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Hillary Bowen Samples Out With Lanterns
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 Hillary Bowen. Hillary lives on Vancouver Island with her family, two cats and a flock of hens. A lifelong reader and lover of all things swee. You can most often find her writing or reading romance or in her garden.
She is currently at work on a novella set in the same world as her debut historical romance out with lantern. And today we're actually getting to hear out with lanterns. Hillary, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Hillary Bowen: Thank you so much for having me, Katherine. It's such a pleasure. I'm really, really excited to talk to you.
Katherine Grant: Well, I'm really excited to talk to you and to hear this sample. I know from the blurb that out with Lanterns takes place during World War I. Mm-hmm. Which I don't think we have visited on this podcast yet. Cool. So, yeah, you're taking us somewhere new. So tell us what we should know about out with Lanterns and the scene that you're gonna read for us.
Hillary Bowen: Okay, so it is set in 1918. It's in sort of Somerset area of England. And broadly is the story of Ophelia, who is from a landed Gentry family who decides to enlist in the Women's Land Army which was formed towards the end of the First World War in the uk. And this chapter comes when she's been on her farm assignment for about a year.
And Silas Lark, who was her father's tenant farmer, arrives as part of the sort of being seconded as a, a recovering soldier from the front. So. This is when they have their surprise meeting. The other characters that are in this scene are the women who are also billeted on the farm. So Mrs.
Darling is the woman who owns the farm, and then Hannah and Bess are two other recruits that, that are working there. So that, that's everybody that you'll meet in this, in this scene.
Katherine Grant: Awesome. Well take it away whenever you're ready.
Hillary Bowen: Okay. In the beginning, it had been harder than she had expected.
Doubt assailed her all the time, and the physical exhaustion made it even more difficult to feel like she was capable of what she had started. Her arms ached after only minutes of holding the reins or the plow and her legs felt like leaden weights after two lengths of the smallest field on the farm.
On the days when she could take a hot bath, Mrs. Darling passed Ophelia little cheesecloth pouches filled with lavender and peppermint to soothe her aching muscles saying, "You'll get stronger soon enough. Then we'll make a real farmer of you." Wringing out the cloth and laying it over the edge of the horse trough to dry,
she turned her hands over examining their fronts and backs. They were tanned with a line of dirt under each nail, palms covered with overlapping layers of fresh and healing blisters. Having read any number of requests for advice on keeping one's hands nice in the Lands Woman, the magazine for WLA members, she knew she was not the only woman surprised and sometimes dismayed by the changes their war work had wrought in their bodies.
Something about knowing that there were women all over the country slathering tallow, and homemade concoctions on their hands, or sharing recipes for sore muscle salves, made her feel connected to a network of women in a way nothing ever else ever had. Hannah and Bess, having both worked from a very young age, considered her entertainingly spoiled, but were also generous with their own advice.
Hannah swore by Rosewater for keeping one's complexion clear and showed Ophelia how to gather the rose petals from the wild roses along the lane, boil them, and decant the liquid into tiny bottles she had saved. Using it each morning, ophelia found it even more luxurious than any of the toiletries she had been able to easily afford while living on the estate.
Closing the door to Delilah's stall, she tidied the bridles on the wall before making her way to the house. She could murder a cup of tea and wondered hopefully if there might be leftover ham for a sandwich. Ducking to unlace her boots, she noticed a strange pair by the door, suddenly noting the rumble of a man's voice under the familiar tones of Hannah and Bes.
Something about it raised the hairs on her arms. Taking a breath to steady the skidder of her heart, she brushed the worst of the dirt from her coat and breaches before stepping into the cool half light of the kitchen passage. "There you are, girl," called Mrs. Darling from beside the sink where she reached for a plate from the drying rack. "Sandwich and a cuppa for you."
"Yes, please." Ophelia replied, emerging from the hallway to taking the scene before her. Bess and Hannah sat in their usual places, but there was a strange stiffness to their posture, which Ophelia immediately understood when she noticed the man sitting with his back to her. He was tall, his shoulders rising above the chair.
Warm golden hair, a little long, curled almost to his shirt collar. And Ophelia could see that he sat with one hand on the table, one resting on a muscular thigh. His dark worsted work trousers were worn, but clean and rode up slightly revealing not only the length of his legs, but angry red scars in the space between his trouser leg and his sock.
