Beyond Ballrooms: Under-Appreciated Historical Romance Books with Alice Murphy

Short Description

Alice Murphy, a historical romance author, joins to recommend and discuss under-appreciated non-Regency historical romance. The discussion touches on Alice's upcoming book, "A Showgirl's Rules for Falling in Love," and a rich variety of historical romance novels set in diverse time periods and locations. We travel through Ancient Egypt, medieval Wales, 19th century Japan, the Gilded Age, the Civil Rights Movement in the US in the 1960s, and more. This episode is jam-packed with book recommendations!

Show Notes

Guest: Alice Murphy

Website | Instagram | A Showgirl’s Rules for Falling in Love

Not recommended: Redeeming Love

Recommended:

Ancient to Medieval Era

Mara, Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvis McGraw
Defiant Love by Maura Seger
A Husband for Esyllt by Virginie Marconato

1500s

His Bride by Gayle Callen

1700s

Fierce Eden by Jennifer Blake

1800s

Flame on the Sun by Maura Seger
A Viscount for the Egyptian Princess by Heba Helmy

The Wild West and Beyond

Hitched to the Gunslinger by Michelle McLean and Untamed by Lisa Rayne

Turn of the Century

A Striking Romance by Lindsey Brooks
As You Desire and The Other Guys’ Bride by Connie Brockway

Early to Post-War 20th Century

A Manhattan Heiress in Paris by Amanda McCabe
The Companion by E.E. Ottoman
Phoenix Pictures series by Brianne Gillen

Midcentury

Let It Shine by Alyssa Cole
A Midnight Feast by Genevieve Turner and Emma Barry
Mrs. Milner Gets a Kitchen by Jane Hadley

Transcript

Andrea Martucci: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to Shelf Love, a podcast about romance novels and how they reflect, explore, challenge, and shape desire. I'm your host, Andrea Martucci, and on this episode, I am joined by Alice Murphy, historical romance author, to talk about under-appreciated, non regency historical romance. Alice, thank you so much for being here.

Can you share a bit more about yourself?

Alice Murphy: Thank you so much for having me and hello to all my fellow Shelf Love listeners. I've been a listener for way longer than I've obviously been on this podcast, so it's great to be here. I am a historical romance author. My book coming in May is called A Showgirl's Rules for Falling in Love, and it is a Gilded Age turn of the century romance set in the 1890s. If you love Joanna Shupe or Harper St. George, then that's the time period we're talking about. And today I wanted to talk about that exciting other world of romances in historical settings that aren't Regency. We love Regency. We love Bridgerton. We love Jane Austen.

But there's a whole other world out there that I was excited to chat about and explore.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah the surprising thing about history is there's a lot of it.

Alice Murphy: you would think sometimes that it's just Regency ballrooms in England, but we have so many other places we can go visit.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah. There's always more things that we're learning about the past, like the more distant past. And then also, in the 1970s, the 1960s would not have been historical, but now?

It is.

Alice Murphy: Yeah.

Andrea Martucci: So this actually wasn't the first topic that we were going to discuss. Actually, let me tell the story. I was at aLovestruck Books event. Lovestruck is the romance only bookstore in Cambridge, Massachusetts,

Alice Murphy: which we love Lovestruck, they're great

Andrea Martucci: we love Lovestruck I was at the friends and family slash people in the romance space event around their official launch.

And I actuallymet your agent.

Alice Murphy:

The wonderful Maggie Cooper

Andrea Martucci: the wonderful Maggie Cooper and we were chatting, having a great time. And she was like, Oh, I actually have an author that I'm working with Alice Murphy. She followed up and here we are today. This is the power of in person networking and romance communities right here.

Alice Murphy: Absolutely, you gotta get your book club girlies, you gotta get your bookstore girlies, everybody's gotta come together and have those in person connections, it's great.

Andrea Martucci: when she reached out, you actually had. a few ideas one of them was about this book called Redeeming Love that I had heard a lot about I was like, oh that would be a really interesting topic and in your initial pitch you were like Andrea's gonna hate this

Alice Murphy: I sent it to my agent with, all of my commentary, not thinking she was going to send you just verbatim what I said, so I was like, Andrea's going to hate this, maybe we shouldn't even send it, and then she just sent it over, and I'm like, alright, so this is friendship by fire for Andrea, and now she has to hear all of my sad ramblings about this book.

Andrea Martucci: I loved it and okay like I was like I probably will hate this but, what was the pitch essentially for why we should talk about Redeeming Love?

Alice Murphy: Okay, so for those who don't [00:03:00] know Redeeming Love is like the number one selling Christian romance novel of all time. it was published in 1993. It is still being batted around Christian bookstores. If you go into a Barnes and Noble today, they probably have four or five copies. There was just a movie that came out two years ago.

It's huge. it's hard to overstate how huge Redeeming Love is in the Christian romance world. I read it as a little baby romance reader when I was at a Christian school, and they told me I could not bring my copy of Twilight anymore. But I could read Redeeming Love, which, bonkers, when you learn about what Redeeming Love is about.

But the copy that I got was the original version that had a lot of sex scenes between the main couple, it's a fictionalized version of the story of Hosea and Gomer in the Bible, which is upstanding good man is called by God to marry a sex worker.

It is full of child abuse, and assaults, and the hero keeps telling the heroine I'm gonna keep kidnapping you back to my house in the remote mountains, because God tells me we should be married. And she's like, oh, I don't think so. That sounds like a crazy thing that a crazy person would do.

But somehow, the book is like, no, she's the crazy one, and then eventually they fall in love and they have a magic baby. It's crazy. Bonkers. But the reason I wanted to talk about it was, we are coming to a point in kind of our current dystopia where, we are facing book bans, we're facing conversations about what kind of romance is quote unquote acceptable.

I was reassessing Redeeming Love in light of all that and I was like what is keeping anybody from banning the number one Christian romance in the world? There is nothing in this book that is not in any other romance novel across the board. So what makes it acceptable? What are people learning from this book?

And why is it allowed if other things aren't? And I was fascinated by that dichotomy and the idea of like Christian pornography. Well, have all of these things as long as we say that they're bad. I only came to that website to see how to get away from it, man,

Andrea Martucci: yeah

Alice Murphy: a fascinating look into a subculture that is now no longer a subculture, it's the monoculture, at least politically. So yeah, I was going to make you suffer through that, and I told you several times, I was like, you can tap out, anytime you want to out, feel to tap out,

and then ultimately you tagged me on Instagram, and you were like, I'm about to start, and I was like, oh no

Andrea Martucci: And like, 20 minutes later, I was like, Oh no I've made a terrible mistake. And the thing is, I knew what I was getting into, it wasn't a surprise. You warned me.

Alice Murphy: And it is so bad that even with all of that mental prep and warning, you still are like, Oh, I have found a new capacity to be surprised.

