January Feature #2: THE BETRAYAL OF THE BLOOD LILY by Lauren Willig

[Melanie_Murray]

Everyone warned Miss Penelope Deveraux that her unruly behavior would land her in disgrace someday. She never imagined she's be whisked off to India to give the scandal of her hasty marriage time to die down. AS Lady Frederick Staines, Penelope plunges into the treacherous waters of the court of the Nizam of Hyderabad, where no one is quite what they seem-even her husband. In a strange country, where elaborate court dress masks even more elaborate intrigues and a dangerous spy called the Marigold leaves venomous cobras as his calling card, there is only one person Penelope can trust...

Captain Alex Reid has better things to do than play nursemaid to a pair of aristocrats. Or so he thinks-until Lady Frederick Staines out- shoots, out-rides, and out-swims every man in the camp. She also has an uncanny ability to draw out the deadly plans of the Marigold and put herself in harm's way. With danger looming from local warlords, treacherous court officials, and French spies, Alex realizes that an alliance with Lady Staines just might be the only thing standing in the way of a plot designed to rock the very foundations of the British Empire...

[Cara_Elliott]

And for a delightful interview with author Lauren Willig, be sure to visit www.wordwenches.com this coming Monday, January 11. She'll be dishing on the fascinating history behind "The Betrayal of the Blood Lily" and lots of other fun stuff.

Look for Cara Elliott's TO SIN WITH A SCOUNDREL, coming in March '10

[Melanie_Murray]

Thanks for the tip on this interview, Cara!

Now that our Add Product button is back in shape, here are the other books in this series:

The Secret History of the Pink Carnation (Pink Carnation Series #1)

  

The Masque of the Black Tulip (Pink Carnation Series #2)

  

The Deception of the Emerald Ring (Pink Carnation Series #3)

  

The Seduction of the Crimson Rose (Pink Carnation Series #4)

  

The Temptation of the Night Jasmine (Pink Carnation Series #5)

  

[Melissa_W Moderator]

I am never bored reading one of Lauren's books.  I finished my copy of Blood Lily yesterday.  I quite like Pen (she's always been on the sidelines in previous books) and she's quickly becoming one of my favorite Pink heroines.

Lauren announced earlier this month that she's releasing an extra book this year - The Mischief of the Mistletoe - featuring Turnip Fitzhugh and Jane Austen, set in Bath.  I think it will arrive around October - hooray!

[Melanie_Murray]

  I'd like to offer a big, warm welcome to Lauren Willig, author of the Pink Carnation series and this month's feature, The Betrayal of the Blood Lily (Pink Carnation Series #6).

She'll be taking questions all week long! And my first one for you, Lauren, is this: did you always intend to set one of these books in India? Or did the idea come as you were working on Penelope's story?

[Lauren-Willig]

Hi, Melanie! 

Thanks so much for having me here this week.

The origin of this book is shrouded way back in the mists of time....  Well, 2001.  That's pretty misty by now.  I was still doing my tweed skirted grad school thing at the time (a la Eloise, my modern heroine), and I was hired to TA a class called Second British Empire, about Ireland, India, and Africa in the 19th century.  My field is Tudor-Stuart England.  I had a LOT of catching up to do.  While I was desperately reading up, trying to stay one step ahead of the students, the Maratha Wars caught my eye-- primarily, I admit, because the famous Battle of Assaye took place in 1803 and I was, at the time, secretly working on the first book in the Pink Carnation series, which was also set in 1803.  How fabulously fortuitous!  I filed that away for future use, along with an Irish uprising I wanted to use (that one became "The Deception of the Emerald Ring"), but I didn't seriously think that Pink Carnation was ever going to get published, much less have sequels, so it was all a very moot point.

Fast forward six years....  As you can see, I'd had India in the back of my head for a while, but I hadn't immediately pegged it as a setting for Penelope.  I knew Penelope needed something dramatic and daring for her book-- since Penelope is pretty dramatic and daring-- but the original plan was (don't laugh... okay, do laugh) Barbary pirates.  What's not to love about a pirate?  Other than the whole piracy thing, of course.  Actually, the original plan, years and years ago, was for Penelope to be kidnapped by pirates and rescued by, yes, Lord Vaughn.  I know, I know.  Improbable on many fronts.  I'm glad it turned out as it did.

[Melanie_Murray]

Ah! Lord Vaughn! I think I've told you, Lauren, how I adore Lord Vaughn. Though Mary is a perfectly wonderful heroine for him, now I'm imagining him as a swashbuckler, fighting back pirates and staring shocked at Penelope after she shoots a gun!

[Lauren-Willig]

It was the "staring shocked" that was really the problem.  Whenever I tried to imagine how that plot would go, I would get stuck at the image of Penelope in Lord Vaughn's luxuriously appointed cabin (because you know his cabin would be luxuriously appointed) with Vaughn raising an eyebrow at Pen as though to say, "Who are you and why are you in my cabin?"  And not in a good way.  More in a "why in the hell are you cluttering up my space" kind of way.  Everytime I tried to picture how that conversation would go, it ended with Vaughn annoyed and bored.  Vaughn is intensely cerebral; Penelope is a woman of action.  It was a no go from the beginning.  

[Melanie_Murray]

I think you did right in your pairings, Lauren. Alex is perfect for Pen. How did you come up with his character? And how much research did you do while writing, or was it all in the back of your mind? I especially liked how you explored what happened to men and women of mixed parentage.

