Interview: "Putting History in Historical Fiction" with Carol Coventry

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A very special post this week, and something completely different than my normal TTRPG fare. So, in advance, this might not be my normal readers' particular cup of tea.

My real-life mom just had a novel published! The book is Counting on Love, a Regency romance published by Dragonblade Publishing. The book came out on Saturday, and so this week, I thought I'd share with you some of her insights on writing. I structured it as an interview, which was admittedly a little weird and formal given that it's my mom. I also had her talk about some of the themes of the blog: about integrating history into storytelling, though with a focus on novels rather than TTRPGs.

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Book 2, Holding Onto Love, is now also out! Pick it up on Bookshop.org using my link to support the blog and independent bookstores!

So bear with me, even if you aren't interested in romance as a genre. You get to hear someone talking about these ideas other than me, and maybe get some other books you might be interested in. For anyone who is interest in romance, I can absolutely attest that Counting on Love is a really great romance that is also deeply rooted in history. I normally don't read romance, and this one really grabbed me. Highly recommended! You can pick up the book from your favorite independent bookstore through Bookshop.org (support independent bookstores!) or on Amazon if you'd prefer the kindle edition (the kindle edition is only $0.99!).

Side note: she is using her middle name, Carol Coventry, for the book and all the associated media with it, so that's how I'll be referring to her in this interview. She also writes historical fiction under her real name, Susan Coventry.

Without further ado, an interview with my mom, "Carol" Coventry:

Interview

Let’s start with a little bit about your background. How did you get started with writing? What inspired you originally?

I’ve always been an obsessive reader, and I think that many people who read all the time eventually start spinning their own stories in their heads. I dabbled with writing  a bit as a kid. But then life got serious (college pre-med, medical school, residency). I barely had time to read for pleasure, and none to play around with writing.  I decided to try again in my fellowship years when things calmed down a little. Two things inspired me. One, I realized that outside of work, I was a tremendously dull person. I had nothing to talk about with anyone except other pathologists. I needed a creative outlet. The second thing was a weird dream set in a medieval cottage. It formed the kernel of a historical novel that I spent the next several years working on. That book is in a drawer now, but struggling with it taught me how to write. I pulled two of the characters from that book (two true historical figures) for my first published work, The Queen’s Daughter, a novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine’s youngest daughter.

Can you tell us briefly what this book is about?

The odds at White’s are running 16:1 that the elusive Lady Georgiana Stewart and the Earl of Iversley’s charming heir (Lord Jasper Taverston) will be betrothed within the month. But while he determinedly courts her, Georgiana, a bored-with-society math prodigy, becomes intrigued by the Earl’s third son, the Honorable Reginald Taverston, a brilliant man whose mysterious “work” involves sorting out his family’s crooked account books. The tight fraternal bonds of the lords of Iversley are strained when Georgiana not only uncovers a devastating family secret, but also falls in love with the wrong brother. 

Counting on Love is a slow-burn romance. Reginald needs to get to know a woman before sexual attraction blooms. Georgiana is put off by Jasper’s physical perfection and effortless charm. It’s Reg’s intelligence that turns her on. I wanted to write a romance where the readers can fall in love with the protagonists first, and then watch them fall for each other.

Counting on Love is your first foray into writing romance. What prompted you to make the jump? Why regency romance, specifically?

I used to be biased against romance for all the same reasons many people are biased against it, until I started reviewing for The Historical Novels Review (yikes! about two decades ago) and dipped my toe in the water. Then I discovered how relaxing it is to read books about love’s obstacles when you know it’s all going to work out. It’s pure escapism. 

Still, most of the time I prefer historically accurate historical fiction. More realism. More ambiguity. And this is where most of my writing has been focused. (I write general historical fiction as Susan Coventry. My Romance alter-ego is Carol Coventry.) So, why the jump?

Again, reading is why. I read a lot of romance, and that got ideas floating in my head. While waiting for the painfully slow wheels of the publishing world to turn for my “serious” books, I thought why not try writing a romance? Just to see if I can? I thought it would be fun. The jury is still out on that. Counting on Love isn’t actually my first foray. I have a half-finished, messy attempt buried in a file called “practice” on my computer.

Why Regency? Partly because this is the time of Jane Austen. It’s the setting of the romance novels of Georgette Heyer. It’s a very rich world for love stories. The manners, the clothes, the courtship rituals. But there is also a gritty depth to the time period. The Napoleonic Wars. British politics. The frankly abysmal status of women, even (or maybe especially) amongst the aristocracy. Romance fans, in general, aren’t reading for the grit. But slipping in some historical context can make for a more layered story.  

For any readers who might be interested in writing, can you talk a little about how you found Dragonblade? What was the process of getting published like?

