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Felicity Niven Samples Voluptuous

Katherine Grant: 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.

 I'm super excited to be joined today by Felicity Niven. Felicity is a hopeful romantic. Writing Regency Romance is her third career after two degrees from Harvard. And you know what they say, third time is the charm.

She splits her time between the temperate south in the winter and the cool Great Lakes in the summer and thinks there can be no greater comforts than a pot of soup on the stove, a set of clean sheets on the bed, and a Jimmy Stewart film on a screen in the living room. She's the author of the Bed Me Books series and the Love Locks of London series.

Felicity, I'm so excited to have you today.

Felicity Niven: I'm excited to be here.

Katherine Grant: And you're reading today from a fun book. Entry from the whole Curves and Cravats series, right?

Felicity Niven: Yes, yes, yes. It's a collaboration, 12 authors, all historical romance, all steamy, and most importantly, all plus size female main characters.

So it's really wanting to do a tribute to body diversity and that everyone of every size deserves love. So

Katherine Grant: I love that.

Felicity Niven: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Katherine Grant: So what can you tell us about Voluptuous?

Felicity Niven: So Voluptuous is a big age gap romance with a father's best friend as the male main character. He's a widower. He's a dad.

And then we have a young heroine who has always had a crush on him. Never thought anything would ever happen. And through circumstance, they wind up having to be married. And it's a chaste, not a marriage of convenience, because there's no political thing going on or monetary thing going on. But it's a, it's a, it's a chaste marriage, not a love match.

And, i, I really wrote it as kind of a healing thing because I had a very traumatic age gap marriage in the backstory of a character of another book I'm writing and I said, Oh, this is so dark. And I thought, well, could I write the story with a happy ending. And so that's what I decided to do.

Katherine Grant: Oh, that's such an interesting place of inspiration.

Yeah,

Felicity Niven: yeah.

Katherine Grant: Well, I'm excited to hear it whenever you're ready.

Felicity Niven: Okay, great. Not much needs to be set up here because I'm going to read the prologue. So it's the first thing the reader will get when they get to the book.

Katherine Grant: Great.

Felicity Niven: All right. September, 1819, Frost Lake. "I want a child." Oliver Hartwell froze behind his newspaper.

Everything in his body, his heart, his breath, his mind, came to a halt as the print on the page in front of him swooped and swarmed like a murmuration of starling. He forced himself to speak. "You do?" To his own ears, his voice sounded unnatural, strained, distant. "Will you give me one?" She asked. He folded his newspaper with even more care than he usually did.

Finally, every page was perfectly aligned, every crease was sharp, and he could not delay any longer. He put the newspaper aside and moved his gaze to the fresh face of his young wife sitting opposite him, her embroidery in her lap. "You're a girl." Henrietta had the most womanly body possible, lush and curved and feminine, but she was still so young.

Oliver constantly reminded himself of that in an ineffectual bid to keep his thoughts in check. He blinked, her pale eyes disappearing for a fraction of a second under her golden lashes. "I am not. I am one and twenty." She was. "And I am forty three years of age." He took a deep breath. "Forty three is not too old.

You are capable." Yes, he was. And she knew it. Never mind that she had been fully aware he had already sired her son when she married him. Only a week ago, she had caught him in his bedchamber, shamefully hunched over, his cock in one fist and her chemise in the other. He had not been able to stop his spend, even when he heard her gasp and saw her eyes go wide, her face so white the freckles on her nose stood out in relief, her pink lips forming a shocked O.

In fact, her presence had catapulted him over the edge. Thank God at least he had not been grunting out her name as he so often did when he yielded to his basest desires. And he prayed she had not recognized her own undergarment in his hand. Yes, he was more than capable, and with her, his capacity would be endless.

He could give her scores of babies, keep her swollen with child for years on end. "It's not seemly," he said finally. Her forehead wrinkled in vertical perplexity exactly the way her father's did. "We are husband and wife. What could be more seemly?" He could not answer that, because of course she was right.

Husband and wife were meant to indulge in amorous congress, to be fruitful and multiply. What was unseemly was their marriage. That a beautiful, vibrant girl, full of promise like Henrietta, had been consigned to wet a shell of a man because she had a kind heart, and he was a weak, selfish fool. She leaned forward and patted Oliver's hand.

A thrill ran through him, just as it always did whenever she touched him. No matter how chaste the contact, no matter that this wholesome, consoling pet was exactly what she would also give his five year old son when he scraped his knee. "The room can be dark," she reassured Oliver. "There would be no need for us to see each other."