Andrea Martucci: so part of it too was that I realized after reading the front matter that the version [00:06:00] I have is the version that was edited after 1997 they redeemed the text to make it more Christian and removed all of the quote unquote graphic sex. I did skim ahead and I'm like I think that the quote unquote sex scenes now, it's like, there's nothing legible on page that as like a sex scene.

It's very euphemistic. So like It undercut the original point of the discussion, too, by reading the edited version, because they made it completely toothless. Also after reading the prologue where the eight year old main character became a child sex slave.

I was like oh my god. this is just torture porn and what makes it acceptable is that even though the heroine the female main character is a complete victim in all of these circumstances, she's the one who has to accept God in order to be forgiven for being a victim?

Alice Murphy: Exactly. When I started writing romance professionally, I was re evaluating all of the things that made me want to be a romance author. I read this book as a 13 year old until it fell apart. I read it so much. And so when I became an adult and was like, I'm gonna be a writer, I went back and re read it, and I was like, Oh! Oh, no!

This is awful! What did this do to my brain as a 13 year old? the biggest question I was asking was What does she need to be redeemed for? What did she do? She made no conscious decision in this entire book. Everything was done to her and made her a victim. It's such a traumatic narrative for young Christian women to read.

If anything bad happens to you, you need a man to come in and bring you Jesus, so then you can be, good again, It was, unreal.

Andrea Martucci: So she's like the most beautiful sex worker in California. She's unattainable. She literally can't service as many men who would like to purchase her services through her abusive pimp. He sees her walking beautifully down the street and God tells him her

And I'm like, oh yeah, that's convenient.

Alice Murphy: Right.

Andrea Martucci: Oh yeah God's telling you that you need to go save the most beautiful

Alice Murphy: Sought after,

Andrea Martucci: The most beautiful woman around,

Alice Murphy: And one of only six women around,

Andrea Martucci: Oh, okay sure. Anyways I got about five chapters in and I had a headache already and I was like, I'm gonna let this be easy for once in my life and I'm gonna take Alice up on her offer to not do this and Alice you were like, I'm so sorry and I was like no, this is it's like a badge of honor that I tried it.

Alice Murphy: Maybe you should have just been 13 and at a horribly abusive fundamentalist Christian school, and then you would have just loved it. But now you're an adult with a full working frontal lobe, and you understand that this is terrible.

Andrea Martucci: I know. Yeah. No, look I have my own, Linda Howard uh weird [00:09:00] books that had a grip on me that looking back. I'm like, oh no, that wasn't a great way to learn about intimacy and human relationships, but also speaking of book banning. Let kids read weird shit,

the best way for kids to read weird shit, in my opinion, is when they have adults who are not shaming them for reading weird shit, and who are able and willing to engage those children in conversations to help them understand how to contextualize the weird shit in the world they live in

Alice Murphy: My dad's rules growing up, we didn't really do toys. if you want a toy, you can ask, but the answer may be yes or no. The answer books was always yes. If I came and said, I want to buy this book, Yes, no questions asked. We'll buy it. And their idea about content was if you read it in a book, it's literature. Who cares? And if you have questions, come and ask, right? At least she's reading, right?

I always think about that scene from A League of Their Own, where they're teaching one of the characters to read. And she's like, what are you giving her to read? Who cares? She's reading.

But it's smutty pulp romance. That, that was basically my parents' philosophy and now I'm a professional writer. So anyone who says that was a bad parenting strategy doesn't understand

Andrea Martucci: Exactly, exactly. Okay. So what we're going to talk about today is underappreciated non regency historical romance recs. When I was going through every single book I've read in the last five years to make my list, what I had to keep reminding myself about was underappreciated.

Today, you will not hear me talk about Beverly Jenkins, I'm glad that Beverly Jenkins is appreciated and talked about, as a non regency historical romance writer. doing things that are very different from the vast majority of historical romance that has been published,

Especially within the context of Avon and their stable of historical authors, at least up until fairly recently, And there's a few things on here where I'm like, I don't know if they're underappreciated ever so much as underappreciated now.

When you were thinking about your list, what did you have in your head to stay grounded?

Alice Murphy: I had a similar thing where for example, there are romance authors that everyone knows and can appreciate and are celebrated, like your Beverly's Jenkins. But Alice Coldbreath, to me, is your favorite romance author's favorite romance author. So do I include Alice Coldbreath?

Because I know all of my romance obsessed friends know Alice Coldbreath, but does everyone know Alice Coldbreath? I kept having those conversations with myself and the answer is, I just put it all on a list and figured you would tell me to shut up when we didn't have any more time.

Andrea Martucci: Ok perfect. I had a similar... because I was like, I feel like this comes up on Reddit all the time, so can you say it's under - but not everybody's on Reddit

So we agreed before we started that we're going to start with the far distant past first, and we're going to make our way through [00:12:00] time. So Alice, what is the book on your list that takes place in the farthest ago time.

Alice Murphy: The farthest to go time, I think, is actually Wed by Proxy, which is Alice Coldbreath. But if we want to table the Alice Coldbreath discussion for a moment, then the oldest is actually a book I picked up at a local bookstore called Blue Cypress Books in New Orleans called A Husband for Esyllt by Virginie Marconato, I believe is how you pronounce it.

She's a French writer who now, lives in Wales. it is a Welsh medieval, I think that takes place in like 1360 and it is about a Princess, whose husband is killed in a war, and then the king is like, you gotta go marry this other dude, sorry, I don't care about you, I need to use you as a political pawn,

she gets there and he's the best man she's ever met, and she's like, I don't love you, I can't love you, I could never love you, and then, I don't know if you've ever read a romance novel before, Andrea, but, it is,It's a fantastic ride for them

falling in love,

uh,

Andrea Martucci: Oh they fall in love.

Oh so they do end up falling in love?

Alice Murphy: And he ends being like, a great stepdad to her adorable child, and it's set against the backdrop of a war, so obviously there's betrayals and kidnappings and all those fun things. And also, I think it's only 180 pages. So much gets packed in there.

the prose is really beautiful and we love a political marriage. I don't know why I find forced marriage to be a really fun trope, and you find it a lot more in older, historicals, I guess it's more. politically expedient, especially in these times

There's something about I didn't choose you, and yet the universe somehow knew that I needed you, and also we're gonna work together to make it work? There's something beautiful about stories like that.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah. I think it's like the fantasy that even if you have no choice, it ends up working out

Alice Murphy: The worst thing that could ever happen to you works out fine. a very comforting fantasy,

Andrea Martucci: Who doesn't, want the fantasy of the thing that seemed bad at first actually was good. That's great.

Alice Murphy: My anxiety that's all it wants to hear all the time.

Andrea Martucci: And now is that like a category historical or

Alice Murphy: No, it's self published.

