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FULL TRANSCRIPT: Elizabeth Everett Samples The Love Remedy
Katherine Grant: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Historical Romance Sampler Podcast. The place for you to find new historical romance books and authors to fan over. I'm award winning historical romance author Katherine Grant, and each week I'm inviting fellow authors to come on and share a little bit of their work and themselves.
They'll read a sample of one of their books, and then I'm going to ask them a bunch of questions. By the end of the episode, you'll have a sense of what they write and who they are. Hopefully, you and I both will have something new to read. So what are we waiting for? Let's get into this week's episode.
All right, I am so excited to have Elizabeth Everett here today. Elizabeth is the USA Today best selling author of the critically acclaimed Secret Scientists of London and Damsels of Discovery series. Elizabeth regularly writes and speaks [00:01:00] about feminism and the romance genre, and her essays appear in various media outlets.
Her work is inspired by her admiration for rule breakers and belief in the power of love to change the world. Welcome, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth Everett: Thank you so much for having me.
Katherine Grant: I'm so excited. What are you reading for us today?
Elizabeth Everett: So today I'm going to start, I'm going to read from the book that just came out, The Love Remedy.
And this is the first book in my new series, The Damsels of Discovery. And it features a woman apothecary, Lucy, who is a heroine. And in the first chapter, she has been, she had developed a formula and it's been stolen by a man she thought she loved. And, and this was very upsetting to her. She lost out a lot of money.
And then she's just found out that another firm that she had been working on is missing. And she's certain that this same gentleman [00:02:00] took it. So she goes to a private investigatory agency and wants them to investigate. To help her get it back. Well, she wants them to actually, to, to, not to kill this guy, but to rough him up.
And they explain that they can't. And the the private detective, the he His name is Thorn, and he was a prizefighter, and he was a profligate, and he was an alcoholic but he has discovered, he discovered he had a child, and at raising the child as a single father, he stopped drinking, and reformed his ways, and he is the agent that she wanted to hire, and at first he says no, but then in this chapter I'm about to read, There is a change of mind.
Otherwise, there wouldn't have been a book.
Katherine Grant: That sounds amazing. I can't wait to hear it.
Elizabeth Everett: "Oh, someone is going to die, but it won't be [00:03:00] Duncan Ryder. Read me the note again." An apology sat on the tip of his tongue when Winthrop flinched at his words, but Thorn swallowed it. Thorn's first purse fights were held far from the tumult and notoriety of the London auditoriums of his later career.
His second ever bout took place in a muddy field halfway between Leicester and Peterborough and He'd ended the match being beaten bloody by a giant of a man named Dubbers. First or last name, Thorn never learned, but Dubbers was a creative bastard. After toying with him for the last few minutes of the fight, he'd gotten Thorn in a brutal hold and jabbed his elbow directly into Thorn's throat.
Since then, Thorn's voice could be described as rasping on a good day. When he was irritated, it sounded like two pieces of rusted iron rubbing against each other. Right now, Thorne was irritated. A sheaf of [00:04:00] auburn hair flopping over his forehead, Winthrop glanced at the note that had been delivered to the office a half hour earlier.
With a hairless chin, wide blue eyes, and pale skin that stained red with every strong emotion, he appeared much more youthful than his twenty years. Having been born female, he would never grow a beard, and was fated to appear forever young. Not always a bad thing when it came to being a private agent.
"Dear Winthrop," the young man read again, "I appreciate your advice yesterday to check with the patent office before making accusations about Mr. Ryder." Winthrop continued, "I am in dire need of funds, however, and cannot wait to bring my formula to market. If I do not bring you proof of his theft by tomorrow morning, it means I was wrong or I was caught.
If the latter, Please, please bring my sister Julia to Newgate with money for bribes. And some cake, as I will no doubt be hungry by then. With fondest regards-" "what [00:05:00] was she thinking?" Thorn interjected. Winthrop shrugged as he set down the note. "Miss Peterson does enjoy a nice peek as, Oh, oh." His cheeks flushed at Thorn's scowl.