Was she modest? She had never struck him as such. He was all exuberant health, not bothered one whit during a game of chase if her skirt hitched up to show a strong ankle, a plump calf. Never bashful when she let herself be caught and she bent over to laugh with Nathaniel and her bod escaped and showed beads of sweat along the tops of her bountiful breasts, tempting Oliver beyond all reason while he stood under the shade of a tree and watched her gambol with his son.

She sat back. "So you see, it's all right. The darkness would let us think of another." She could think of the boy he had kept her for marrying. And he could think of, whom could he think of? For the two years of their marriage, he had thought of no one but her.

She looked away from him towards the fire that made the red gold curls atop her head glint like flames themselves. "And I hope you would tell me how I could please you." Please him. Was there anything about her that didn't please him? "Then, you understand, men derive pleasure from the act of conception," he said carefully.

Her spine straightened and she turned her head to meet his eyes. "Yes." A blush spread across her face and she swallowed. "Did you know women may also derive pleasure from it?" In principle, yes, but not his wives, not with him, not the kind of pleasure he Oh, he'd always assumed Henrietta was a virgin, but perhaps he'd been mistaken.

Perhaps her childhood sweetheart had taken her maidenhead before the incident that had forced Oliver and Henrietta together. If so, why hadn't the young man demanded he be the one to wed her? No, the cad had abandoned her, thinking the worst of her when it had all been perfectly blameless on her end.

Oliver would like to bash the boy's face for not sparing her from, well, him. He shifted in his chair. "May I have some time to consider your request?" "Of course." She smiled politely, but he wasn't deceived. He knew her smile. She was disappointed. "I would like to grant your every wish-" "but this is sudden," she said quickly.

"I have surprised you, and I know I can be rash at times, but this is not a whim. I want to be a mother. I have always wanted to be a mother. I want a baby." She should want a baby. He believed most women did. And he couldn't imagine any better mother than the one Henrietta would make. Would make. Come now, he chided himself, there could be no better mother than the one Henrietta already was.

Because despite Oliver's cruel insistence that Nathaniel not call her mama, Henrietta was his son's mother in all but blood. She gave him a real smile now. "And it would be so good for Nathaniel to have siblings, a large family, just like mine. He'll be a splendid big brother." Something in Oliver's chest reached up and grabbed his throat, choking him, forcing him to blink away tears.

He did not deserve to share a house or a name with this miraculous creature who was so unstinting in her love and generosity towards his son. And she wanted a large family. This would not be a one time occurrence. Oliver might be expected, nay welcome, in her bed for years to come. "But I will let you think on it," she said, nodding.

"I know you do nothing without weighing the matter carefully." Nothing, except importune a girl who only meant to comfort a sad old man. She went on. "And you made it perfectly clear when we married that we would not, I mean, I know you would prefer-" what did she think he would prefer? "For us to be as brother and sister."

Never once had he thought of her as a sister.

He had thought of her as someone far too young to be saddled with him as a husband. He had thought of her with gratitude and admiration for how she had gladdened his and Nathaniel's lives and the lives of everyone around them. He had thought of her with a deep, dark, pulsing, possessive, Disgustingly animal lust He had never harbored a single brotherly feeling towards her. "Yes, I will think on it." He beamed at his answer, and he picked up his newspaper and unfolded it, only to stare at it blindly, completely unable to comprehend a single sentence. With just four words, I want a child, she had turned his world topsy turvy.

His orderly mind had dissolved into a jumble. His usually placid blood raced a hot and greedy river, drenching every organ of his body. And dread and hope gnawed at his heart in equal measure.

Katherine Grant: What a way to kick off a story. I just saw an Instagram post that was a collection of heroes doing things grimly and this, this belongs there.

Felicity Niven: Yeah. I actually don't know if I use the word grim anywhere in it. Because he's really he feels very grim inside, but he's very stoic, he's very unexpressive most of the time really.

I'm way more expressive than Oliver is, so I probably misled people in the reading. Yeah, he's very

Katherine Grant: Well, his internal monologue is very grim. Oh,

Felicity Niven: yeah, it's very grim. It's very grim. It's very self loathing. It's very yeah, he has a lot He has a He has a traumatic backstory. The female main character doesn't.

She comes from a wonderful family. She has some There is some fat phobia she has to deal with but her family and the mailman character who thinks she just couldn't be hotter are, you know, very positive about her and her body. So for the most part, she's really undamaged but he's damaged.

Katherine Grant: Yeah, well, I want to get more into that.

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Katherine Grant: I am back with Felicity Niven, who just read a very delicious prologue to Voluptuous.

