AccessRomance interviews author Lauren Willig.

AR: Where did the idea for your first book, THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE PINK CARNATION, come from, and what made you decide to write it?

Lauren: I grew up on tales of swashbuckling heroes, men with rapiers in their hands and witty repartee on their lips. My favorite book as a very small child, before I even learned to read, was an illustrated version of The Three Musketeers, complete with a very dashing D'Artagnan in a plumed hat. From there, it wasn't terribly much of a leap to the equally dashing Scarlet Pimpernel, who made up for his lack of plumes by his debonair way with a quizzing glass.

Home from college one summer, sighing over the Anthony Andrews version of The Scarlet Pimpernel for what had to be the hundreth time, it hit me that the Scarlet Pimpernel really had it a little too easy. All his plots went as planned, his cloak never tangled about his legs as he was swinging into a room, and his quips never fell flat. That, I decided, could not be allowed to continue. What if, I wondered, one were to take a cockily confident hero and proceed to roll barrels in his path? And what better obstacle to fling at him than a bright, impetuous heroine, determined to unmask him-- so that she can help him. It was every spy's worst nightmare. I ran for my little plot notebook and scribbled the idea down before it could get away.

Four years later…. After passing my General Exams at the end of my second year of grad school, I decided that I needed a treat. So I took the summer off, pulled out my old plot notebook, and sat down to write the tale of the Pink Carnation. After all, my dissertation was about Royalist spies during the English Civil Wars and my novel was about Royalist spies during the Napoleonic Wars, so working on the novel was almost the same thing as working on my dissertation…only with a lot more dialogue. And heaving bosoms. And knee breeches.

And that's how the Pink Carnation was born!

AR: Was this your first manuscript and your first attempt at getting published?

Lauren: I sent my first complete manuscript off to a publisher when I was nine years old. Having been scribbling stories since I was six, I was determined to get my book out there before I hit the dread double digits (and hence old age). Grandiloquently titled The Night the Clock Struck Death, the manuscript featured the exploits of twin girl detectives. After all, if one girl detective was good, two had to be even better! I bundled off my three hundred handwritten pages with visions of headlines proclaiming "Youngest Author Ever!" Unsurprisingly, Simon & Schuster sent it back. I was utterly crushed for at least a month, convinced that my writing career was Over Forever.

AR: Your second book which was finally released in paperback in October, THE MASQUE OF THE BLACK TULIP, is a sequel and features several characters from the first book. Had you planned on making this a series when you first started writing CARNATION?

Lauren: A week after I began writing Pink Carnation, it became clear that there was going to have to be a sequel. I had just written a scene in Chapter Two (yep, that early in the book), featuring the hero and his sidekick, Miles Dorrington. Over the course of this conversation, it transpired that Richard, the hero, had a precocious little sister named Henrietta of whom Miles was very fond-- in a brotherly way, of course. Or so he claimed. I rather suspected that Mr. Dorrington did protest too much. By the end of the book, it was quite clear that Miles and Henrietta were meant for each other-- and I'm happy to say that they proved me right in The Masque of the Black Tulip.

I did know from the beginning that there were going to be other sequels beyond Miles' book. At the time, the working title for the first novel was A Rogue of One's Own (it only switched to The Secret History of the Pink Carnation right before publication), so I mapped out a whole set of sequels for what I termed my Rogues' Gallery: The Rogue Next Door (Miles' book, naturally), A Rogue for All Seasons, The Rogue Less Traveled….

Too much coffee can be a very dangerous thing.

AR: The third installment, THE DECEPTION OF THE EMERALD RING, hit the shelves last month. What can you tell us about this book and how it's connected to the previous books in the series?

Lauren: The Deception of the Emerald Ring begins with an elopement gone awry. Mary Alsworthy, over-endowed with looks but under-endowed in the dowry department, has wheedled the love-struck Geoffrey, Viscount Pinchingdale into an elopement. Geoff is remarkably astute when it comes to any subject intellectual but thick as a plank when it comes to women; he cherishes a romanticized image of the rather shallow Mary. Getting wind of the elopement, Mary's managing younger sister Letty resolves to break it up before it brings disgrace down upon the whole family-- and winds up being carried away in her sister's place. Hopelessly compromised, Letty and Geoff are forced into a hasty marriage.

Meanwhile, rebellion is brewing in Ireland, egged on by the devious French spy, the Black Tulip. Abandoning Letty on their wedding night, Geoff speeds to Dublin to join forces with the Pink Carnation in rooting out the traitors and tracking down the Black Tulip. Having no idea of Geoff's involvement in the underworld of espionage, Letty thinks his departure is due to their marriage. Setting out after him to try to set matters straight, Letty finds herself yanked into a tangled web of intrigue and assumed identities.

