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Ella Leon Samples The Sapphire Heiress
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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 debut author Ella León. Ella writes historical romanticy with intrigue and suspense, and her first novel, The Sapphire Heiress, just released this January. Her nine to five career has spanned many different styles of writing, Journalism, public relations, and marketing.[00:01:00]
Fiction is where she finds the most freedom to transform the page. Like the Victorians she writes about, she loves all things gothic and supernatural. Unlike the Victorians, she is a feminist who enjoys exploring the pre colonial past. When she's not writing, you can find her spending time with her family or tending to her rose garden.
She lives in the Chicago area. Ella, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Ella Leon: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. I'm really excited to hear about this book and your vision for your historical romance, historical romanticy series.
Ella Leon: It's okay to call it a historical romance too, you know, in a lot of ways.
Katherine Grant: Yeah, so tell us about the Sapphire heiress and what we can expect from the scene that we're going to hear today.
Ella Leon: So, The Sapphire Heiress is about a woman who is the daughter of a Filipina immigrant and an English shipbuilder and [00:02:00] she loses her fortune and must become a governess in the very home that she was raised in but an old enemy reveals that her, her father was actually a pirate and that she has a secret inheritance.
That can help her escape her life of servitude. So she has to team up with this pirate and find this fortune. So it's, it's basically like a treasure hunt and within the treasure is a magical sapphire that the pirate is after and that he is trying to trying to find for secret reasons, I will say.
Ooh, that's fun. Yeah, so I have heard readers say that it's like Cinderella meets Pirates of the Caribbean. It's very suspenseful. There's lots of adventure. And like I said, there's a treasure hunt in it. So the scene that I'm going to be reading today is from Locke's point of view, and Locke is a pirate.
And in that scene, he tells the [00:03:00] heroine about her father's pirate past, and it's the first time that she hears about it.
So, this is chapter nine, the key.
Grass and weeds crunched as Locke cut across the quiet lawn. Birds chirped overhead, and the scent of dew hung happily in the early morning air. Recently, mornings in the country had become far more tolerable. Hell, life had become far more tolerable. Something he suspected had everything to do with Miss
Blackthorne. In this world he knew so well, she was something entirely different. Not at all what he'd expected to encounter here. Her strength was unlike any he had ever seen in her father. He liked to think she was not Alistair Blackthorne's daughter, but he couldn't deceive himself, no matter how difficult the truth.
He still found it hard to believe that Alistair, the man who had been a brother and an enemy to him, was six years dead. His body eaten away to the bones now, Nathaniel's too. The thoughts wore [00:04:00] heavily on him, depressing him anew. He didn't need another reminder of his unnaturally enduring youth, not now, not when she was so close by.
Leaning against a tree, Miss Blackthorne hadn't yet noticed his approach. She didn't seem much aware of her surroundings at all. She looked to be thinking to herself- about what, he feared to know. Standing there, she had that pained look again. Her eyebrows were drawn together and wrinkled. Something he knew had everything to do with him.
The vivacity that had once surfaced in her smile was gone. A vivacity he'd likely destroy entirely when all this was over. And that was the best of outcomes. Locke squeezed his eyes shut. A comparable piece of his past clawed at him again. Watching her alone and unawares seemed to evoke the memory even stronger.
The smell of sea was back, and just as he had done for Miss Blackthorne, he was making a promise. One he would fail to keep. He shook himself from the image, from this dark splash of blood. He had to keep control. [00:05:00] And that meant freeing both himself and Miss Blackthorne from Ellsworth. The plan would indeed protect the Sapphire.
It's about nothing other than that, he told himself. His cares were focused on the Sapphire alone. He had priorities, after all. He hardly thought of revenge anymore, and never like Ellsworth did. Finding the key needed to come first, and if there was another clue to be discovered with it, Ellsworth was right.
