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Annie R McEwen Samples The Chelsea Milliner
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.
I am super excited to be joined today by podcast supporter, Annie R McEwen. A career historian, Annie has lived in six countries and under every roof from a canvas tent to a Georgian era manor house. When she's not in her 1920s bungalow in Florida, [00:01:00] Annie lives, writes, and explores castles in Wales.
Winner of the 2022 Paige Turner's Writing Award in the Romance category, Annie earned both a first and second place 2022 Romance Through the Ages Award, the 2023 Maggie Award, and the 2023 Daphne du Maurier Award. And she's currently a finalist for the 2024 Paige Turner Writing Award. Annie's short fiction appears in numerous anthologies.
Annie, I'm so excited to have you today.
Annie R McEwen: Excited to be here.
Katherine Grant: So you're reading a special holiday story for us.
Annie R McEwen: Yes, it's Regency Romance, and it's a Twelfth Night too. So anybody who wants to curl up by the fire with some mulled cider, read some spicy, very romantic fiction. I've got it for you. It's a novella too.
It's a short read. [00:02:00]
Katherine Grant: Fantastic. Spicy romance with your spiced cider. What could be better? Take it away whenever you're ready. Well, thank
Annie R McEwen: The Chelsea Milliner. Monday, 6th January, 1812. Amelia de Maupassant balanced the hat on the fingertips of one hand, carefully, like a bird that might startle into flight. The toque was the sole survivor of her catastrophe. It did resemble a bird. A feathery crest of poppy red and jumbled yellow, trembling as her hand trembled, as her whole body trembled with shock, with grief.
"I will not die." She would tell herself, not now, but in a week [00:03:00] or two, that the fire was just another beginning, one of the many that followed the ending. Of which her life also has far too many. After the long night of the fire, the day had dawned cruelly bright. The better for her to view the reeking remains of what had been, just the day before, a jewel of a milliner's shop.
The timing of the fire had a depressing irony to it. January 5th, Epiphany Eve, the time when every household in Chelsea brought its Christmas trimmings to the green between Coleshill and Westburn streets at midnight, tossing the drying boughs of holly and vines of ivy into a merry bonfire such jollity.
Epiphany, the day of fresh start, on which an [00:04:00] errant spark from the bonfire licked the roof of her shop, and then, liking the taste, swallowed it whole. Amelia took a few aimless shuffling steps through a drift of carbonized hat boxes and cheap shriveled ribbons. Before the drift became a drift, it was a year's worth of stock, lovingly crafted for her opening day.
This day. For a painful moment, the shock filled with the ghosts of her creations. A wine velvet bonnet with swansdown corona. Another in marine blue with squirrel trim. A satin-and-gold braid capote that her mother would have called “une palourdette,” a little clam. An Agrippina bonnet of fine straw, its turned-up [00:05:00] brim edged, in pleated silk ribbon.
All gone, all and more, gone. The pretty shop had become a mausoleum of dreams, interred with the rest of her dead. Her family's happy life in Paris replaced by the terror. Papa, the pillar of the family, lost in a carriage wreck. Mama, taken a year later, her frail heart weakened by grief. Jasper, Amelia's bridegroom, killed at sea.
She could reopen the shop, she supposed, in January, a year hence. Except there was no stock, no workroom, no materials, no money. All she had in abundance was debt. That would follow her into the next year and beyond. The [00:06:00] smallest of blessings comforted her. No one was tormenting her by asking about fire insurance.
Why would they? There was no fire plaque on the shop's outside wall. No insurance that such plaques denoted. There were plaques on the buildings to either side, numbers 10 Street. Their owner was titled and wealthy. He could afford the Hartz Fire Insurance Office's monthly premium. The buildings were newer, worth insuring.
Best of all for their owner, they didn't share a wall with the hat shop. Poor old number 11, no more than an ancient way house, a relic of Chelsea's bucolic past. And of Elizabeth Tudor's frame, thatched, half timbered, charming, flammable. [00:07:00] The click clopping of a horse distracted her, barely. A horseman beyond her open front door, up the street maybe, or on the path across the green.
Other noises filtered past her numbness, shouts and laughter. A rook calling somewhere. Chelsea was wakening. Tradesmen yawned their way to work. A smell of baking bread battled with the stink of burned wood. Housewives sluiced their front steps with buckets of water. Amelia looked around, wondering if a bucket had survived the fire.