I review books on a blog. I get some of my books from Netgalley, and found Dragonblade offering e-galleys of historical romances. I really enjoyed the ones I reviewed. I had been doing the usual process of querying agents with Counting on Love. Querying, by the way, is dreadful. I had a few nibbles but no bites, so I looked up the Dragonblade website to see if they took unagented submissions. They did – but they were also running a contest: the Write Track contest. I entered Counting on Love. I can remember how excited I was to be one of the semi-finalists, but imagined that would be it. Then, I won the Grand Prize. That came with the opportunity to publish a novella in their anthology, Tales of Timeless Romance. My contribution was a retelling of the Arthurian tale Erec and Enide for any of you who might be fans of Arthuriana. I was also able to pitch Dragonblade a 4-book series, with Counting on Love as book 1. And they said yes! 

I know that you do a tremendous amount of research about the real history for your romance books. Can you talk a little bit about your research process? How do you pick what to read?

A good deal of the preliminary research was simply reading other romances. That’s not so much for the historical detail, but to learn the genre, the various tropes, etc.  For the historical research, it’s true I go broad and dig deep. Largely this is because I get fascinated by the history and enjoy going down rabbit holes, but also, I don’t want to use the historical period as mere window dressing. So my research process is to read more than I need to. That means a lot of social history-type books. (What they ate. What they wore. Where they played. Etc.) But I also plowed through biographies of Wellington, Napoleon, and even Liverpool, the prime minister. I read political history and military history. I read about war-time medicine and surgery, and what happened to soldiers after the war. I even read a history of the Hudson’s Bay Company, because one of my characters had gone off to Canada to make his fortune.

I pick what to read based on what plot points I want to develop or what character backstory I want to develop. 

What value do you think your history research brings to your romance books?

I hope that by keeping the framework of the story more grounded in actual history, the romances will be more nuanced. While the courtships are the heart of each book, there is a lot more going on in the world than two people falling in love. And I think (I hope) that makes the books more interesting.

How do you strike the balance of sharing interesting pieces of history without just turning the story into a history essay? Can you talk a little about your writing process?

It’s tough. It’s especially hard in my non-romance novels where the history is brought more to the forefront and feels more integral to the story. Thank God for beta readers who help me see where I’ve gone overboard. 

In the romances, I have to remind myself that things I find fascinating are not necessarily interesting to my readers. If it doesn’t help drive the plot or explain characters’ actions, I edit it out.

Lucas, you’re the one who introduced me to the incredibly helpful concept of a "lore packet". I file most of this “extra” information away in my lore packet, because it’s background I need to know in order to shape the story. But it’s better that I don’t hit my readers over the head with it. The historicity of the books becomes more pronounced as the series progresses. The final book centers on the middle brother, Crispin, who takes part in the Peninsular Wars and Waterloo. Waterloo could be an entire book by itself, so that was a particularly tricky one to pare down. I gave myself a word count maximum and made myself stay under it.

How do you resolve issues of when history gets in the way of the story you want to tell?

I try to side with history when I can, and adapt the story. Sometimes historians give different accounts or interpretations of events, and then I can pick what works best for me. If all else fails, there’s always the author’s note, where I can explain why I chose to fudge a timeline or ignore a particular facet of the historical record.

What’s your favorite thing you learned about the Regency Era that you didn’t get to integrate into the book?

So this is an odd thing, hard to call a “favorite” but it’s just a historical tidbit I found fascinating. William Wilberforce, the British evangelical politician who was a leader in the anti-slave trade movement and helped eventually abolish it, suffered from colitis and was a longtime opioid user.

What do you think of Bridgerton?

I have mixed feelings. First, I watch maybe 20 hours of television a year, so I am no one’s target audience. I watched Bridgerton because I write regency romance and wanted to be “current,” if that makes sense. From that perspective, I thought it was worthwhile investing the time. Bridgerton plays with all the typical regency romance tropes, so there were never any surprises, but that’s par for the course. I thought it was interesting the way they used anachronisms creatively. But overall, it was a bit of a slog. I don’t know whether that was because of the story, or because I get antsy and impatient watching any T.V.

Other than your own book, are there any works of historical fiction or historical romance that you think are particularly well-researched that you would recommend?

There are so many! I particularly loved Colleen McCullough’s series about Ancient Rome. They are very dense, but I learned so much from reading them.  S.G. MacLean’s The Seeker series are political thrillers set during Cromwell’s time. I don’t know how realistic they are plot-wise, but I think they are well grounded in the historical setting. Abraham Verghese’s novels, Cutting for Stone and The Covenant of Water took me to Ethiopia and India, very different settings from my usual U.S. and European interests. These are all general historical fiction, not romance. 

You can see what else I’ve read and recommended by checking out my blog!

Where can we find you and Counting on Love?

You can find Counting on Love at your local indie bookstore, through Bookshop.org (which supports local bookstores), or on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

You can find me at www.susancoventry.com, on my blog at susancoventry.blogspot.com, and on instagram @susancoventrymd.

You can also follow Carol Coventry on Amazon, Goodreads, and bookbub!

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Book 2, Holding Onto Love, is now also out! Pick it up on Bookshop.org using my link to support the blog and independent bookstores!