She glanced across at Hannah and Bess, who said nothing but watched her face intently. This must be the soldier, the one sent by the War Ag. And then he turned, the graceful movement of muscle under linen momentarily catching her attention so that she didn't immediately register his face. The strangled noise he made distracted her from Mrs.
Darling, who handed her a plate of bread and cheese, which fell unnoticed to the floor, smashing loudly. Ophelia's heart stuttered in her chest, her mouth open in a small slack, "oh." How long had it been since she'd seen him? It felt like yesterday. It felt like a decade. She tried to remember the disappointment of his leaving, but all she felt was a ridiculous surge of joy.
She remembered every single detail of his face. The gray, green eyes, the sweep of dark lashes and brows at this moment pulled tightly together above the line of his patrician nose. His mouth worked silently for a moment. "Fee." Hannah's eyebrows shot up, eyes darting between Ophelia and Silas, cataloging every flinch and pause.
Bess stared at Silas. Blinking slowly, ophelia tried to marshal her reeling thoughts. "It's, it's been a long time, silas," she said, her hands moving restlessly against her jacket. She struggled to master her breathing, focusing on the clouds moving out the kitchen window down from the hills, softening the bright summer sun that lay thick on the deep stone sill.
"Sit down, girl," Mrs. Darling said tartly. "I'll make you another plate." Ophelia sat woodenly across from Silas, her hands fidgeting in her lap. Her chest felt tight in the back of her neck. Hot. She pushed ineffectively at the strands of hair that had escaped her kerchief and wondered if it were possible that Silas could hear her heart racing from his seat.
Mrs. Darling turned from the table, picking up the broken crockery on her way, then lifted the kettle from the stove and poured a long stream into the waiting pot, saying, "well, as you seem to know each other, I'll not bother with introductions. Tea then, Mr. Lark?" She plunked the cup and saucer down in front of him and reached around Ophelia to place the small creamer and sugar bowl within his reach.
"And how are you two acquainted?" She asked as she arranged a thick slice of bread and a hunk of cheese on a new plate, placing it in front of Ophelia.
"We-"
"I-"
"yes."
"We-" they both began at once, tripping over each other's words. Silas dipped his chin slightly indicating Ophelia should continue. Her eyes met his and she felt the corner of her mouth lift in a smile.
"Mr. Lark and I knew each other when we were younger, Mrs. Darling." His eyes flick to hers at her use of his full name.
"It feels like years since we saw each other last," silas said.
A lifetime, she thought. "I suppose it has been." Hannah and Bess were practically vibrating in their seats, and Ophelia could tell it was taking every ounce of Bess discipline not to blurt out a million questions about the situation unfolding before her.
Hannah, on the other hand, had the pensive, withdrawn look that Ophelia had come to know meant she was examining something from all sides, assessing the information in front of her. "Mr. Lark's family have been tenants on my family's estate for many years. Long before either he or I were born," she said by way of explanation, "but it was really only by happenstance that we met the summer after the war began."
"What kind of happenstance?" Bess asked eagerly.
"Nothing so exciting as you might be hoping," Ophelia said with a laugh. She looked to Silas for confirmation and caught a flicker of emotion.
" A misdirected package, a book." He supplied. And Ophelia wondered if she detected a note of wistfulness in his voice.
Bess nodded and Hannah's face took a note of interest. "Hopefully some salacious pamphlet or a truly morbid gothic romance," she said with a smirk. Silas laughed and Ophelia felt the sound spread through her like honey. She had forgotten how lovely and warm his laugh was. "Are you familiar with RL Hills Animal Husbandry
volume eight?"
Hannah rolled her eyes, and Bess cackled. Mrs. Darling, her mouth crooked in a half smile, nodded and said, "I've always found that one particularly useful. Badgers and whatnot." Despite the laughter around the table, Ophelia was suddenly conscious of how little she had thought of Silas or the estates since she had left.
It was as though the train ride had deposited her in an entirely different realm, and she had been so busy learning and working that she didn't have the energy or the inclination to give her past much thought. She had been glad to push her father as far from her mind as possible, had been resolute in focusing on the reason she had joined the WLA, so that she might learn how to navigate a life on her own out from under the influence of men. While Silas explained the rest of the story to the other women,
Ophelia took a long sip of her tea, bumping the cup against the rim of the saucer. As she set it down, she felt unaccountably nervous. The arrival of a piece of her past life highlighting how changed she felt. She wondered if she appeared immediately different to Silas. She stole a glance and found him regarding her a puzzled expression in his eyes.