One of the things I noticed when drawing up this list was how many are Harlequin Historicals. I was surprised by how diversified the time periods that Harlequin Historical does now because I think a couple of years ago, I just had an idea it's like everything else, it's all Regency but when looking at this list, I was like, oh, a not insubstantial number of these are more recent Harlequin Historicals.

They've been branching out and doing some fun things.

Andrea Martucci: The original line that became Harlequin Historical, started in the late 1970s and it was called Masquerade, and like many Harlequin, it had a Mills and Boon version, and when it first came out though, it wasn't called Harlequin, it was like Worldwide Publishing, but it was owned by Harlequin and I have some of [00:15:00] them, and they're all over the place in terms of time period, And not just England, too, right? Like, all sorts of different countries. And I think that's what I've noticed with collecting romance, if you go back to the, 70s and 80s, historical in general was much more diverse in terms of time periods in category lines, in single title romances.

I've written about my theory about this in a post and a podcast called Colonizing Romance. So you want more of my thoughts on it, I won't go into it again, but my thoughts on that are there. I have one from, the medieval ish period as well.

Andrea Martucci: This one's called Defiant Love by Maura Seger. It takes place in 1064 ish the country in the future known as England and it's the whole Norman invasion thing. It was another sort of arranged marriage, forced marriage type thing.

She runs away, he catches her, saves her, blah, blah, blah. But the history, it's like they're actually incorporating real historical figures. Have you ever seen the show Vikings? it was interesting because as I was reading the book, I was like, Oh my God, I feel like this is intersecting with the characters that at some point show up in that Viking series. I was looking it up and realizing that the main characters are like fictional relatives of these real people who are characters in the book.

This came out, I believe in the 1980s. Maura Seger is one of those earlier historical romance authors who used to be really big and kept publishing for a while, but I don't think we talk about her today as much. I've started digging into her list and I'm like, oh there's some really interesting stuff going on here you know playing with history. Lots of different time periods. She actually has a book that is an alternate history if we didn't win the Revolutionary War

Alice Murphy: cool,

Andrea Martucci: I did not actually enjoy the book

Alice Murphy: But

Andrea Martucci: I was like, oh, that's really interesting. So anywaysthat was my medieval ish one, but I actually have an older one, and it's YA. Have you ever read Mara, Daughter of the Nile?

Alice Murphy: It sounds familiar, but I can't recall anything.

Andrea Martucci: it's by Eloise Jarvis McGraw. it's like a middle grade or YA book. the romance, is extremely understated, but it takes place in 1458 ish BC in Egypt. Around the era of Queen Hatshepsut

Alice Murphy: Hatshepsut

Andrea Martucci: Yes. Great. I'm glad you know how to say it. and it's an Egyptian slave girl who becomes a double spy and starts working with this guy who's in the rebellion. they have a very forbidden romance and it has a really tender, romantic payoff.

But because of it being middle grade or young adult, it's jam packed with real history and just when else do I get to go to this time period and not just have it be a litany of and this king lived from this time period.

And there's political intrigue, but it's about the people [00:18:00] in the time. And I like that even though, I believe Eloise Jarvis McGraw is a white woman. all of the characters in the book are Egyptian. I think that something we'll talk about probably as time goes on is even when books take place in non predominantly white areas, a lot of times in, North American published romance, the main characters are still white.

Alice Murphy: Yes like, I have one of those that comes up when we reach more modern ish turn of the century. Where I was like, oh, I wonder why, I know probably why the choice was made to make at least one of them white. But I love that this book is not like that. That's fascinating. I want to read this. It sounds amazing.

Andrea Martucci: it's really good. I need to go find another print copy. Cause at some point I must've given mine away, which was foolish of me. We've done medieval. If we start going through time, what's the next one you've got?

Alice Murphy: I think my next one is in the 1500s.

When I was trying to make this list, what I ended up doing was writing down like my favorite historical romance movies and being, okay, what do I have in my coterie of favorite books that sort of match that? And there was one called Dangerous Beauty, which if you have not seen, highly recommend, one of my favorite historical romance movies of all time.

It's about a woman who's in love with a young aristocrat in Italy in the 1500s. And she can't marry him because she's from, an obscure family. And so her mom's like, you know what you should do? You should become a courtesan. And she's like, that sounds great. So she goes to Venice and becomes a courtesan, and uses the power that she accumulates to find and fall in love with again and be with the man that she has always wanted since she was young. And it's a story of a woman doing everything she can at her disposal to get her own happily ever after.

I love it a lot. And so one of the books that came to mind was a book called His Bride by Gayle Callen.

Have you read that?

Andrea Martucci: No.

Alice Murphy: It's from 2001, 2002, like it's fairly old. In terms of 21st century romance, but it is about a very grumpy old man who gets handed this woman, he's like, okay we'll get married, but I'm not going to consummate the

marriage, because in a year, after I have all her money, I can annul, and I cansend her back basically, I'm going to return her

Andrea Martucci: Return to sender

Alice Murphy: they have a one year return policy. They're like Costco, they're very generous. just But she gets there and she's like, I like this grumpy old man, and I'm gonna just be so relentlessly happy and wonderful to not only him, but to everyone around him, and make everyone's lives better that he has no choice but to fall in love with me.

she takes being sold off as an opportunity to build her own life, and make people love her, which is like a really weirdly tender story for basically being sold to a man. And it's great. for 2002, it's not as creaky as I was expecting. I went back and did a re skim, because I'm always nervous when I recommend things.

I'm like you read that four years ago. You did not want a Redeeming Love [00:21:00] situation. Be careful, Alice. And I think His Bride, holds up.

So that's my 1500s.

Andrea Martucci: the context in which that was published? Was it Trad Published?

I think it was Trad publishedI don't know why this always feels relevant to me. like knowing something is independently published versus traditionally published single title versus category. helps me understand, what vibe to expect sometimes.

Alice Murphy: It was an Avon romance.

Andrea Martucci: okay.

Alice Murphy: Yeah.

Andrea Martucci: Oh, awesome. That one sounds really interesting. Now you kept calling him an old man. is it an age gap? Is he like seventy?

Alice Murphy: no, sorry. I call everyone in romance over 35 an old man, When you get a hero who's over 35, they all just kind of default to I want to fuck that old man.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah.

Alice Murphy: I read reread by Felicity Niven the other day. And I sent her a tweet that just said, That old man, I want to fuck him.

It was like, this book, this is it.

But yeah, so in terms of is he an old man? It's an age gap, but he's not actually in his 70s. Regrettably, although we should have of that.

More old man fucking.

Andrea Martucci: Speaking of old man fucking, What I did for a Duke, which does not count as underappreciated, it's very appreciated, and I think it is Regency. I think the hero in that is maybe 40, maybe 42, and the heroine, she's like maybe 20, or, she's not 18, but I think she's young. What I found very interesting about that book is He's like a strong virile man, but there's physical consequences of fucking her on the ground. Which I think is hilarious. But it is just interesting how age feels very relative sometimes.

