The Official Essex Sisters Companion Guide Read online

  Letter to my Editor

  August 18, 2003

  I thought I would put into writing my ideas for my next few books. I’m planning to continue several aspects of the Duchess series that I consider my strengths: depictions of female friendships among sassy, intelligent heroines, and sexy plots. One aspect of the Duchess series that I definitely want to use again is a continuing story. I’ve had so many letters since Fool for Love was published, and readers appear almost desperate to read the next installment of Esme’s story. I want to create that same momentum with these four books.

  The series will focus on the lives of four sisters, orphaned before the book began and raised by a young, flamboyant guardian, the Earl of Ilchester, a man who is not their relative. The second sister, Imogen, will serve as the continuing story. In the first book, Imogen is in love with a Regency version of a wild boy: a gorgeous, reckless, over-indulged young duke. They elope in the beginning of the book against her guardian’s wishes. Imogen’s young husband dies in the end of the book in a rash carriage accident. In the fourth book in the series, she will finally marry her guardian.

  The eldest sister, Kate, is sharp-tongued, insecure and managing. Her story will be woven with Imogen’s in the first book. Kate is jilted at the altar, and ends up marrying Lucius Felton, from A Fool Again, the short story I wrote for Avon. I have a rough idea of the younger girls’ stories. The youngest sister, Lucy, is plump and ungainly. Her sister Cecily arranges for her to be compromised by the Earl of Amherst, thinking that she will never manage to find a husband on her own. But the plan goes awry, and Cecily has to marry Amherst herself.

  I’m going to try the device of opening each novel with a flashback chapter to when the family of sisters were 9–14 years old, and had just been adopted by their uncle. I hope you like these ideas!

  The letter made interesting reading, all these years later. By the time I actually wrote the Essex Sisters series, my ideas had changed. The books switched order, as Imogen’s story was originally the last of the four. The flashback chapters disappeared once I discovered that they killed the momentum of the plot. The girls’ original guardian was going to be the “Earl of Ilchester”; in the published series, he’s called Rafe, Duke of Holbrook. The girls themselves have changed names too: Lucy became Josie (a good choice—Josie is far too impudent to be a “Lucy”!)

  But the core idea, a four-book series tracing the life of four sisters, remained intact. I firmly believe that romances, while escapist, must be rooted in the author’s own experience. For example, I was a plump young wallflower, which led directly to Josie’s experiences. The inspiration for the series as a whole came from my childhood, growing up with my younger sister, Bridget. We were inseparable as children, and lived in the same town as adults for many years. I created a family of sisters because I wanted to take a shot at depicting that deep and persistent bond.

  Bridget and Eloisa

  I decided early on that I wanted to portray one of those sisters responding realistically to grief (or my experience of it)—in other words, not with immediate acceptance, but with anger. The grieving sister, of course, is Imogen, who loses her young husband in Much Ado About You.

  The plot point was influenced by a romance that I deeply loved as a young girl, Rose in Bloom, a Louisa May Alcott novel published in 1876. Draven Maitland’s wild ride on Blue Peter is modeled, to some extent, on my memories of weeping over the death of a similarly feckless young man in Rose in Bloom. (By the way, Rose in Bloom is available free online at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2804. If you adored Little Women, I’m certain that you’ll enjoy reading Rose in Bloom.)

  But I was determined to turn a portrayal of grief into a tandem exploration of sisters. In the midst of her rage and grief, Imogen behaves horribly toward her oldest sister, Tess. After Much Ado About You was published, I received a small avalanche of mail telling me how much readers disliked Imogen.

  That was precisely the point. I didn’t want Imogen to be sweet. She is so angry when her husband dies that she lashes out at one of the people whom she knows will love her no matter what—her oldest sister. I firmly believe that a novel is only as good as the challenge it sets the author, and it was a true challenge to rehabilitate Imogen. I’m still happy every time I get a letter telling me that the reader initially loathed her, but changed her mind after reading The Taming of the Duke.

  Jody found a blog that I wrote back when I was writing The Taming of the Duke that explains a bit more about what I mean by the challenge of writing.

  On the Challenges of Writing

  March 29, 2006

  The State (Columbia, S.C.) is running a review of The Taming of the Duke this week. Here’s how it opens:

  Eloisa James doesn’t shy away from a challenge. In the third book of her Essex sisters series, she matches a character portrayed in the first two books as selfish, whining and overbearing with a slovenly drunkard with a pot belly.

  When I began to read the first paragraph I heard that “Alert! Alert!” siren sound that an author gets when they start to read a bad review. It’s the kind of alert that I imagine you’d feel in a sinking submarine: RUN!—quickly followed by, EEEk! Nowhere to Run!

  A second later I calmed down and realized I was being complimented. I got to the end of the review and discovered that the reader really loved the book. And then, finally, I realized that the reviewer had gone straight to the heart of something I deeply believe as a writer: you must continue to challenge yourself. If in your very deepest soul, you’re not a little unsure that your heroine and hero can grow and learn enough to be together, then your readers won’t be unsure either.