Another thing she had forgotten, what it felt like to have the full weight of his gaze on her. The gentle intensity of his looking. He swallowed, and she watched the column of his throat working and was startled to find herself hungry for every detail of him. She found that he didn't look exactly the same as she had first thought.
There were subtle, but marked changes everywhere. His hair was the same honey gold that she remembered, a little longer, but his cheekbones cut sharper, his lips a little more stern set in a firm flat line. It was his eyes that she noticed most, still the same mossy color, but flattened somehow, the mischievous twinkle missing. New fine lines emanated from the corners of his eyes, giving his face a quiet, tired air.
His hands on the table were calloused, the knuckles marked by healed scars faded to silver while a livid red line wound along the inside of his wrist up into his sleeve. She couldn't remember if he had been quite so broad and muscular, the hard walls of his shoulders snug against the fabric of his linen shirt,
his heavy thighs clad in worn work trousers. An urge to reach out and touch him flooded ophelia's fingers. It was a feeling she'd experienced often during their summer of friendship. He was beautiful and kind and thoughtful, all things she hadn't ever expected in any man. The sudden awareness that summer of how lonely her life had been before Silas only made his friendship dearer, and she had mourned him keenly
when he had enlisted. He had informed her of his enlistment in a short note, and she had felt no invitation to write to him in those few lines. She pushed down the squirming giddiness of once again being in Silas's company and forced herself to focus on what she had come here to do. Remake herself independent, alone.
Katherine Grant: Ooh, what a beautiful scene. So you gotta love it when the second chance lovers are brought back together for the first time.
Hillary Bowen: Yeah, that was one of the first one of the like early scenes that I wrote. So that one kind of stayed pretty much the same. Got moved around a little bit and, and things added.
But yeah.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. Well, I've got a lot of questions for you, but first we're gonna take a quick break for our sponsors.
Katherine Grant: I am back with Hillary Bowen who just read a sample from Out with Lanterns, her debut historical Romance that is out now, wherever you get books.
And like I said, this was the first World War I historic romance that has come to the podcast. And frankly, I've read world War I historical fiction, but I don't know that I've ever encountered a historical romance in World War I before. So I'm curious if you can tell us what drew you to that period?
Hillary Bowen: So I have this sort of aesthetic love of like the Edwardian period and that that kind of, movement into like the 20th century. And so I kind of had that in the background. I had just finished reading a book called The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt, which was incredible. And I mean just is full of so much information in history and so that was sort of swimming around in my brain. And then when I started thinking seriously about a story that I wanted to write, my original thought was the Land Army during the Second World War 'cause that's what I was familiar with.
But when I was reading about the Land Army, I discovered that it actually was started in the first World War and there were a few sort of different permutations before the one that we recognize really came together at the very end in 1917. And
in the research and reading that I was doing there, there was a lot of contention around the idea of women doing war work that wasn't nursing, that wasn't a caring kind of job. And that that wasn't pushback only from farmers or from men, but from women themselves.
There was a real discomfort with the idea of upper class or even sort of middle class women doing what was considered labor in the fields. And so some of the other countries in France, for instance, the women were working much earlier in the war in terms of like getting food and helping with all of those things.
But it took quite a long time for people in England to come around to that idea. For my purposes in a romance I didn't focus as much on sort of the day to day what that looked like. And I know that maybe my version of it is probably a little bit rosy in terms of what women faced. There were all kinds of experiences, I think.
So mine is sort of a very narrow slice of that, that I imagined. So that was kind of how that time period came around. I'm also really interested in the sort of dichotomies that are happening socially in the sort of late Edwardian, very early 1900s, like, the rise of unions, the mobilization of people around better working conditions, the Labor Party, and just a lot of things.
It feels like there's this kind of swell of new ideas and people wanting to challenge the status quo. And then at the same time, the reaction to that being really a real hard clamp down on that kind of activity. So I think those were things that I was interested in.
And then it was a matter of figuring out how Silas could get to the farm, essentially. He came about when I was researching the use of the big estates in the UK as convalescent hospitals during the war. And there was a, a program in the later war where soldiers who were injured badly enough that they needed to come home for recovery and treatment,
when they were recovered enough to be sort of mobile and useful, they were seconded sometimes to help with labor farm work or things on the home front because they weren't well enough to go back overseas. So that, that kind of worked for, you know, bringing them into contact again in a, in a realistic way.