He wanted to be sure the other man wasn't there to find it. He cleared his throat, prompting Ms. Blackthorne to look up. The keen eyes he had meant to avoid caught him now, pulling him down into their depths. The moment put him on edge. Like a sudden storm, the feeling struck without warning. And now that he was caught in it, he feared he was already lost.
"I feel I should thank you," she said. "For what?" "For insisting on meeting me alone." "Yes, well," he stumbled, surprised that her trust had been so easily gained. "Did you find the vault?" He shook his head. "We'll [00:06:00] search again." In the growing silence, Miss Blackthorne leaned against the tree, careless of how the bark might catch her dress.
"May I ask," she began with caution, "why you insisted on meeting me alone?" The question brought his eyes back to hers. The fearful gaze he remembered from the previous day was gone, replaced instead with a calm resolve. He blinks hard. He hadn't done it for her sake, if that's what she was asking. "The man irritates me.
Nothing more." "If you really wanted to get rid of Ellsworth, you could, you know." She held a hand to her throat, her eyes cast down, too afraid to say the actual words. He almost smiled at the idea, save for the contempt that laced each word. It was one form of disrespect he could never stand. "Kill him, you mean?"
"You're a pirate, aren't you? It would be easy for you. As much as I despised the man..." her hands quivered. She couldn't even bring herself to finish the words. "Say I do kill him," Locke crossed his arms. "How would you look upon me then?" "With gratitude." She looked up, blocking eyes with him, [00:07:00] almost hopeful. "No, you would be disgusted.
You would look upon me with fear." "Now you venture to be noble, when all this time-" "just how should I act?" Locke demanded. "Like a vagrant, a common thief? Piracy may not be the most noble profession, but for more than a century it was noble enough for your family." Miss Blackthorne stared at him, evidently still working to make sense of the words.
He was surprised he had said them at all. He hadn't meant to reveal that fact, not yet. "What I mean is that your father was no better man than I," he clarified. Perhaps if she knew the truth, she would look upon him with less scorn. "He was a man of fortune," he spoke louder, hoping to evoke her this time. "A pirate, just as I."
Miss Blackthorne's sneer of incredulity shifted to anger with one fierce blink of her lashes. Even then, he could tell she was beginning to entertain the possibility. She'd likely had an inkling of it all along. "We're not all toothless savages," he began. "Some of us even have great houses, even great [00:08:00] names."
Mae just stared off, ignoring him. "Why do you think your house has all those tunnels you mentioned? They were pirates with a great many enemies and an even greater deal of loot." "But you kill the innocent. You kill for greed." "So did your father when it was necessary. He had everything a pirate needs. A flag that struck fear into the hearts of men and a bloody fast ship."
"No, I don't believe you." "On my honor, you come from a line of pirates. Every ancestor as far back as five generations has taken to the sea in search of wealth." Miss Blackthorne looked away, her eyes searching. Had she really never heard the rumors? Had her family managed to keep her that sheltered? "Your father's father was a pirate too, just as he was a shipbuilder."
"My grandfather?" "Nathaniel Blackthorne." Just saying the name brought him back. "We traveled the high seas together, sailed waves the size of oceans, or the size of mountains." "What are you saying?" Miss Blackthorne laughed. "The truth. Nathaniel, Alistair, and I captured more precious [00:09:00] cargo than you could ever dream.
Of course, Alistair later betrayed me and stole my share of the profits. Typical pirate, eh?" "Wait." She held up a hand. "You're saying that you and my grandfather worked side by side? He stopped sailing in his thirties. And you're what? How old, exactly?" "Thirty two," Locke cleared his throat. What choice had he
but to reply? There was no disguising his youth. She shook her head. "You're lying. You would have been very young at the time." Locke cursed the slip. Sooner or later, she might very well discover that truth. Just not now. She would think him the devil. Her opinion of him was low enough. "My family, we were merchants.
