54. EMILY SULLIVAN: The magic of historical romance novels with mystery

Name a more iconic duo than a duke and a bluestocking.

For historical romance, dukes are all the rage. Emily Sullivan talks that perfect mix of historical romance and mystery that's drawing in readers right now, plus exploring a darker side of the time period that you don't see in a lot of books. Oh, and we talk about dessert and pizza because food is life.

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Duchess Material
The Rebel and the Rake
The Hellion and the Hero
A Death on Coifu

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Duchess Material
The Rebel and the Rake
The Hellion and the Hero
A Death on Coifu

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Duchess Material
The Rebel and the Rake
A Death on Coifu

Transcript

00;00;03;22 - 00;00;25;05
Speaker 1
Hello and welcome to the Literary Hype podcast. I am Stephanie, your literary hype woman and today's author conversation is a historical fiction with the mystery subplot, but also takes us into an area of history that you don't often see in books like this. And it is so refreshing to have a fresh twist on something like this, which I love a good historical romance.

00;00;25;05 - 00;00;43;28
Speaker 1
Don't get me wrong, I especially like a Regency romance with a mystery subplot is but in Duchess Material by Emily Sullivan, we are diving into kind of a darker part of history. I'll let Emily tell you all about it. So without any further ado, here's my conversation with Emily Sullivan.

00;00;49;00 - 00;00;54;11
Speaker 1
Welcome to Literary Hype. It's so exciting to have you on to talk about your brand new book, Duchess Material.

00;00;54;22 - 00;00;56;02
Speaker 2
Thank you for having me.

00;00;56;06 - 00;01;08;18
Speaker 1
So before we get into talking about the book, there's a couple of things I notice in your bio, but we have to talk about them being always orders desserts. What dessert is your number one priority?

00;01;09;12 - 00;01;19;26
Speaker 2
I mean, definitely something with chocolate in it usually. But if I see like bread pudding on a menu and that's usually a guarantee, like I'm going to order it.

00;01;20;20 - 00;01;29;10
Speaker 1
So I also saw that your Instagram bio says small town pizza wife yeah. Talk a little bit about that and what your favorite kind of pizzas.

00;01;30;16 - 00;01;56;23
Speaker 2
So my husband co-owns his family's pizza restaurant and then his cousin took over from his dad and uncle. And this has been in business for like 40 years. It's really great. They do like Greek style pan pizza and there was, there used to be like, I forget it was like a Little Caesars commercial or something that was like, I'm just a small town pizza lawyer.

00;01;56;23 - 00;02;23;15
Speaker 2
And he just used that as my dad to change it to small town pizza way. And I don't think that commercial even plays anymore, but that was that's where that came from. I really like, you know, this makes me place on basic, but I really like their cheese. Like their straight cheese. Pizza is so good you know, it always hits the spot when I go there and like I get it out of the oven.

00;02;23;15 - 00;02;28;16
Speaker 2
It's just it's incredible. And I'm not just saying that because I'm married to it.

00;02;29;15 - 00;02;32;01
Speaker 1
It's just incredible. It's really hard to mess up.

00;02;32;24 - 00;02;40;06
Speaker 2
Really hard to mess up pizza. But I have had bad pizza, you know, so but their pizza is really great. They do a great job.

00;02;41;01 - 00;02;52;08
Speaker 1
Before we get into the content of the book, I got to I got to point out this little blurb on the front, a gem of an invoice from the weekly. What was it like for you getting a blurb from Entertainment Weekly?

00;02;52;18 - 00;03;15;09
Speaker 2
Yeah, that was from my second book, The Rumble in the Rig. And it was crazy. I mean, it was so surreal. I mean, I grew up like getting issues of Entertainment Weekly, like to my house, you know, and I don't even know if they still do the print magazine anymore, but that was very surreal. Very cool. So nice to be included for sure.

00;03;15;09 - 00;03;19;05
Speaker 2
And to have a good review, really. I mean, it didn't it doesn't get much better than that.

00;03;19;15 - 00;03;27;28
Speaker 1
So for anyone who has not already seen Duchess material on Instagram or on Good Reads or in their stores, what is this book about?