Alice Murphy: Oh yes.

Andrea Martucci: yeah. so that was 1500s? Do you have anything else before the 1700s?

Alice Murphy: I'm still hunting for, or maybe I will have to write, a Revolutionary War romance. Because they quarter British soldiers in

Andrea Martucci: Yes!

Alice Murphy: houses. He is forced to stay in her house, and she is forced to deal with him. That's a romance novel. I must write it.

Andrea Martucci: That's so ripe. Time Enough for Drums, which is like Anne Rinaldi young adult, maybe middle grade, I don't know. But, from my childhood. She doesn't fall in love with the guy who is being quartered. But there's also a double agent thing going on in that book which I love.

There's all these scenarios in the past that are ripe for exploitation by romance novels and I want them to be exploited.

Alice Murphy: That's one of the things, to your point earlier about when you read those young adult middle grade novels, that they are so packed with history. People always get surprised when they ask me for romance recs, and I'm like, oh, I can give you some, but most of my reading diet is nonfiction because I want to find the next plot bunny.

I read a book recently called You'll Do, which is about a history of marrying for reasons other than love, I think is the subtitle, Speaking of fucking old men in the 30s, you had women who would marry dying Civil War soldiers, like Union soldiers, for their government pensions. Those are books, girl

We gotta there.[00:24:00]

Andrea Martucci: Yeah. Oh my God, that's great. It doesn't even have to be the romance between them. It could be that you have a character who does that and then is living like he dies and then she finds happiness with somebody else. Or more her own age maybe.

Alice Murphy: And then if she remarries, she loses the pension, but it's the Great Depression. life's hard.

Andrea Martucci: Okay, so I have one from 1729 in the land that would in the future be called United States of America in the territory that would in the future be called Louisiana called Fierce Eden by Jennifer Blake.

This book was quite popular, when it came out in the 1980s. Jennifer Blake was really popular back then. But nobody talks about Jennifer Blake anymore. There's certain authors from the past that come up a lot, right? People still talk about Kathleen Woodiwiss, Johanna Lindsey is a little bit later, but people talk about Johanna Lindsey, and Judith McNaught,

But Jennifer Blake, this book I read a long time ago, I read more recently, and I'm like, damn, this book slaps, it's problematic, which I have also written about, it's between a woman from France who is imprisoned at 15 and sent as a bride to the Louisiana Territory

Alice Murphy: Was she a casket girl?

If that's what I don't know New Orleans, they were called casket girls because their carrying cases were called caskets. sent here to be brides from convents in France. most of the people who lived here were convicts. So it was a very interesting mishmash of couples.

Somebody wrote a book recently about women in this situation that this woman was in. She's in Louisiana. She has this really abusive husband who abuses her for years. She was sent over at 15. when she first got there, she was literally a child still.

Andrea Martucci: Her husband has died. the centerpiece of the story is this local indigenous population the Natchez tribe revolts against the 200 something person French settlement in the area. They literally kill everybody in the settlement.

she is able to escape with a few other people, and there's a half French, half Natchez man named Raynaud, So he helps them get out of the area safely, but she has to warm his bed, he doesn't abuse the situation because he realizes she's deathly afraid of men

She's not afraid of him. She's afraid of men. It's really interesting because they're in the wilderness and end up living with the Natchez people for a while. he's actually Natchez royalty. What I find really interesting about the book is that even though the Natchez literally fucking killed all of the colonial settlers the population of Natchez in the book there are real well rounded characters with differing motivations. Some people are assholes, and some people are friendly, some people are complicated, right?

And I just thought that was a really way to talk about a time in history that was very complicated. It's not nice and clean from a moral standpoint, right? Elise and Reynaud enslave people. And it's talked about in the book and it's complicated.

[00:27:00] And I know this is a book that I should be, like, this is terrible. this is the problematic past of romance. It's a really interesting romance novel. as I have concluded before, I would much rather read a book that is willing to engage with the problematics of the past than a book that skims right over it and doesn't engage with it.

I think it's messy. I'm not going to leave this book being like, they're good people.

Alice Murphy: Yeah I think that's one of the reasons I wanted to talk about non Regency historicals, because I feel like,

obviously this is not true across the board. There are so many romance authors who write amazing Regency, who do grapple with the past, who grapple with the issues, but I do find that there can be a subset of Regency romances that are basically just fantasy without magic.

And we pretend that we don't know where the sugar that makes their wealth comes from. We don't know where the cotton that makes their dresses come from. A lot of people seem to default to regency romance because they think it's an unproblematic past that they can write or read whatever they want

I wanted to talk about stories that are toothier, and a little chewier, and more complicated in those ways because I think it does make for more interesting conversations, and more interesting books, you have things to talk about, and more color to the world, and more depth and interest

today we're gonna talk about the Natchez tribe, but we're also gonna talk about unionization in New York at the turn of the century, we're going to about a lot of complicated, interesting things. PTSD after World War I.

I think it's going to be a fun conversation about the different doors that get opened when you leave the Regency romance ballroom. So again going back to my movie analogy that I made earlier, where I made this list based on movies, there's an old movie called Destry Rides Again, which, another romance, if you have not seen, is fantastic.

Basically, there's this small town in the Old West, and they're being terrorized, and they lost their sheriff, so they find the son of the most feared sheriff in the West, who used to be their sheriff, and they're like, we're gonna get the son of Destry, Destry's gonna come back, and he's gonna save us, and he's the fastest hand in the west, and we can't wait for it till he gets here. He shows up in the town and it's Jimmy Stewart, goofball Jimmy Stewart from It's a Wonderful Life, and he's like, I don't have guns anymore.

I don't believe fighting is a good thing. I'm just gonna be nice to everybody and nothing bad's gonna happen. It's like the goofiest historical western romance ever. He falls in love with a Bordello singer it is goofy as all hell. And my two, western recs, so to speak, are both fairly new.

I think they might be the last year or two. One is called Hitched to the Gunslinger by Michelle McLean, and the other is Untamed by Lisa Rayne. They're both fairly similar in setup, Both of the women are at their wits end. In Untamed she inherits a drinking hole in the Old West and moves from the East to open it and run it.

The [00:30:00] other one is a woman who has this plot of land and men are relentlessly trying to marry her to get it .Both of them fall in love with just exhausted former gunslingers who want to sit in their rocking chairs and watch the sunset all day. They want to nap, they want to relax, they don't want to be in charge of anything.

But then naturally, of course, the couples meet and become forces of nature and save their little towns. So yeah, Untamed by Lisa Rayne and Hitched to the Gunslinger by Michelle McLean. Untamed is great because it has a Black cowboy. He's a sheriff. it's one of the sexiest covers I've ever seen.

It did things to me when I saw it on the bookshelf. I need that. And her other book that is Black Highlander. I was like, both of those are coming home with me and now they're on my keeper shelf. So Lisa Rayne, if you guys are not familiar, is a fantastic writer.