Katherine Grant: So you mentioned that you kind of came to this through research you were already doing. I can see behind you a physical mood board. Oh yes. And on your website you also have a music playlist that you've published. Yeah. So can you talk to me a little about, a little bit about your creative process and you know, how research and inspiration and how it all comes together for you?
Hillary Bowen: Sure. So this is, this is, I should have taken a picture for you. I have actually redone my mood board for Casper and Arabella Novella, and this is my kind of general mood board. But I did have one specifically for Silas and Ophelia. I am super visually inspired by, like, I guess we call it vibes nowadays, but like people or situations, artwork quotations.
I like to have a visual sense in my head of, of what the people look like. And they, they don't, in my head, aren't exactly these, these people. But for instance what I saw a picture of Maude Fealy, who's an actress of the time, and she just felt there was something really, sort of like authentic about her face
that just made sense to me for Ophelia. And then for Silas, he was a little bit more cobbled together. But sometimes I'll see an actor that just like moves in a way that I imagine the person moving or has a mannerism that really speaks to me. And so I kind of like put those away on the mood board.
I listened to the same playlist the whole time I was writing. So that's something that I, I am noticing could be a, a sort of a process for me. And it's not really music of the time period. Again, it's more like the feeling of the song. But it did help me to kind of, like, when I sit down and I have that music on, it's like you get into that world a little bit.
So I think that feels like it could also be kind of a process for me. You know, I hadn't done any serious extended writing since university which was, you know, 20 years ago. So it was it was a challenge to like figure out what, what the process could be or what it could look like. And I'm not a, a plotter, I've realized that.
So for, for me, it has to be like a way to kind of like, get, like I said, get into the world, get into that headspace, and I feel like music and visual cues are, are something that really helped me.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. Okay. So this was your first real creative writing project in a while. Like you said, you'd been doing a lot of different reading about different eras.
Mm-hmm. And so you said that research wise, it kind of, you were like, oh, this is an interesting time. Was it that finding the specific point in history that was really interesting to you that said, okay, this is the project I'm gonna work on? Or were you more drawn to you know, tropes or the characters that you were inspired by?
I'm curious, like what really ultimately made you be like, this is the story I'm gonna write.
Hillary Bowen: I think actually Hannah came to me first. Hannah really was like, fully formed and somehow, even though it wasn't her story, I just knew it wasn't her story. But I, I, I just had this sense of this group of women and it kind of came out of that.
I think more than anything, the, the idea that the structure of the Women's Land Army being available at that time period to me, I think really settled me on that. I was like, okay, this is, this has a whole bunch of things that I'm interested in. There's kind of fruitful pieces of this that I can use to examine how somebody might act in this situation or what the challenges might be for a woman like Ophelia in this situation.
Katherine Grant: So what brought you into historical romance? And are there specific authors that are your influences you would say?
Hillary Bowen: Yeah, I mean, I, like so many people started reading it during COVID and someone in my social media world was talking about Evie Dumore's Bringing Down the Duke. And so that was the first one that I ever read. And. I just, yeah, it sounds so silly when I say it, but I, it just like completely rearranged my brain.
Like I had really grown up kind of in a, in a house, like I say, it's sort of like accidental purity culture. Romance was really frowned on and it was not a thing that I was kind of exposed to at all. And then, you know, being in academics, it was kind of like also there's a lot of prejudice against genre literature and so I just really was unfamiliar with it.
And when I read that book, it was so compelling to me. It was like all the things that I loved in, in one form, and the, the sense of it being so enjoyable was just, yeah, it was really a profound shift and, and I loved that. I think the thing growing up, I can look back now and see that the things that I really loved and the books I really loved were kind of like.
You know, there were a lot of historical things that I read, the the Mary Stewart series of the Arthurian books and like a lot of things like that. And there was always just this part of me that wanted like a tiny bit more romance. Like I wanted them to kiss each other, whatever. And I just really didn't know that was a, a thing that was available.
And so I think when I, when I first read Bringing Down the Duke, it was like so beautifully written, these really interesting characters, this like all this romance and then also this really like astute commentary on feminism and an examination of like how that looks in that time period, but also like really telescoping to what we're looking at right now too.