"Well she weren't too pleased that we said to wait. I suppose she's thinking to take matters into her own hands." Thorn suppressed a wince as he rose from his chair. The damp chilly autumn air ravaged his old injuries. Each year, the onset of winter brought a rediscovery of wounds he'd have barely noticed 20 years ago.
He walked to the window of the same room in which Miss Peterson had sat yesterday, expressionless, as Thorn explained that Tierney's agents most certainly did not engage in assassinations, and could accept cases only where the life or livelihood of the person was at stake. Miss Peterson's lips had thinned to the point where they'd nearly disappeared, and the delicate wings of her brows pulled together to meet at a deep wrinkle at the bridge of her nose.
She hadn't argued, however, simply bid them both a good day and left without another [00:06:00] word. Thorn, like a fool, had brushed aside Winthrop's worries, confident that a woman smart enough to run a business would take his advice and be practical. Obviously, these women scientists were cut from a different cloth.
"Take matters into her own hands," Thorn echoed, "meaning..." "well, if she's worried about being taken to Newgate, she must be considering sneaking into Ryder's office and getting back her..." thorn had grabbed his hat and was out the door before Winthrop could finish that sentence. The impulse made less and less sense as a fine drizzle of cold rain crept beneath Thorn's greatcoat
and ran in tiny rivulets from the cupped brim of his wool top hat as he trudged through the murky dusk as there were no hacks to be found in this kind of weather, the kind of weather that seeps in through a man's boot soles and causes a throbbing ache in his misused joints. How much worse would he feel if he hadn't quit drinking and fighting at the tender age of eight and twenty?[00:07:00]
As he turned a corner into a narrow alley, the unhappy conjecture split from his brain to be replaced with bewilderment. Bewilderment and a hefty dose of exasperation. "They do not allow gifts of cake for prisoners at Newgate," Thorne informed Miss Peterson. Or rather, he informed her arse, which stuck out of a second floor window above his head.
Miss Peterson's legs stopped kicking, and she hung there, limp, half her body wedged in the window, the other half growing wetter by the second. There was a small hole in one of her boots, and the sight struck Thorne in that soft place in his chest that most days he could ignore. Today was not one of those days.
"Of course, you can't be sent to Newgate if you haven't committed a crime," Thorne continued. For a moment, there was no reaction, then Miss Peterson's left ankle turned in a [00:08:00] circle as if to say, go on. "From the crates overturned right here, I would guess that you made a tower and climbed up to get to that window, found yourself stuck and accidentally knocked over your means of escape."
Miss Peterson's left foot tapped the side of the building twice. "Aha, if I were to stack the crates again beneath you, would you please climb down here so that we can speak face to face?" He asked. Miss Peterson's left foot hung motionless for a moment, then slowly moved side to side. "Is it the speaking face to face you wish to decline?" He asked.
The foot moved side to side again. "You're well stuck, aren't you?" Miss Peterson's left foot tapped the building in a grumpy manner, if a foot could be said to be grumpy. She smelled like eucalyptus and chamomile. The combination [00:09:00] struck Thorn as both comforting and odd as it filled his nose once he'd rebuilt a tower of barrels and crates and stood behind her rounded arse.
"I'm going to put my hands around your waist," he said to the back of her. "When I pull, suck in your stomach and push with your arms against the wall in there if you can." Miss Peterson's foot tapped in agreement and Thorn bent over her. She'd worn a dull gray police for her crime spree, and the odor of damp wool competed with the eucalyptus as he wrapped his arm around her waist.
He'd not touched a woman in seven years. Miss Peterson's beauty had nothing to do with the pang of longing that clawed at his gut. It was simply the soft curve of her warm body beneath him, how he'd missed holding a woman. Thorn left off his foolish pining and braced himself against the bricks as Miss Peterson's ankle spun in rapid circles.
"On the count of three, I will pull," he warned her. "One. [00:10:00] Two, three. Oh, for the love of God. How did you get yourself so stuck?" Miss Peterson's feet scrambled for the walls and Thorn helped her find purchase. After a terrifying moment where he considered having to push her into the room, he heard a quiet squeal and he felt some give.
"That's it," he coaxed. Reaching under her, Thorne prayed he wouldn't grab her bosom by accident as he eased her torso out, careful not to squeeze too hard. With scarcely any room on the crate beneath them, there was no place for her bottom to go but right up against the front of him. And Thorne scrabbled for the mild outrage he felt upon seeing her sticking out the side of the building.