And you said it as well, what comes across is this self loathing that the main hero is harboring for himself because he is so attracted to his young wife. And you also shared that the inspiration for the story or for the trope comes from Another story you're writing where it's a traumatic story

and so you yourself are trying to heal it. It struck me that it would, might still feel traumatic to write this character who hates himself so much. So can you talk a little bit more about that inspiration, and then you know, maybe a little bit about his journey away from self loathing?

Felicity Niven: Yeah. I think it's easier for me to distance myself a little bit from my male main characters. I love writing the male point of view. I love it. One of my previous careers was being an actor. And what I love is That there aren't any limitations about what character I can take on when I'm writing, you know, I can be 6'4 I can be a man, I can be a child, etc.

So, so even though it's wonderful to step into those roles, I still think I feel female pain and female rage much more intensely than I feel male pain and male rage. So it wasn't that traumatizing for me to look at his backstory. And it's not just that he hates himself for lusting after this young woman and feeling that he's ruined her life.

He also has trauma with his previous marriages.

\ so it did start with this idea, let me write an age gap marriage that has a happy ending.

And Oliver is based on the first crush I had as a child on an adult man, not my father's best friend, honestly, not a real person, a character. Yeah, a character. And and that crush, it stayed with me because characters are forever. And Henrietta is based on just one of the loveliest, most wonderful, sweet, caring women that I know.

And I felt like I got to give, I got to give the gift of this beautiful, loving woman, which is exactly what this man needs, to this guy. So, it felt, you know, I know I'm creating this, but it still felt really good to finally bring them together in the story.

And there's a lot, even before they realize that they are romantically attracted to each other, romantically attached to each other, there's a lot of healing she does for him with his son so it's a feel good story, even if the male main character doesn't like himself very much.

He comes to like

himself.

That's what your question was about. It was about what was the journey to get him out of his self loathing. It's really that being around someone who is joyous and treats you well and respects you. And changes you. It does change you. You can see yourself through somebody else's eyes and suddenly you see yourself in a little bit more of a positive light.

Katherine Grant: Yeah.

Felicity Niven: Love.

Katherine Grant: Well, and you mentioned that one of your previous careers was acting.

Felicity Niven: Yeah.

Katherine Grant: How have your previous lives informed you as a writer?

Felicity Niven: When I write, I do really get into the character's head. Like, I really try and feel the feelings of the character. So I'm one of these writers who cries a lot when I write, when I write something that makes me feel.

And I also because I was in Los Angeles and I was in the movie business,

I write a little more scenically, and I don't mean like scenery, but I write a little bit more like a screenplay than many other novelists. Now, I love the format of a novel, and that's what I grew up reading, of course as we all did, so I love that I can get into the character's head, and it doesn't have to be a clunky voiceover, and I get to get in there and dwell on the thoughts, but I spend a lot less time in characters thoughts than a lot of other romance novelists.

I spend a lot more time with dialogue and with action. And so I think, you know, part of that comes from being in the movie business for 13 years. That, that I do a little bit more of that in my writing.

Katherine Grant: And is that also part of how your muse delivers stories to you? Do you like hear dialogue and that's what pulls you in or?

Felicity Niven: Well, I see the scene. Yeah. The scene plays in my head. Yeah. I see a scene. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so people talk about, like, describing a room with someone in it. I don't do a lot of room descriptions. That's because I see it in my head. I, I think I imagine the reader already sees it in their head, too, so.

I don't do lots of furniture or clothes descriptions, which I actually love in other people's books. It's just that that's It doesn't come to me that that needs to happen. Yeah.

Katherine Grant: And so what was your journey to go from the movie business to writing historical romance?

So there's another career in the middle, right?

Felicity Niven: So I was an actress first, I then went to grad school and had another career, which I can't talk about because I'm still linked to it. And that career does not play. Because Felicity Niven's not my real name. That career does not play nicely with writing steamy romance. So I can't talk about that.

But, that but, but it had to do with COVID. My change, because you've, I, you know, like many people, I went, We're only here once. I don't, I'm not really enjoying what I'm doing. And there's some real problems with what I'm doing, not that I'm doing anything unethical. It's just the way the whole thing is set up, the business is set up.

So, what do I really want to do? And I knew I didn't want to go back to acting. And I, you know, I thought about a lot of things. And one of the things I, landed on was flow. And I thought, well, where, where do I get flow from? So this idea that you sit down and you look up and nine hours have gone by because you're so absorbed in what you're doing.