00;03;28;28 - 00;03;54;23
Speaker 2
This is a book about a blue stocking, a schoolteacher in Victorian London who starts searching for her missing student, her star student has gone missing. She needs to find her. And in the midst of doing that, she's accidental. She's arrested for trespassing and she ends up calling on like the most powerful person here she knows who also just happens to be her childhood crush, who became a duke.

00;03;54;23 - 00;04;08;27
Speaker 2
And they haven't really talked in a long time. They're kind of estranged. But he does come to her, her rescue, and he decides to help her find her missing student. So that's that's the impetus. That's like sort of how things kick off.

00;04;09;14 - 00;04;12;08
Speaker 1
What was your initial spark for this story?

00;04;12;22 - 00;04;42;17
Speaker 2
I had written three other historical romances, and when I was thinking about my next series, I was like, well, I probably should try writing a Duke book because Duke's are so popular in historical romance. And I hadn't written one yet. So that was my main. That was my, you know, the spark. But I was like, well, if I'm going to write a Duke book, I kind of need to make him, like, suffer a little bit for being a Duke, because I find that more interesting and suffer.

00;04;42;17 - 00;05;02;03
Speaker 1
He does great. Early on. You get the vibe that he's not really a fan of the Duke team. You don't know why right off the bat, but you get that feeling very early on. Why was it important to you to establish him as not really vibing with the Duke and how the system was run at that time?

00;05;02;06 - 00;05;29;28
Speaker 2
So I don't really like, you know, inherited titles connected to power. You know, I don't I sort of have like a prejudice against that, I guess. So I was like, well, if I'm going to write a hero who's a duke, it's more it's like a more appealing to me if he's also sort of questioning these like power structures and maybe, I mean, he has to go along with it.

00;05;29;29 - 00;05;38;01
Speaker 2
He was you know, he inherited this title, but he kind of is a little he has some some issues with it, let's say.

00;05;38;09 - 00;05;45;05
Speaker 1
What was your research process like for this book in your previous books to kind of gather all of these historical details?

00;05;45;10 - 00;06;12;29
Speaker 2
I read a lot of you know, like journal articles, like academic journal articles, research from the time period. There's a lot of really interesting nonfiction books about the role of women in the late Victorian period. And when I when I first started writing historical romance in general and even reading it like I kind of had an idea about the Victorian period, but as I started researching more, you know, it changes.

00;06;12;29 - 00;06;37;03
Speaker 2
I mean, it's such a long time period, first of all, and the role of women changes a lot. And well this book is set in, I think it's 1895 in the later Victorian era. It's really interesting because women are, you know, they're becoming more educated, some of them are working outside the home. A lot of them like aren't getting married at the same rate as they used to because they start to have more options.

00;06;37;03 - 00;07;00;09
Speaker 2
And, you know, I'd read there words like a lot of like pamphlets or like fear mongering articles written around the time that time period, like what are we going to do about these women, these young women? They're not getting married, they're going to work in shops. And so there was definitely like a real moral panic about regarding the role of women in society during this time period.

00;07;00;25 - 00;07;31;28
Speaker 2
I found some like first person accounts, which are always so like that to me is like, Oh, that's really what I want. You know, I want to see like what somebody who was actually living during this time period, what they were experiencing. And I found this woman's autobiography. She had been like a she had been a writer during the 1890s, but before that she had been a schoolteacher and she taught at different schools and she talked about like her teaching experience of all these different schools.

00;07;32;04 - 00;08;02;27
Speaker 2
So that was something that I really definitely used when I was trying to figure out the female man character in this book. But I don't know, I really like the research part. I find it really fascinating and just going to like J Store and plugging in different terms and seeing what comes up. And sometimes you do a lot of research and you don't end up using any of it, but it's still good, you know, it's still interesting and it kind of helps like immerse you in the background and the time period and what was going on.

00;08;02;27 - 00;08;06;00
Speaker 2
And so that's sort of how I approached it.

00;08;06;24 - 00;08;13;04
Speaker 1
What's the weirdest detail you have come across in your research that may or may not have made it into a book?