Until they fell upon hard times. Had you not the opportunity, would you not have seized it too?" How could she be so naive about the ways of the world, particularly how the higher classes attained their wealth in the first place? They took it. "Don't you see? It became a shroud," he continued. "Your father's business was nothing more than a lie to keep hidden their true line of work.
That way they [00:10:00] could still parade around society with their ill gotten wealth." Miss Blackthorne looked away and bit her lip. He could tell she didn't believe him. "Pirates spend all their lives at sea. It's a shame. They have to retire sometime." "It can't be." "Your family brought me into it. I must say,
I helped increase their profits a great deal." At that, Ms. Blackthorne's face soured with pain. "Why do you think your father spent so much time at sea? Haven't you ever thought of it?" "I, I thought it was just part of the business." "What did you think he was doing all those weeks? Why do you think your brother-" "Stop it!"
Miss Blackthorne screamed suddenly and loudly. She twisted away and sank into the large stone at the base of the tree. "They're dead. They cannot defend themselves. I won't hear you blacken their names." "I speak only the truth." "I told you it's impossible." Locke released a stream of frustrated curses under his breath.
He regretted disclosing her family's long established venture into piracy, more so that he had been old enough to partner with her [00:11:00] father. Now she only thought him madder than she already did. Arms crossed, she sat there obstinant. "So you're one of those," he said. "One of what?" "One of those people who has to see something to believe it."
"I'm certainly not fool enough to believe everything I hear, especially your far fetched claims." "Enough of this." He let out a breath. Something about her regarding him a liar bothered him. But I don't have the time to bother with that now, he lashed at himself. "This key, where?" "Here." Miss Blackthorne lifted her arms to encompass their surroundings.
Amidst the languid flowerbed and brittle branches that had once been bushes, the only living thing stood in the center. A tree so ancient and wide, it provided shade to almost every corner of the courtyard. "Here at this tree?" Locke studied its gnarled, twisted bark. He had seen it before, but where he could not be sure.
The species, whatever it was, was not native to England. He picked at a leaf, taking a small sea pot in his hand. "What tree is [00:12:00] this?" "The poison is kind, particularly those seeds you're holding." Her lips quirked almost to a smile. Locke dropped them. "How do, how do you know?" "My father told me. He said that this tree is really a work of art.
And yet, it also serves a purpose. Shading us from the heat, poisoning our enemies. But more often, art has no purpose. It's just art for the sake of art. Ars gratia artes." She shrugged. "It's a simple enough clue." Yet only one she could decipher. "Hardly the words of a pirate," she added.
Katherine Grant: Ooh, how intriguing.
Ella Leon: Thank you.
Katherine Grant: I can't wait to figure out how they go on this treasure hunt. I've got lots of questions for you, but first we're going to take a quick break for our sponsors.
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Katherine Grant: Well, I am back with Ella Leon, who just read a sample from the Sapphire Heiress and there are so many yummy things in this book and in this scene that I want to ask you about.
Let's start [00:14:00] with piracy and this very interesting contrast that you're setting up where the heroine didn't know her family were pirates, she's having a negative reaction to it, and the pirate hero is kind of like, well, the upper classes all just take their wealth. Can you talk to me about how you got drawn into writing a pirate story and what made you interested to draw this comparison?
Ella Leon: Well, I think it was in my research where I discovered that there are some historians that believe that some pirates come from wealthy, respectable families, especially privateers like Blackbeard. So it got me thinking, you know, once they retire and they all have to retire you know, would they be going back to the London ballrooms and, you know, would you be, would they be mingling again with high society?
And I think they would because a lot of times it just one venture, just one expedition, and you could make the equivalent of millions today. [00:15:00] So it was a very enticing career path for some people to go in, especially if they had the means to get that letter of marks to be a privateer.
Or, you know, if you just had a fast enough ship and could hire a crew. So it was that whole idea. And the main character Mae, she has all these negative connotations about pirates. And I think a lot of us have that today too. I mean, I think some of them are true because it was very much like a violent type of lifestyle.