And I thought, well, where do I get flow? And I get flow in reading and I've gotten flow in the past in writing. And I thought, and I've, you know, I, I hadn't written anything seriously. I'd written a play. I've written a bunch of screenplays that never went anywhere. But I doing that. So I said, well, let me think about writing.

And I actually worked very hard for six months on three different books that are different genres. None historical romance. It was a middle grade mystery, cozy mystery for middle graders. With a recipe. It was a, a, a YA like Space Academy dystopian science fiction book. And it was a woman's literature book.

And I had real times. And then my mom, who loves historical romance, handed me A Week to Be Wicked. And she said, I think you'll like this. And I read it and I went, I love this. This is exactly what I want to write. I want to write love stories with sex. I want to write period stuff. And there's a little in my first book, you can kind of see the influence because I write about a mathematician and a rake as opposed to a geologist

or

a paleontologist and a rake.

But and it wasn't, it wasn't that I read it and I thought I could do what Tessa Dare does because I was like, I can't be that, you know, I'm not going to be funny like that or brilliant like that. But I was like, I just felt like. Oh, I can do that. My undergrad degree is in English literature. I wrote my thesis on Shakespeare.

You know, I read every Jane Austen book five times before I graduated from high school. I just didn't immerse in that. So I thought, I think I can do this. And, and, and that was it. And honest and this is terrible, I'm still extremely not well versed in historical romance. You know, spent the last two years reading as much as I can, but I think I'd only read about 20 or 30 historical romances before I wrote the first one.

Katherine Grant: Yeah. Well, that's really interesting. I'm curious. What do you think, do you have a sense it might be so it level that you can't access it, but do you have a sense of what it is that historical romance delivers that a middle grade cozy mystery... obviously, they're very different subject matters, but the form made it the thing that makes you flow?

Felicity Niven: Well, the guaranteed happily ever after is extremely important to me. And that's why the, you know, maybe romance rather than woman's literature that I knew what I was going for. And, you know, that you're going to get this couple together. You're going to make these people fall in love and this idea that that was going to be my job is to create two people and get them to fall in love and to get them to heal each other that they give each other the thing that they need.

 I was always loved history and historical fiction. And I think there's a lovely separation, which since I was coming to this from COVID. Gosh, I really wanted to separate myself from The modern world. And which is one of the reasons I went did went and did the science fiction.

I was like, let me write about another problem. And you know what was interesting, I think it was really to my advantage that I had not read a lot of historical romance. Because those three other genres I hadn't read a lot of middle grade mystery, but I'd read a lot of adult mystery, a lot of cozy mystery, a lot of women's literature, and a lot of science fiction, and when I went to write I felt I was incredibly derivative.

I did not have a voice,

but

because I'd read so little historical romance when I started right as soon as I started writing my first book, I, I, I found my voice. Because I hadn't read enough to go, Oh, I'm not as good as X. I'm not as good as Y another, you know, I didn't get into the comparison itis and I didn't.

And I didn't feel like I was copying anybody and I felt like that with the other genres.

Katherine Grant: Yeah, that's so interesting.

Felicity Niven: Yeah, it's strange. I don't advise it. I don't advise to start writing in a genre you haven't, don't know that much about, but it really worked for me. So, yeah.

Katherine Grant: Yeah, I also wasn't someone who'd been reading historical romance my whole life.

I had read, it had been my guilty pleasure for like, Maybe three or five years. So I had read a fair amount of it. But then I decided to try writing one and it was so freeing. And now I've been like, Oh my gosh, there's a whole lot more to it that I hadn't read. You know, like I felt like I knew the players.

And then as I started joining bookstagram, I was like, Oh no, I've only read one of that authors. And I've never heard of that author. And like, you know, there's so much, which is lovely because you're never going in and out of something to read. Yeah.

Felicity Niven: Yeah.

Katherine Grant: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And one of the things that stood out to me from the first time I saw your covers is how fresh they are and still very clearly communicating the genre.

Felicity Niven: Yeah, so, I mean, I don't make the covers myself, I do have a cover designer, but if you look at my emails, I mean, I basically, I mean, I had laid out, I knew exactly what I want. I said, you know, I want a san serif font. I want it in white. I want my name in color. I don't want faces. I don't want heads. I want my audience to be able.

And I want it to feel modern because the clothing will tell people. That it's historical. And yeah, so in, so in all the cases, so not in all the cases, so I have some covers, like the current cover of Voluptuous is not in fitting because it's fitting with a collaboration. It will eventually get a different cover to have it fit in because it is

tangential to, it's set in the universe of the Bed Me books, which is my second series. So it will eventually have a cover that matches that, which is why it doesn't have a paperback now. It won't get a paperback until next year because I would hate for people to, paperbacks are so expensive. I want people to spend money on it and then it doesn't fit with the other things in the series.