If she had a bucket, she could mop the filthy floor. If she had a mop, There had been plenty of water yesterday, all in the wrong places. The Hartz Fire [00:08:00] Brigade eventually arrived, not for hers, but for the insured building. By then, the householders and shopkeepers around the green had formed a bucket brigade and were vigorously dousing the insured structure, half heartedly splashing number 11.
"We'll just contain the blaze." That came from Mr. Hand, the owner of the Chelsea Bun House, opposite the old Randley Garden. He didn't look Amelia in the eye when he said it. His stout wife brought Amelia a cup of hot milk and a bun when the worst was over. "Hard luck for you, lamb, but the place was very old, and, well, the old ones go off like hay ricks."
Mrs. Hand patted Amelia on the shoulder and joined her husband. The two returned to their business. It was by then past dawn and there was baking to [00:09:00] be done. The bun house cat had followed its owner to the fire, but not gone back with them. It sat on the wet cobble, watching the denoument of the ruckus with green, disinterested eyes.
Amelia picked a currant out of the bun and put it in her mouth, tasting nothing but wood smoke. She gave the bun to the cat. He sniffed at it and walked away, tail high with scorn. Now Amelia stood in the wreck of her shop and struggled to think. She needed to project some order on the day, on the next series of days.
She couldn't simply stay rooted in the cinders of her life. Making hats was all she'd done since she could wield a needle. Imagining herself doing something else... She tried and failed. The [00:10:00] last unburned hat, the one in her hand, was saved by being tucked under the thick shop counter. If only she'd put more of her stock somewhere safe.
But she didn't, because she couldn't envision hellfire raining down on the shop. True. Though after the serial catastrophes of her life, she should have expected it. A slight sound made her turn toward the door, somewhat. A man stood in the opening, lit from behind by morning light, squinting into the glare.
Amelia could make out nothing of the man's features or his dress, only dark planes and sun haloed outlines. Her internal habit of style hadn't yet admitted this depth, and so she noted the fashionably lean lines of [00:11:00] the man's body, the broad shoulders that filled the doorway. The man's body. His height was such that it forced him to remove his hat in order to pass under the roof.
Without volition, her impression went into the notebook of her mind, as though he might order a hat from her. Of course, sir, something in ash gray or charcoal, I have plenty of that. She tried to address the man, failed, coughed twice, and finally succeeded with a sound like paper ripping. "The Chapeau d'Amélie is not open for business, sir.
As you can see." "Ah, that I don't see." The word's mocked, but lightly, carried on a voice as smooth as velvet, as warm as fur. [00:12:00] "The shop is named Amélie's hats," He pointed to the toque still in her quaking hand. "And there it is." I will not cry. The command came from her brain, but didn't quite reach her eyes. Amelia was helpless to stop the hot tears that gathered and burned.
The man crossed the room in four long strides. After resting his own hat on the scorched top of the counter, he pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of his gray coat and held it to her. Her smarting eyes turned to it, then back to her hand. The feather toque shimmied on her fingers. A wanton chickadee. I will not cry. Ever so [00:13:00] gently,
the man took the toque from her, filling her hand instead with his handkerchief. She brought it to her face. Fine linen smelling of sativa and orange. Then she cried.
Katherine Grant: wow, what a beautiful little excerpt that you gave us. Thank you so much. I have several questions for you, but first we're gonna take a break for our sponsors.
Annie R McEwen: London, 1820, Amelia's hat shop in Chelsea, her dream, her life, a spark from a bonfire and all is ashes. Nothing left but one woman who's sick of lies, one man who's lying for love, one night is all they've got. Is it enough? The Chelsea Milliner from Annie R. McEwen, available [00:14:00] everywhere.
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Katherine Grant: So I am back with Annie R McEwen, who just read a sample of the Chelsea [00:15:00] Milliner, a Twelfth Night novella that is available for anyone looking for a nice holiday read. And since it's holidays, I would like to start at the very beginning of that excerpt. You really anchored this story, you know, it's Epiphany Day and you've mentioned it's a Twelfth Night story and it's the Regency period.
