And Then She Fell(119)

James Glossup is a character who readers have met before. Did you always intend him to feature in his own book one day?

James Glossup previously appeared in The Perfect Lover. He was and still is Simon Cynster’s oldest and closest friend—and Simon is Henrietta’s brother, only a few years older than her. When I finished The Perfect Lover, I suspected I would have to, at some point, write James’s story, but I didn’t know at that time that it would be Henrietta his eye would light upon. And he didn’t know that, either. In many respects, this book, Henrietta and James’s story, is an outcome of the action of The Perfect Lover, in which Simon and Portia finally realized they were meant for each other. Through the subsequent events surrounding Simon’s engagement and wedding, James and Henrietta naturally spent more time together; they had met before and were aware of the other’s existence, but had not before had occasion to spend any real time in each other’s company. So the events of Simon’s engagement and wedding provide the essential groundwork that allows James to react very directly to Henrietta’s disruption of his matrimonial plans.


What is it that makes James the perfect match for Henrietta?

This was something that came out in the telling—as I wrote the book—that these two people truly were made for each other. Henrietta—practical, pragmatic, and, courtesy of her years as The Matchbreaker, very aware of all the negative aspects of gentlemen of the ton with respect to marriage—was never going to fall for the usual alpha hero. She would instinctively distrust such a man. But although James is very definitely a “wolf of the ton,” definitely an alpha male as might be expected of Simon’s closest friend, he has a quiet side to him, a deeper side that values the same ideals that Henrietta herself most fundamentally values, and it’s that side of him that connects most strongly with her. They are not so much two sides of the same coin, but rather a male and a female who are strongly complementary—they fit together well.


The stories in your previous three books (The Cynster Sisters Trilogy) were dominated by country settings, but Henrietta’s story takes place entirely in or around London. How do you choose your settings?

I don’t define settings first, and then evolve a story to fit the setting. Rather the story, which is largely dictated by the characters, defines the setting. For instance, The Cynster Sisters Trilogy books had a lot of “out in the country” involved, including a lot of Scotland, because of who the primary motivator of all three stories was, namely the Highland Earl of Glencrae. Because he was the driving force behind the actions and London was dangerous for him, he shifted the girls out of London as fast as he could. But Henrietta’s story is about James finding his necessary bride, and quickly, so the action will clearly take place during the ton Season, which means in the ballrooms, drawing rooms, and country houses in and around London.


The villain in this tale is particularly heinous. How real was such a villain to the times?

Very real, actually. Although my villain isn’t drawn from any particular real-life incident or person, such malefactors existed then as they do now—sadly, villains of this stripe appear to be a constant in any civilized society. While the bulk of society plays by civilized rules, there are always those who believe such rules don’t apply to them. My villain in this book bears all the typical traits of a self-absorbed, power-hungry, yet charismatic character. The one aspect that distinguishes then from now is that then it was so much harder to catch and unmask such villains—they really did get away with dreadful crimes very often—because, of course, there was none of the CSI that modern crime fighting relies on to identify perpetrators. Back then, it was all a matter of careful deduction, and very often engineering a trap.


It seems that Mary, Henrietta’s sister, plays a pivotal role in her older sister’s love life—and Mary’s romance is to follow. Are these two books connected?

First, yes, Mary does indeed play a pivotal role in Henrietta’s story by insisting that Henrietta wear the necklace—and keep wearing it until she’s engaged, and can, properly and correctly, pass the necklace on to Mary, which in Mary’s eyes must happen at Henrietta’s engagement ball. Mary wants that necklace for her own reasons, but it has to come into her hands in the proper way, or it might not work as it’s supposed to. So from the very first scene in Henrietta’s book, we have Mary pushing Henrietta toward the altar—doing everything she can to get Henrietta to Henrietta’s engagement ball. And, of course, Henrietta finally gets there, and in the Epilogue we see Henrietta hand the necklace on to Mary. Essentially, the short scenes in Henrietta’s book, where she and Mary discuss Mary’s desire for the necklace and the reasons behind that and what happens in the Epilogue once Henrietta fastens the necklace around Mary’s throat, provide the back story to Mary’s romance. So yes, these two books are connected, but, as usual with my books, it’s perfectly possible to read them separately, or even in reverse order. The reader will simply have a more chronological view of events if they read them one after the other—Henrietta’s first, then Mary’s.