Although it can be read as a stand-alone, Emerald Ring is very much interwoven with the first two books. The first mention of Geoff's infatuation with Mary Alsworthy is made in Pink Carnation, a theme that is developed in Black Tulip. A number of characters who played a large role in the earlier books make reappearances in Emerald Ring, from the snippy chaperone Miss Gwen to the cynical and sinister Lord Vaughn. There’s an additional layer of interconnection between Emerald Ring and its predecessor, Black Tulip. Ever since reading Jude Deveraux's paired books, Twin of Ice and Twin of Fire in Middle School, I've been fascinated by the idea of inter-book overlap. Unlike those books, Black Tulip and Emerald Ring aren't complete mirror images, but they do have a small mirror portion. In the very last chapter of Black Tulip, a distraught Geoff barges onto the scene. Henrietta and Miles, being rather wrapped up in themselves, don't press him when he refuses to tell them why (Geoff is not exactly in a chatty mood at that point), but it's because the botched elopement (the first four chapters of Emerald Ring) has been going on in the background while Henrietta and Miles have been immersed in their own dramas.

AR: How many more books do you plan on writing in this series?

Lauren: That's a tough question to answer, because the numbers keep changing! Originally, I had planned six books in the series. But I've already had to ratchet that up to seven, because a couple of side characters from Emerald Ring demanded their own story. Their story, The Seduction of the Silver Serpent, is now the fourth book in the Pink Carnation series, which means that what was going to be Book IV got bumped back to Book V, and so on. Given the tendency of my characters to run away with me, I have a feeling the series will just go on expanding until either my readers or my publisher get bored.

AR: What are you working on now? Tell us a bit about the stories readers have to look forward to from you in the future.

Lauren: Right now, I'm working on the fourth book in the Pink Carnation series, The Seduction of the Silver Serpent. Originally, Pink IV was meant to be about Henrietta's best friend, Charlotte. Of all my characters, Charlotte is the most like me-- or, at least, the most like I was at a comparable age-- and I was very much looking forward to writing her book. But Fate intervened. Two characters from Emerald Ring forcibly hijacked Book IV. They kept me awake at night, chattering in my head, until I finally had to give in and write their story first.

One of these two characters is Mary, Letty's jilted older sister. Although originally I had intended Mary merely as a foil for Letty, Prom Queen to Letty's Ugly Duckling, the relationship between the sisters took on a life of its own in a way I had never anticipated. I found myself unexpectedly curious about Mary. I wanted to know what made her tick, how she must feel at being passed over for her younger, plainer sister, and what she was going to do once her plans for an advantageous marriage fell through. As for Mary's partner in crime, readers of the earlier Pink books will no doubt have figured out that the Silver Serpent in the title refers to none other than Lord Vaughn, jaded cynic about town and possible French spy.

After Silver Serpent, the plan is to move on to Charlotte's story… assuming that I don't get hijacked by more side characters!

AR: You have an extensive (and impressive!) academic background, including a Bachelor's from Yale, a Master's in history from Harvard, and you recently graduated with honors from Harvard Law. You're also working on a Ph.D. in history, and these days you're working full time at a New York law firm. How do you find the time for school, work, and writing as well? What's your secret?

Lauren: It all comes down to, in a word, procrastination. I'm a champion procrastinator. The minute I'm supposed to be performing one task, another becomes infinitely more desirable-- like doing laundry or scrubbing out that microwave container that's been sitting in the fridge for three weeks, gathering strange new forms of mold. I began Pink Carnation in grad school, as an alternative to working on my dissertation (after all, as Blackadder might say, they were both large papery things), and then happily proceeded to use Black Tulip as an escape from law school homework and last minute revisions on Emerald Ring as a preferable proxy to studying for the New York Bar Exam. I am finding it a bit harder to balance a full time office job with my writing commitments, but it's amazing how many new plot ideas come to the fore when one is supposed to be researching abstruse questions of law. It's a surefire cure for writers' block.

AR: Which authors and books inspire you?