Andrea Martucci: I'm definitely gonna check both of those out.

'cause I do love a good western, particularly if it isn't all just like manifest destiny bullshit. Love that. You just made me think of, okay, so like tired gun slinger. This is a movie, but The Outsider, which is based on a book by Penelope Williamson, AndI guess you'd call it historical romance, but more along the lines of like women's fiction historical romance versus romance novel.

I tried reading the book I should give it another try sometime, but there's a movie with Tim Daly and Naomi Watts. And They're out somewhere in the West and they're like plain people, she's in this like religious community she has a young son and they're trying to raise sheep and they're in conflict with the cattle guys who are trying to take over their land and they kill her husband.

And then she ends up rescuing this gunslinger who has been injured and wanders onto her land and is near death she rescues him and there's this huge culture clash but it is so sexy. it's just the sexiest movie I just rewatch it my husband's like I don't know why you love this movie so much.

And I'm like, I don't give a

Alice Murphy: You're like,movies used to be sexy. We used to be a real country.

Andrea Martucci: We used to a proper country sexy movies where Naomi Watts is wearing this stupid little bonnet and Tim Daly is just stroking her face and gazing at her reverently.

Alice Murphy: Yessss

We used to have that. oh my god, it's so good. okay

Andrea Martucci: Okay, so this is another Maura Seger book.

It's called Flame on the Sun. The characters have left the United States after the Civil War, but it takes place entirely in Japan. They have rival shipping companies. What's very interesting about it to me in addition to the setting is, it is engaging with the political conflicts at the time in Japan, there are also characters in the book, well rounded characters who are, Japanese people engaged in the political landscape at the time.

Even though there's this little expat community of, British and American people in Japan, it's a very interesting place where they're trying to hold on to the vestiges of their own culture while also adapting to the culture they're in, she ends up [00:33:00] living with him openly before they're married.

And just like nobody says shit about it and she it's just very interesting and this is also from the 1980s and I think part of me bringing up these ones from the 1980s is you don't need to go read these specific books, but because I've read them, I'm like, why can't we have this?

Why we have more of this? This is interesting whether I find the particular book overwhelmingly romantic or not, I find that I'm still usually pretty transported by the world building of a different place.

Alice Murphy: Yes. And I feel that something I've heard from publishers who talk to more readers than I do is it's the same reason that we see very similar fantasy worlds. most super popular fantasy worlds are just like the Tolkien inspired European fantasy. And it's because a lot of readers want a shortcut.

Why like, everyone reads Regency, because we know Jane Austen rules, right? We don't to learn a whole new lore. And, to me, I just displays a fundamental difference in the reason that I read books and why I like going on these adventures I want to go somewhere new.

I want to learn something new. I want to have a new adventure.

I want to explore the past and different kinds of stories and relationships and yeah, I just, I agree. We just need people to roll the dice and take the risk. Publishers and braver than me indie writers, you know?

Andrea Martucci: the lack of imagination again, I know there's all these forces in publishing that shape this and this idea ofmarketability at a certain point, it just seems like people become completely afraid to try anything new because it hasn't been proven to be successful and then we've just slowly been trained over time to only go for something familiar and comfortable because it feels like the sure thing even if it's not actually that good. Which is why everything is focused around existing IP and we have 80, 000 Marvel movies. So this is happening across media, right?

There's this convergence of We know what's popular, and we're just gonna keep doing just that one single thing, Because nobody got fired for signing on for the next Marvel movie, you might get fired for signing on for something that is completely original and unique.

Alice Murphy: Right,

Which risk has always been an issue in any entertainment enterprise, but I think the difference I've noticed, because I also work in film and television, I teach at UCLA, is that our corporate overlords in the entertainment industry are now not people who got into it because they liked movies or even the allure of Hollywood.

They got into it because they're in private equity and it's something they can cannibalize, right? They went to business school, they didn't grow up reading Sidney Lumet in the way Michael Eisner did, For all the issues Michael Eisner had at, Disney. He at least really loved making movies and telling stories and being the Disney guy.

Now you just have the guy who used [00:36:00] to run Heinz Ketchup now runs a movie studio, right? It's an issue, and I think we're seeing that in publishing as well, where people who love books are not necessarily the ones who make the decisions about the books, so risk is even harder to come by than it used to.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah It's sad. I hate OkayDo you have anything else from the 1800s?

Alice Murphy: Yes, so the other one I wanted to talk about in the 1800s is called A Viscount for the Egyptian Princess by Heba Helmy. this is another Harlequin Historical. It's very recent. I think Hebra also has another book that's out in the same series and they're both Egyptian. Hebra is a Muslim writer And these are really cool looks at Egyptian Anglo relationships. So in this one this princess is in Paris and she has a chance meeting with this rogueish Viscount.

And then it just so happens he's in Egypt very shortly thereafter. And they have this really interesting relationship. We get so many colonialized looks at this time, and it's all white people who go to Egypt to have an adventure from England. this feels like a very grounded and still romantic, obviously, still sweeping and fun and adventurous, but also not exoticized look at what Egypt was like at this time and a very realistic look at what kind of the over tourism from Europe does to this place.

And the way it kind of influences, things that are to come later. Agatha Christie, Death on the Nile, that kind of stuff. So yeah, it's a really delightful and delicious Harlequin historical set in Egypt, written by a Muslim writer.

Andrea Martucci: This is gonna be the like, the flip side of that. So this series by Connie Brockway calledAs You Desire and The Other Guy's Bride. And they take place, the first one in 1890, and then the second one in 1905, and they take place in Egypt and they are British people who are in Egypt, basically taking part in the pillaging of, artifacts I would class them as likeadventure novels.

Where they're running away from bad guys, getting caught in the desert, and stuff like that is happening. What redeems these books from being just like 100 percent problematic is again, like they do have a cast of characters that includes Egyptian people who are, not just like faceless servants, or NPC characters, right?

Andrea Martucci: They're, real characters, engaging with the culture I think Connie Brockway generally is not telling the reader directly these people are a little bit racist, but you can infer that? I don't think she's unaware. Which I actually appreciate and I think Loretta Chase's Mr. Impossible is it, where they're in Egypt and taking part in that. I feel like those books, in historical romance published today, we would expect the author to bang us over the head with, like, how morally upstanding the [00:39:00] main characters are in this problematic space, and I feel like there is trust by the authors to be like, yeah, you can see even though the characters aren't monologuing about, how exploitative this practice is. They're kind of aware of it. They're still engaging with it because they enjoy parts of it. And Egyptian characters are kind of like Oh, these people are fucking weird. Like Do you know what I mean? I feel like the books trust the reader.

Reading books like this, can serve as a practice of sometimes it doesn't have to be literal. I don't always want to feel like the moral position of the author is hitting you over the head.