When the back of her head finally emerged from the window, he breathed a sigh of relief. "There now," he crooned, "we'll just get you down from here and..." oblivious to their precarious perch, Miss Peterson curled around and threw her arms around Thorn's chest, her head coming only to his chin, her carpet bag in her hand [00:11:00] smacking him in the back and nearly knocking them both two stories down to the ground.
"I knew someone would come," she said. Leaning back from her surprise embrace, she peered up at Thorn with a radiant smile. The rain, his aches, the ridiculousness of him standing on top of a pile of crates to pull this strange woman out of a window, any combination of these would have put him in the foulest of moods.
If he were honest, however. Thorn would later admit it had been her smile that gave him the most pause. Her smile revealed two tucked teeth overlapping ever so slightly. A flaw that turned her remote, ethereal beauty into something more. Something human and attainable. Glowing with a combination of relief and gratitude, she gave off a warmth that made him want to set his hands to her face.
Thorn tried to convince himself he didn't want to touch Miss Peterson in particular. He simply [00:12:00] wanted to touch someone else, anyone else, and find in that moment a flesh against flesh, a place of recompense, a promise of forgiveness, a warmth that eluded him on the coldest part of the night, It took him far too long to break her hold.
After tonight, Thorne wanted nothing more to do with women scientists, Miss Peterson in particular.
Katherine Grant: What a beautiful, delightful, and funny scene.
Elizabeth Everett: Thank you.
Katherine Grant: I've got a bunch of questions for you, but first we're going to take a break for our sponsors.
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So we are back with Elizabeth Everett, who just read a sample from The Love Remedy, book one in The Damsels of Discovery. And I'm very curious, you set up the book, she is an apothecary who's developing her own formulas.
So that's always a fun premise, and then when you have to sit down to write it, you're like, oh, I've got to develop some formulas. So can you tell me about your research process to learn what an apothecary did and how she [00:14:00] would have come up with these formulas?
Elizabeth Everett: So I researched on Victorian apothecaries quite a bit but, and I faced a choice
whether to put some of the recipes that I had found in my research in the book or not. And I decided not to because the thing with herbal, well, the first thing is with the apothecaries in the Victorian era did not have a standardized unit of measurement. So they would use something like an egg cup or a wine glass or, you know so everything was sorted
by sight, really, even though they, they did have the scientific education the actual cures, the actual, you know, ointments and such were, were personalized. And the other thing is that I considered putting a little bit more about the herbal, the traditions of herbal use in abortion care, but I just thought that was too risky.
I mean, [00:15:00] it's sad to say, but we live in a country where women can't get. full reproductive health care and sometimes they feel trapped or they, you know, and maybe they'll seek out the alternative. And I didn't want to be responsible for somebody trying out something or because. Herbs come, unless you're picking them yourself and distilling them yourself, if you pick up an oil of this or this or an extract of that, you don't really know how the process has been done how strong it is.
Also, herbs have changed, I've learned in my research, become more potent, certain herbs. So the seeds that you'll buy at the garden store will give you a different plant with a different amount of chemicals in it than they used 100 or 200 years ago.
Katherine Grant: Right. And also when they were doing it 200 years ago, they were [00:16:00] guessing as well and it was risky then it could have the outcome they wanted or it could kill the mother.
Elizabeth Everett: So so, so what I did was I researched the apothecaries and I, I put in enough so that people could have a sense of where they were and what it smelled like and what it looked like. And I mentioned a little bit about the apothecaries garden, which is now called the Chelsea's physics garden which I thought was fascinating.
And a lot of people have also like been fascinated by that because that was a real place and it's a real place. today. So that's, yeah, that was, and then I learned how to extract peppermint oil, but I didn't do it at home because my, my family was like, don't, please don't, please. Please don't.
Kitchen, please. So I didn't.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. Well, I'm curious. I think this is something that I [00:17:00] think about when I'm writing and you explicitly say in your blurb about this book on your website that it's historical context with an eye toward current sociopolitical issues. events. And how do you think about balancing entertainment and escapism versus engaging with the realities that like historical romance actually gives us an opportunity to engage with a lot of things in a new way, like thinking about how did they have abortion care in the 19th century.