Lauren: So many! Whenever I find myself stuck for words, I go back and re-read one of Elizabeth Peters' delightfully witty mysteries or Julia Quinn's sprightly Regencies. Judith McNaught's Almost Heaven, Double Standards, and Paradise always remind me of the visceral power of romance (no matter how many times I re-read Paradise, it still makes me cry). Diana Gabaldon's Outlander and Judith Merkle Riley's historical novels never fail to amuse and delight me. I admire the biting wit of Nancy Mitford, the wry humor of modern British chick lit (my favorites include Clare Naylor's Love: A User's Guide and Kate Saunder's The Marrying Game), and the historical tapestries woven by Karleen Koen and M.M. Kaye. And I'll never be too old for L.M. Montgomery's books, from the Anne series to The Blue Castle.

AR: Assuming you have any spare time, what do you like to do to relax and have fun?

Lauren: As you may have guessed, I'm a hopeless bibliophile. Some people need coffee to get going in the morning; I need an hour with a novel. My morning routine consists of strong tea and whatever I'm reading at the moment. Although novels are my preferred means of escapism, I also have a deep addiction to BBC costume dramas, the longer the better. In grad school, a few friends and I used to have regular Pride and Prejudice days. We'd bake scones, brew tea, and spend a whole Saturday watching Elizabeth and Darcy, interspersed with frequent pauses for gossip and more tea brewing.

My other favorite pastime is the cocktail party. I've never quite grown out of my childish love of playing dress-up (although now it's a little black dress instead of a bright pink tutu), so there's nothing quite so fun as getting to don a new dress and plunge into an evening of gossip and people-watching, analyzing all the dramas going on around me (and sometimes participating in a few myself) and storing up little snippets of dialogue for use in future novels.

And now for some questions posed by our readers of the AR All-A-Blog.

AR Reader: Who is your biggest supporter?

Lauren: I've been very fortunate in having a whole network of supporters, from my parents to a college roommate who spent hours in an internet café in Peru critiquing chapters of my latest book for me to a best friend whom I've known since I was five and has never ever been less than a kindred spirit. But if I had to pick just one, the palm would go to my little sister. A fellow romance novel addict, Brooke has cheered on the Pink books ever since I showed the very first rough draft of Pink Carnation to her four years ago. No matter how overwhelmed she is with her own life, she always finds time to spend hours talking through troublesome characters and unexpected plot twists, or, when that fails, to watch old Barbara Cartland movies and uncounted episodes of Blackadder with me until inspiration hits again.

The fact that Brooke just bought me a gratuitous grande gingerbread latte has nothing to do with my choosing her. Not at all.

AR Reader: What is your work day like?

Lauren: Right now I'm an associate at a law firm, so my workday has a lot to do with Westlaw and the office coffee machine. But on those days when I'm at home and writing, I generally brew a very strong pot of tea with firm resolutions about staying at my computer until every drop is drunk. Then I check my email. And I check it again, just in case I might have missed something important, like an advertisement for a sale at Linens 'n Things. At which point I realize that the tea has gone cold. We all know there's nothing so unpleasant as tepid tea, so there's nothing to do but brew another pot-- and I certainly can't be expected to write while waiting for the water to boil. After all, the whistle of the kettle would break my train of thought, optimistically assuming that I had a train of thought to break. As I wait for the water to boil, I notice that my desk looks a bit messy. Surely those cubbyholes ought to be explored lest I might have lost an important plot note in there? Two hours later…. You get the idea. I'm constantly amazed that I get any writing done at all.

AR Reader: If your life had a theme song, what would it be and why?

Lauren: The song “Pefect Day” from the Legally Blonde soundtrack—it’s bouncy and optimistic, and that soundtrack formed the backdrop to three years of wearing bright pink to my Harvard Law School classes.

AR Reader: If one of your books could be made into a movie, which book would you want it to be and who would you want to play the hero and heroine?

Lauren: Perhaps it's always the most recently written book that's the most vivid in one's mind, but if I could pick any of my books to be made into a movie, it would be The Deception of the Emerald Ring. Of all the Pink books, it's the most suited to cinema, since it involves lots of clandestine skullduggery, characters prancing around in disguise, a high speed chase (in a farm cart), and a climactic explosion-- and, yes, that is real explosives we're talking about, not just a metaphor for the love scenes. My little sister (see! she really does live up to all that praise!) came back from seeing Tristan and Isolde and breathlessly announced that the hero and heroine in that were Geoff and Letty. Not having seen it myself, I can't vouch for that, but since Brooke read umpteen drafts of Emerald Ring, I'm tempted to take her word on it.

AR: Thank you so much for answering our questions!

Lauren: Thanks so much for having me here! Happy holidays to all!

You can visit Lauren website at www.laurenwillig.com

Interviews Index > Lauren Willig (December 06)