00;08;13;27 - 00;08;37;10
Speaker 2
The weirdest detail I found there was this does didn't make it into my book, but when I was reading this woman's biography, she talked about going to these literary parties, and these are parties there was this book called The Yellow The Yellow Book, and it was it was like a literary journal, but it was like kind of sexy and like I think it got banned at one point.

00;08;37;10 - 00;09;06;02
Speaker 2
And like they had these authors, like, I think Oscar Wilde was a contributor, and they also had like these drawings, you know, so I was like, oh, this is interesting that we wouldn't really think about that if you have like some image of the Victorian period, but also that like women are writing for this journal and it was considered very avant garde and I don't know how weird that was, but that was something that stuck out to me.

00;09;06;02 - 00;09;18;00
Speaker 2
I was like, Oh, the Victorians, especially the later Victorians, this time period was called the Naughty Nineties, which I did not know, but I think really does kind of sum up some of what was going on in the 1890s.

00;09;18;06 - 00;09;36;07
Speaker 1
You touched on women's role at this time and there's a line society tells us that a single woman is at best an inconvenience and at worst an aberration could touch on how that kind of idea of society at that time really shapes this story.

00;09;36;20 - 00;09;59;21
Speaker 2
There is this phrase called the new woman that was used, and I think it was a female author who coined it, but then it kind of got twisted and it was used in like again like these sort of alarmist magazine articles and they would sort of talk about the new women and how they were being kind of mannish and they were wearing pants and smoking and riding bicycles and and not getting married.

00;09;59;21 - 00;10;29;07
Speaker 2
And it was like I said, it was this real kind of moral panic because they were also just the kind of realized that, you know, getting married to a guy who's just going to treat you horribly, you're not going to have any rights if you get married at this point, you know? So it wasn't really a good deal for a lot of, you know, a lot of women, especially like if you're courting in Victorian times, you don't really know the person that well necessarily.

00;10;30;00 - 00;10;57;17
Speaker 2
So you're really kind of rolling the dice so that was sort of where I was, you know, that was the information I was getting when I came up with that line. And I think for this heroine, she's very aware of the risks she would take by getting married and because she's she comes from a wealthy family. So she has a certain amount of financial security she doesn't really need to get married first for financial reasons.

00;10;57;17 - 00;11;29;05
Speaker 2
So to her, it's not really an appealing thing. To even think about to even want to do at this point, because you're only going to lose in her mind. She's it's only some she'll only lose stuff to that chick. Not to gain anything. But it was interesting to read these accounts of women during this time period because they also recognize that, like, well, they might not they might lose out on the chance to be a mother, you know, because you couldn't really what else are you going to do?

00;11;29;06 - 00;11;58;02
Speaker 2
So there's also a movement related to adoption that was really interesting. And women kind of like living in these like commune ask situations with each other because they kind of were trying to find a way to still maintain their autonomy you know, some control over their own lives in a society that wasn't really granting them, you know, their full rights which is really interesting.

00;11;58;18 - 00;12;17;28
Speaker 1
I do love that Phoebe has that kind of safety net of like she is from a wealthy family, but she's choosing this path for her life. So I'm going to talk about giving her that kind of where she has a safety net but doesn't really want to use it. And people around her kind of know that she has it and kind of hold that against her in small ways.

00;12;19;10 - 00;12;43;24
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, part of it, it's just I like it when the heroine does have she has some money, so she at least has something she has some sort of control over her life to some extent. Yeah. And Phoebe, you know, she's she's a rich girl trying to. Yeah. And she's working in this working class school. She's surrounded by, you know, her colleagues who are in the same position as she's in.

00;12;43;29 - 00;13;12;24
Speaker 2
And I do think that she her intentions are good, but she there's only she can't understand it. She doesn't she can't necessarily understand what the reality of life is like for a lot of the people around her. And it's something that she kind of she's open to learning. I would say you know, but it's definitely something that crops up sometimes where, you know, she does she has this inherent privilege because of her wealth.

00;13;13;26 - 00;13;23;11
Speaker 2
And she just it's just not something she's super aware of all the time, I guess, until, like the circumstances allow for it.

