Reformed Rakes

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters is a Victorian crime novel centered around two young women: Susan Trinder, who grew up in a house of thieves, and Maud Lilly, a lady who is trapped by her uncle in a macabre house called Briar, and compelled to work for him as a secretary. When it was initially published in 2002, Fingersmith made waves for its central lesbian relationship, as well as its shocking twist in the second act. The book was critically lauded: shortlisted for both the Booker Prize and the Orange Prize, launching Sarah Waters into literary stardom. Through popular adaptations like 2005’s BBC miniseries directed by Aisling Walsh, and 2016’s The Handmaiden, directed by Park Chan Wook, the story of Fingersmith has found a broader audience, and is widely beloved to this day.

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In this episode, we’re specifically focused on Waterloo, Napoleon’s last stand and a favorite backdrop of historical romance. Waterloo took place June 18, 1815, when Napoleon’s Army of the North was met by the Seventh Coalition, an army composed of Wellington’s English troops, and various German and Dutch units at a small village just outside of Brussels. Around 50,000 soldiers died in the conflict. The battle led to the voluntary surrender of Napoleon to the British a month later, after a series of increasingly desperate military and political moves on his part, and his eventual final exile on St. Helena, a remote island in the Atlantic Ocean. The battle happens right in the middle of the Georgian and Regency periods, a favorite setting for historical romance. This, of course, means Waterloo has a huge presence in the genre, as a setting, as a disabling event for characters, as a fulcrum pushing England over the cliff into the modern age. We’re going to talk about the history and impact of the battle on real life and in fiction.

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Published in 2022, A Caribbean Heiress in Paris is the first full-length historical romance from Adriana Herrera. We follow Luz Alana Heith-Benzan, who travels to the Exposition Universelle in Paris to expand her family’s rum trade throughout Europe. It’s there that she meets James Evanstan Sinclair, the Earl of Darnick, a Scottish man who works in whisky and goes from being her rival, to her friend, to her husband. The book is a really fun twist on marriage of convenience: a business partnership where the partners are so in love they can’t think straight. Join us and Graciella @grapiedeltaco as we have a little too much fun.

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Meredith Duran has an unlikely publishing story: at her sister’s encouragement, she submitted her first manuscript, Duke of Shadows, to the Gather.com first chapters contest, and won first prize: Duke of Shadows would be published by Pocket Books. Duran followed up with Bound by Your Touch and Written on Your Skin, two late Victorian novels starring friends: Viscount Sanburne, the happy-go-lucky rake who uses his dissipation to conceal something much darker, and Phineas Granville, a spy-turned-earl who is drawn back into the game by a beautiful woman he’s indebted to. Duran’s one of Chels's favorite historical romance authors, and she’s also the author Reformed Rakes listeners have most requested get a standalone episode. We're very pleased that we can make that happen today.

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A Sherry Thomas story is built around one central conflict and then mining as much story from that conflict as possible. In her debut novel Private Arrangements, we follow Gigi and Camden who have the ideal marriage. They live separately and now after ten years Gigi wants a divorce. Camden says he’ll give her one after she gives him an heir. Their separation, sparked by an act of fraud of Gigi’s part, propels Camden into a cycle of anger against her. He refuses to forgive Gigi. Here is where Thomas shines with a couple’s attempted reconciliation and the subsequent heartache and triumphs that follow.  

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Last episode, we covered the rise of Janet Dailey, one of romance’s biggest stars in the 1970s and 80s. A secretary turned millionaire, Dailey was one of the genre’s biggest success stories, but her husband’s work as her manager, and his interest in making her the #1 author in the world fueled “Svengali” rumors. If you haven’t already, go back and listen to Janet Dailey: Part One for the full story, as this is information you’ll need for what’s to come in this episode. This week we’re picking up where we left off: we’ll be talking about Janet Dailey’s plagiarism scandal in 1997, an event that rocked the romance world and tarnished Dailey’s reputation. 

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In 1997, a scandal rocked the world of romance: Janet Dailey, one of the most successful and prolific romance authors of all time, got caught plagiarizing the work of Nora Roberts, one of the other most successful and prolific romance authors of all time. Before the scandal, Janet Dailey was the queen of American romance. Born in small-town Iowa, married in Omaha, and settled in Ozarks, she was a down-to-earth, blue-jeaned rebuttal to the only romance author that outsold her in the 70s and 80s: Barbara Cartland. In 1997 the Internet was in its infancy, so public memory of this scandal is fragmented. This is going to be a two-part episode, and in part one we are covering Dailey’s life before she fell from grace for plagiarism. Make no mistake, this is not just boring backstory: this episode is about fame, country music, violence, and one very controversial husband. Step into your boots and get out your fiddle, we’re going to Branson.

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Tom and Sharon Curtis’ most famous work is 1984’s The Windflower published under the pen name Laura London. The Windflower is about a young sheltered woman named Merry who is kidnapped by the pirates on a ship called The Black Joke, and falls in love with her captor, the excruciatingly handsome second-in-command, Devon Crandall. Largely considered a classic of the genre, The Windflower is heartwarming, surprising, and very, very funny. Haley joined us on our discussion! You can find her on TikTok under the username @haleystewfart.

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Currently on hiatus from writing historical romance, Mallory has written eleven histroms. Her books often are genre hybrids, with a mystery plot as an undercurrent with the romance. The books are Regencies and edge toward the wallpaper line, with a few historical inaccuracies, almost dollhouse like settings and sometimes some incomprehensible world building. For the Earl’s Pleasure is a mystery-romance hybrid as we try to uncover what led to Valerien Lord Rainewood attempted murder, which now has him unconscious in an undisclosed location. But luckily for Valerian, the object of his longtime teasing and bullying, Abigail Smart has a gift: she can see ghosts and while Valerian is unconscious, he appears to Abigail.

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Today we’re going to talk about a sometimes polarizing topic—pregnancy in romance. We think pregnancy poses some interesting narrative questions and conflicts. For historical romance novels, babies and pregnancy bring up questions that aren’t really as much of a contemporary concern like legitimate heirs and who will inherit what estate. What does a person do if they have a child outside of wedlock? More universally, how does this pregnancy affect the relationship? Sanjana (@baskinsuns) join us today to give us some of her thoughts as well!

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