Do you know what I mean?

I have my own brain. I can receive this text and maintain how I feel about a situation and think critically about what's happening on page.

Alice Murphy: Absolutely. No, I agree. I, as a writer, have basically all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, I really do appreciate authors who are able to make it moreI obviously trust my readers, but I don't trust me. they trust their skills more than I trust mine.

Andrea Martucci: Next.

Alice Murphy: Okay, so I, we're reaching like turn of the century, 1890s, 1900s.

Samantha and Kit Kittredge and Molly were my American Girls. were my favorites.I loved Samantha. I really love like, All of Joanna Shupe's backlist. I love Harper St. George. Lady Hellion is a Regency, but that's my favorite Joanna Shupe. But obviously we are talking about non Regency today, so I love The Rogue of Fifth Avenue. I love The Stranger I Wed by Harper St. George. But the one I really wanted to talk about at the turn of the century is a book called A Striking Romance by Lindsey Brooks. Which is at New York during the same period as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory disaster.

Basically, I love books where men think they have everything figured out. Then they meet this woman and they're like, Oh, everything I thought about the world is actually wrong. And everything I thought about myself is wrong. And I am gonna figure it all out by loving this person as much as I possibly can. And letting myself be loved by them.

In A Striking Romance, our hero works for the government. He works with Tammany Hall in new York. he sees this woman giving a rabble rousing speech at a labor agitation meeting.

And he's just like, That one. Yeah, that one. That's her. That's the one.

Andrea Martucci: Did God tell him that? Or did he tell himself that

Alice Murphy: God did not tell him that, her agitation did. He was like, oh, this is the person I never knew I needed.

it's very, unapologetically political. It's unapologetically on the side of workers and workers rights. It's about how political interests are in bed with corporate interests to the detriment of working class immigrant people of color. It's a really great triumph of a political romance, in a way that I don't think we see. I think this is an indie book almost positive that we don't really see in traditionally published romance.

So yeah, A Striking Romance [00:42:00] by Lindsey Brooks.

If you are a Newsies girly, gotta pick this one up. It's great.

Andrea Martucci: Damn, you know what I would love? Newsies fanfic romance.

Alice Murphy: Girl, I wrote so much of it when I was younger.

That was like where I became writer

Andrea Martucci: If I went onto Archive of our Own, is there where I would find that entire trove of romance, Newsies fanfic?

Alice Murphy: I you would, yes, you absolutely would. You would have to decide if you want het or queer, because if you want queer then you have to go to the movie archive of our own.

And if you want Het, you gotta go to the musical, cause they have a much bigger Het romance thing, they were like, musicals are too gay already, we gotta beef up the girly love interest. She's like a little reporter, and her dad's Joseph Pulitzer, and it's stupid.

Andrea Martucci: saw the musical. I did not like it

Alice Murphy: I have mixed feelings about it but yeah, I feel like they were just very afraid of how gay the original was, and that was cowardly, in my opinion.

Andrea Martucci: I just remember watching my husband was with me and I'm just grousing. I'm like, that's not my Newsies. I don't like it.

Alice Murphy: Hashtag not my Newsies.

Andrea Martucci: Not my newsies, exactly.

I have heard of that book before but I didn't read it. Shame on me.

Alice Murphy: You just gotta add it to your list of 28, 000 other books you're gonna read coming up, right?

Andrea Martucci: Exactly. Let's see. Okay let's get into the 1900s. I think the next one firmly in the 1900s that I have is The Companion by E. E. Ottoman, and this takes place in New York in 1948. it is novella length, I believe independently published. The relationship in the book isA trans woman and she's in a relationship with two other trans characters.

Alice Murphy: Oh, I've heard of this one. It's a menage romance, right?

Andrea Martucci: Yes. exactly. And it's very much, about the main character's interior, erotic awakening and exploration. It's a time period you don't see often, 1948. There's not a ton of world building.

But, is interesting I think in particular, to set a trans narrative in a historical setting because, there is this myth that trans people are, likea new thing, I feel like that was an intentional choice by E. E. Ottoman to place it in the past and there's the, kind of the understanding that their relationship isn't something that they're going to be super public about.

It's a very private relationship. So there's the understanding of Public scrutiny, and the mores of the time, but it's not like the community is coming over with tars and feathers, right? So it's gentle in that way, where it's not a hostile past, necessarily.

Anyways, I think it's a really lovely book. And I have the print copy. It's right there. Well right right there

Alice Murphy: so my, my next one, I think I actually had one in the 20scalled A Manhattan Heiress in Paris by Amanda [00:45:00] McCabe. Again, another Harlequin Historical. And this is a really cool interracial romance.

It's about a American good girl who Daddy, give me money to go to Paris to go to music school she falls in love with this jazz virtuoso who she meets while studying and it's like very sexy music romance. The eroticism of a man playing an instrument and the noises he makes me make. It's so good. it's a delight of a book. And I love, a 20s romance. I feel like that's another time period that is very rich for exploration and I want to see more of those too.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah, there was like really interesting gender dynamics going on at the time there were people who were likepushing the envelope and resetting relationships and everything was in chaos.

Alice Murphy: That's something I talk a lot about, like, when I was developing A Showgirl's Rules for Falling in Love, and then writing it, and obviously now that it's going out in the world, we think of time in terms of social mores and rules as being very conservative and now as progressive as it ever has been.

The truth is that It's all about contraction, sometimes things are looser and we're allowed to take risks and do new things and sometimes the fist tightens and we all have to go into hiding or hide ourselves so the book is at one of those inflection points.

Where like conservative interests are really closing their fists around the cool people who are making art and who aren't conservative old rich men

I feel like that is something that happens in the 20s as well. You see that kind of loosening and then you get the rise of fascism in the 30s and 40s. it's an interesting place in history to set a romance, particularly an interracial romance.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah. Okay, so I have two I'll talk about together from the 1960s, so let's call these mid century romances. One is Let It Shine, which is a novella by Alyssa Cole. It focuses on two characters who are involved in the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s.

The heroine is a Black woman and the hero is a Jewish man. And Alyssa Cole is really exploring I think, the affinity that people from different cultural and racial backgrounds may have with the same movement. Different positions within that movement, but an affinity.

And it's a really beautiful novella like short and sweet. And then another one which might also be a novella. It's A Midnight Feast by Genevieve Turner and Emma Barry

Alice Murphy: I love the Fly Me to the Moon, the Emma Berry, Genevieve Turner collab. All of them are just so good. Peak.

Andrea Martucci: Yes, it's like the 1960s space race think it's a fictionalized agency. Like it's not NASA, but it's you know, same idea and the husbands, I think in the series are, like, the astronauts, and then the it's exploring their relationships at that time, I, and I seem to remember, I read it a while ago, but there isexploration around gender roles at the time, andthe excitement of the space race, and their place in it, which is really interesting.