So anyway, yeah. So, so, so, so there was I'm, you know, I'm not a graphic artist, but I feel like I have a good eye and I did spend a lot of time looking at covers and saying, I don't want that. I do like that. And I think it was, it was the new Bridgerton covers that were not related to the television show that had Women in period dress with a white font.

I think it might have been serif, but it was minimally serif. It was very modern looking, and Julia Quinn's name and color, and I was like, that's what I want to copy. That looks really modern and fresh. So it was the set of covers for Bridgerton. Right before the series started.

Katherine Grant: Yeah. That's so interesting.

Good for you for having that eye and vision.

Felicity Niven: Yeah. I, I, yeah, I like my covers. Yeah.

Katherine Grant: Well, it is time for us to move into our game, Love It or Leave It.

Felicity Niven: All

Katherine Grant: right. Love It or Leave It, protagonists meet in the first 10 percent of the novel.

Felicity Niven: Leave it. Not necessary. I do want to get.

Meet both characters in the first 10%, but they don't have to meet each other. Not for me.

Katherine Grant: All right. Love it or leave it, dual point of view narration.

Felicity Niven: Totally love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Absolutely love it. Adore it.

Nice.

Katherine Grant: Love it or leave it, third person, past tense narration.

Felicity Niven: A hundred percent love. Really have struggled with anything that's not that. Love it.

Katherine Grant: All right. Love it or leave it third act breakup or dark moment.

Felicity Niven: I love it. I love it. Yes. Yes.

Katherine Grant: All right. Love it or leave it. Always end with an epilogue.

Felicity Niven: I love epilogues.

Yes. Love.

Katherine Grant: Love it or leave it. Share research in your author's note.

Felicity Niven: Oh, yeah. I love to read other authors notes. Yeah. I don't do it. I do some of my, I do a little bit of that. And I like doing it, but I really love reading others authors research.

Katherine Grant: Yeah. All right. And are there any other romance rules I didn't ask about that you break or push the boundaries with?

Felicity Niven: Yeah, I have books where main characters have sex with people that are not the other main characters. Yeah, I, I, and I didn't know see this is part of my ignorance, so when I wrote both of them, Because they're both in my first series the first book and third book of my first series, and I wrote that whole series all at once before I started putting them out, before I took them to an editor, and the editor read it, and said, just so you know, you're going to get some pushback on this, but I don't recommend you change it, because she, she agreed, she said, this is actually necessary in this book, and just so you, but you should just be prepared that people are not going to like this.

And I was like, okay. So. Yeah, so that's the, that's the big rule that I broke. And I haven't done it in the second series. Um, that's because most of the books in the second series start with a sex scene between the two main characters. They're enmeshed right at the beginning. But but I might do it again in the future.

Katherine Grant: All right. You're keeping that open.

Felicity Niven: Yeah.

Katherine Grant: Well, I feel that that that's a newer convention. And so there are readers who are open to it because in older historicals, it did happen.

Felicity Niven: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Katherine Grant: So

you're bringing

it back?

Felicity Niven: Yes. I'm old school. Without, without having read any old school books, yes.

Katherine Grant: Well, Felicity, I have really enjoyed talking to you. Thank you so much for taking the time.

Felicity Niven: Thank you for having me. This was so fun. I really enjoyed it.

Katherine Grant: Oh, good. Before we end, where can our listeners find you and your books?

Felicity Niven: Okay. So my books are in Kindle Unlimited. So that means, as an e book, they're exclusive to Amazon, so that's where to find them as an e book.

As paperbacks, you can get them on Amazon, but you can also order them from Barnes Noble, Target, Walmart, etc. I'll carry them. Well, it's a print on delivery thing, so you order it and then they send it to you after it's printed. And finding me, well, I have a website, which is really easy, www.felicityniven.com. I have a really active newsletter. I give away a lot of free short stories and second epilogues, et cetera, so you can sign up on the website. And I'm also on Instagram and Facebook, probably most active in Instagram and Facebook of the social media platforms. So you can find me there too.

Katherine Grant: Thank you. And I will put your website in the show notes. So listeners over there to find it. Super, super, super. Yeah. Thank you so much. I am so glad that we got a chance to do this.

Felicity Niven: This was so fun. Thank you for having me and it was great to talk and to read a little bit of my book.

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.