And a lot of times when we modern readers think of Christmas stories, we're thinking of kind of Victorian traditions. Can you talk about your process for researching Regency holiday traditions and what might have, might surprise modern readers about Christmas in the Regency?
Annie R McEwen: Twelfth Night bonfire is a tradition that goes back at least to the Middle Ages, possibly earlier.
It's the custom to take all the holly and ivy and boughs of evergreens and things that you need to decorate the household for the holidays, it's commonly done in every household,
[00:16:00] from the the poor to the wealthy, to a central gathering place, and everyone through these into a bonfire, and then proceeded, from what I can read in, in period descriptions, to get riproaring drunk, and have lots of jollity around the bonfire, and it was a way of bringing in the new year.
And Epiphany Eve, that it's not Epiphany, which was kind of a sober, churchy holiday. But the night before, people have hijinx pretty much all night long. And so that's what was going, what was going on, and I found at least one period reference to that going on in Chelsea, which at the time of my story, 1812, was a suburb of London, and it had been for many generations a farming area.
So it was just transitioning. [00:17:00] you know, intervening on the fringes of the metropolis. And so there were still green areas, green spaces. That's what's happening at the start of my story. A bonfire has been built bringing their things to burn and to party.
Katherine Grant: I love the narrative structure then that there's this expected bonfire, and then there's the fire that devastates Amelia.
Annie R McEwen: Yeah.
There was a secret hiding
in
that. Ooh. Which is why it became pretty quickly obvious that there were more things going on there than just the bonfire and trees.
Katherine Grant: Hmm. Well I'm curious, you know, you, you mentioned this takes place in the Regency in 1812. I know you've also written time travel romance, you've written across multiple different eras and geographies. What draws you to any story and what drew you to this [00:18:00] specific story?
Annie R McEwen: Well, I'm a career historian.
And for me, greatest enjoyment is to engage in person. I want to feel that I know a moment in the past, as well as I know my own house and my own street, the world that I live in every day. I want to feel that if I could step out of a time machine in 1812 or 1912, that I could fit in, that I would know the language and the gestures,
the customs, material culture, that I would recognize things that I saw and know their uses. The game I suppose I play in my mind, but it is a sort of time travel, and I do think many people would like to do [00:19:00] that if they could. So I feel that putting historical authenticity into my novels is a priority, and even if I'm writing paranormal romance.
Like when I found the book with the ghost romance, I get to time travel because my ghosts didn't die last week. They died several hundred years ago. And so bringing their perspective in, I bring their history.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. Well, and how much research do you do before, or how does research fit into your writing process?
Annie R McEwen: Oh, it differs from book to book. But I find that the more challenging books I write, the more challenging the next books become. So, I mean, I don't think I set [00:20:00] out consciously to do this, but I'm ramping up the detail, and I'm ramping up the challenges for myself as a researcher, and something that I warn people about, if they're serious about writing historical fiction, is that you have to be ruthless about it.
You have to be prepared to throw away weeks and maybe months of research. If you find that it just won't work within the narrative because you're not just researching the way I did when I was a, a historian working in a museum, I still then have to sit all that into the narrative, you know, the narrative structure of the book, and sometimes I do lots and lots of research only to find that it just won't fit or it'll take me down some road that
is narrative dead end. I don't want to go there. So it's a good thing. I love my work.[00:21:00]
Katherine Grant: Yeah. And do you find yourself drawn to specific time periods? Or is your goal to time travel to every period that you can?
Annie R McEwen: I feel like a traitor, you know, to the ministry of history by saying this, but I'm not equally comfortable in every era. And I don't like some eras, very much, frankly, but I'm crazy for Victorian.
I love Regency a lot, which is what the Chelsea Milner is. Back in the middle of the Regency era, but honestly, it's late Victorian, through Edwardian, right up to World War I, and then my interest tapers off until World War II when I get interested in, but never as much as I am in Victorian, late Victorian.[00:22:00]
Katherine Grant: Interesting. You said, you have some that are ghost romances and then some that are just more historical romance. How do you know which story is going to be paranormal, which is going to be historical? Maybe there are other genres that you're called to as well. Do you feel like that, like, do you have any control over that or are you following a muse?
Annie R McEwen: I have no control. I'm just a chew toy. I am a chew toy. I just, it gets a grip on me. I have an idea and obviously all our ideas come from our backgrounds and our likes, dislikes and the things that we're attracted to. I don't get ideas for writing novels, I just, not that I have any complaint about them, you know, right?