  And if your readers are utterly convinced of the couple’s happiness from the first chapter . . . what’s the point of reading? The deliciousness of a romance is knowing that two people will fall in love (because it’s a romance) but being unsure that it’s actually possible to overcome the odds. Without uncertainty, the reading experience would be like reading a mystery in which it turns out the dead guy just fell down a [flight of] stairs and there was no murderer. Talk about a let-down! If my hero and heroine are perfectly balanced, rational and rich people who adore each other from page one . . . why keep reading? They’ll be in bed by page eleven, and you’ll be asleep, with the book falling from your fingers and landing on the floor. For me, the challenge is everything in a romance, perhaps because I consider myself just as much a reader as a writer.

  The Stages of Writing a Book

  While the initial idea and first draft of a book are mine, obviously, I am lucky enough to have a tremendous amount of help along the way to publication. The final draft of a novel reflects my researcher’s suggestions, editorial recommendations, copy editor’s marks, all the way through to readers’ comments and questions about a previous book, which often influence the sequel.

  I’ll use The Taming of the Duke as my primary example of the stages leading to publication, though I refer at times to all four books. After the initial letter I sent to my editor, the next step was to make character sketches. I’m not sharing the sketches I created for main characters, as they altered so much as to be unrecognizable by the end of the novels (Rafe went from being a middle-aged drunk to a hero!). I am including sketches of some secondary characters, giving you a sense of the kind of incoherent thinking I do before starting a book.

  Notes for The Taming of the Duke

  Gillian

  Gillian considers herself unsexed. Too clear-sighted, too unable to overlook men’s foibles. So she accepted a true fool (Draven) in a desperate moment. Then she is equally desperate to get rid of him. Got rid of him and is now interested in Rafe because of his kindness, not because she really desires him.

  Gabe

  Gabe’s mother was very sensual and very in love with Rafe’s father. It was a love affair, albeit with strong hierarchical patterns and illegitimate/adulterous. Gabe came to associate women’s femininity (sexuality/desire) with his mother.

  So he loves Gilli
an because of her obvious distance from the sensual life. She decides life on a logical basis. For her, the brain comes first.

  Loretta

  Loretta is an absolutely driven, very young woman, who only comes truly alive on the stage. When Gabe’s carriage knocked her down and she briefly lost consciousness, coming to in his house, she knew instantly that she had lost her position. He comforted her and one thing led to another. Nine months later, the baby arrives. She promptly hands over the child, but ever since she’s had a lot of trouble finding another position and he feels guilty. So he sets up the theater.

  I couldn’t find a character note for Lucius Felton, which means I was quite certain about his character, and didn’t need to feel it out on paper. There’s a reason for that! Sometime after Much Ado About You was published, a reader named Ashley wrote to me to point out that Lucius Felton and Lucius Malfoy, from the Harry Potter series, seem quite similar in their overall appearance, “snakelike” qualities, and the fact that they both carry canes. She also noted that the movie actor who plays Lucius Malfoy’s son Draco is named Tom Felton.

  It was news to me, but it all made sense. When J. K. Rowling’s first books were published, my son Luca was not yet reading. I read aloud the first three novels in the Harry Potter series once, then again . . . then a third time! By the time the long-awaited fourth book was published, Luca was reading for himself, but even so, I read all the remaining books aloud. By then, it had become a family tradition. I never noticed this similarity until Ashley pointed it out, but the evidence for literary influence is overwhelming. Of course, Lucius Malfoy is no hero, and Lucius Felton definitely is, so the resemblance doesn’t go beyond the superficial.

  I borrowed from myself when I was giving the sisters their final names. When I wrote Fool for Love, I gave the hero two little sisters, Annabel and Josie. And I gave the heroine one sister, Imogen. Sound familiar? I can hardly believe myself that I started the Essex Sisters series a few years later by naming three sisters Annabel, Josie, and Imogen. There is absolutely no connection between the series and those earlier characters.

  After character notes come plot notes for the specific novel I’m writing, often edited in the midst of creating a book. What follows are my notes for The Taming of the Duke. As an aside, during the year I worked on the companion, I was also writing the manuscript of Four Nights with the Duke (2014), a book whose heroine is a romance writer. Forced to think about my own process, I deliberately structured the notes that open every chapter of Four Nights—Mia’s writing notes—to echo my own process. Mia’s annotations to her manuscript, An Angel’s Form and a Devil’s Heart, include incoherent character descriptions, plot ideas, and bits of dialogue as they occur to her.

  Initial Plot Notes for The Taming of the Duke

  Imogen is finally over grieving for Draven, and wants to have an affair. She chooses Rafe’s illegitimate brother, Gabe. Meanwhile Rafe quits drinking and kisses Imogen. He wants to marry her, but she refuses, laughing. So he has an affair with her while disguised as his brother Gabe, thinking that he will lure her to the point at which she will accept marrying him, because she’s seduced. Imogen discovers the truth somewhere in the middle of the first time they make love, but says nothing. So after two nights, she tells him that she wants to end the affair. He is struck dumb with shock.

  I need some sort of climactic scene in which it is made clear that Imogen knew all the while, and that she only wants to marry Rafe, not Rafe-in-a-mustache/Gabe.

  They could end up in bed together and she could tell him he looks better in his mustache.