00;13;23;24 - 00;13;48;20
Speaker 1
The circumstance is kind of play into the investigation and the mystery side of this story as she's trying to figure out what happened to Alice and she ends up adjacent to some some scandalous times. So what was it like for you to include prostitution in the eight hundreds in this story, which you don't really see a lot of in historical romance?

00;13;48;28 - 00;14;12;06
Speaker 2
I feel like you have to I mean, not you. You don't have to, but, you know, prostitution and for women in this time period was pretty rampant. I mean, it was and it wasn't necessarily like, you know, it was because they didn't have enough choices. You know, they didn't most women. I don't I don't it must have been when I was researching this book, but it was something like a lot of women.

00;14;12;07 - 00;14;37;02
Speaker 2
And I don't know the stats or anything, but a lot of them would. They turned to prostitution when what if they had to like if times got really hard, maybe you were working in a factory and you know, you're working your job in your factory and then maybe your hours got cut or something, or maybe you're were short one month and you'd sort of turned into prostitution for like in the short term, that was very common for a lot of women during this time period.

00;14;37;23 - 00;15;12;06
Speaker 2
And and I think sometimes in historical romance, we talk about like, oh, there's the courtesans or there's the mistresses or the wealthy men. But most of these women who were doing things like that were that was not their situation at all. And I think I think if you're going to write in the Victorian period, I think it's important to at least acknowledge some of the darker elements in that time period because they were so such a huge part of what it was like that, you know, especially in London.

00;15;12;06 - 00;15;37;29
Speaker 2
And I don't, I don't think we can really appreciate that, you know, today. And I wish I had some stats off the top of my head on like the number of women who ended up prostituting themselves at some point. But it was, it was, it was enough to make me go, Oh, wow, that's really high. And it's sad and, and it's not surprising when you think about, you know, the ways in which they were barred from working, from earning a living and all these different things.

00;15;38;25 - 00;16;00;12
Speaker 2
It was really, really hard. It was really tough. There were any kind of the same social supports that we know of today. And, you know, kids were working. Oh, all kinds of horrible hours. You know, it just really was a gritty, hard time to be to be alive, I think for sure.

00;16;00;21 - 00;16;06;01
Speaker 1
Did it feel like a risk to you, including something that could be considered controversial into your book?

00;16;06;15 - 00;16;29;15
Speaker 2
No, I didn't really think about that. I haven't thought about that at all. Like, I think this is like the first time where I've been asked about that, which is interesting because to me, it's like, well, I have to talk about this, you know, why wouldn't you? But you're right. It's like, all right. Maybe not everybody wants to read about people being forced into prostitution in their romance.

00;16;29;15 - 00;16;50;00
Speaker 2
Book, but I'm Drew, I'm drawn to that historical time period. And like I always have been way before I got into reading romances and stuff and and I think that reading about that time period and putting some historically, historically accurate things in where you can, you know, that's what makes it a historical to me.

00;16;50;25 - 00;17;01;13
Speaker 1
So talk a little bit about balancing the romance with the action of the plot and making sure that you're not leaning too far into one for too long and how you approach that.

00;17;02;12 - 00;17;22;21
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's I always so I always try to make sure that, you know, you have the plot, whatever the plot is in this book, there's like this mystery plot and they're trying to find this missing student together. So that's like one overarching plot. And then you have the romance and the romance. I sort of think about in terms of like emotional and physical.

00;17;23;19 - 00;17;51;21
Speaker 2
So and you it is a balancing act and I don't know if I always or if I always get it right, but I do just try to to think about how those how those storylines lines are like following each other and where there's different where there's the climax or where there's the dark moment. And or and I do think that you can like do that in different ways with like a different arcs or like you can have like a dark moment in the main plot.

00;17;51;21 - 00;18;22;27
Speaker 2
And then you can have a dark moment in the role that the emotional romantic plot and, and the like physical romantic plot and kind of thinking about also how they play off of each other and how you can inject those like moments in the different arcs. So like if you're in the mist, if you're doing this because they're doing something related to solving the mystery, how can you inject little bits of emotional development or like little intimacy, you know, how they can kind of play off of each other.