Yeah. But something [00:23:00] comes to me and then it just won't let me go. And so I have to write it.
Katherine Grant: Hmm, yeah. And speaking of backgrounds, you have a very interesting background. You've mentioned you're a career historian, you've worked at museums, you also have a theater background, and now you're a historical romance author, you've also done dressmaking.
What was your journey to writing and how many of those other hats are you still wearing?
Annie R McEwen: Well, I wasn't writing in the cradle, but I, I did start writing as a creative writer when I was probably in third or fourth grade. And by the time I was in high school, I was publishing in the high school literary journal. Then when I was in my early 20s, I [00:24:00] typed an entire 78, 000 word novel on a manual typewriter. Wow.
Which is what I have. And that was when I first realized that I really, I really liked, Process of writing a novel, the novel's format, at the same time that it scared the heck out of me. It scared the heck out of me because it's such a demanding format. You can dash off a short story, you know, in a reasonably short period of time, but if you're going to write a novel, that's like marriage, girl.
I mean, that's fine, till death do you part, or the novel is finished. It's a major, major commitment. And my life was so busy, as you pointed out, I had what I call serial careers, I just went, you know, I exhausted one and then went to another, went to another, and so every time I tried to [00:25:00] sit down and write, seriously,
a novel, I would get into it and have to abandon it. And so it wasn't really until I felt that I was done with, you know, my other career that I could devote myself 100 percent to novel writing. That's what I do.
Katherine Grant: All right. Well, that's so interesting. And who are some of the historical romance authors that are most influential to your writing?
Annie R McEwen: I'm going to expand that question to include historical fiction, because my, my, I didn't start reading romance until quite late.
And then the romance that I was reading, I, I wasn't particularly impressed by, but I have always been impressed by historical fiction. Whether it was I'm calling it historical, but it was the kind of fiction that I grew up reading that was contemporary to the author's [00:26:00] time, but was not contemporary to the time in which I was reading it.
People like H. G. Weld Jules Verne, I mean, these were people who were, were fascinating, and I just. And writers who were not, I think, terribly brilliant like Edgar Rice Burroughs, for example, or H. P. Lovecraft, you know, but each of them had something they were brilliant at. And I took that away in my mind for later.
Yeah. And I took the atmosphere into my body. And so when I began reading Historical fiction that was written by writers who were more or less contemporary with me. I gravitated to people like Diana Norman. Who wrote the sweeping, you know, multi generational, fabulous, fabulous. Anne Carey is one [00:27:00] of my very favorite writers.
She just passed away not too long ago. And I, I loved her work. I really did love her work. Oh, I still read her work.
Katherine Grant: So you're more drawn to the historical fiction than the romance part of it.
Annie R McEwen: No, I'm equally into both. I've asked myself many times, well, how would you feel about just dumping the romance and, you know, just writing the book? But I, I don't want to do that for a variety of reasons, one of which is that I really do think I'm destined to write, if not romance, you know, historical romance, then historical fiction that has a strong romance element.
And I say that because I've actually tried to write other genres and not have those books morph into romance, and I can't do it. I like the structure of romance. [00:28:00] I like certain conventions because I do believe they mirror. It's not real life, whatever the heck that is, but the life that we feel is real emotion.
They are real emotional life and so for me to try to write a book and I actually have a work in progress that is a police person and yet the romance element is growing, growing and growing. I just, I obviously like that.
Katherine Grant: Yeah, well that's so interesting. Well, that brings us to our test, Love It or Leave It, to find out how you feel about romance conventions.
Katherine Grant: Love It or Leave It, protagonists meet in the first 10 percent of the novel?
Annie R McEwen: I think that's a good question. I [00:29:00] resisted it in the beginning, and then I decided I didn't like resisting it. Maybe I have an authority problem, but no, I think that is basically a good rule. I guess, of course, you can, you can, you know, ease it a little or expand it a little, but you need to get it in there in the first ten, ten ish percent.
That's a commitment that you make to the reader. And they will trust you more if they see your visible commitment in the form of that meaning.
Katherine Grant: Love it or leave it, dual point of view narration.