So how do you think about balancing those two things?
Elizabeth Everett: I think about it a lot, especially because the past year I've been speaking on and writing about and thinking about first of all, thinking about historical accuracy, quote unquote, who gets to, who gets to tell history stories and how are they told?
So when people say, well how do you balance [00:18:00] "real history" With your feminism or womanism, I say "real history?" You mean the history that we've read in textbooks that have been written by it entitled white men. Is that really our history or is that a version of history? So that's the first thing I keep in mind.
And the second thing is I think that being challenged can be entertaining. I think if we do it right, it not only entertaining, but it's empowering. And then I, you know, I am a big fan of the banana peel sort of humor, the physical sort of slapsticky kind of humor. And I usually throw that in when things start to get a little bit too serious.
Cause it pulls us all back because I'm not here to, I am, I'm, when I get angry, what do I do? I write a kissing book, [00:19:00] but I'm not here to make people angry. I'm not here to I don't want people to read my book and be like, let's go out and torch them. I want people to read my book and say, yeah, that's the way the world is.
But still. But to have been given a love story at the same time because I honestly do believe that the most powerful force there is, is love as opposed to fear or as opposed to greed. So so I think it can be entertaining and it can be funny and it can be delightful, but it could also be at the same time honest and as far as I'm concerned period accurate in that I don't make things up.
I mean, all the science I've researched myself. But also historical from my point of view, because I get to tell my history too. I don't have to be reliant. It's, I don't have to be bound by other people's interpretation. I can [00:20:00] offer up my own and it's just as legitimate. We have the same set of facts.
Katherine Grant: Yes, yeah. And there's also known gaps in fact, such as a lot of midwife material was not written down for centuries. So do you feel that it is important? I know some historical romance authors really need to find an example in history before they feel that they can say, Oh, I'm going to take that and put it in my fiction.
Or do you feel comfortable saying, Well, we don't really know what was happening. I'm going to invent something.
Elizabeth Everett: I think that. Well, the great thing is because of the scholarship in the past 10 or 15 years queer scholars and people who are, who, scholars of color who are tracing their own history.
It's, we have fewer gaps. We still have gaps, but we have fewer gaps than we did before. So some of this stuff, it may not have trickled down to textbooks, especially in Texas, but But it's out there [00:21:00] that scholarship is out there. So that's a good thing. And the other thing is that these women and the science they do in my books, I don't, there's, there's nothing to make up.
I mean, there are women out there making science, but they were they've been omitted
from
a larger historical narrative. So There are women who were creating these, you know, who are working in chemistry, who are working in math, who are working in engineering. And if you read the author's notes at the end of my books, I would, I, I give people the the muse or the inspiration for each of these scientists.
So they were there. It just takes work to uncover them. Yeah. And, and it. It takes pushing back against the, like this, this there's almost, there's a conscious silencing of women in science, and there's an unconscious silencing of women in [00:22:00] science for example the woman who worked on the discovery of the human genome, she was left off when they went to get the Nobel, her name was left off the application. There's other scientists who have developed, there was one scientist who developed a cure for leprosy and she died young and her professor took it over for him to put his own name on it.
I think the only thing that people can accuse me of doing that's not, you know, historically accurate is the assumption that people are kind to each other.
Katherine Grant: Right.
Elizabeth Everett: The assumption that 200 years ago, People would also have found family the assumption that 200 years ago.
If someone had a member of the LGBTQ plus community in their family, or as their partner, they would love them
for
them and not, you know, in, in not send them away. Like that's like, that's just my assumption that human beings were just as loving 200 [00:23:00] years ago as they are now. And I don't think that anybody could disprove that.
Katherine Grant: Right. Yeah. And I didn't mean it as a question of accuracy or not. I'm curious about your creative process. Like, are you finding these women in science first and then using that as your inspiration for the books? Or are you, did you start saying, Oh, I want to write an apothecary and then let me go find some women who were doing it?
Elizabeth Everett: Both, both happen. Sophie is the Is the inspiration for the heroine of my second book. Perfect equation because I just found her so fascinating. And the difference is she obviously did not fall in love with a handsome Viscount. And she was also, she, she lived in the 1700s where there's actually, I mean, a lot of my inspiration comes from scientists in the 1700s because women were given a lot more leeway in the 1700s than they were in the 1800s, which is really interesting. So some of them are directly inspired, but others are, you [00:24:00] know There are a couple of women chemists, but Violet sprang to mind as Violet without having a an inspiration beforehand and that was the first book and I was just like, you know, I was more inspired by her personality and knowing women like her.
I wanted to write a book about her. And so, and I, at the same time, come up with this idea of a secret society of scientists. So, you know, I I made her a chemist for a lot of different reasons. But there, at the, so I began researching then all the different women scientists. And that's how I realized, I just was not, not surprised, but definitely disappointed.
the history of women in science and not, you know, basically in the Western world, I did not get, it's very difficult to get access to records about women scientists in places [00:25:00] like China. I've only found like one or two, like historically, not, not contemporary, but like before the 1800s. So my, so a lot of what I've learned about is limited to, to Western society and Western cultures.
Katherine Grant: Right. That makes sense. And something that you talk about in your, even in your bio is your passion for feminism and romance. And so I have a two part question. One is, I think there are a lot of feminists who criticize romance books. And then I think there are also a lot of romance readers who don't, who criticize feminism.
So what do feminists get wrong about romance books?
Elizabeth Everett: Okay. So I did not read romance until about 16 years ago and I found one by accident and I read it thinking it was a historical mystery. Okay. And it wasn't. [00:26:00] It was Julianne Long's The Peril of Pleasure. Mm mm. And it was amazing. But, you know, I'm like halfway through.
I'm like, there's some sex going on in here. Because before then I'd had the same sort of view of romance that is around in the popular culture, this sort of internalized misogynistic view that if a book is about is from a woman's point of view and centers around a romance, then it's trite. Or it's less than, or it's, it doesn't, the quality of the prose makes no difference.
So I think that is right before, right in the beginning there. I think that's what a lot of scholars in gender studies and womanism and feminism, I think that's. They carry that stereotype around their head and have not bothered, like, I had to be hit over the head with an actual book in order to be [00:27:00] bothered to look up from, from my beliefs.
And I understand that I'd been maligning an entire genre that I, because that I didn't read. So I think right then and there, if you have scholars, if you're in a women's studies class and, and they're bemoaning the existence of Harlequin or what have you, my guess is 99 percent of the time, they haven't read any.
And they especially haven't read any in the past 10, you know, 15 years.
Katherine Grant: Right.
Elizabeth Everett: So I think that's, And that is part of the reason that I do whenever I do conventions, I try and do a panel or two, or I try and do articles every time a book comes out about pushing, getting rid of that stereotype for a while, like just put the stereotype away.
And read some of the genre because it's, it's not anti woman. It's, it's the opposite.
Katherine Grant: Right.
Elizabeth Everett: Yeah. It's just done in a, and, [00:28:00] and I, and the other thing is it's not I think readers. So this is a discussion I have a lot, I've had a couple of times with Evie Dunmore. Okay. Because she is writing in Europe, but she's also of Lebanese descent.
So she like has her finger on the pulse of a completely different political culture. And, and she found that the definition of feminism is different here than it is in Europe. And I would say it is also different in America, depending on, you know, your background your, your culture, your education.
So I think women who say, I like romance, but I don't want to read a, well, I'm wearing a shirt. Yes. You thought there was so much feminist malarkey. So I think that. If I picked up a Loretta Chase book, or say, Eloisa James, or somebody who's been writing for 20 or 30 years, or Julia Quinn's books [00:29:00] pre television series there would be readers who were like, that's, this is a romance.
There's no feminism in there. But of course, if you read it, you're like, no, the woman is empowered. She doesn't have to be empowered the same way that you consider a woman empowered. But when women are empowered and we tell our stories from our own viewpoint, and we, when we center what's important to us in our emotional lives, that's feminist.
We're not less than. Wanting engaging in, in sexual relations, in falling in love, and wanting a happy ending, that's not anti feminist.
Katherine Grant: Yeah.
