August 30, 2020

Evie Dunmore – Suffragist Romance

39 minutes

Evie Dunmore’s debut romance, Bringing Down the Duke, was named as one of the best romances of the year by Publishers Weekly – a remarkable win for a first-time novelist – and even more surprising when you know that English is Evie’s second language. Now Evie continues with a new book in the series, A Rogue of One’s Own.br /

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Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler, and in this Binge Reading episode Evie talks about why she was attracted to an extraordinary group of women – the first women students at Oxford University – for her suffragist era historical romance. She tells why she swapped academia and a career in international business for romance writing.br /

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Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:br /

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How Evie swapped international business for romanceThe remarkable first women students at Oxford UniversityThe deep human urge for equalityThe appeal of romanceThe writers she admires mostWhat she'd do differently second time aroundbr /

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Where to find Evie Dunmore:br /

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Website: http://eviedunmore.com/br /

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Facebook:@EvieDunmoreAuthorbr /

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Twitter:@evie_dunmorebr /

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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/evietheauthor/br /

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What follows is a near as transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions.br /

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Jenny Wheeler: But now, here's Evie. Hello there Evie, and welcome to the show. It's great to have you with us.br /

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Evie Dunmore: Good morning, or at least it’s morning where I am right now. Thank you for having me.br /

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Introducing Evie Dunmorebr /

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Jenny Wheeler: You’re in Germany and it's first thing in the morning, and I'm in Auckland, New Zealand, one day into lockdown for the second time. We're still all being affected by the pandemic in one way or another, I'm afraid.br /

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Evie Dunmore - Romance authorbr /

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Evie, you embarked on a historical romance series called The League of Extraordinary Women which is set in the late 19th century, the 1880s. It deals with the suffragist movement, the women's movement of those years. I use the word ‘suffragist’ because it is subtly different from suffragette, isn’t it? Can you explain the difference and why it's important?br /

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Evie Dunmore: Yes, certainly. The one thing to know is that the term ‘suffragist’ precedes the term ‘suffragettes’. At least in Britain, the term suffragette wasn't used until 1906, which was when the Daily Mail created the term. Basically, it's an insult for Emmeline Pankhurst’s more radical arm of the suffrage movement because those ladies were causing you a lot of trouble and the suffragists who followed Pankhurst reclaimed the term. br /

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They said, okay, suffragette is quite nice, and it sets us apart from the suffragists. The difference between the two is that the suffragists were using peaceful methods to work for change until the vote was granted in 1918 in Britain, and the suffragettes were literally setting fire to things.br /

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So the suffragettes are the more radical women's rights activists that you associate with the imprisonment and the force feeding and the firebombing, and the suffragists, under Millicent Fawcett, were more focused on petitioning, lobby work, writing articles, but certainly both groups wanted the vote for women.br /

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Feminists falling in lovebr /

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Jenny Wheeler: The suffragists were working through the mechanisms that society accepted, whereas the suffragettes were willing to do extreme things like throwing themselves under horses at races and things like that.br /

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Evie Dunmore: Exactly.

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