Annie R McEwen: Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I love dual point of view. I love it. I love it. And it's especially fun in the, in the historical, well like in, in the paranormal writing that I do.
I have to flip flop, for example, in the second book of the Bound Trilogy, my ghost, the male protagonist. It's from the 1600s. [00:30:00] And my female protagonist is from the present day. And so when I'm writing in his head, I'm using the language of a man from the 1600s. And then when I'm in her head, I'm using contemporary language.
That's fun. It is fun, yeah. And the reader, I think, finds it funny.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. Love it or leave it, third person, past tense.
Annie R McEwen: Yeah. When I try to get real close, I try to use intimate. Yeah.
Katherine Grant: Alright. Love it or leave it, the third act, breakup or dark moment?
Annie R McEwen: Yeah, I like that too. In part because that, that is an experience that unfortunately most of us can relate to, you know, like, ooh, la la la, everything is fine. and then whack! You run into something. I think people [00:31:00] crave that. They like that. They want to know how you're going to get out of it. And by the time, you know, the only way that doesn't work is if you haven't enabled your readers to establish a bond with your character. If they're bonded with your character, boy, that dark night of a soul thing is going to hit them hard, as indeed it should.
Katherine Grant: All right. Love it or leave it, always end with an epilogue.
Annie R McEwen: Yeah, well, yeah, no, I don't like calling it an epilogue. No, it's just the last chapter. But I do think that's another thing that we crave as humans. We don't like dangling stuff. I mean, we like to, you know, we wear everybody. We like to tidy everything up, make sure that they're okay.
Are you okay? Bye. Because that's the most common thing we ask people after they encounter something bad. Are you okay? And I want, I want to, [00:32:00] I want my readers to know, yeah, we're okay.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. Love it or leave it. Share research in your author's note.
Annie R McEwen: Not usually. I, I like it. Eloisa James, who is an author I admire very much in historical romance, fabulous writer.
She very often puts author's notes, and I have put them even behind short stories, if they were complex, have a lot of references that you might know if you were, you know, a historian. But I've come around to feeling that if you're bringing up something that's quite absurd, you should try to find a way to explain it in the text, without coming out and saying oh, and now I'm going to explain to you what the black friars hobble in London is.
It was brought, you know, it was established in London and New York, you know, that I don't want. Right. [00:33:00] That really breaks the mood. That's a buzzkill. But I would really rather that I tried to explain it in the text.
Katherine Grant: Hmm, interesting. Well, and are there any other romance rules I haven't asked you about that you like to play with?
Annie R McEwen: I am an opponent of insta love. I don't like that. Even writers who I otherwise admire very much will sometimes have this sort of instant coup de foudre, you know, it's like, oh, I saw him and immediately I felt, you know, fire running up and down my legs.
It's like, well, are there ants in the room? I don't know. I'm a slow burn fan. Not too slow. I think you need to drip. I just think you need to dribble it out. So,
Katherine Grant: sorry, but.
Well, Annie, I have really enjoyed this [00:34:00] conversation. I want to thank you for being an early supporter of the podcast. You sponsored some of our episodes back in our early days. It's fun.
And I would love to know, where can our readers find your books?
Annie R McEwen: Well, for now, the best place to find all of them is to go to my website, which is anniermcewen.Com, and then you'll get information on all the books and where they are. My Bound series is in full pry on Amazon in every format, including a
fabulous audio book adaptation. I mean, I love what the audio book narrator did with this. And as an actor, I'm picky as hell. So, she's fabulous. This, the Chelsea Milner, the book of which I read an excerpt today is available on the 30th of December. It is an e book only, [00:35:00] an e novella, digital novella, so it won't have a pre order on Amazon.
So it may be available in pre order on other sites like Barnes Noble for example. Amazon has some new policies about e book pre orders. So it may not show up there as a pre order before the 30th of December, but but it will be there then. And it will also be on the publisher's website, which is the Wild Rose Press.
And you can buy direct from their sales catalog, the wildrosepress.com. Great. Everything else you'll see it
Katherine Grant: on Amazon. Well, I will put a link to your website in the show notes so everyone can easily find it. Yeah, so thank you again. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing the Chelsea Milner, which is available December 30th.
That's it for this week. Check out the show notes where I put links [00:36:00] for my guests, myself, and the podcast. Until next week, happy reading.