So I think those are two examples of, [00:48:00] romances, but also like novellas that are choosing a time period, interesting for different reasons, right? But here's something interesting that happened in the past and I'm gonna set a romance in that time and use what is going on to have conversation about a relationship.

Alice Murphy: Yes, 100%. it's interesting you brought up the 60s. this is a novella from the 60s. I want to talk about, I think it's mid century. I don't remember the exact year, but there's a novella called Mrs. Milner Gets a Kitchen by Jane Hadley. Have you read it?

Andrea Martucci: No,

Alice Murphy: Oh, it's so good. Jane Hadley is like one of my top, just fantastic. So great. Just this is amazing. So Mrs. Milner gets a kitchen. Mrs. Milner is divorced, which, of in the mid

Andrea Martucci: like scandal

Alice Murphy: how very dare.How very dare. And she decides that the entire neighborhood is talking about me, and I'm going to prove how not bad everything is by getting my kitchen renovated and then throwing a Christmas party for the entire neighborhood.

As it turns out she hires the hottest contractor in the entire world who drills more than her floors So Mrs. Milner gets a kitchen is also about gender roles, expectations how social pressures can affect particularly women at this time and the way that they view and navigate relationships. So yeah, Ms. Milner Gets a Kitchen by Jane Hadley.

Andrea Martucci: I ran outta books. So take us home

Alice Murphy: so my last recommendation is a series by Brianne Gillen called the Phoenix Pictures series. My favorite time period, of all time probably, is the late 40s, early 50s, particularly in Hollywood. I think the studio system is a really fascinating microcosm of America capitalism corporate interest and conservative values, like with the Hays Code that governed what could be shown on screen.

This series is all about these very fascinating love stories governed by those capitalistic interests in Hollywood. You have fake tabloid relationships. You have things that are set up by the studio that kind of micromanage all of their existences.

She also has two really fun paranormals that she wrote world as well.

So she has My Favorite Leopard, which is a leopard shifter romance. And then also I think it's called Redheads Prefer Sea Creatures or Sea Creatures Prefer Redheads. One of those, all of them, fantastic. If you loved Who Framed Roger Rabbit, that world of40s, Hollywood,

Or if you love going to Disney World and walking down the Tower of Terror Street these are the books for you.

They're so good. Highly recommend. And, of course, Maureen Lee Lenker also has books in this time period as well she's, fantastic And so is Brianne Gillen. So Phoenix Pictures series for sure.

Andrea Martucci: Okay, so if we think big picture about the books that we've just talked about, if you had to put an umbrella over what is pleasurable about these books that is doing something differently. Then regency historicals and like you and I I'm sure could both gush about favorite [00:51:00] regency historicals that do amazing things, right?

Alice Murphy: Oh, yes,yes, we could do another three hours on amazing Regencies, and there are so many of them, and so many amazing Regency writers. We did not do this podcast to not love Regency. This is just to put spotlight on something else that people don't talk about as much.

Andrea Martucci: Right, and it's like it's always about execution, right? setting a book in a non regency period also isn't the answer to it must be a good book because it's doing this But if we just think about what they can do differently and I think mostly in the context that we live in a time where Regency romances are just so oversaturated.

for a lot of reasons, the vast majority of historical romances that have come out in the last 20 years have been Regencies, right? What are non Regencies? Doing or what do they point to you as oh, like we could be doing that

Alice Murphy: Yeah. I think, to your point, not that Regencies cannot be diverse, we have a lot of amazing, diverse regencies.

But I do think it offers more opportunities for particularly leads, romantic leads and romantic dynamics that we don't necessarily get in Regency Romance, particularly like England, London ton set, Regency.

To me, I think what is most exciting about them is some of the things that we love about Regency romances are, like, those social strictures, right? Courtship is very clearly defined, the rules are very clearly defined and it makes the risk of certain decisions that characters make in Regency romances, like, all the more delicious and exciting, or they only get to talk when they're in a room with other people who are all watching, and their entire life, and their parents lives, and their sisters and siblings lives all rely on them having good propriety, and marrying well and whatever.

That lends itself to a very exciting kind of romance. But it's not the only kind of exciting romance we can have. And I think when you explore other time periods with other expectations, other rules other environments, you get fresh and new and different opportunities for storytelling and delight and romance and excitement.

I think it's just a different kind of adventure. And because we've seen, as you point out 20 years of, one delicious, genre of adventure. This is a new course, different offerings different cuisines, so to speak, of adventure.

That's my thinking anyway.

Andrea Martucci: Yeah I think it's comes down to execution. And I think that what happens with Regency, because so much of it is people are just building on each other's worlds at a certain point it's the world of the Regency that exists in your mind and If you deviate from that and it's set in the Regency people actually are like what the hell are you doing?

Even if it's historically accurate or based on something that really happened it's assumed that it's wrong. And so it starts to become as familiar of a world as contemporary is, where the issue that some people point out with contemporaries is it's sometimes it's I'm so familiar with the world that then something happens that [00:54:00] doesn't jive with my reality, and I feel like I'm taken out of it, because I feel like it's set in my world. This seems weird, right?

I think there's that expectation of world building versus, a world I'm familiar with. Even if there is Regency world building, I already know what to expect, I actually don't want you to spend that much time belaboring the world. I know where I am,

I think that obviously you can jump off of that and do some really interesting things, but it also becomes a breeding ground for really lazy, lack of world building writing and a lot of assumptions. What's interesting about books set in other times that are not well trodden in romance or in our readers' understanding of things is that the burden is on the author to do that world building.

Some do it well, some do it not so well. there is greater risk and opportunity to fall flat because you cannot depend on the world that already exists in reader's mind, right?

Like I actually read a contemporary with Jodie Slaughter recently called Craving Flight by Tamsen Parker.

It takes place in the Orthodox Jewish community in New York. And I read a review that was like, I have no idea what's going on. And I was like, actually, the author did a very good job of explaining what's going on. You're reacting to the fact that this is just a new thing for you, and you're not receiving the information available to you.

I could imagine similar reactions to readers experiencing a new time period, where if they're just like, not receptive, oh wow, this is like a new culture and a new historical time period I'm unfamiliar with and I don't know what I'm getting into.

If you are closed off to that, you're not gonna enjoy it no matter how good of a job the author is doing at telling a story because it's just like this is different!

I mean I feel like that is why we have ended up where we have, right? it's that fear of alienating readers by doing something that makes them work a little bit.

And I don't think it's because readers overall are lazy. It's that somehow these minority opinions in the sense that there's a few very loud reviewers who are like I don't like this, all of a sudden starts to speak for the majority. I always think about how I hear publishers say things like, Oh, you can't do a book like that. Somebody did a book once and it didn't do well.

Alice Murphy: Oh,

Andrea Martucci: and? So then anybody who tries to do something new, it's like somebody tried that once, and even though it was actually quite different, we will never do that again.