[Lauren-Willig]

Thanks!  I spent several months reading up on late-eighteenth/early nineteenth century India before I started writing the book. I was fascinated by the ambivalent position of Anglo-Indians.  Even the term Anglo-Indian is problematic.  Some people use it to refer to Englishmen who made their careers in India, a group of men looked on as suspect back in England.  Others use the term Anglo-Indian to refer to those of half-English, half-Indian extraction. 

During the period in which this book was set, a series of laws were passed making it illegal for those in the latter group-- those with one English and one Indian parent-- to serve in the East India Company's army or political service, the two major sources of advancement in early nineteenth century India.  This was a huge hardship and created, as in the case of my hero, lots of mixed loyalties and families divided against themselves.  Those impacted by this law were forced to take menial positions or to hire themselves out as mercenaries to local rulers.  My hero, Alex, had a British mother, so he has served with both the East India Company's army and their diplomatic arm, but he is deeply conflicted by the fact that his two half brothers are both barred by law from following in his footsteps.

[Melanie_Murray]

I loved that his conflict came on his family's behalf; that he himself had had an easy time of it in terms of that rule. Very interesting character dynamic, I thought.

[anna-817]

This is a mundane question, but I am compelled to ask anyway. Why the Blood Lily?

[Melanie_Murray]

---

anna-817 wrote:

This is a mundane question, but I am compelled to ask anyway. Why the Blood Lily?

---

I second this question. And welcome to Romantic Reads, Anna-817.

[Lauren-Willig]

Hi, Anna!

I'm afraid there's a very mundane answer.  Since the spy in the book is called the Marigold, the title was originally "The Something Something of the Something Marigold" (all my titles start out with lots of somethings and eventually graduate to real words), but the marketing powers that be deemed "Marigold" an insufficiently sexy flower.  I didn't want to change the name of the spy, so we compromised.  The spy stayed the Marigold, but the title changed.  Rather than naming the book after the spy, I put an SOS out on my website, asking readers which flower reminded them most of Penelope.  After many suggestions and much deliberation, the blood lily won out.  It had a flair that seemed to suit Penelope.

[Melanie_Murray]

Lauren, how many more books do you envision writing in this series? Any details on the next one? And how closely related is Eloise to you?

[Lauren-Willig]

I'll do the easy question first: despite being a first person narrator, Eloise is nothing like me. 

I have this on good authority.  My favorite college roommate, after reading the manuscript of The Secret History of the Pink Carnation for the first time way back when, exclaimed indignantly, "But Eloise is nothing like you!" 

Superficially, we have a lot in common.  We were both Harvard history PhD candidates.  Like Eloise, I did a research year in London while working on my dissertation (although I went as a fourth year, and I've sent Eloise as a fifth year).  I loaned Eloise my basement flat in Bayswater, the Cypriot restaurant across the way, my collection of three inch heels, and a younger sister at Yale.  And there the ressemblance ends.  Eloise walks the streets I walked and visits the archives I visited, but she thinks and acts very differently from me.

Eloise would never write fiction.

[Lauren-Willig]

Okay, the Big Question-- how many books in the series.  Um....  How many fingers and toes do I have to count on? 

The truth is, I have no idea.  Right now, I'm signed up to write three more books: The Mischief of the Mistletoe (coming out in October), Pink VII, and Pink VIII.  Will there be more after that?  I certainly hope so. 

The series, to me, is a whole world unto itself, where stories keep branching off into more stories.  I would love to write them all.  There are so many characters whose lives still need to be explored and so many fascinating historical events ripe for exploitation-- er, illustration. 

[Lauren-Willig]

And question #3... details on the next one.

My super-exciting news is that there'll be two Pink Carnation books coming out this year!  In addition to our regularly scheduled January release (Pink VII), there's also a Christmas book, The Mischief of the Mistletoe, coming out in October 2010.  It's set in Bath in Christmas of 1803 and features Turnip Fitzhugh, Jane Austen, and a truly alarming quantity of Christmas pudding.

I had an amazing time researching Austen for this book.  (In the book, she's an old family friend of my heroine, Arabella.)  The book was inspired by, and is very loosely based on, the plot of Austen's unfinished novel, The Watsons, on which Austen was working at the time.

Right now, I'm holding a contest on my website for a preview of the first three chapters of The Mischief of the Mistletoe.  (It was originally going to be two chapters, but my wonderful and generous publisher upped it to three.)  Just go to http://www.laurenwillig.com/diversions/contest.html. 

[Emily_Vinci]

First of all, I have to say I'm a huge fan of the books! I love them!

My question is: I know a lot of the characters show up in each other's books, but have you ever thought of returning or do you think you would ever return to a previous female lead, and writing another book focused on her? (Or her and her mate, I suppose )

Thanks!

[Lauren-Willig]

Hi, Emily!

Thanks!!  I'm so glad you've loved the books.

My feeling about fiction is that the story is always on-going, even after the specific book has ended.  We may have had a happy ending, but these relationships and lives are still all works in progress.  Which is a roundabout way of saying that I'm very intrigued by the idea of bringing back previous characters as leads. 

Right now, there are so many new stories I want to write that I can't see going back to old leads in a book-length work.  But I did bring Amy and Richard back as leads in the Selwick Christmas novella (it's on my website, via the Diversions page), and my plan is, time permitting, to write novellas for all the existing Pink couples, starting with Hen and Miles.  Theirs would be set in Valentine's Day of 1804, right before Penelope's wedding to Freddy.  I have it all planned out....  Now I just need to find the time to write it!