  They could get together and she would ask him to wear a mustache because that reminds her of happy times and he would be miserable but it would be a joke.

  In Daddy Long-Legs, Judy refuses Jervie, then is miserable because she doesn’t hear from him . . . after she confesses by letter, she is summoned into his presence and discovers that DLL and Jervie are one and the same.

  Here, she refuses Rafe and he is miserable about it . . . doesn’t hear from her . . . confesses love by letter . . . is summoned into Imogen’s presence and discovers that she always knew he was Rafe (not Gabe).

  Important point: why didn’t she say something right away? For some reason, she wanted Rafe to tell her himself. Why?

  Perhaps to do with her first marriage to Draven: she thought she had a huge passion and it wasn’t really anything: it wasn’t sex, it wasn’t communication, there was no romance. She thought she had a huge passion and it turned out to be emptiness.

  She needs to know that this is going to be different. She needs Rafe to behave in a certain way that shows it’s going to be different.

  So Rafe steps up to the plate and does the communicating. She doesn’t want to take the lead. With Draven, she did all the chasing. Maybe pretend he’d broken his leg? Some gesture. Willing to put himself in the position that she put herself into. Dropping all pride.

  He hasn’t been able to be completely emotionally available with her. Disguised as his brother—pretending to be someone else. There’s a fundamental way in which he’s not emotionally there. Drank in order to make it clear to everyone that he wasn’t his deceased brother.

  Set it up so that pretending to be Gabe has to do with bolstering his own self-confidence . . . maybe the ultimate thing for him to come to her as himself. Risking rejection as himself.

  He doesn’t initially have the courage to let her know. And she wants him to tell her himself. He eventually realizes the truth about her first marriage. She needs a formal proposal. He is going to want to drink (why he was drinking in the first place). Does he love her more, or is he more afraid of being himself?

  He’s hiding behind the ducal proposal.

  Why did she refuse him in the first place? Because it’s old Rafe . . . drunken Rafe . . . Rafe who could never be mysterious or loverlike. Because she had a crush on “Gabe,” who isn’t Gabe. Did she get cross at Rafe for not telling her? For tricking her?

  Maybe Rafe decides that he cannot confess. Asks her to marry him, and she agrees, and everything is great and they make love and then, right at the end of the book, she rolls over, says sleepily, “But I miss your mustache.”

  One of the most interesting parts of these introductory notes is how vague they are, signaling how much the writing process actually changes a novel’s plot. I deviate into a note about one of my favorite romances, Jean Webster’s Daddy Long-Legs, published in 1912. Daddy Long-Legs is an adorable tale of love and disguise, written entirely in letters. If you haven’t encountered it, do take a look. Like Rose in Bloom, Daddy Long-Legs is out of copyright, and available through Project Gutenberg at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40426/40426-h/40426-h.htm.

  One can’t be quite so vague with the fourth and last book in a series, since most of the moving pieces (i.e., character motivations) have been established. Readers howl if a previously shy heroine is suddenly dancing the waltz wearing a corset and nothing else!

  A big problem in this series had to do with the characters’ ages. I had to play around with birthdates as the series progressed. The truth is that Josie ought to be seventeen in Pleasure for Pleasure, based on being fifteen in Much Ado About You. I couldn’t countenance that, even though it would have been historically appropriate for a seventeen-year-old to debut. So Josie became eighteen, going on forty (i.e., far too wise for her age). Her husband traveled in the other direction; Mayne became a little younger from Much Ado to Pleasure for Pleasure. Think of him as a time-traveler. Or as a more appropriate husband to an eighteen-year-old.

  I thought it would be interesting to include the plot notes for the final book in the series, Pleasure for Pleasure, because you can see how much the three previous novels shape what I have to work with. This note was written when I was about halfway through Pleasure for Pleasure. I often like to pause in mid-writing and make sure I’m going in the right direction. I ask myself questions about the characters in order to make sure that I’m not changing them. By this point Josie
, in particular, had a very large fan club who knew her very well indeed. So I ask myself, “Is Josie the type to sacrifice herself?” The answer? “Not necessarily.” Those notes segue directly into a bit of dialogue. The scene made it to the book, although not in these words.

  Notes for Pleasure for Pleasure

  What do I have to work with?

  Josie is sarcastic and has a repertory of animal drugs she could use.

  Lucius Felton is in London and uses his money to make things work. He always makes things work.

  Annabel will have gone back to Scotland, and Imogen is on her honeymoon. That leaves Tess in London.

  Darlington wrote the Memoir and will be desperate because Griselda finds out.

  Griselda finds out and is outraged and horrified and in love.

  The book horrified Josie as well.

  Sylvie is leaving with her lover for France. Josie thinks Mayne is in love with Sylvie (since he said so). She thinks his heart is breaking because Sylvie is going to France. She thinks he kissed the handkerchief.

  Is Josie the type to sacrifice herself? Not necessarily. And would Sylvie want an “affair” with Mayne? I don’t think so.

  Could I give Sylvie feet of clay so that Josie decides all Mayne needs is a long voyage with her in order to fall out of love? NO: risking an unsympathetic gay portrayal.