And you did have to be pretty rough of a person to do those kinds of things and morally gray, I guess you could say, but I, like I said, I do think there was, you know a part of it where these people were from high society or so called high, you know, higher society and. And there is, there is that interesting contrast there that I play with but yeah, Mae very, very, very much has this negative connotation that she associates with pirates.
And when she finds out that her family was actually pirates, I think it makes her rethink the [00:16:00] whole idea of piracy, what piracy, you know, not just what piracy is, but I guess the reasons why someone would go into piracy. And it's I guess maybe for more complicated reasons because I think back then people it was harder to, to, you know, poverty was, they had a much higher poverty rate back then.
And a lot of times it was the only way some sailors could make money because being a sailor on a ship that was a really hard way of life really difficult conditions I've read. And a lot of time you wouldn't even get paid. So the reason, you know, so you could see why it would be so enticing to become a pirate and those ships then too, like pirate ships were run as democracies.
So more democratically, so you could see why, you know, that would be so enticing.
Katherine Grant: Especially compared to the naval ships where if you were a sailor, the commanders were basically the totalitarian leader. Yeah, they could kill you at any [00:17:00] moment.
Ella Leon: Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Katherine Grant: Well, and also on the morally gray thing, like the letter of marque was the monarch sanctioning you to attack enemy ships,
and so then, is it morally gray, if you're being told by your monarch? Yeah, you can make money just by attacking these Spanish ships if you're British So clearly you've you've done some research on piracy. Can you talk to me about your Research process for writing the historical part and then
at what point does the fantasy part come in and does your research interact with that at all?
Ella Leon: Well, I guess the research I did was really just like, what was it like to be a pirate? And, you know, I, I did learn that pirates didn't just steal gold and silver. They, you know, they stole whatever was on the ship and they would even, they would, they wouldn't just like kill people.
Sometimes they would just, they would take someone for ransom. But it was still a very violent way of life. And it kind of helped inform [00:18:00] the background of, of the hero Locke. And because he has a very tortured past, very, you know, kind of traumatized past and very tortured type hero. And you know, the heroine, she kind of represents the goodness that he wants back in his life.
Cause he's, he's trying to leave that life behind. But getting back to the research and the magic quality to it I guess the Sapphire, it was really just the whole idea of like, what would happen if you were a pirate and what if you attacked a ship that had some kind of magical cargo as locked it? And that's how the, the novel opens is he steals something from the ship and he doesn't know who this ship belongs to, and it ends up belonging to a secret society called the silver order and they come into play later on in the book but you have to be careful who you steal from I guess and [00:19:00] And the silver order is kind of what connects all three books across the series, too
Katherine Grant: very cool, very cool and Just on the topic of pirates.
I know that there's a big difference between what became lore about pirates versus what is historical record about pirates. So like, no one actually walked the plank, but we all think of pirates walking the plank. How did you approach that for writing this story? Especially because it's Victorian. So Mae would already know a lot of that lore, but Locke has been living the real life.
So like, In your story, what was your approach towards that?
Ella Leon: There's definitely the romantic parts of piracy, that there's a reason it became lore, and that's the parts that I find interesting, and the whole, like, treasure hunt. I know that, especially historical writer, there's some things that are true and some things that are like lore, like you said, but in my eyes, I think the reason why stuff is lore is because it's, it's interesting and honestly, that's the type of, that's the stuff I latch [00:20:00] on to sometimes.
I mean, I try, I make it realistic, but the whole treasure hunt that's that's maybe a little bit more on the side of lore than historical, but it's possible. I mean, if you had a lot of wealth, you would want to hide it and you know, maybe in different multiple places. And even even today we found like hordes of coins.
I always thought that was interesting when they made a big discovery or they make a big discovery of like a vessel of coins and you think about the person that that hid them there. And, you know, did they make a map for somebody to later find? And part of my inspiration too for this was the Count of Monte Cristo especially the movie version.