00;18;23;26 - 00;18;48;17
Speaker 2
But I do try to keep that in mind as I'm writing and like I never really think like, oh, I can only have X number of love scenes or something like that. It sort of just depends on like what feels right for the story. And like for those particular characters. And I think for certain couples it's just different, you know, depending on like what's going on with them emotionally.

00;18;48;26 - 00;19;10;21
Speaker 1
Maybe it's just me, but I feel like the historical romance with a mystery side plot genre is really seeing a lot of growth maybe it's just me, but I feel like I'm seeing a lot more come across my feet now. What about blending the mystery with Victorian and Regency romance that is just hitting that spot.

00;19;11;00 - 00;19;36;12
Speaker 2
For me as a writer? I think it's just it just makes it interesting. It like it gives them something really compelling to do together. Beyond just like courting. And not that I don't love a good wedding story, but it's like it, it raises the stakes in some interesting ways. You get to put them in like these like tense situations and that can kind of like bring about like fun stuff.

00;19;36;12 - 00;20;02;02
Speaker 2
And I think it makes it fun to write. And the tension is, is high. The stakes are high. You have like, you know, sometimes we'll talk about like having a running clock going in the back of in, in a book. So like, oh, there's like a time limit. They have to solve the case before X happens. So as a writer, those are the things that I like having as I'm as I'm writing.

00;20;02;08 - 00;20;11;19
Speaker 2
They don't I mean, not every single book I've written has had something like that. But but that what is what's appealing about the romance with a side of mystery?

00;20;12;05 - 00;20;29;00
Speaker 1
Historical romance, especially Regency, is having such a heyday because of Bridget Anne which I'm sure that you wrote this before we got the season this year with certain spicy scenes and carriages. But you also happen to have a couple of books.

00;20;29;21 - 00;20;31;29
Speaker 2
Yeah, I do like a spicy carriage scene.

00;20;31;29 - 00;20;40;27
Speaker 1
You so talk about getting to see that moment play out in pop culture and the obsession knowing that you're about to put out a book with multiple of those scenes.

00;20;41;21 - 00;21;00;23
Speaker 2
Well, I actually wrote an even spicier one in my last release, the Healing in the Hero. So that has a carriage scene. And then I do think I remember people of like really liking that. And then when I saw that it was in this past season in Bridget, which I had read that book a long, long time ago.

00;21;00;26 - 00;21;27;29
Speaker 2
But it is it's there's something about being in like close confines with especially if nothing's really happened yet. And you just you can't escape carriages, you know, sometimes it's really nice when the things that you're writing about also just become popular, you know, and it's one of those things where, like, you can't, like, plan it out because you never know what's going to be popular or not when your book finally gets released.

00;21;27;29 - 00;21;39;24
Speaker 2
But that was nice. So yes, there is a few like carriage scenes I have several in this book. I have a whole other one in another book. We're very pro carriage scene here. Yeah.

00;21;40;06 - 00;21;57;10
Speaker 1
One thing I loved about Phoebe's sisters is that they both had names that but they went by male names, stuck a little bit about crafting these women that are strong and independent to have that go by male names. In this historical universe.

00;21;57;19 - 00;22;19;09
Speaker 2
I have like a nickname Obsession. I don't like I don't care. I was going to call it a problem. But so like I think in most of my books, the heroine has a full name, but then she also goes by a nickname and in this book. Yeah, so they're her sister is Alexandra, her older sister, sisters Alexandra, who goes by Alex.

00;22;19;19 - 00;22;44;16
Speaker 2
And then she has a sister, Winifred, who goes by Freddy and with Alex, I really felt like this is she's a very sort of cold controlled, you know, business focused person. And I thought like, well, that really works with her. And then Freddy is the youngest sister and she's very carefree, very charismatic. Doesn't take things too seriously, which I don't know.

00;22;44;16 - 00;23;15;19
Speaker 2
I just sort of feel like that just goes so well with a name like Freddy. I also thought it sounded really cute. Which she's also very cute. So I thought, like, both of these nicknames, like, yes, there are these male names and then you have these two pretty strong characters in very different ways. But I do think that there's a part of them that really embodies these these names and these nicknames in particular that I just thought it was fun and enjoyable.

