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Faye Delacour Samples A Lady's Guide to London
[00:00:00]
Katherine Grant: Welcome to the historical romance sampler podcast. I'm your host, Katherine Grant, and each week I introduce you to another amazing historical romance author. My guest reads a little sample of their work, and then we move into a free ranging interview. If you like these episodes, don't forget to subscribe to the historical romance sampler, wherever you listen to podcasts and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
Now let's get into this week's episode. I am super excited to be joined today by Faye Delacour. Faye was raised in the Canadian prairies before deciding that she needed a challenge and should move to a place where everybody spoke French. She now lives in Montreal with her partner and three children, a reformed street cat and an Australian shepherd who hasn't yet accepted that he can't herd a cat.
[00:01:00] Faye writes Historical romance featuring strong feminist heroines and enthusiastic consent. Faye, thank you so much for joining me.
Faye Delacour: Thank you for having me, Katherine. It's nice to be here.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. I'm so excited. You are reading from your book, which the latest book that came out April 15th.
Faye Delacour: Yes.
Katherine Grant: A Lady's Guide to London.
So what should we know about the book and the scene that you're gonna read?
Faye Delacour: So this is book two in a series. The first one is the Lady He Lost. So in the first book it followed Jane, and Della the main character of book two is Jane's best friend from Book one. So in book one, there are two best friends who are sort of trying to set up a ladies gambling club in Victoria and London together.
And then in book two, there's a small time jump in between the first book and the second book. The club is a little bit more established, but still in its early days. And so Della is trying to sort of prove herself 'cause she's a bit more like the fun, loving, outgoing, kind of frivolous one whereas Jane is like the more [00:02:00] serious, like business oriented one.
And so Della really wants to step up and help Jane to establish this gambling club. And it's very important to her. But she also feels like people don't take her quite as seriously because she's has, you know, a more, more like chaotic sort of personality. So in, I'm gonna be reading from the first scene of the second chapter in this book and in the first chapter it's sort of just setting the stage and explaining Della has a recent plan to try and boost business in the club.
She's gonna approach the author of a local guidebook of London attractions and try to convince him to put her club in his book because she thinks that'll bring in new members and help their finances. So she's been corresponding with him. This is the Viscount Ashton, but he doesn't know that he is been corresponding with a woman 'cause she hasn't given her first name.
She just signs it. C Danby. He doesn't know the C stands for Cordelia. So now she's going to the first meeting with him in chapter two is the meet Cute.
Katherine Grant: Classic. I can't wait for it.
Faye Delacour: Lyman Price was seated before a large window in Verey's cafe overlooking Regent Street. It was a small but expensive establishment in Mayfair that catered primarily to ladies luncheons at [00:03:00] this hour of the day,
though gentleman could find good French cookery and wines for supper in the evenings. Not a place Lyman would've chosen for a meeting, but it hadn't been his suggestion. At least it wouldn't be difficult to find Mr. Danby, even if he had no idea what the man looked like. Lyman had described himself in his last letter.
I'll be the one with dark hair wearing spectacles and a brown coat, but Mr. Danby hadn't seen fit to return the gesture. He might be any of the gentlemen who will pass by the window.
Why am I even here?
He needed to get his revisions finished and turn his draft over to his publisher so that he could return to work on his guide to bath.
The sooner he was done, the sooner he'd get his money. Mr. Danby probably didn't even have anything new to tell him.
Half the time when someone wrote about some perceived omission from the guide, it was only a neighborhood pub with stale bread and warm beer, unworthy of mention. But there had been something compelling about Danby's letters, an engaging wit that made him think his correspondence ideas might be worth his time.
And Danby had insisted that it would be simpler to explain the attraction in person. Better to take half an hour from his day than to miss something his publisher might chide him about later. [00:04:00] A feminine voice interrupted his thoughts, her tone too cheery. "Excuse me, are you Viscount Ashton?" He looked up to find a lady of his own class standing before his table.
She was small and plump and exceptionally pretty with a round face and large dark eyes. Her honey brown curls were pinned up beneath a wide brimmed straw on it with a ribbon that perfectly matched her blue gingham morning gown trimmed with French lace. She looked rather like an expensive doll, right down to the healthy flush of pink that dusted her cheeks.
"I'm Cordelia Danby. I wrote to you."
