When the times get tough, some of us escape into the pages of a book, and one of the nation’s top romance writers will be in central Iowa tonight.
The 30-plus novels of Eloisa James have been published in 28 languages and have sold more than seven-million copies worldwide. In an interview with Radio Iowa, James says she grew up on a farm in Minnesota on a steady diet of fairy tales.
“Romance is kind of an escape genre, right?” James says. “If a mystery has the dream of perfect justice, romance has the dream that everyone deserves an intelligent, sexy, fun, honorable relationship on whatever grounds.”
James’ literary focus is on historical romance, so that means her stories are all set long in the past, most of them around two centuries ago. She says it’s a deliberate choice to bring those bygone eras to life for 21st century readers.
“You get away from a lot of things that plague people now, like, I wouldn’t want to be writing contemporary romance because of the political situation. You know, what are they, left, right, where are they?” James says. “But if you’re talking about the past, we’re really in the time of Jane Austen. It’s a true escape. You get to wear gorgeous gowns. My heroines always have money because I grew up on a farm. It’s like stepping into a different world.”
Her new novel is called “The Last Lady B,” described by one critic as Jane Austen meets White Lotus. James says it contains familiar themes — as well as some departures — from her previous novels.
“My heroine is married to an elderly gentleman who has had three previous dead wives, all of whom died in a haunted abbey in Scotland, and they are headed up there for Christmas,” James says. “The first person she meets is obviously going to be the hero, but it’s a lot of fun because there’s a ghost, a very nice ghost, so it’s sort of a twist on some of my other books. It has a touch of the gothic about it.”
Eloisa James is the pen name of Mary Bly, who’s recently retired as professor of Shakespeare at Fordham University in New York City, stepping down from academia to focus full-time on her writing career.
“This semester is starting and I am not taking out my syllabus. It’s a very odd feeling, but it’s kind of great, too,” James says. “So I just have a lot of things I want to write. I’m writing a contemporary version of King Lear. I’m writing another gothic. I’m doing dog rescue benefit novellas on Kickstarter, so lots of exciting things going on.”
James will appear at 7 PM at the Central Library in Des Moines. She plans to give a short talk and then will take questions from fans. The event is free.
Hear Matt Kelley’s full interview with Eloisa James below: