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Full Transcript: Ginny B Moore Samples Ruin Me By Midnight
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 super excited. Today, I am here with Ginny Moore, who writes steamy historical romance that celebrates neurodiversity. Ginny was the kid who loved kissing scenes in movies and always rooted for Mulder and Scully to hook up. Her first piece of writing, a [00:01:00] horrendous fanfic romance based on The Three Musketeers when she was 13, will never see the light of day.
But in 2021, Ginny started writing romance with purpose to avoid doomscrolling social media, and since then has never stopped. To pay the bills, she is a middle school assistant principal and has been in education for 15 years. Most of her writing is done on her phone or in the parking lot of her kids extracurricular activities.
Ginny, welcome! I'm so excited to have you.
Ginny Moore: I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
Katherine Grant: Yes! So what are you reading for us today?
Ginny Moore: So I'm going to be reading a portion from my newest release, Ruin Me by Midnight, which is book four of The Flower Sisters. And in this story, what I wanted to do is kind of take that classic fear of ruination trope and turn it around.
And so Violet, who's my heroine, is trying to get herself ruined in the eyes of society so that she doesn't have to marry this [00:02:00] terrible man that her parents want her to marry. And she ends up connecting with Callum, who is this grumpy Scottish businessman who's at the same house as her. And he's trying to secure investors for his company and because of romance reasons that he begrudgingly agrees to help her.
Now, both of them have trauma in their past and they want to keep themselves protected to avoid being hurt. So in this prior scene, they shared a heated moment hiding behind a curtain, but neither of them is sure what between them is real and what is just pretending so that she can be ruined. Thanks And I picked this scene, this is chapter 11, so we're a decent amount into the book.
But I picked this scene because this is where we start to see the walls coming down between these two characters. And we get to see a cameo from a new character that has become a fan favorite. So I'm very excited to share that with you all.
Katherine Grant: Awesome. Well, I'm excited. Take it away.
Ginny Moore: Right. Callum shivered and stomped his feet, [00:03:00] regretting his decision to wait indefinitely in the garden for Violet to sneak away from after dinner drinks and card games.
He'd whispered the suggestion to her as the guests separated after the pudding dish, and at the time, he'd eagerly anticipated a break from socializing. After the incessant noise of the meal, he relished the peace of the secluded space, surrounded by tall hedgerows and fragrant verbena. Snowdrops and hellboars pushing their way from the chilled earth to reach for the weak Yorkshire sun.
A window from the ballroom bathed the garden in electric light, but the gnarled limbs of an ash tree curled in front of the glass, diffusing the glow. The wooden arch covering a wrought iron bench would be enchanting in several weeks when the roses bloomed, but now sat in sinister stagnation, the twisted vines studded with thorns between budding leaves.
He'd struggled to tear his eyes from Violet during the evening meal. His body still pulsed from their proximity behind the curtain, and he admired her as she glowed, her soft smile never falling. But he sensed that attachment [00:04:00] in her, something he recognized in himself. He masked his insecurities by being rough and unapproachable, all sharp edges.
No one would approach him without fear of being left bleeding. Violet, however, polished herself to a surface so slick and shiny that nothing could take hold. He checked his watchagain, and, with a reluctant sigh, accepted that she wasn't coming out, when a slice of light cut across the grass then disappeared, and she was there, walking toward him.
Embroidered flowers swirled over her gowns, vines and leaves twisting up and around her hips and bosom before the threads neckline, as though she were bursting forth from a winter garden that attempted to restrain her. Her exposed collarbone and shoulders, barely visible above the flounce sleeves, appeared so delicate, so elegant and simple in contrast, that Callum ached to drag his fingers across them, study each perfect curve until he memorized it.
She held her hands clasped at her waist, the [00:05:00] satin gloves reaching up and covering her elbows, and he wanted to tug them off, hold her hand in his like he had earlier that day. When the air between them had vibrated with electricity, unrelated to the storm raging outside. "Callum," she whispered, and he released the breath that burned in his lungs.
"I'm here." The relief was palpable in her expression, her eyes meeting his with a timid smile. He cleared his throat, reminding himself why they were out there in the first place. "The last two nights, Vailbrook has taken some men out here for cigars. I tonight, I assume tonight will be the same." "Good, then I suppose we wait?"
"Aye." He stepped closer, then hesitated. Proximity to Violet was addictive, and after having her in his embrace behind the curtain, he wanted another touch, another taste, although he couldn't identify why. She was distant, but present. Kind, but guarded. A mystery he ached to solve, a cog that didn't quite fit.
She leaned back, gazed over his shoulder at the sky behind him, and pointed. [00:06:00] "Seems appropriate that Cygnus is visible tonight." He turned and looked, but the scattered clusters of stars remained random, with no pattern or discernible reason. "What am I looking for?" "The swan." She leaned close and pointed so he could follow her gaze.
"Do you see the cross of bright stars? That's the swan, Cygnus." She dropped her hand from his forearm and stepped to his side. Her face turned upwards. He squinted. "It doesn't look like a swan." "Use your imagination. It's associated with rebirth and transformation." "you've studied the stars." In the low light, he saw her cheeks glow pink. "You make my hobby sound more scholarly than it is. I've always found the mythology of constellations interesting. Every culture uses myths to make sense of the human condition, so perhaps I can learn something from them." "I do not think any myth can solve all the puzzles of humankind."
She gave him a long, steadying look, as though deciding if he was worth her time. He prayed that she found him worthy. "There is something comforting in knowing that the [00:07:00] stars are more or less the same as they were thousands of years ago. With all the chaos and unpredictability in our world, something will be steady, there to guide us forward."
"Was it the Romans who thought the stars could predict the future?" "Yes," she said, her expression brightening, "they believed the arrangement of the heavens at the time of your birth determined your path." He wanted to brush against her, see if her warmth would reach through the layers of fabric to his skin, but he refrained.
"Do you believe that?" She huffed a laugh. "I'm not sure. I don't want to believe everything that's happened in my life was foretold, then I might have had some warning if I'd looked in the right place." "But if it was fated to you, you wouldn't have been able to stop it." Her lips flattened. "I like to think I control my future, but that isn't the reality, is it?"
"You're taking control now," he said, his voice a low rumble. The urge to wrap her in his arms and hold her steady pulsed in his chest. "And I-" a twig snapped just beyond the hedgerows, and they froze. "Someone's coming," Violet hissed. "What do we do?" He [00:08:00] grabbed her wrist and pulled her over to the bench, then sat. "On my lap."
Her eyes widened, but something rustled, moving closer, and she sat, then wrapped her arms around his neck. Callum knew this was dangerous. The softness of her body, the shifting of her bottom on his lap, the intensity of her eyes as they met his, wide and uncertain. "Kiss me," he breathed. Her breath hitched, but she leaned in and pressed her lips to his.
Mistake, his mind screamed as the heat of her kiss seared him, erased every thought from his consciousness, her sweet citrus scent flooding his senses. There was no sense in flicking the tip of his tongue against the seam of her lips, savoring the thrill when they parted the barest amount, but sense had no place between them now.
Want, hot and untamed, roared through him and the arm around her waist tightened. A gasp escaped her throat, barely audible through the pounding in his ears, and then the honk. A honk? Violet sat up and tilted her head as the intruder stepped into view. "Cygnus?" [00:09:00] Callum stared in disbelief as he narrowed his arms around her.
"That's no swan. That's a goose." "Regardless, what is it doing here?" The fowl was larger than any goose he'd ever seen, its spindly legs straining to carry its heft. It waddled forward, keeping the pair of them in his beady gaze. "He's making me nervous," she whispered, her breath hot against his ear. "Why do you think it's a he?"
"I made an assumption, now can you get rid of it?" The masculine need to protect flooded his nerves, although he felt ridiculous puffing out his chest at the bird's approach. Surely he could best a goose. Callum cleared his throat and raised his voice. "Go on, goose." Apparently geese could glare because this one narrowed its eyes and came closer.
"Go on, go away." "Is that the best you can do?" Violet's fingers dug into his shoulders. He scowled at her, a spear prickled at his neck. Then waved his free arm in a shooing motion. "Go away, goose!" Instead of fleeing in terror, the beast fluffed its feathers and extended its snowy wings, then released a screeching [00:10:00] honk.
"That didn't work!" Violet whimpered. "I can see that!" Although he outweighed and could likely, he hoped, outsmart the goose, his heart was racing. He wrapped his arms more tightly around her. The goose honked again and wobbled forward, snapping at the air. She pulled her feet up onto his thighs. "What do we do?"
When the bird did not pause in its advance, Callum shot to his feet and lifted her, clutching her tight to his chest. She entrusted him to take care of her during their ruination charade, but while that responsibility didn't extend to attacks by poultry, he wasn't about to let something happen to her.
"Don't look at it," he boomed. "Why? If I don't look, I won't be able to see when it bites me." Callum took one step back and his thigh hit the bench. Trapped, his hold on Violet tightened as he prepared to fight. If this goose was going to hurt her, it would have to get through him first. A voice rang out in the darkness.
"Kevin, is that you?" They froze, and, much to Callum's shock, the goose turned toward the speaker. "Kevin?" Violet whimpered. [00:11:00] Bridget burst into the garden and planted her hands on her hips when she saw the foul beast. "What's gotten into you, Kevin?" "It is a he," Callum stammered, feeling even more ridiculous than he had moments before.
"Kevin was about to bite Violet." Bridget tisked and snapped her fingers at the goose, who abandoned his assault and waddled over to their hostess. If Callum wasn't mistaking, the creature had a smug smile on its beak. "Were you feeding him bread? He likes it, but it's terrible for his digestion." "We were not feeding him anything."
Callum continued to eye Kevin with suspicion, and he was not about to let Violet's feet touch the ground with that monster in her vicinity. "He came out of nowhere and started honking." "That's because he's hungry." Bridget reached into a hidden pocket in her dress, then extended her open palm to Kevin.
"Halved grapes are his favorite. He can get bossy sometimes, but you just need to give him a stern word, and then he's a complete love." She scratched Kevin on the head like he was a pet dog, and the goose nipped its apparent owner's fingers affectionately. Callum [00:12:00] gaped. "Well, I'll leave you to it," Bridget said, smiling at them as though it were a normal occurrence to catch her guests in an embrace while under attack by her pet goose.
"I convinced my cousin Vivian to play the piano for us to dance. Come in whenever you're done doing," she made a vague circular gesture in their direction, "whatever you're doing." She swept out of the garden, Kevin tottering merrily behind her. Callum remained motionless for a long moment until Violet stirred in his arms.
He lowered her, waiting until her feet were stable beneath her before he released her. A beat passed before he felt laughter bubbling in his chest, relief flooding his veins. While Kevin hadn't been a deadly foe, he'd kept her safe. She chuckled and rubbed the bare skin above her glove, and Callum wanted to pull her close, keep her warm, perhaps kiss her again.
"That didn't go according to plan." He gave her a conspiratorial wink. "Do you think Kevin will tell anyone what he saw?" "If he [00:13:00] does, no one will believe him." She wrinkled her nose. "Everyone knows geese are chronically dishonest." "I suppose I have to add geese to your list of fears." A smile pulled at her lips, alongside spiders.
"I'm also not fond of heights." He snorted a laugh and she smiled up at him. He'd laugh like a fool if she kept smiling like that. The strains of the piano, followed by an inebriated cheer, filtered into the garden. "Would you like to dance?" She hesitated, then shook her head. "No, I should go to bed. Assault by Goose was not on my agenda for the evening and I doubt anything could top it."
Regret struck a low in his belly. For the first time in his life, he considered what it would be like to court a woman. To hold her close while they waltzed. To bring her flowers and write her poetry. To listen to and understand her. Perhaps be understood in return. But to what end? Even if she agreed to give up her plans for ruination and allow him to pursue her, let alone marry her, he'd be off to South America for God knew how long.
He [00:14:00] swallowed his disappointment and gave her a low bow. "Wishing you a night free of poultry." She gifted him with a wry smile, an expression that seemed private, something she kept just for him. He loved it. "Thank you for your valiant, valiant protection, brave knight."
He couldn't find words to make her stay when she didn't want to, nor did he want to explore why he was suddenly desperate to keep her company for a few minutes longer. A simple kiss had never sunk into his bones before, leaving him rattled and breathless. He needed more. Another kiss, another touch. But she was already leaving.
"It was my honor," he managed, just as she reached the edge of the garden. He wasn't certain she heard it. Callum turned and looked back at the stars, but no matter how closely he examined them, he couldn't make out the shapes she'd described, only a cluster of random flashes of light that seemed to blend into an indiscernible configuration the longer he stared.
She was a puzzle that didn't want to be solved, at least by him. But he felt like he was getting closer to the solution every time they spoke, [00:15:00] every layer she peeled back for long enough for him to glance underneath. He'd always been intrigued by puzzles and impossible tasks. Perhaps, if he was persistent, he could make sense of her as well.
Katherine Grant: Wow. That was so sweet and also so funny. I was on mute, so no one could hear me, but I was laughing out loud. That was awesome. I have, I have a lot of questions for you, Goose related and other. But first we're going to take a quick break for our sponsors.
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So I am back with Ginny Moore, who just read a sample of Ruin Me by Midnight, her latest release. And as somebody who was once attacked by a black swan, I really felt that scene.
I felt the drama and the stakes of that scene. you know, defend me from Kevin. But like I said, it was so sweet, also so funny. I'm curious, how does your mind work? Did you go into that scene knowing that it was going to be a first kiss, or at least a kiss, and then, you know, be interrupted [00:17:00] by a goose that was going to be hilarious?
Or did you kind of find that as you were writing?
Ginny Moore: I always like to think when I'm writing and when I'm kind of coming up with what's gonna happen next with the characters. I like to think about what is the, what is the emotional range of the scene? And I knew that this needed to be the moment that they were ready to start opening up to each other and starting to reveal their pasts.
And they both do have these really scarred pasts that, they've never really shared with anyone. They've never trusted that. And this was the first time they started to kind of break down those walls and you started to see them sharing with each other. So we had that moment of really significant emotional depth.
So I needed to balance that. I knew I needed to have, you know, these sad sack characters have something, have some levity surrounding them to force them to laugh and find joy in, in life, which is kind of a big moral, big seam of this book is how, how can you find love and joy after tragedy? So [00:18:00] in this particular scene when I was originally drafting this and kind of rubbing this out with another author friend of mine, We were coming up with different ways in books that people got ruined.
And it was, there's always the person in the garden, you know, gets stumbled upon. And then we were trying to come up with, how can that go completely wrong? So I immediately thought of similarly having been attacked by a goose in a park when I was seven years old. I still remember it vividly. I was like, instead of a person stumbling upon them in the garden, what if it's a goose?
And the goose attacks them. And I have a very good friend who teases me that, you know, why am I never in a romance book? Why am I never a character in any of your books? So I named the goose after him. So it is named after a friend of mine. But it was very intentional to kind of have that balance in the scene in terms of the emotions that they had.
Katherine Grant: That's so interesting. And so you said at the beginning that you were really interested in doing this kind of reverse ruination trope, and then you [00:19:00] also just mentioned that the book has this strong seam of how do you find love after tragedy, and so I'm always curious, for you, does it come, does the seam come first, does the trope come first, does something else come first?
Ginny Moore: It really, it's really kind of random. To be honest with you, sometimes like, for example, my, my first book Adding Up to Love has an autistic heroine, and a lot of Her experience was based on mine being, I am neurodivergent. I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was younger being on the autism spectrum as an adult and thinking about when I was growing up and how frustrating it was for me to find somebody who understood me.
And I've been very fortunate. My partner and I have been together for 20 plus years and he gets me and understands how my mind works. And so I really wanted to think about that. That what would that would be like what that would like be like in history, which is how I came up with the setting of a female mathematician at Oxford University [00:20:00] in this particular book, I had the house party idea in my head, and I had this idea of ruination but
twisting the trope a little bit. And my first draft of this, this is, I think, like my ninth or tenth version of the story. I picked it up and I wrote it and I put it down so many times. And in the original version, it was, she was trying to get caught in a compromising position with a different character, and Callum's character was the one that kept interrupting it, but I couldn't sustain that for a full novel, so I kind of twisted it, and I really liked how it, how it ended up, but sometimes it's a trope, sometimes it's a particular setting in history, and sometimes it's a character.
That kind of gives me, gives me the idea to start going.
Katherine Grant: I love that. And so you mentioned in your bio as well that. Your kind of brand mission is to celebrate neurodiversity through [00:21:00] historical romance. What's your approach to writing neurodiverse characters when the modern audience has labels, but the characters does not, do not, the characters do not?
Ginny Moore: I too, and I'll fully admit that these first couple of books that I've written, I've taken elements of my own personality or members of my family. Everybody in my family is neurodiverse. We, we come together. We just act like that I guess. And And thought about their traits and kind of used that as a way to describe the characters.
I actually did not, when I wrote my first book, I did not in my first draft initially plan on her being autistic. I kind of planned on her having some quirks like kind of an exaggerated version of myself. And when early readers read it, they were like, Oh, she's autistic, right? Oh, I guess she is. Okay. Ironically, that's actually what led me to start talking to a doctor about maybe my having that diagnosis.
So in books previous to this, I've [00:22:00] really been thinking about my own experiences and how I could bring those qualities in. For this book, both of the characters, particularly, experience really significant personal losses.
And the male main character, Callum, he is suffering from PTSD. Which is not something that I can personally relate to. So I did a lot of time reading and researching. I did some interviews with people that struggle with PTSD. I had them read the scenes and the descriptions to make sure I was getting it right.
So there's another scene that happens right after this one actually that I just read where they get trapped in a linen closet together and initially they're trying to get caught by someone else in a compromising position and the doorknob breaks and they're stuck in there and they can't quite move and he has a panic attack and obviously not being able to call it.
A panic attack, but it's a really significant moment for them that she knows how to talk him [00:23:00] through and she actually relates it to one of the heroines in a previous book, talking her through panic attacks. So a lot of it is using the mental health to also kind of destigmatize them a bit and show that really allow the reader to sit in this is what it feels like to have a panic attack.
This is what it feels like to walk into a room as a neurodiverse person and experience this and also some of the challenges that come with finding love when your brain works differently and you don't necessarily have the vocabulary to explain that because at that time it didn't exist. It wasn't something that was readily available.
I'm a stickler for historical accuracy. I love to research, and that is the place where I do bend the truth a little bit is, you know, getting care for mental health. I really want to normalize that. In my second book, The Countess and the Casanova, the hero is recovering addict and [00:24:00] has really severe depression and I do have him going to talk therapy at the end and I had some, I got some dings from that from in reviews from criticism saying that that was anachronistic, but I did research talk therapy was very, very early at that point, but that was a very conscious choice to put that in because I wanted the readers to see, you know, love does not magically cure mental health challenges.
Love can be an inspiration for you to go seek help. That was definitely the case for me, that my husband, my family pushed me to get help, and their love helped me get what I needed and recognize this as a part of myself. So, I want to make sure I'm not writing the, you know, Love cures all, because that's not reality.
Katherine Grant: Right.
Ginny Moore: As much as romance is escapist I do want to make sure that I'm validating the experiences of people who are neurodiverse and have different experiences with their mental health.
Katherine Grant: That's very well said. Are your books Victorian or [00:25:00] Regency?
Ginny Moore: They are Victorian, late Victorian, early Edwardian even.
The first in the series is set in 1899. And I kind of got myself stuck because I wanted to go a decade after women first being admitted into Oxford University because I wanted to have It had been enough time that it was no longer, you know, new and crazy. But I also didn't want to go too much later.
So I kind of got stuck in this like turn of the century, 1900. But I also really love it because there was so much changing in the world. There was so much happening in society. So many of the rules about race and gender and class were being broken and I play with those a lot in, in my books. So I like being able to kind of lean into all of that change that was happening in history at the same time.
Katherine Grant: Yeah, I love that. So I am curious you said you, you started writing romance with purpose in 2021. Can you talk [00:26:00] to anything that you learned as you transitioned from writing for fun to writing with purpose?
Ginny Moore: Well you need to let people read it. If you're going to actually write something, you need to let people read it. And I sat on the manuscript for Adding Up to Love for about six months before I was even willing to, like, anonymously reach out to strangers on the internet. And I ended up completely rewriting it.
Like, the second half is completely different from what I originally had. And I found myself just like craving that feedback and like living for those emails from random people that I met to give me feedback on my work. And I anticipated not taking that feedback, any criticism well, and it turned out to be one of the best experiences of my life.
Some of my early, those random strangers on the internet, I text with multiple times a day. And there's some of my close friends. [00:27:00] And it's really neat. I have to give a shout out to Cara Dionne, who is a contemporary romance writer. And we met on the internet. And talk constantly and work together.
And, you know, if I hadn't met her, I don't think my books. would exist. And so that community that I've been able to find through romance particularly historical romance, is just awesome. And it's been so fun and supportive. They're the best people on the internet, I think, as romance readers and writers.
They're just the best.
Katherine Grant: There's a lot of positivity. Absolutely. Yeah. That's so cool. Well, I think it's time to find out how much of a romance rule breaker you are with love it or leave it.
Katherine Grant: Love it or leave it. The protagonists meet in the first 10 percent of the story.
Ginny Moore: Absolutely love it. I want to spend as much time like just crammed in with those people as possible.
I [00:28:00] try to have the meet by like 5%.
Katherine Grant: Love
it
or leave it, dual point of
view narration.
Ginny Moore: Absolutely essential. Your game. I'm like, not even answering properly. Love it!
Katherine Grant: No, no, it's
perfect.
Love it or leave it, third person, past tense narration.
Ginny Moore: Love it!
Katherine Grant: Uh, Love it or leave it, third act breakup or dark moment.
Ginny Moore: Okay, I love it. I need that. When I'm thinking through a book and it's really starting to formulate for me, the two things that I know right away are the epilogue, like what it's going to be. Like what do they look like happy and normal and their lives just living there happily ever after?
I need to know what that looks like. And I need to know what breaks them up. I need to know what is their biggest challenge, because if you don't see what love looks like when it's under stress, you don't know if it can survive, you know, love, if everything is perfect, if everything is going well, [00:29:00] of course, they can stay in love and everything will be fine.
But put them under stress, like put them at their worst, and see if they still want to be together. So I always think about what's going to break them up. And then what's their happily ever after. And that will drive a lot of the narration and kind of what happens in the story for me. So yeah, I need a
Katherine Grant: really smart
way to do it.
I
Ginny Moore: need that cathartic moment of the third act breakup and, you know, coming back together at the end. .
Katherine Grant: Yeah, I like that. I, I don't think I ever really know. That's maybe not true. I usually don't know what the third act breakup or dark moment is gonna be for my book. It's just like, I know something's gonna happen, , so I wish I wrote your way.
Okay. I think we know the answer to this, but love it. Or leave it. Always end with an epilogue.
Ginny Moore: The epilogue. If I don't get an epilogue, I get sad. I, I love the epilogue. Yeah, I always write [00:30:00] bonus epilogues, too, because I need to see them again. I need to know, like, again, what's happening with them.
Katherine Grant: Yeah, I, I just came out with a novella that was a whole, it was revisiting a couple, so they got a whole novella.
And I was talking to a friend of mine about how I was kind of nervous about that, and she said, well, it's actually kind of like fan fiction, except for you wrote it, so it's like canon fan fiction. And I think that's like the bonus epilogue and everything is like, you know, more fan fiction from the author.
Ginny Moore: It's amazing. It's perfect. I like that description.
Katherine Grant: All right. Love it or leave it. Share research in the author's note.
Ginny Moore: Love it. I always write a long author's note about the history that I include and try to explain. But I think it comes back to the teacher in me, like that, you know, teaching the importance of research and, you know, if you're stating facts, if you're acknowledging where it came from.
So I really want to acknowledge, I try to always [00:31:00] acknowledge in that space, where are places that I took liberties, where places that I invented historical characters, where are places that. This was real. This was a real person. Sometimes in my research, I'll stumble across really interesting histories.
For example, in Ruin Me by Midnight I knew for some reason fairly early on, I kind of knew that Callum was going to be an engineer. I always write there are no dukes. Let's talk about another rule that I break. There are no dukes. And I think my whole series, I have one nobleman. Everybody else is working class.
And Callum is a businessman, but his business is engineering. He's an engineer. And I was like, okay, I don't know that much about engineering. What could he be engineering? And I happen to be teaching about the history of colonialism and the Americas and the Panama canal. And I just went into this
rabbit hole of research on the Panama Canal and the politics and the history and the technology. And it was so interesting that I knew that that [00:32:00] was going to be Callum's thing that he was looking towards, that that was going to be what he was trying to accomplish. Especially from the standpoint of, as readers, we know that the men that went in and built that canal, it was a death And so we know reading it, that he is like, his goal is to get there, but he's not getting there.
Spoiler alert, he doesn't go. His not going, actually stayssaves his. And we kind of know that as readers, but my characters in the moment don't necessarily know that. So yes, I always try to include that research, the history particularly because I like to write about some social issues that go on at the time.
So I want to make sure that those are acknowledged that I'm recognizing, different viewpoints, different particularly when it comes to marginalized communities. In Ruin Me by Midnight, there's a side couple that is a same gender [00:33:00] relationship. And so I wanted to make sure that the readers understood the pressure that this couple was under, because that motivates a lot of the actions by the other characters.
And now it seems kind of, you know, old fashioned to think that it would be a matter of life or death to keep somebody's sexuality a secret, but at that time, no, it really was a matter of life and death for people who were queer, people who were part of that community and At the time that this takes place, you could just start a rumor about somebody's sexuality and that person could end up imprisoned which is really also kind of what was happening to women.
If they were ruined by a rumor, they could end up having all of their options, their entire future cut off. So I was really trying to kind of draw that parallel, not, not at all equating it, but when Violet was able to recognize the parallel of her struggle with this other [00:34:00] character who is Callum's cousin it really changes her perspective and she starts seeing a little bit more of the world around her and recognizing something a little bigger than her own experience.
Katherine Grant: Yeah, that's lovely. All right, final love it or leave it, which you kind of addressed already, but are there any other romance rules I didn't ask about that you break?
Ginny Moore: As I said, I don't write dukes. I don't write a lot of I don't write a lot of noblemen. I really like writing about class difference.
My other rule that I break a lot is that they don't end up rich at the end in my stories. Like, usually for the heroines in particular, there's almost like a downgrade in circumstances in terms of economic positions. For example, the epilogue of this book, a little bit of a spoiler, but. She goes from being a member of a titled family to a, you know, he owns a ship repair shop and they [00:35:00] live there together, but they're really, really happy and it's what they wanted.
And most of my books, all of my books in this series have, have ended up with the characters in a place that they did not expect would make them happy, but it really does. And again, I want that to be kind of the testament to, you know, just like love isn't going to cure your mental health and solve all problems, being wealthy is not necessarily going to solve all of your problems.
You need to find that person that those circumstances that complete you and make you feel fulfilled and it doesn't necessarily have to have a big payday to go along with it. So, that's another rule I like to break.
Katherine Grant: Yeah, that's so interesting. Alright, well, I think you are mostly a rule follower. But you have fun when you break them.
Ginny Moore: I do. And it's very intentional. I try to break them intentionally.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. All right. Well, I have really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you so much. Where can our listeners find [00:36:00] you and your books?
Ginny Moore: Absolutely. You can find me on my website. which is ginnymooreauthor.Net. I am also on Instagram at ginnymoorewrites and on Facebook you can find ginnymooreauthor.
I also have a reader group with a bunch of other fantastic historical romance writers who like to break the rules called the Society of Smut and Scandal. And we'd love to see you over there. And Katherine, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Katherine Grant: Yes, thank you. Are your books wide or are they Amazon?
Ginny Moore: They are on Amazon and everything is available with a subscription to Kindle Unlimited.
Katherine Grant: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Ginny. It's been really great talking to you.
Ginny Moore: Absolutely. Thank you so much.
Katherine Grant: That's it for this week. Check out the show notes where I put links for my guests, myself, and the podcast. Until next week, happy reading.