Elizabeth Everett: That's the opposite, because we're pushing against the patriarchy, because money can be made from fear, and greed, and anger, right? [00:30:00] That's why there's a proliferation of news sites that have all those
chyrons going around the bottom of the screen because you get scared and so you're going to buy, you're going to subscribe to more channels and you're going to buy an alarm system and you're going to, you know, move to this neighborhood and pay this amount for a house because fear is motivating you and it makes money.
If you're motivated by love, where are you
going to spend money on? Condoms?
Katherine Grant: Right. Well, it's time to move to our segment to find out what kind of a rule follower you are. But I know that you're a rule breaker. So we're going to find out, do you follow romance rules in this segment called Love it or Leave it?
Katherine Grant: Do you love or leave protagonists meeting in the first 10 percent of the book?
Elizabeth Everett: So I love that. I love it. I love it. I know some people are like, oh, [00:31:00] instalust. Yeah, I know it. No, no, no, no, no. For the, I love to be like grabbed by the throat in the first page and just like something fabulous is going to happen.
I don't always write those stories, because it kind of depends on the plot. But if I could, they'd be banging right from page one,
Katherine Grant: but that's just, all right, love it or leave it. Dual point of view narration.
Elizabeth Everett: I love it. I love it. I love it.
I
love it. Yeah. I don't, I am. I can't write in first person. It's just a skill that's beyond me. I admire people who can but, but I love writing from the male point of view because it's just so easy.
I mean, I'm I have a a cis male partner and I have a son, cis male son. And so I know, you know, I know a little bit about them and [00:32:00] they're, they're very simple. They're super. It's the girls are hard.
Katherine Grant: Awesome. Okay. Well, I think I know the answer to this one. Love it or leave it third person past tense.
Elizabeth Everett: Yes. So, so again, right. It's, it's just so much what I feel comfortable in. But I always admire, I mean, I just have so much admiration for people who can make first person present work. It's, I think it's just a skill. I think that the other thing is too, I think that historical. really lends itself more to third, you know, I think that contemporary there, and I've seen readers do this.
They're like first person only, like, I love romance, but I just want to read first person only. So it's a very much a contemporary trend. Yeah. And I admire it, but I can't write it. So it's not like a love it or, or a hate it. It's more like, where, where's [00:33:00] Because I'm not I didn't take writing classes and I'm not like my, my career was not in, in writing or in fiction or any of that.
So it's just kind of what came naturally to me. And quite frankly, I don't, I think I'm too old.
Katherine Grant: It changes the craft when you're changing tense and point of view. So, all right, love it or leave it third act breakup or dark moment.
Elizabeth Everett: Love it. I love it. I love it. I don't mind a soft. I don't mind that. That some people don't have that. I don't mind it. I don't think it takes away if you don't have it. You know, I just, Oh, I love the angst and I love the pining and I love it.
And it also is a very classic structure. So I think if you enjoy classic literature, if you enjoy classic theater, if you are a someone [00:34:00] who enjoys theater and enjoys movies and enjoys these sorts of sagas, then it's, it's it's It's vital, right? Because this is where you see, you know, this is where the writer gives you, splits these people open and shows you exactly how far they've come, right?
Because they're faced with these choices. And I just think I find that very exciting. Barely Even Friends by Mae Bennett
I blurbed in my love. I absolutely love this romance. It is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, with a curvy architecture heroine who's redoing a a castle. And of course there's the beast, the guy who lives there. But there is no What happens in the third act, you know, is going to happen all along.
It's not, it's not super high stakes. It's not, no one's damaged emotionally. No one's, you know, it's very soft, but still just as compelling. [00:35:00] So I think it's really dependent upon the the type of book you're, you're reading. But myself, I really enjoy writing third act breakups because it's just an easy way to crack these people.
It's an excuse to crack them open.
Katherine Grant: Right. Cool. All right. Love it or leave it always end with an epilogue.
Elizabeth Everett: Oh my God. So these back when I was a newbie writer and people told me don't read reviews. I went and read reviews, right? Because I didn't know any better. And I got so slammed for not having an epilogue.
