A Q&A with author of the Pink Carnation series, Lauren Willig

Here is the very first of GBBS's Q&As with some very fun and talented writers! First up is Lauren Willig, the author of the Pink Carnation series. For much more on Lauren and her novels follow this link. And for a GBBS review of the first book, The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, click here. Many thanks to Lauren for responses that are super thoughtful and as entertaining to read as her books!

GBBS: What is the one book you'd take to a deserted island?

LW: The idea of only having one book… agh. I’m usually a five book a week girl. Fortunately, I am a re-reader and the book I’ve probably re-read most over the course of a lifetime would have to be Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind. Even after five different copies and roughly fifty readings, I still find something new every time I open those covers. Her eye for detail, her ear for dialogue, the subtleties of characterization, and the sheer appeal of Rhett Butler just can’t be matched.

GBBS: If you could, which fictional literary character would you date?

LW: It’s so hard to narrow it down! The heartthrob of my teen years was Ian Thornton from Judith McNaught’s Almost Heaven. By the time I got over him, there was Jamie from Outlander to be drooled over, Lovelace from Clarissa (I know he’s an evil rake, but, oh, the challenge!), Orlando Rock from Love: A User’s Guide, and, of course, those traditional swoon-worthy souls: Mr. Darcy, Mr. Rochester, and Rhett Butler.

If I had to choose now, I might go for Rory Frost, from M.M. Kaye’s Trade Wind. Rory is the classic black sheep hero, an unrepentant rogue running guns in mid-nineteenth century Zanzibar, always ready with a quick quip, cynical to the core—but with his own sense of honor. Think Errol Flynn crossed with Rhett Butler (which mixes genres a bit, but you get the idea).

GBBS: What's your preferred method of book-buying -- internet or old-fashioned bookstores?

LW: Bookstores are my mothership. Whenever I’m bored or cranky, nothing cheers me up like taking a long stroll through the new book tables. There’s something infinitely soothing about it. I’ve found some of my favorite books that way, just randomly roaming along with my head angled awkwardly sideways, never knowing quite what I might find. If I can’t find a particular book in the store (or three or four stores, since I’m lucky enough to live near a Borders, two Barnes & Noble, Bookberries, and Shakespeare & Co, all in a thirty block radius), then I do resort to ordering online. But nothing can possibly replace the sheer joy of being entirely surrounded by books. Books, books, books, and more books, all waiting to be read.

GBBS: Which writer is so great that it's hard to tear yourself away from his/her writing so you can get stuff done?

LW: Actually, there are a lot of those. (As you might have guessed, I’m very susceptible to distraction!). Even though they’re all very different, Susan Elizabeth Philips, Tracy Grant, Robin McKinley, and Georgette Heyer all have that effect on me. Once I start reading any of their books, I fall prey to Just One More Chapter syndrome and have to keep going until I’m done, even if it’s three in the morning and I know I’m going to be useless the next day because of it.

GBBS: Your books are so detailed (I'm thinking of Amy's sneaking around the passages of her brother's huge house in Paris), how are you able to imagine so much so vividly?

LW: Thank you!! Part of it comes from having spent most of my youth being steeped in other centuries. When I was little, one of my favorite treats was being taken to the period rooms at the Met. Other little kids might clamor to go to the park; I just wanted eighteenth century interiors. Family vacations generally involved roaming around old castles. And let’s not even discuss the sheer number of costume dramas I’ve watched over the years. I managed to put my college years to good use by taking classes on seventeenth and eighteenth century art and architecture (Amy’s brother’s house had its inception in a junior year art history class, for which I had to design a seventeenth century French house) as well as literature and history. By the time I sat down to write Pink Carnation, the vistas of the past were often more vivid to me than the workaday world around me; looking out my window in London, I could picture carriages rather than cars, street vendors hawking their wares, dandies tooling their phaetons to Hyde Park. The hard bit is dragging myself back to the present day.

GBBS: I suppose that, unfortunately, the Pink Carnation must end at some point. Do you have any ideas on the backburner for other series?

LW: So many ideas! I don’t want to jinx any of them by saying too much (I get superstitious about these things), but I’m a little obsessed with a pirate project I’m working on right now. I also have vague plans for an eighteenth century series, involving a husband and wife team immersed in international intrigue in the 1770s. Of course, nothing is set in stone—or paper—until I actually sit down to write it.

Can you keep a 'Secret'? A review of The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig

There is no character named Victoria in this novel.

Too bad.

If there was a character named Victoria here, I'd have the opportunity to make one of those "Vickie's Secrets" plays on the title. I don't know, maybe I could say, 'Victoria's secret is out and her favorite color really is pink.' Or, 'Vickie might peddle satin and lace at America's popular purveyor of tacky lingerie but her heart belongs to espionage.' Perhaps, 'Victoria, dear, some advice just in case a Pink Carnation movie is ever made: DO NOT do your own costuming!'

