Today's letter in the A-Z Challenge is "L". Our guest today is Libby McCord, discussing her passion for French-set historical romances. Ooo, la la, l'amour!
To which I say au contraire my friend. France provides the
quintessential setting for stirring passion and intrigue, even if your
historical understanding doesn’t go much beyond vague ideas of Versailles and
the guillotine. Diana Gabaldon understood this draw—in Dragonfly in Amber,
Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser end up at Versailles mid-18th
century, and no one quarrels with that setting or its reliance on challenging
political history.
Given Gabaldon’s success, why aren’t the Angélique novels better known
today? Well, even though Anne Golon (now
a widow) continues to write without husband Serge, many readers simply don’t
know about the books. The English translations are out of print, and the
stories can be rambling affairs, at times, overwritten by today’s conventions.
So where does one turn?
Fortunately, we have a bestselling romance author who loves complicated
historical France and believes it an ideal setting for love stories that
transcend impossible odds: Joanna Bourne.
In her Spymaster series, three of the four books are set partly in France (The
Spymaster’s Lady, The Forbidden Rose, and The Black Hawk). Reading
them, you are plucked from your safe, comfortable couch or coffee shop and
dropped squarely into a volatile France where politically star-crossed lovers
spy in the shadows as the old societies crumble around them.
When I first discovered Bourne’s books, I devoured each one, just as I
had the old Angélique novels. Her first heroine’s name is Annique. I wondered,
had Jo Bourne loved those stories, too?
So I asked her.
“I loved Angélique,”
she told me. “Back in the day, I read them all. A couple are still on my (very
small) keeper shelf. I admired the 'historical heft' to these books. The Angélique
world is constructed of fierce authenticity—large realities like the intrigues
at the palace of Versailles and the wars wrangling across the French
countryside. Small realities like the act of lifting a kettle of hot water from
the hook over the hearth to set it on the floor with a single, practiced twist
of the hand. The solidity is crafted in the detail. It's as if the reader could
reach into the book and lay hold of a wine bottle or an apple.”
Constructed of
fierce authenticity. Historical heft. I love that. What about
you?
By the way, Bourne
will have a new book out in November, Rogue Spy. It’s set in London, like her second My
Lord and Spymaster, but with plenty of French connections, and, I’m sure,
the requisite stirring passion and historical heft.
Let's chat: Do you need more than a soupçon of setting or modicum of manners for your love stories? Do you appreciate a heroine and hero who must navigate perilous political waters where failure means certain death? Do you relish a romance with historical heft?
Libby McCord lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, and has had a
long-standing love affair with all things French, barbershop singing, and
Labradors Retrievers. Her story The Spy on the Orléans Road (in progress), pits a Huguenot
heroine against the King’s spy in mid-17th century France. Whenever
she's not writing or singing, Libby practices law.
Aimee Leduc: quirky, intense private investigator featured in a crime series set in Paris, by author Cara Black. So descriptive, you can almost smell the baguettes and taste the vin rouge.
Elizabeth Loupas: historical fiction. She weaves fictional characters so skillfully with real people, it's hard to tell which is which. From Mary, Queen of Scots to the Medicis, I love her prose.
Paul Levine: His character of lawyer Jake Lassiter is a worthy successor to John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee, but a whole lot funnier.
Versaille Image courtesy of Vichaya Kiatying-Angsulee / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