Cordelia. The C was for Cordelia, not Charles or Colin or Christopher. Lyman blinked as if the site before him might transform itself if he only refreshed his eyes.
"I'm not what you expected," she said, mischief warming her smile. It was a look designed to charm, and it was working. "I apologize, but I wasn't sure that you'd come if you realized you were corresponding with a woman."
"I wouldn't have."
There was no brother or husband with her nor any lady's companion. What could she mean by this?
"You aren't very talkative, are you?" That [00:05:00] same smile again, quite devilish. "Would you mind if we walked to Hanover Square? I would sit, but..."
Evidently she had no objection to meeting him alone, but dining together was a bridge too far. "Forgive me," Lyman said rising to his feet. He should have stood earlier. "You surprised me, Miss Danby, that's all." Was she a miss? He didn't see a ring, and she didn't correct him. So she must be. Besides, if she had a husband, he wouldn't let her wander about town
meeting strange men. "A walk would be lovely," he added, setting a tuppence on the table for his tea and offering his arm as they exited Verey's. She took it, settling neatly against his side. She smelled nice, slightly lemony, a tart bright scent that seemed to match her carefree manner. He had no idea who this woman was or what gossip he might be fueling if they were seen together, but Lyman wasn't going to show more concern for her reputation than she did.
She'd arranged this meeting after all.
"I'm the co-owner of Bishops," she began the moment they crossed the street. "Perhaps you've heard of us."
"I regret to say I have not."
"We're a chocolate house exclusively for [00:06:00] ladies. We have all the amusements one could traditionally find at a gentleman's chocolate house, such as White's, for example."
"Ah, a gaming hell for ladies. Whatever next?" He studied Miss Danby as they reached Hanover Square, where they set down a small path that encircled the little patch of garden before the church. The sun's rays had lightened her eyes to a rich shade of toffee that contrasted with a darker hue of her thick lashes and straight brows.
Her skin was smooth and flawless. She didn't look like a Hellcat. She looked like any other young lady of means, remarkable only in how pretty she was, but if he'd thought her daring or foolhardy for meeting him like this, it paled in comparison to her other activities. How did someone in her position end up running a gambling club? With a growing sense of unease,
lyman pondered what her business had to do with him. Surely not... but Miss Danby continued talking, confirming his fears. "We're a unique venture. The only one of its kind in London, and I dare say the whole country. I think we'd make an excellent choice for a mention in your book." What [00:07:00] presumption. Best to end this quickly before she could get carried away.
"Thank you for the suggestion, Miss Danby, but I don't intend to add any more gaming establishments in the next edition."
"But why not?" Her playful manner faded, leaving real confusion in its wake. The lady wore her sentiments so openly that Lyman could read her thoughts before she gave them voice. "If there's something new and interesting, you must include it.
That's the whole point of releasing new editions, isn't it?" Lyman held his tongue as another couple approached them. The man's gaze lingered a touch too long, though Lyman couldn't place him. There'd been a hint of recognition on his face before he turned to murmur something in the ear of his companion.
Had they recognized him? He waited until they'd gone a little further down the path before he spoke again lest they tell all their friends they'd seen the Viscount ashton discussing gambling clubs in the company of an unmarried lady. "Miss Danby, with all due respect, it's a gentleman's guide. Why would I include a lady's club?"
"Some gentlemen have wives."
"Only the unhappy ones," lyman replied before he could think [00:08:00] better of it. "What a terrible thing to say!" Miss Danby's generous lips parted in shock, though he wouldn't have taken her for an innocent. "If you're unmarried, it's very conceited of you to issue a blanket condemnation of something of which you have no firsthand knowledge. And if you are married, it's quite cruel of you to speak that way about your wife who would be heartbroken to hear you, i'm sure." She raised one dark eyebrow, challenging him to deny the assessment.
He might have said nothing. The opportunity was there and Lyman's instinct was to take it better to avoid such an unpleasant conversation with a woman he barely knew.
But that's not the real reason you don't want to tell her, is it? As with all things, it came back to his own selfish pleasure. There was temptation in the way Miss Danby gaze lingered on him as they spoke in the teasing note in her voice and the ever-present spark in her large dark eyes. She was very pretty and she was trying to charm him and Lyman, bastard that he was, enjoyed it.