Alice Murphy: Yeah, when we were pitching around, A Showgirls Rules for Falling in Love which at the time was called The Fat Lady Sings, which R. I. P. that title it's now called A Showgirls Rules for Falling in Love, and the two things we heard a lot were, one, we're not doing historicals anymore because the Bridgerton boom didn't pay off, which I'm like, this isn't Regency then, good news, congratulations the other was we're not doing historicals anymore because the Bridgerton boom didn't pay off, we've had books with plus sides leads and they don't sell, or we've had books, set in non regency and they don't do very well, like people want regency, and I'm [00:57:00] like, I can't have both, the Bridgerton boom can't have not paid off, and also you have too many regencies. What's going here but yeah it's the risk averse nature of the industry. The excuses that sometimes come out are fascinatingI think it does ultimately lead to a worse reader experience. Readers are getting shortchanged on some really spectacular books that they're just missing out on because the industry isn't willing to put the time and money and marketing effort into putting these books out. So they're like, oh, we know that a certain subsection of people will buy a

Regency it's not a risk, so we'll take the sure bet.

Andrea Martucci: It seems to me to be like an unwillingness to develop a market. There's this saying, right? Don't skate to where the puck is skate to where the puck is going.

it seems like the industry is always skating to Oh, Romantasy is big, everybody write Romantasy, right? And it's kind of there's readers of all kinds out there. You can find and develop a readership, for pretty much anything. You just have to be willing to not put all your eggs in one basket.

Romantasy is big, so all of our energy goes into Romantasy. People are finding books on TikTok, so that's the only place that matters anymore,

Alice Murphy: Yeah we had similar where I was like, I really want to write a sci fi romance. And I was like look, Romantasy is big. I think it proves that readers will go to that place, like they'll go somewhere more fantastical. And they're like, no, dragons. People like dragons, not spaceships. And I'm like, yeah, but Star Wars is huge.

Give me a break. What are we doing here?

Andrea Martucci: Hold on. I've got it. A dragon in space.

Alice Murphy: A dragon spaceship Done. I'm going to be a billionaire.

Andrea Martucci: And it's a war college.

Alice Murphy: Yes. Oh, obviously.

space

Andrea Martucci: space war college where they call their spaceships dragons and they form deep emotional relationships with the AI of their space dragons. And the AI only tells its name to the fated pilot.

Alice Murphy: of course, yes, don't worry Andrea, I'll give you half of my seven figure advance, don't worry,

Andrea Martucci: thank you so much. You heard it here first, folks. This is legally binding. Tell Maggieshe has to sign me now, too. okay Alice, this has been a pleasure. Why don't you share a little bit more about your book. A Showgirls Rules for Falling in Love. The cover is super delicious and lush.

Alice Murphy: Yeah. I love the cover. Decue Wu did the art and she really made our heroine Evelyn Cross look fabulous and decadent as she is in the book. A Showgirl's Rules for Falling in Love is, a dual timeline romance. it's mostly historical, but there is a dual timeline element to it.

in the present day, you have Phoebe Blair, who works at a historical preservation society in New York, and specializes in vaudeville history. One day, this rich, handsome guy walks in her door, and he's like, Hey, I want to hire you for a job. I need some family research done. And she's like, Yeah, sure.

Whatever. And he's like, Yeah, you see that portrait on the wall? That's my ancestors, they were married. And she's like, oh yeah, I've seen their picture before. And he's yeah, but I [01:00:00] don't think he was in love with her. I think he was in love with this woman instead. And I want you to find out if that's true.

He hands her a picture of this plus size vaudeville star named Evelyn Cross. And together they go on this research journey to find out the truth of this hidden secret love story. So we have the contemporary love story between Phoebe and Armitage. And then we have the historical love story of Thomas and Evelyn.

And then towards the end Phoebe has to decide how she's going to end the story. Not just hers but evelyn and Thomas's because we know what happens in real life, but Phoebe has the pen. And so she gets to decide how it happens on paper

Andrea Martucci: Ooh!

Alice Murphy: So I a really, it's like Moulin Rouge, Greatest Showman. It's about like I talking about earlier, how we had a very diverse theater scene in America. vaudeville was spreading, not to say that vaudeville did not have its problems, obviously it also contributed to the proliferation of blackface in America, obviously its ills and wrongs, but it also had some of the greatest and most diverse art scenes in the world and develop some of our best American art forms tap, jazz, vaudeville, burlesque, we had these conservative newspaper interests in New York who ultimately led to a lot of those art forms getting banned and seen as indecent.

It was what happens to the people when the times change. conservative interests come in and decide that they're no longer acceptable for good public consumption. And how those people fight back. And it's also about the power of happily ever afters and writing your own stories.

It's a joy, and I hope people love it as much as I do.

that's a Showgirls Rules For Falling in Love,

And I've had the best time talking to you Andrea. This has been such a joy.

Andrea Martucci: Well thank you. Yes, I loved all of your pitches I loved seeing your your inner monologue I think about because were talking about earlier like you were like I did not expect her to just send those over.

That was a great to me. I also felt very seen, where you were anticipating, like, I know Andrea, and, she'll hate this so but I also know that Andrea is a glutton for punishment.

Alice Murphy: Also true, yes. I'm like, I have a parasocial friendship with Andrea, so I know she's not gonna like this.

Thanks to the podcastwe had such a great time. What a delight.

Andrea Martucci: we did indeed, and I'm like, bring back tap dancing, you cowards you cowards

Alice Murphy: Yes! Yes! Oh my gosh! One of the movies I love, I was, when I was doing a movie thing, I was like, okay, Phoenix Pictures, there's a movie called Hail Caesar, which is a Coen Brothers movie set at a movie studio it's so good, underappreciated, but Channing Tatum does like a Gene Kelly style tap dance song about how all the sailors on his boat are going to have sex with each other while they're out at sea, fantastic, highly recommend, even if you don't watch the movie, just go look up the Channing Tatum tap number from Hail Caesar, you won't regret it.

Andrea Martucci: We don't deserve Channing Tatum, honestly. So that sounds amazing. And Alice, where can people find Alice Murphy online?

Alice Murphy: You can find me at the website, alicemurphybooks. com, and alicemurphybooks on [01:03:00] instagram.

Andrea Martucci: .

Awesome. Thanks again so much

Alice Murphy: Thank you so much. This has been a blast. Thank you so much.

Andrea Martucci: Hey, thanks for spending time with me today. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate or review on your favorite podcast app or tell a friend. Check out Shelflovepodcast.com for transcripts and other resources. If you want regular written updates from Shelf Love, you can increasingly find me over at Substack.

Read occasional updates and short essays about romance at shelflovepodcast.Substack.com. Thank you to Shelf Love's $20 a month Patreon supporters: Gail, Copper Dog Books, and Frederick Smith. Have a great day.