And so that was kind of the beginning. And then I, I think the next one I read was a Rogue by any other name. So I read through all Sarah McLean's I read a bunch of Eva Leigh, which I just loved. I read some Tessa Dare. I read Outlander, not all of them, I think the first three books. And then I kind of just like, I found like Courtney Milan and I found KJ Charles and like it seemed like once you kind of
started looking for them then, and then it was just kind of like finding this community. And I think that that has been just like the biggest gift. It really has been incredible. Just the, the amount of thought and care that people put into their scholarship about it or their reviews.
I'm, I'm just, I'm so glad that I found it honestly.
Katherine Grant: I am glad you found it too, and now you're writing amazing stories.
Hillary Bowen: Yeah. Well, you know, trying my hand at it.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. Well, I think this is a perfect segue into our game. Love it. Or leave it.
[Musical Interlude]
Katherine Grant: All right. Do you love it or leave it? The protagonists meet in the first 10% of the story.
Hillary Bowen: I'm gonna say love it. It's not a like hard and fast rule for me, but yeah, I think it's nice when they're on page right away. Yeah.
Katherine Grant: All right. Do you love it or leave it? Dual point of view Narration.
Hillary Bowen: Yes. Love it.
Katherine Grant: Love it or leave it? Third person, past tense.
Hillary Bowen: Yes. Love it.
Katherine Grant: Love it or leave it? The third act
dark moment.
Hillary Bowen: I love it. I am, I struggle to like do it myself. I'm a total wimp when it comes to like treating my characters badly, but I love it in other bugs. So yes, love it.
Katherine Grant: Love it or leave it? Always end with an epilogue.
Hillary Bowen: Yes. Love it.
Katherine Grant: Love it or leave it? Always include research in your author's note.
Hillary Bowen: Yes, love it.
Katherine Grant: Okay. And are there any other rules I didn't ask about that you like to break or maybe since you're kind of at the beginning that you have your eye on that you want to break?
Hillary Bowen: Well I think I accidentally broke one with this book that I didn't even really think of as breaking a rule, which is the.
Not having like a marriage on page at the end. So yeah, I mean, I guess I might be flexible on that, on what the happily ever After looks like. For me, this felt like very much a happily ever after committed relationship. But I know I've talked to people who, who sort of were like, oh, that was unusual.
So I guess maybe that's one.
Katherine Grant: So they, they ended up together. They were happily Yeah. Committed to each other. Yeah. It just wasn't in a legal marriage or,
Hillary Bowen: yeah, and I think formal marriage, I think for me the, it was probably I imagine that that wasn't even necessarily forever. Like, it wasn't like they would never get married.
It was just like for, to me, when I was writing it, it felt like that was, that was their commitment to each other every day. So, yeah.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. Well I like that. I'm glad you broke that rule. Well, I'm so glad that you came on and read out with lanterns. Where can readers find you and your books?
Hillary Bowen: So I am on Instagram at Hillary Bowen writes, you can find me.
On my website at hillarybowen.com and please feel free to sign up for the newsletter because that's where you'll get all the early peaks at artwork. And hopefully in the fall, late fall, we'll have the free novella through the newsletter. So.
Katherine Grant: Yes. And your newsletter is called The Scarlet Letter, which is like, it is called The Scarlet Letter.
Don't you want to join the Scarlet Letter? Come on guys. Feel like Yeah.
Hillary Bowen: Where all the good stuff is happening.
Katherine Grant: And Hilary, you're part of you next spring, right? You have the suffragette uprising? I do.
Hillary Bowen: Yes, I do. And so that's kind of percolating in the back of things too. I'm like, yeah, I feel like I'm. I am surrounded by all of these people who are doing incredible stories just about suffrage and about kind of what that looks like in all different time periods.
So I'm really excited to get to start working on that.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. Well, we'll have you back on to talk about your Suffragette Uprising novella, and it comes out Sounds good. Listeners, as always, I'm gonna put a link to Hillary's website in the show notes and I'll be tagging her on Instagram, so it'll be easy to find.
And yeah, thank you again. It's been really great to have you on.
Hillary Bowen: Thank you so much, Katherine. It was nice to talk.
That's it for this week! Don't forget to subscribe to the Historical Romance Sampler wherever you listen, and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Until next week, happy reading!