All this allusion to VS would not be completely out of left field, for Lauren Willig's The Secret History of the Pink Carnation has some, ahem, provocative moments. Beware, there are some such lingering scenes. So you're happily plowing through the novel and then - Whoa, baby!- there's a truly intimate interlude. A few times.

Parents, teachers, readers inclined to blush easily - just wanted to let you know.

With all that said allow me to continue about this contagiously entertaining novel. It begins all innocence and fun scene-setting in England and France, a sweet little tale apparently written on the side by a Harvard law student, very girlie. And it pretty much stays that way throughout the book save for those handful of pages previously discussed. There are few, if any, swears in this novel, or any other sort of verbal vulgarity. This is not a scary book - suspenseful at times, as befits a novel of espionage - but none of the grotesque elements so often found in pop culture today. And, now that I've mentioned the spy business, I should clarify that this is the cartoon version, not at all to be taken seriously, fun for it's ridiculousness. This playful novel could not, after all, be the book it is if it took itself seriously.

It is light on true espionage, heavy on romance, highly imaginative - how did Willig come up with such a detailed floor plan for Edouard's house? - and populated with characters which are familiar and original at the same time. Reading it you feel you've met them before, in a '40s film or somewhere, but haven't had the pleasure of their company for a few years as most writers seem to take a more prurient and/or darker slant with their stars and supporting players. It's refreshing.

Basically, the main character, Amy, decides in Regency England that she wants to join an espionage ring in France. In another plotline, we have Eloise, a modern-day scholar who is studying Amy's diaries which form the entree into Amy's world.

The writing is of the effervescent ginger ale variety in its sweetness and levity, risque sections notwithstanding. The book doesn't masquerade as more literary than it is, but it is intelligent fluff.

So, decide if you're more a G, PG or R rated reader, and proceed from there. If you read it, enjoy, if not, there's always many more books on the shelf.

How the book joined her library....

Jemmie, tired of classes and scholarly work, lingered at the bargain bin at the college B&N after standing in the book buy-back line for a solid hour and a half. After a few slow yawns she shook her head and determinedly set her jaw into a no-yawn position; but she simply found her nostrils expanding when her body experienced the next sleepy impulse and she was finally forced to admit that, yes, she needed rest.

Right, Jemmie, you need to lie down, be unconscious for about 8 hours, snore deeply and unabashedly til you sound like a foghorn in the night, and -

Then she spied it. She knew her reluctance to leaving the store without spending a bit of that textbook money on a nice novel or two existed for some reason. Could this book be as promising as it looks? The lady living on the cover of The Secret History of the Pink Carnation carried such a flower in her delicate alabaster hands and the folds of her equally pink gown cascaded over her slippered feet. The book was branded with a blushing wax seal. How perfect could a cover be? But could the words inside match the promise of the outside?

She'd seen the book before but assumed it was just more of the same silly chick-lit and bad writing she'd seen so much of before in stores. That money was really wriggling around in her wallet impatient to be spent. She was yearning for a bookish cash transaction - my money, your book then your money, my book - resulting in a purchase carried home in a nice green bag after a few witty words with the cashier about the state of popular literature these days.

Certainly, she'd earned it after all her hard work, hadn't she? Yes, the book would be hers...and,the novel lived happily ever after on Jemmie's shelves....

But did Jemmie live happily with that book or did she regret the indulgence of that buy? NO REGRETS! This bears repeating. The book purchase was not a bad idea.

So keen on her novel find was Jemmie that she consented to have her experience romanticized by her book-blogging alter ego, Jemima. But surely you're wondering now how a review would go. Jemima is going to transcribes Jemmie's feelings right here on GBBS.

Stay tuned.

What's your most prized book?

When I was a kid I used to ask my family members the most irritating questions. The conversations would go something like this:

"Which name do you like better - Josephine or Stephanie?"

Sigh of an exasperated older person. "I don't know. They're both nice."

"No, c'mon. Which name?"

"I don't know."

"You've gotta choose."

"Look, I don't know they're both pretty. Which name do you like better?"

"I don't know," I'd shrug to their further annoyed sighs.

So, in keeping with tradition, I have decided to ask a question for which I don't have my own answer: Hey all, what's your most prized book?

Because I'm not such a selfish little inquisitor anymore I guess I'll break tradition and hasten a guess as to what's at the top of my list.

Of course, I must say first that I don't truly know. Nonetheless, here goes...

Anything signed by the author, like my copies of Lauren Willig's The Deception of the Emerald Ring and The Masque of the Black Tulip. Any of my lovely books from childhood. My old Gone With the Wind.

I look forward to hearing your picks!