00;23;15;19 - 00;23;19;28
Speaker 2
And it adds a little something, too, to the narrative.

00;23;20;19 - 00;23;26;02
Speaker 1
Are we going to get to see Alex and Freddy find their happily ever after is anytime soon?

00;23;26;14 - 00;23;55;23
Speaker 2
Yes. Alex, this book is with my editor, so that's all set. So that should come out, I think next year. I've seen a sketch of the cover. It's really cute. It's sort of like a gender swap Victorian Sabrina, like the old romcom. So she's sort of like the serious older sibling and then she gets involved with the younger, a younger man who is the son of the Coachmen.

00;23;55;25 - 00;24;04;06
Speaker 2
We haven't met him yet in this book, but it's a lot of fun. And then yeah, and then Freddy's book will be after that, but it'll be like the following year. Good.

00;24;04;06 - 00;24;06;07
Speaker 1
Because we, we need more of them.

00;24;06;20 - 00;24;08;13
Speaker 2
I'm so glad. But a lot of fun.

00;24;08;21 - 00;24;13;06
Speaker 1
I mean, you set it up really well with the cliffhanger. You sound like if there is not more.

00;24;13;06 - 00;24;15;03
Speaker 2
I'm really sorry.

00;24;17;23 - 00;24;32;10
Speaker 1
And you also have another book coming out that the location in the title is Where are a couple in this book? Are honeymooning. Spoiler alert. You know it's happening. So are these two tied in any way?

00;24;33;07 - 00;24;59;09
Speaker 2
No, they're not tied in any anyway. I so I have historical mystery coming out in April, and it's called A Death on Corfu. So Corfu was I think I think I wrote I wrote judges material completely before I wrote a death on Corfu. So I think I either was like, I don't know, I liked the idea of British people and Greece.

00;24;59;10 - 00;25;22;18
Speaker 2
I thought that would be as fun. And there in Corfu particularly is a it used to be a British protectorate so there are a lot of British people there even today. So I was like, well, I like this idea of them being, you know, going on their honeymoon, you know, so far away. And I thought it kind of matched with some of the themes in the book.

00;25;23;14 - 00;25;43;07
Speaker 2
And then I was like, well, it should be Corfu, right? I mean, it makes sense. And then it was like, yeah, I'm also so yeah, I guess it's like maybe a little Easter egg. If you've read like all of my books and there are some things. And if you read all of my books, I do try to put little Easter eggs and little references to different things.

00;25;43;15 - 00;25;52;10
Speaker 1
Do you feel like you needed to approach this mystery different than you did your romance mysteries? Or is there is it just like the same old process for you?

00;25;52;12 - 00;26;16;19
Speaker 2
It's different. It's different. I mean, in this book is it's first person P.o.v and it's single P.O.V.. So that right away is different. You know, it's from the heroine's point of view, only which is interesting. And I don't want to say it's easier, but it's like you don't have to do the dual p.o.v, you know, and there is a there are romantic elements in this book, but it's not the focus.

00;26;16;19 - 00;26;39;08
Speaker 2
The focus is mostly on her and her internal journey and her her solving this murder mystery. And so it's sort of more about the process of solving that murder. That's really more of the focus. And so that is it's different. You know, it is. And there's certain things are different just by just because it's like a single point of view story.

00;26;40;19 - 00;26;54;25
Speaker 2
And there's, you know, there's no love scenes in it. So it did it is different just from from those two aspects. But there is like a there are romantic elements in it because I do love that.

00;26;55;09 - 00;27;02;03
Speaker 1
One thing I've noticed from your Instagram is that you love talking about your books in the form of memes with your favorite.

00;27;02;25 - 00;27;26;11
Speaker 2
Meme drop for the for the judges material. And there was that meme that's it's not like the person who's tweet it, the woman who's like accidentally tweeting and she's tweeting Nigel Farage hot, hot pics or like something. And then she just puts delete delete three. And that's kind of an older meme, but I it always makes me laugh.

