case, like, I wanted to show that she, she seeks answers, but there's not always answers.
I think
that's what, yeah, underlying is like, we're all, we should always be seeking answers. And sometimes there's not an [00:20:00] answer.
And that is probably one of the hardest things in life to accept is we don't always get closure on things. We don't always get a black and white answer. It's like, we're always just trying to navigate something. And the discussion is what makes it enjoyable, torturous, purposeful, I would say.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. Are there philosophers who have particularly good philosophies of love in your opinion?
Eliana Piers: Oh, wow. I don't think I've actually gone down that road. I would love to, I would love to look at that. I know like Plato's most common one, which is like the two parts, right? Finding each other. I don't know any others though.
So that's like something probably go down a rabbit hole on, unless you have one that you want to bring up. I'd love to hear. Thank you.
Katherine Grant: I don't know. I don't, I don't, I don't know any, but that's your homework. I'm going to follow up with you in a year or so and be like, have you researched this yet? [00:21:00]
Eliana Piers: Yeah.
Katherine Grant: Okay.
So you are pretty prolific. You've got lots of books out. So I'm really curious, two things. Number one, what inspires you? Is it the dialogue that calls to you?
The characters? Themes? A scene.
Eliana Piers: Oh, scenes for sure. When you said that, that's the one that resonates with me. I'll get a scene in my head, and I've heard this said by other people, they're like, you write a whole book just so you can write one scene. That's
me. Okay.
Yeah.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. And so you have some pretty robust series.
Do you do a lot of series planning before you start writing the books?
Eliana Piers: With my first series, The Good Dukes, I have to admit I planned very little. I planned like the first two books, kind of. Like, I knew that I wanted to write the four main characters that are in the two books. And then afterwards I was like, I should just keep this series going.
So I brought in some characters that I had mentioned in the first book [00:22:00] and that kind of, helped write the next few. But then with my subsequent series, like series the Dukes for Christmas. I planned that one a little bit more. I planned the first three books and then I planned the next two together.
And then with my third series, the Ashborn legacy, I planned that all in one, in one go. I planned all seven and I was like, this is where it's going to go. This is the direction. And then with my new series, it's, it's sort of in progress right now. It's the one with the Wanton Woman and that one is, is probably, it's been planned, but it is kind of all over the place in a way because it's in all different collaborations, but it's all connected and that has been planned.
So there's a theme and a book that goes throughout and the family and friends that are connected, but it's just distributed differently because it's in different collaborations and whatnot. And then the, the other series that's coming out. This month, the brand new one with Dragonblade, that was [00:23:00] also planned up front.
All four books were planned together, written together, very contained.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. Well, that's, that's really interesting. And what's your relationship to research? Do you do a lot of research for your books? Do you research for a series?
Eliana Piers: Not gonna lie. I used to do more research and then I was like, the research is not conclusive all the time.
And so I like to have a starting place. I like to know, like, if something was around or not, but at the end of the day, like, I didn't live that time period. I have no idea what was there, like, how things were received, what ideas were, like, underground or grassroots that were never documented. Like, there's so much that could have been happening that nobody ever wrote about or So I tend to be historically inaccurate for a lot of readers, which is okay.
I try to make that disclaimer up front, but I also try to push the [00:24:00] boundaries of it. So if I know, like, for example I've brought in golf. In one of my books, and I knew that golf was like relatively new, or maybe even like a few years later, I tried to make it like it's the brand new thing in my book so that people knew that I had done some research about it.
But I was trying to push that time and like bring something earlier in because I love the idea of innovating. And I, I, and people like thinking of the new thing and so that is probably. Seen within a lot of my books that my characters were the first or among the first to adopt an idea, an activity or a thought or something.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. Well, I think it's a good time to move on to our game. Love it or leave it. Oh, nice.
[Musical Interlude]
Katherine Grant: Do you love it or leave it?
The protagonists meet in the first 10 percent of the story.
Eliana Piers: Oh, yes. Love it.
Katherine Grant: All right. Love it or leave it? Dual point of view narration.
Eliana Piers: Yeah, love it.
Katherine Grant: Love it or [00:25:00] leave it? The third person past tense.
Eliana Piers: For historical romance, love it.
Katherine Grant: Alright, love it or leave it, the third act breakup or dark moment?
Eliana Piers: This is not a cut and dry for me. So if I'm allowed to elaborate, I would say it's the hardest part for me to write. And I rush through it when I'm reading it.
So even though I like that it's there because it adds that conflict and tension, it's the like, let's get over this.
Katherine Grant: I can relate to that. I've definitely rushed through it when reading it as well. Like, I know they're gonna be together again. And it's good to have this angst, but just get them back together.
All right. Love it or leave it. Always end with an epilogue.
Eliana Piers: That that's a leave it for me. Although I've been doing them more lately.
Katherine Grant: Okay. Love it or leave it. Always share research in your author's note. [00:26:00]
Eliana Piers: Leave it. I never do that. Almost never.
Katherine Grant: All right. And are there any other romance rules I didn't ask about that you do like to play with?
Eliana Piers: No, I think the only one was what we talked about just a couple minutes ago, which is like the historical accuracy and, and the language. Like I, I do bring in some more modern language because I don't know how people spoke back then all the time. And I'm not, I'm not super good at that. So, yeah, that's probably the one that I push the most.
Katherine Grant: All right. Very fun. Well, thank you for playing Love It or Leave It.
Eliana Piers: Yeah, it was a great game.
Katherine Grant: Where can listeners find out more about you and also find Good Duke Gone Wild and the rest of your books?
Eliana Piers: Probably the best thing to do is sign up for my newsletter because I send that out weekly and with
updates and kind of exclusive reads and whatnot. So there's a free book you can get. It's called Sweet in the Rogue. You can get that by signing up. And if you like Facebook reader groups, I have one that's pretty active where I might update you and let you know like, [00:27:00] Oh, I wrote chapter one today. Or we play a game on a different day or we've had different campaigns or events going on.
So that's also a great place. And that's a Facebook, Facebook reader group called Eliana's Beau Monde reader group.
Katherine Grant: Oh, fun. I will put a link to your website in the show notes, and I assume that listeners can click through from there to find your Facebook group.
Eliana Piers: Yep. Awesome.
And then Good Duke Gone Wild is in KU. So along with all the Good Duke series, that whole one is in Kindle Unlimited, but otherwise my other series are available wide and direct. So you can always buy it from my site. There's like a bundle that you can get discounted there.
Or if you have KU, then. There's a seven book series in there.
Katherine Grant: Awesome. Well, readers can get you wherever they are.
Eliana Piers: Yeah.
Katherine Grant: Well, thank you again, Eliana. I really appreciate you coming on the podcast. It's great to hear your work and to talk to you.
Eliana Piers: Thanks so much for having me. It was great to be here.
That's it for this [00:28:00] 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!