This wasn't a mature widow in a position to take risks with a reputation. Miss Danby was young, in her mid twenties he would guess, and [00:09:00] unmarried. In spite of her unconventional pastime, running of a den of sin and ruin, she struck him as guileless. There was a certain childlike optimism in her speech and manners that warned him away.
He would drain every ounce of goodness from her spirit if given the chance, just as he had with Ellen. Better to stamp out this spark before it could burn her. So he forced himself to say what he did next. "I'm afraid you're mistaken on both counts, miss Danby. I do have firsthand knowledge of the subject for I am married, and I assure you that it has made me miserable.
As for Lady Ashton, there's no need to worry about my breaking her heart. I accomplished the task years ago. If we were still on speaking terms, I'm sure she would be the first to tell you that no sane person should enter the yoke of matrimony."
The result of this speech was exactly as he'd expected.
Miss Danby stared at him as if he just dipped a kitten into a cup of tea and eaten it whole. Monster, her eyes said. Scoundrel. All true. And now that she knew it, Miss Danby would clutch her skirts and run back to wherever she'd come from. Her mischievous smile would never entice him again.[00:10:00]
But she didn't run.
She drew a long breath and studied the scenery while Lyman tried not to dwell on the sensation of her hand upon his arm or her lemon tart scent. "Well," she said finally, "I suppose when you put our club in your book, we can't count on your wife's patronage then."
A bark of laughter escaped him quite against his will.
Who was this woman?
" Miss Danby, I admire your tenacity, but my answer is still no." A gambling club for ladies. If she ran any other sort of establishment, he would've been tempted to give in if only to reward her persistence. But this was out of the question. It was bad enough that the men of this country brought their families to the brink of starvation and ruin on the roll of a dice.
He wouldn't help miss Danby infect the remaining half of the population with the same affliction. He knew the toll it took all too well.
"Come and see for yourself," she invited. "I'll give you a tour of the premises and then you can judge if it's worthy of a mention alongside whites or Brooks. You won't be disappointed."
Lyman stiffened. The promise of a personal tour [00:11:00] from a beautiful woman might have tempted him in other circumstances, but not here. She couldn't know how unwelcome her offer was. He searched for a polite excuse.
"I wouldn't want to frighten away all your guests. Can't be much of a ladies club if you let me in."
She flashed that smile again. An impish glimpse of white between the pink of her lips that promised something more wicked yet to come. "I'd be more worried for you than for them. To be quite honest, our members are known to get a bit rowdy without their husbands and fathers around, and you'd grant them attempting diversion.
But if things did get out of hand, we have a six foot tall reformed pirate handling our security who could quiet things down rather quickly." At Lyman's stunned chuckle, she added, "none of that was a joke."
It seemed Miss Danby had an answer to everything, but he wouldn't drag this out any further. What she asked of him was impossible.
"Let me be as clear as I can. I won't attend your club under any circumstances."
She withdrew her arm from his and squared her shoulders. "I urge you to reconsider. I would much rather be your friend than your enemy, lord Ashton." "My enemy?" [00:12:00] Of all the absurdities that had escaped her mouth in the past quarter hour that had to take the cake. Standing in a patch of sunlight that fell across her face, dressed in her fine clothes, and barely coming to his shoulder,
miss Danby couldn't have looked any less threatening a pampered tabby who thought herself a tiger. Yet the firm set of her jaw betrayed how serious she was.
"I regret that I cannot." He almost meant it. This short acquaintance had proven Miss Danby to be an unconventional lady, one that he would've liked to know better, but that path held more danger than he could afford.
He needed to finish the revisions on his book as soon as possible with real attractions, not the thinly veiled temptation this woman offered, and collect his money. He had debts to pay, too many to count.
"Very well, she finally conceded, "but you're making a mistake." With that ominous warning, Miss Danby took her leave.
Lyman watched her until she was out of sight, unable to shake the feeling she had only been a strange dream.
Katherine Grant: What a lovely sample. I always love a little gender reveal and how it just, you [00:13:00] know, shakes up the person who was expecting a different gender and we've got some really interesting insights into Viscount Lyman Ashton from that scene. So we are gonna take a quick break for our sponsors and then we will get into the interview.
Sarah Wendell: Hi there. I'm Sarah Wendell, host and producer of Smart podcast trashy books since 2009. I am very bad at promoting myself, so I asked the members of my podcast Patreon to tell me what I should tell you about the show. JF Hobbit wants you to know about the variety of guests. Some weeks I interview romance authors like Nalini Singh, Sarah J Mass, or Kimberly Lemming.