00;27;26;11 - 00;27;48;03
Speaker 2
And so I used that for one of my, one of my things as the, as the Duke it's as if the main character was looking for the Duke of hot pics to delete tweets. So I like those. I like the ones that are like the new girl anything with like new girl I find really funny. And those are always fun and wacky.

00;27;48;19 - 00;27;59;15
Speaker 1
When you see the meme and the original meme, do automatically think of something or is it something that when you are trying to promote this book that you're like, How could I do this? And then like you go searching.

00;27;59;26 - 00;28;20;16
Speaker 2
It's better if you just come across the means organically and then you save them. And sometimes I'll be like, Oh, I could use this later and I'll save it. And then sometimes yeah, sometimes I find it's better if you come across it when you're not trying to specifically look for something. So I do make sure I save things now.

00;28;20;16 - 00;28;33;04
Speaker 2
And there was one that I really wanted. It was in I can't always find the means that I want. There was something. It was in, Oh my God, what's that show that just came out on Netflix with Adam Brody and person like.

00;28;33;06 - 00;28;34;11
Speaker 1
Wants this or Nobody.

00;28;34;11 - 00;28;54;00
Speaker 2
Wants this. There's this line where she says, My sister is like my greatest enemy, my best friend and my greatest enemy. And I really wanted to find that as a meme because that does totally. That is Phoebe and her sister, you know, my best friend or my greatest enemy, but I couldn't find it. It wasn't popular. It doesn't have that.

00;28;54;00 - 00;28;55;03
Speaker 2
There are not enough names yet.

00;28;56;10 - 00;28;58;23
Speaker 1
That is just true of siblings, I feel like.

00;28;59;01 - 00;29;03;14
Speaker 2
Yeah, I thought the sister relationship on that show was really very good.

00;29;04;14 - 00;29;13;20
Speaker 1
OK, well, it is time for the last question, which usually stops the most people, and that is because this is literary hype. What books are you hyped about right now?

00;29;14;26 - 00;29;49;25
Speaker 2
Oh God, I, I mean, I'm reading Sally Rooney's latest book, Intermezzo. That's great. I love reading about depressed Irish millennials I'm really hyped about Elizabeth Everett's history. Stroke romance is coming out next year. The Lady Sparks the flame. I'm really excited about Alexis Dalia's book that's coming out. Along came a more I'm trying to think of like, I know there's just been Julianne Long's books that just hurt.

00;29;50;11 - 00;30;19;18
Speaker 2
I haven't read them yet, but I know her last couple books people just been raving about, so I'm excited about those for historical. Oh, Elizabeth Hoyt has a new historical and is supposed to be really good hyped about that I read I want to read a little Liana de la Rosa's book, Isabella in the Rogue. I've heard wonderful things about that I remember hyped about so many books, and I don't have enough time to read all the books that I want.

00;30;19;20 - 00;30;21;29
Speaker 2
It takes me so long now to read books. It's so, so.

00;30;22;29 - 00;30;33;03
Speaker 1
Such a mood like buying books, reading books and talking about books are all very separate hobbies. And then when you have writing books on top of it, it gets even more complicated.

00;30;33;08 - 00;30;40;19
Speaker 2
Yeah, I really I like turned my hobby into my job, which I guess you did also moved.

00;30;40;20 - 00;30;42;05
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah, definitely did that.

00;30;42;21 - 00;30;49;09
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's great. But there are some drawbacks when you're like, Oh, I really love this thing. What if I can just do it all the time?

00;30;49;15 - 00;30;53;23
Speaker 1
Well, thanks so much for taking time to talk to literary hype about your brand new book. That's just material.

00;30;54;10 - 00;30;57;01
Speaker 2
You so much for being here, for letting me be here.

00;31;01;17 - 00;31;21;04
Speaker 1
Thanks again to Emily for taking time out of her day to discuss Duchess material. If you'd like to get your hands on Duchess material or any of Emily's previous books or her upcoming books, the links to do so are in the show notes for you, as well as where to find her on social media. If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe to the Literary Hype podcast.

00;31;21;05 - 00;31;25;27
Speaker 1
Give us some stars and share it with a friend. Thanks so much for listening to the Literary Hype podcast.