giveaway winners for January + RESEARCH.
Hello! Time to announce the winners of my somewhat-delayed giveaway of paperbacks of Saeed Jones’ memoir How We Fight for Our Lives! [very small drumroll] The winners are Anna B. and Simon C.! I will be emailing them shortly so I can send them their books.
I am extremely excited about the book I’m giving away next month, which I will announce in my next newsletter. STAY TUNED.
I have started researching but not writing** the next book of Regency Cheesemakers, in which John Mary goes to Paris for (undisclosed reasons) and meets a beautiful restauranteur for (undisclosed reasons).
I have been reading historical romance for a long time (started “borrowing” the Johanna Lindsey books my mom kept on the bottom shelf about 25 years ago). I am well-aware that historical romance is not historical fiction and is not trying to be. But at the same time, there are a lot of norms in historical romance that I don’t love and feel it is important to address directly: the focus on aristocracy; the extreme vagueness about the way in which that aristocracy gets its money; the overwhelming whiteness and straightness with which the genre tends to paint the world. There are many authors already doing amazing work to untangle these threads and write subversive and brilliant historical romances — Cat Sebastian, K.J. Charles, Beverly Jenkins, Adriana Herrera, Vanessa Riley, and Rose Lerner are a few of the first names who come to mind, though there are many others — but also, if you look at the top ten Regency romances on Amazon right now, they all feature white characters and nine of them feature a duke, marquess, earl, or laird as a main character. So there’s still room for me to do some work.
I’ve spent a fair bit of time in Paris for various reasons (long ago I went to the Fontainebleau School over the summer, among other adventures), and it’s a city I love. But if I’m going to keep writing books set in the 1820s in western Europe, I feel an obligation to talk about empire and colonialism. And if we’re going to France, that means talking about Haiti — once the French crown’s most profitable colony, later the first country in the world to be established by the successful revolt of enslaved peoples.
Massachusetts is also the home of the third-largest Haitian-American community in the United States, and my coworkers include many people whose families came from that nation. This is history that I should know. While I do not have the lived experience to feel comfortable writing a Haitian protagonist, I want to write a cosmopolitan Paris that reflects some of the convulsions of empire in the Caribbean, north Africa, and elsewhere.
And so, I must research.
I have of course ordered many books, which is always the most fun part of any big research project, but I have started reading C.L.R. James’ magnificent 1938 work The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. Do not let the publication date discourage you; this book feels incredibly modern and relevant, and is told as an engaging narrative that bounces back and forth across the Atlantic.
James neither goes into titillating detail nor obfuscating euphemism when describing the horrors of slavery. Perhaps the simplest explanation of how bad it was is that it was not possible for enslaved people in San Domingo (the colonial name of Haiti) to have children fast enough to replace themselves before they were violently killed or starved to death. James also does not shy away from describing the failings of his heroes, including the general Toussaint Louverture, from his marginal French literacy to his moral compromises.
After this, I have several more books on Haitian history and quite a few on restaurant culture in Paris, and then we’ll see where I am. I hope to start drafting some time around May or June (shortly after I hope to publish The King in the Forest!)
I am discouraged the state of the world, but encouraged by the work laid out before me, and that’s probably as good as it gets.
Best of luck to all, and as much hope as you can stand,
Sharon
**currently I am writing a book set in the Goblins & Cheese universe which happens after the events of The King in the Forest, and which will definitely not be available to the public until sometime in 2026. I am doing about 300 words per day and have zero plan. It feels great to just write for fun for the first time in a while.