And I've also spoken with Stacey Abrams, Dr. Jen Gunter and Chuck Tingle. Every other week I recap issues of romantic times, an out of print magazine that was devoted to romance and genre fiction and spawned an incredible convention. Liz G says, this is a podcast that will giggle about really inappropriate cover art while tackling big issues with the seriousness that they deserve.
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Katherine Grant: I am back with Faye Delacour, who just read a sample of a Lady's Guide to London, and like I said, that was really fun [00:15:00] because we get the like, kind of funny reaction to finding out that she's a woman, but also a really tender insight into Lyman's psyche as he's kind of dealing with.
This woman who is not what he expected. Something that I wonder if it becomes a theme in the book is. Money versus passion because he's very focused on money. Mm-hmm. And she clearly is coming from a place of passion. Mm-hmm. Can you talk about, is, does that become a theme? How did you think about that?
Faye Delacour: Yeah, no, definitely. I, I picture them as like, Della is a very lively character, like she has a lot of life. She kind of goes where her emotions take her, where her passions take her. And so she's sort of like living life to the fullest, although sometimes a little bit like skirting the boundary with recklessness because she's had a pretty privileged life where she comes from like a well-to-do family, and so she doesn't have to worry much about anything in life.
And then Lyman on the other hand used to sort of experience that when he was in his youth. But as you find out [00:16:00] over the course of the book he gambled away his fortune and has lost everything and is now in disgrace, and his wife has left him many years ago. So that, that was like a little bit of a slightly controversial thing in a historical to have like a, a hero who's separated from, from his wife and like in the process of divorcing.
But that's his situation. So he's like lost everything and he has no one to blame but himself. And so as a sort of like, you know, self punishment or out of necessity also, he's lived a very austere, like lifeless, joyless kind of existence since then, trying to do whatever he can to like, earn back as much as he, as much money as he's able to, even if he'll never recover his former fortune to be able to pay some of that towards his ex-wife to try and like, make up for all the damage that he's caused and, and to be able to support her and to pay back some of his debts.
So basically he does not really anything in life except to work and to, to worry about where he's gonna get his, you know, his next source of income from. And when he encounters Della and she's trying to persuade him to put the club in his book initially, he's very resistant and he wants nothing to do with her, but they end up [00:17:00] sort of being forced to, to work together because she proposes to his publisher that she's gonna write her own guide for, for women.
For the women to, of London to local attractions, since he won't put her club in his guide. And so then he ends up collaborating with her on this project for money. But as they spend time together, he sort of sees like there's a tension there of him wanting to do what he feels is the only thing he deserves to sort of, you know, work hard and, and pay back his debts
versus like missing that sense of, you know, life and enjoyment and passion that, that she represents.
Katherine Grant: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I love that. I just read a book on, it's called Black Sheep and it's about like the heirs of aristocracy who gambled away their fortunes and everything. And there were actually, I was surprised reading it, how many of them had public separations and even divorces.
Mm-hmm. From their spouses, so.
Faye Delacour: Yeah, I think a lot of people suffer from the misconception that it didn't happen. But like throughout time people have always, you know, made mistakes, rash decisions about who they married, and then been like, whoops, I wanna get outta [00:18:00] this. That's not a new phenomenon, you know, whether it's socially acceptable or not, that's, that can change with the times.
But there have always been some people who sought to do that. You know, and people who are on the lower end of the economic spectrum couldn't afford to get like a real divorce, but would often just live separately and sometimes even remarry and commit bigamy without ever having done anything to resolve their former union.
And, and nobody really, you know, it might cause a scandal, but nobody cared that much about it if you didn't have an inheritance to protect. Right. When I say nobody cared, I mean, I guess, you know, some people cared like the busy bodies of the neighborhood care, but it, it wasn't a huge deal if you didn't have heirs to fight over something.
With the aristocracy, it was more of a huge deal 'cause if you're dividing up your income, you know, people have a title, people have land that they wanna claim. So it was a lot harder to get a divorce. And the main social evil of divorce was, you know, sort of focused on inheritance and, and what would this mean for like the family line?
But people did do it. Sometimes it just took a private active parliament at that time period. So it was difficult. But like, in researching this, I would go through old newspapers and, and find examples because, you know, they would [00:19:00] publish like summaries of court cases and things like that. And I, you could see, you know, there were quite a few examples.