Like, what happened to them next? Like, what's happened? What happened? What happened? And I was like, well they lived happily ever after. Do you need details? People do. They need details. So I unbent enough in this book that I just turned into my editor and I wrote an epilogue.
Katherine Grant: You have been beaten [00:36:00] down by the masses. I
Elizabeth Everett: have. And I put a wedding, they got married in the epilogue. So there you go, folks.
It's for you. I don't know if I'm going to do it ever again.
Katherine Grant: Enjoy it while you can.
Elizabeth Everett: Enjoy it while you can. I'm not, I don't need the epilogue because I'm a huge fan of like taking a book and making it mine. So but I know there are some people who they're not satisfied until everything comes together.
So and that's, so, so the love remedy, we don't see anything after that proposal. We don't know. Did they wind up together? Did they argue? And I even write this in the afterword. I hope they did. I hope those two characters continue to listen to one another and respect one another and grow with one another and parent this child together. It's what I hope, and I hope they, they [00:37:00] continue to treat each other with respect no matter how difficult the subjects are that they tackle. And it's my wish, but it's, it's not something that I knew, I didn't know for certain what direction they would go in
when
I finished that book because there's just, there's still so many more things they have to overcome.
And I think that's a completely different book and it could, and definitely it could be a romance or it could be something else. But like those, the continuation of a romance novel, I think is, is historical fiction.
Katherine Grant: Okay. Very interesting. Love it or leave it. Share research in your author's note.
Elizabeth Everett: Oh, I do it all.
Yes. That's my thing. That's my jam.
Katherine Grant: Alright, and are there any other romance rules I didn't ask about that you break?
Elizabeth Everett: So so there are not, so, so there are romance rules, for example, like a romance [00:38:00] has to have a happily ever after, happily for now. But there's other sort of like unwritten rules sometimes that romance readers pick up on. And I, I always like religiously follow like the first, the, when the first kiss happens and then the first encounter, like, like I'm like, okay, we're at chapter 10 and we've kissed so that we can go to the next.
Like, basically I follow the bases rule, the same bases that we had in like high school. Right.
Katherine Grant: Okay. So that's a rule that you follow not break.
Elizabeth Everett: Yeah. So that's a rule that I follow because I don't know how to break it yet. I haven't figured out how to do it right. But I, I would, if I can, at some point I will, but right now yeah, that's a rule that, but it's an unspoken, unwritten rule.
If you asked somebody else, do you have a, do you have a, do you have the four bases? They'd be like, Oh,
that's funny. [00:39:00]
Katherine Grant: Amazing. Well, I think you are mostly a rule follower when it comes to romance, but a rule breaker when it comes to listening to the patriarchy.
Elizabeth Everett: There we go.
Katherine Grant: I really appreciate you coming on and talking with me today. Where can our readers, where can our listeners find your books?
Elizabeth Everett: So my books can be found in.
All major, I mean, I don't know what most, most retailers in most retailers, you can find my book and you can also, if you have any questions about where you can find it, you can go to the Penguin Random House website and they will give you a listing of all the different, the Kobos and the Kindles and the what have you, where you can find the book.
And you can always go to your local romance bookstore and ask them to order a copy or you can go to your library and if they don't have copies ask them to buy some because that's where that's where authors love to be is in [00:40:00] the library.
Katherine Grant: Yes, yes.
And where can our listeners find you if they want to follow
you on the internet?
Elizabeth Everett: So if they want to follow me on the internet, I have to apologize in advance. I'm really not that exciting. I'm so sorry. But if you want to on Instagram, I'm at Elizabeth Everett author on the Facebook. I'm at Elizabeth Everett author. And my website is Elizabeth Everett author. com I'm Elizabeth Everett author.
So, yeah, that's all you gotta do. Just type it in and something about me will pop up. Hopefully it's flattering.
Katherine Grant: That's amazing. Well, thank you so much again. This has been fantastic. I've really appreciated it.
Elizabeth Everett: Thank you so much for having me. And I've watched some of the other shows and you, you do excellent interviews.
Oh, thank you so much. I really appreciate that. Thanks.
Katherine Grant: That's it for this week. Check out the show notes where I put links for my guests, myself, [00:41:00] and the podcast. Until next week, happy reading.