I did read the book. The book was very long because it was serialized. But I, I did draw some of the inspiration from the treasure hunt from the Count of Monte Cristo and, and the cave and all that. So yeah, I like sometimes I, I go for the lore, like, I, you [00:21:00] know, exciting more interesting parts of history or they all have to, they all have to have an origin, some origin in fact .
Katherine Grant: Right. Well, and also you know, we're not reading historical fiction to learn history. We're learning it to be entertained. And so that is the entertaining part of it. So, I'm excited that the heroine is a Filipina heroine. And I don't know too much about the Philippine history Other than that, I believe it was a Spanish colony and then it was taken over by America very at the end of that Victorian period.
So anyway can you talk to me about writing a Filipina heroine and what that means to you?
Ella Leon: Yeah, it was very important to me, and if you think about it, if you look at the Victorian era, you know, it's a very global empire. And you know, pirates obviously traveled the globe, and I guess the reason I wanted to write this character as a Filipina heroine is, you know, not only am I one, [00:22:00] but it is very possible that I think we would have these type of people living in England at that time.
I just wanted to show that, you know, these people existed. Even before the Victorian era, even the golden age of piracy and they're traveling the world. And why wouldn't you encounter more of these people, especially if you're a pirate. So to me, you know, it's, it's very realistic. And I just, like I said, wanted to show that those people existed at that time.
Katherine Grant: Absolutely. Yeah. Well, I remember reading a book about an English voyage in the 1600s and they were attacking Spanish galleons that sailed every year from Manila to, I think, Chile. And so it's
Ella Leon: They probably attacked it
for gold, I imagine.
Katherine Grant: Yeah, yeah. So it's centuries and centuries of this European Filipino contact.
It makes sense to me, just like you're saying that there would be a Filipino community in [00:23:00] England as well.
Ella Leon: Yeah. And actually my, I should mention my third book takes place in the Philippines and at sea. So it's like, that was really exciting to write. Because like I said, the whole series follows the Silver Order, which is a secret society that protects and seeks out ancient supernatural knowledge.
So the third book is where they, you actually get, the readers actually get to go on one of those expeditions. So that's, that, that was very fun to write and I did have to do some more research for that. Pre colonial Philippines though is very difficult to, to find much research on and a lot of it,
because Jose Rizal, he was somebody who lives in the Victorian era who tried to do all the, tried to study pre colonial Philippines and kind of create a, like, a Filipino history that was, that he said was, you know, we had our own culture, our own history before the, the Spanish arrived. But he had to travel all the way to the British Museum to do some of [00:24:00] that research.
And a lot of the stuff that exists about pre colonial Philippines was done by the Spanish, you know, our records are by the Spanish, our written records by the Spanish, even drawings by the Spanish. So of course there's a lot of bias in them. So that just adds to the difficulty. But like I said, I'm a lore person and I, you know, there's, there's a lot of myths, a lot of Filipino myths that I, you know, looked into.
And of course a lot of different versions. And I definitely fill in some of the gaps, but it, it was definitely really interesting and really fascinating to me. I will say that I discovered some depressing information about a lot of the artifacts that are displaced and a lot of it is in the British Museum, of course, a surprising amount is in the US.
Well, not surprising, I guess, because we, you know, the US colonized the Philippines, but a lot of it's in like archival libraries, and there's even one in Chicago, where I did like a thread about all [00:25:00] these artifacts that are displaced. If anyone wants to look that up, it's also on my blog. But it's just, it's kind of sad that because we have such a history of being colonized, that a lot of our stuff has just been, been taken.
And like I mentioned the gold before, because there's, everyone wonders, like, what happened to all the Filipino gold that used to be there. Like, some people say the Japanese have it, some people say the Spanish have it, so that's, that is maybe another story, I think.