It provoked a big scandal. People didn't like it, but it did happen.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. And where does research fit into your creative process? Did you do that before you started writing this book as you were writing it? You know, how does that work for you?
Faye Delacour: I'm a little bit of both. Usually when I'm first kind of feeling out an idea and trying to get my my plan in place I'll do some research then, and then as I'm writing, I often find like I completely forget my plan and go in a different direction.
And so then I have to stop and research things as I go to be like, okay, could this have happened? You know, how long would it have taken to go there? What was sort of happening in the world at this time that the characters would be aware of? So I'll be kind of constantly going back to, to check things as I go, and then at the end as I'm reading everything through, again, if I'm thinking, like, I try to remember to ask myself, you know, is it, was that really possible?
Is there something I might have missed there? And I might have to go back and research some more to make sure I, I got things right.
Katherine Grant: Yeah, I am constantly researching, so that makes a lot of sense to [00:20:00] me. Another interesting thing about this book in particular, I was looking at the blurb for it.
Mm-hmm. And it kind of sets up that Della is gonna have to make a decision between her career or she thinks, I assume that she has to make a decision between having her career and having her love story.
Faye Delacour: Mm-hmm.
Katherine Grant: Tell me more about putting that on the page and, and exploring that.
Faye Delacour: Yeah, I mean I definitely had some misgivings about that setup.
As I was writing it, I was a bit worried 'cause I'm like, I didn't want to leave readers with the impression that I'm saying, like, you should give up what matters to you for a man. I would never wanna suggest that to anyone. But at the same time, I think that
sometimes if you're too focused about every story being a message, a universal message for everyone you end up sort of doing a disservice to the characters because it's not the case that every person lives their life as if it were a message for everyone else. You know, every, everybody's circumstances are specific and unique, so
having set up the premise that she's starting a gambling [00:21:00] club with her best friend and, and from book one to book two, that's been like a common arc of her character, you know, what she's, what she's involved with. And that the hero, you know, has a gambling addiction that's in his past and he's now like sworn off gambling forever and never wants to go near a place again.
Like this is obviously a very huge obstacle. And I didn't feel like I could realistically resolve that with him just being like, fine with it. And her just being like, I'm gonna keep doing this and you're gonna have to live with it. Like, I don't think that would be very realistic or true to the characters.
So in the end, it is something like she wrestles with over the course of the book and that keeps them apart for a while. But I also felt that it was authentic to Della's character that, you know, the reason that she was involved in this gambling club was not really because she was like passionate about gambling or something.
It was more that she wanted to help her best friend. 'cause she really loves Jane. They, they're very close, and it's more, it was more like Jane's project from Book one. You could see that in book one, that it was always sort of like Jane's thing. And Della was more like she wanted to just be there with her.
She wanted to be like [00:22:00] building something together and having that excitement. And one of the themes of the, the second book is like, kind of overextending yourself that Della is very enthusiastic and she sort of goes where her passions take her, but then she ends up saying yes to everything and it, she's like, overcommitted, you know, it's like she's trying to help run this club, but she's also decided she's gonna write a lady's guidebook and
has no idea how difficult that's gonna be. She does it sort of on impulse. Like, oh, I could do it, anyone could do it. And then realizes that's no, in fact, it's a lot of work and she doesn't have this much time at all. And so one of the themes of like her sort of overextending herself is learning that like it's okay to say no to something.
And maybe like the club was for her at a certain point in her life, but isn't for her forever and that it's okay and like she's not gonna let people down if she decides like actually, like I think I'm at a point where I need to step back a bit now and I can't do this anymore. And that's a fear of hers is like letting Jane down.
Jane might be disappointed in her. And so she has to sort of like have that discussion with her where she realizes that no, like her friend will still be her friend. She's not a bad person for walking away, but maybe it's just not the right time in her life anymore. [00:23:00]
Katherine Grant: Yeah. I think we all, a lot of us have that struggle of how do I balance all the things I'm interested in and do I have to want all of the things
that everyone says I should want? So I'm, I think that's a really cool way that you put that into your book.
Faye Delacour: Yeah. Thanks. No, I think you raised a really good point. I mean, I think a lot of people like. I consider myself a feminist. And I think with feminism becoming more mainstream, a lot of people have the idea of like, oh, well you have to do X, Y, Z.
You have to be a big success in your career. And if you want children, then you also have to be like a great mom to them. And you have to be like a perfect friend and a perfect spouse to your partner if you, if you have a partner, you know, like there's, you have to be doing everything. And it's like, you know, really at the end of the day.
Feminism is supposed to be about choice. It's supposed to be about, you know, equal respect and choice. So if somebody chooses a different path, that's okay too. Not everybody has to be checking all of these boxes all the time, and it's not very realistic.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. I love that. Who are some of the authors that have influenced your work the [00:24:00] most?
Faye Delacour: Hmm. I think for historical romance I'm really a big fan of Tessa Dare. I love, like, how funny her books are. They're just like the, honestly, she's one of the writers who always makes me laugh when I read her work.
I try to make my books funny as well. I mean, I don't know if you can, you can, how can you ever judge if like if you've succeeded or not? With that, it takes, other people have to judge. Right? But I do like to put some humor into my work. 'cause I, I like a more lighthearted read sometimes. I also really like Courtney Milan.
I would say her books lean more towards like the angsty, but I, I like, I like reading that too. You know, sometimes I'm in a mood for one, sometimes I'm in a mood for another. I think she gets, she, she does really well like the psychological motivations of characters. She's somebody who really lays that out, like in a way that feels really real.
I think she has a good understanding of what motivates people and what has hurt people and how they react to that hurt. So I, I really love reading her characters, reading her books for that. Yeah, I think those are, those are probably my two biggest ones. Yeah.
Katherine Grant: Yeah, those are great North Stars. And in your bio, you talked about how you moved [00:25:00] to Montreal specifically, I don't know if this was a joke or not, but specifically because you wanted to be among French speaking population, so I'm very interested and curious how that interacts with your writer brain.
Like do you read books in French? Do you ever write in French? Does it inform you at all as you write?
Faye Delacour: So I don't write in French. I think that would be probably too much of a challenge because I'm, I, I don't know that I'd be able to do it the way a native speaker would. So it would probably sound a bit like slightly off to people, you know what I mean?
So I don't know that I would try to write in, in a second or a third language or anything. But I, I do like, I enjoy a challenge. So when, you know, when I first moved here, I didn't speak that much French in Canada, we all have like basic primary education with like a little bit of French in it in
schools, but then if you don't keep it up, you don't remember much of it, you know? So that's where I was when I first moved here. I was trying to decide like where to go to law school. 'cause I'm, I'm a lawyer in my day job, so I had a choice. I was accepted at a couple different places and I was trying to choose between McGill or Toronto and between the two I was like, I think I'd rather [00:26:00] like go to a place where, you know, there's a different culture, there's a different language, it's gonna be a different experience.
Like that sounds more fun to me. So that's why I picked Montreal and then I'm like, oh wait, I don't, I don't really speak French very well. I guess I need to do something about that. I do think that learning another language is a good way to stimulate your brain though, and, and, and learning about other cultures because language is like the gateway to other cultures, right?
Helps you see the world in a different way. So I think that might help in my writing a little bit. Like it helps you, you know, be aware. It takes you out of like your own little bubble, you know?
Katherine Grant: Yeah, absolutely. Cool. Well, I think it's a good time to move, to love it or leave it.
[Musical Interlude]
Katherine Grant: Do you love it or leave it?
Protagonists meet in the first 10% of the story.
Faye Delacour: This might be controversial, but I'm gonna say leave it. Ooh, yes. The reason I'm saying leave it, it's not, 'cause it's always bad. Some, some books, they meet early and it works and it's good. But I just find that as a writer there tends to be like a strong pressure on us to [00:27:00] always have the meet cute
be like the opening chapter, opening scene and like, as you can tell from the reading I did my meet cute is in chapter two. I don't always like to immediately open with the meet cute. 'cause I kind of like to set the stage a little bit and I think it's okay for writers to wanna set the stage a little bit so you know who these people are before they meet, you know?
Katherine Grant: All right. Okay. Love it or leave it? Dual point of view narration.
Faye Delacour: That's a Love it. Yeah.
Katherine Grant: Love it or leave it? Third person, past tense.
Faye Delacour: I'll say Love it. Although I'm also open to first person. I don't hate first person. I just, you know, all different stories need different things, so.
Katherine Grant: Love it or leave it?