Katherine Grant: Yeah, yeah well, just the, the idea that all your, all the artifacts have been displaced, I mean, they have been pirated, from,
Ella Leon: Yeah, I would say looted, looted by, I wouldn't necessarily say pirated, I wouldn't say it was done more so by the military or the, the Spanish government, even the British government, because there was a short period of time in the 1700s.
I think 1760s where the British actually, the, had the British, it was called the British invasion of Manila [00:26:00] lasted a couple of years, but they did a shocking amount of damage to the Philippines or to the city of Manila and took a lot of items.
Katherine Grant: Yeah, that, I mean, that's a good note. I, I, it's been stolen from the Philippines.
And so I like that the story that you're writing is about piracy from a different angle.
Ella Leon: You could, oh, you could for sure say
that. Yeah.
Yeah.
Katherine Grant: Alright, well, I think it's time for us to play Love It or Leave It.
[Musical Interlude]
Katherine Grant: Alright, do you love it or leave it? Protagonists meet in the first 10 percent of the novel.
Oh,
Ella Leon: love it.
If not, maybe
sooner, I think.
Katherine Grant: Love it or leave it, dual point of view narration.
Ella Leon: I'd say love it mostly, but considering maybe breaking the rule one day, I feel like, because I, I love Victoria Holt books and her books are all written in first person. And I feel like if, if we, if [00:27:00] the historical romance authors maybe started writing in first person, maybe we could attract some people from the young adult crowd.
Or from that, that, you know, romanticy crowd. But I feel like maybe, maybe we should think about mixing it up at some point. But I know I, I do love writing the hero's point of view. But I think it's something to think about for sure. Yeah.
Katherine Grant: All right. Love it or leave it third act breakup or dark moment.
Ella Leon: I love it. And I, I mostly do what, what I tend to write is there's like an external force, usually forcing them apart and and then, you know, they have to come back together, but I, I love it.
Katherine Grant: Love it or leave it, always end with an epilogue.
Ella Leon: Love it. I feel like there has to be, you have to see the you know, the riding off into the sunset, because I like to end my books with a lot of action, generally, and then I like to get out, but you always, you have to come back and, and show that, you know, that really was the best outcome, and that, you know, that really was the, the best choice, or, [00:28:00] or whatever.
Katherine Grant: Yeah love it or leave it, always share research in your author's note.
Ella Leon: Leave it. I think that, I mean, I am a historical writer, right? But I, I think it just pulls people out of the story. I know it pulls me out of the story. Like I want to believe it was true. I want to believe what I just read was, was real.
And then when you start reading that author's note, you're just like, it just, you know, unless it's like an absolute true story and you're telling, you're telling the reader how all this is true. I feel like it better left unsaid.
Katherine Grant: All right. And then are there any other romance rules I didn't ask about that you like to break or play with?
Ella Leon: Not really, no, just the, like I said, the dual narration, I think, I think that one, because that's been going on for so long now, and and I'd like to see where the, if it could ever evolve out of it, and I think it would, it could attract more readers that way.
Katherine Grant: All right. Lead the way. Well, thank you very much for playing.
Where can our [00:29:00] listeners find more about you and the Sapphire Heiress?
Ella Leon: Well, I would love it if everyone could sign up for my substack, my newsletter. I think it's Ella substack slash Ella Leon. I'm all, my website's also ellaleon. weebly. com. And you could find all my books on Amazon and on Kindle Unlimited.
And so the Sapphire Heiress is out now but the Crystal Alchemist is the next one. It'll be out in late April and then the Emerald Enchantress will be out in late July.
Katherine Grant: Ooh, exciting. All right, well I will put a link to your website in the show notes so listeners can click right on through and find you and your books.
Yeah. Thank you so much. This has been really great. I've learned a lot talking to you.
Ella Leon: Thank you. I really appreciate being on.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. Thank you.
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. [00:30:00] Until next week, happy reading!