Third act breakup or dark moment.
Faye Delacour: I, I feel like I can't decide that one. It's hard because for some books I love it. And for other books, I'm a big leave it. If it seems forced, I don't want it in there. You can tell, you can tell when it really flows naturally from the obstacles that the characters had to overcome.
And it's like, yes, this is the natural [00:28:00] culmination of all the problems that have been set up and when it's just like they could not have this breakup if they just talk to each other for five minutes, you know? And that's where I don't love it, so,
Katherine Grant: yeah. All right. Love or leave it? Always end with an epilogue.
Faye Delacour: No, I'm gonna leave it. Yeah. I don't think we need an epilogue. Some books maybe you do, but most of the time, no. Yeah.
Katherine Grant: Okay. Love it or leave it? Always share your research in your author's note.
Faye Delacour: Yeah. I love it because you can just not read it if you don't want to, but it's nice for those of us who are curious.
Yeah.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. And are there any other romance rules I didn't mention that you like to break or play with?
Faye Delacour: I don't know. I'm probably guilty of having sometimes unlikeable heroines. Like that's one thing that not everybody liked Jane from book one 'cause she's a little bit grouchy.
But I really like it when the character, like the female character is a little bit prickly. 'cause I feel like you always see grumpy sunshine and it's only the male characters who are allowed to like, be grouchy sometimes. Mm-hmm. I feel like we deserve to be grouchy sometimes too. Life, life is hard, you know, these are dark times.[00:29:00]
Sometimes we wanna read about a woman who's a bit pissed off.
Katherine Grant: Absolutely. Well, speaking of Courtney Milan, I've read that she said for her book The Countess Conspiracy, which is a very prickly heroine
Faye Delacour: mm-hmm.
Katherine Grant: That at first she got a lot of feedback from readers that they did not like the heroine.
Mm-hmm. But over the, like 10 years or whatever that it's been out, it's the book that she hears the most from readers that they identified with and they love and they return to.
Faye Delacour: Now see, you have to remind me because I'm not good with titles. Is that the one where it's about, it's Violet, right? Yeah.
That's
Katherine Grant: Violet and Sebastian I think...
Faye Delacour: that's one of my favorite ones. Yes. Sebastian is, yeah. Yeah. I'm better with names than and plots than I am with the titles. No, that's one of my favorites. I found it, it was very heartbreaking too 'cause it's like, yes, she had suffered so much, and so you saw why she was kind of closed off and Sebastian was so genuinely like, concerned for her and, and felt her emotions so deeply, like more than anybody else.
You were just Oh, it was very moving. I like that one a lot. Yeah.
Katherine Grant: And also because in the whole series you [00:30:00] see them from other people's points of view and like Violet is so cold and Sebastian is, mm-hmm. Baffling. Yes. And then when you're in their heads, it's like, oh, this makes total sense.
Faye Delacour: Yeah, yeah. No, I love that. I love that. You got to see it from a totally different angle. I remember that for that series. Yeah. Oh, those were good ones. Yeah.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. Well, Faye, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Where can our listeners find you and your books?
Faye Delacour: Yeah, so my website is fayedelacour.com.
All one word. I will just hold up my books again. So here's book one, which has been out for about a year. Here's book two that's brand new out. And on my website there's a link to my newsletter
if anybody wants to sign up, I'll give more information about upcoming books or, you know, sales or anything like that. I'm not like very good about updating it often so you won't, your inbox will not be flooded. I do have a third book that will also be coming out, I think probably sometime in the fall of this year.
I don't know if I have the exact date yet. And that is gonna be the last one in this series. So it'll, it'll, you know, conclude everything. And I. I haven't, I haven't done a cover [00:31:00] reveal yet, but it will have like a very pretty like realistic looking clinched cover like these, 'cause I have seen it even if I can't reveal it.
So
Katherine Grant: they're beautiful covers. So yeah, we'll look forward to that cover reveal.
Faye Delacour: I was, I was happy with them. I mean like we don't get much say as authors what the cover will be like, so it could have really been anything, but I think I was very lucky with these.
Katherine Grant: Yeah, absolutely. Well thank you and I will put a link in the show notes so our listeners, you can just click right through to
to the website.
Faye Delacour: Great. Thank you.
Katherine Grant: Thanks for coming on the podcast.
Faye Delacour: Thanks for having me. It was lots of fun.
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