Mel Today I've got with me the beautiful Elizabeth Ellen Carter. Good morning Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Good morning Mel. Thank you very much for having me on the show.

Mel It's an absolute delight everybody I'm really excited. Elizabeth is an award winning an award winning historical romance author and I called her novels with permission of Elizabeth. What is it Alina. This is the kind of novel that I grew up on Elizabeth I'm so excited to be talking to you about it today.

Elizabeth Thank you very much. How you got into that because I got a novel when I was 17 from a girlfriend of mine in high school and it was the classic 1980s bodice rippers but the that the history in it it was set during the war of the Roses. I can remember the name it was Rose of rapture by. Brandywine Rebecca Brandywine and. It was a complete revelation. And I thought one day I'm gonna write a novel and if if it makes people feel it good. Go as as I felt reading this. So being swept away by the by the passion by it by the history by. By the really excellent universe creation then. Then I'd be very satisfied indeed.

Mel I have to read this out because I just went yes these are my kind of novels love blackmail ill gotten gains treason and trickery.

Elizabeth Oh yes yes. And that's on a good day.

Mel I'm going to go through all this at the moment because it's just so cool. Your newest book and I don't know whether it's part of your heart of the course's Sea resort stands on its own. It's called The Wolf of Wolf Street the pirates of Britannica. I just love it.

Elizabeth Thank you. I have been with them with the encouragement of my publisher Katharine Levesque. She has invited me to participate in this fabulous universe. So I have invented and ancestor from from the heartache of family. Gabriel hada. And he and his brothers are from other heroes of this particular adventure.

Mel That's so you everybody.

Elizabeth The heart of the course series the hero I guess is a privateer Captain Kit Hardaker and they're set from 1810 to 1816 on the Barbary Coast.

Mel Now I'm particularly interested in that a year on I'm having a pirate obsession myself at the moment. If they turned out to be really really popular for you they they have.

Elizabeth And again the encouragement from Luke from Catherine to pursue that. I was absolutely delighted with one review where I wrote the reviewer said this has to be turned into a series. And and and again it goes back to what we were talking about Earl. On the edge. So they they feel that they're at the center of the action then. Then that's just brilliant. So plug. So that has also been a great discipline. As an author as well because prior to. We're working on a series of standalone. So to commit to a series. And what's also interesting about the half the course says is the third book is a prequel to the first two. So at the end of Book 3 shadow of the core says is the beginning of.

Elizabeth The first book captive of the Course says the told from the different characters point of view.

Mel You are known for your research.

Elizabeth Yes. My husband jokes that it's five minutes of writing and twenty five minutes worth of research per half hour. That's right. I've I've got to. And it's interesting because I would become aware of that and it's how I approach lots of different things in life. I've got to. Almost like pull all the toys out of the toy box first and examine what I have. In order to create effectively create a universe. So yes it could be half an hour on looking at what the liquor licensing laws were in the early eighteen hundreds or or checking the etymology of. Vagrant and vagrancy to make sure that is accurate. So it's it's little things like that if I can't believe it. As as a reader I can't expect.

Elizabeth My readers to read to buy into that as well. So I love doing the research.

Mel And research is something we're going to explore more fully today everybody because this is a period of time that interests me. So if you're not interested in parts and Barclays you might as well go away now.

Mel It's not the stuff I want to talk about as well. But first of all what's the difference between a privateer or a buccaneer and a part right.

Elizabeth Semantics really. A privateer has a letter of remit from the government. So from that so they behave exactly in the same ways as a pirate in a way they were used as a de facto Navy they were used to supplement the the Royal Navy in. In.

Elizabeth Particular spheres.

Elizabeth So. So they were supposed to be doing it for the Crown and the Crown took a great amount of taxes from from their plunder but the privateers.

Elizabeth Plundered as well as any pirate.

Mel Yeah. Wasn't done Rhett Butler wasn't he approved here in Goma. Yes yes he was because he was also running a black market operation to to to help.

Mel Resource the south.

Mel Now the Barbary Coast is notorious notorious for pirates and all that kind of stuff. Now I've got another beautiful author Pamela grim who is also writing pirate stories and her sea captain is a female. So the Barbary Coast. Tell us about it and why we all know it.

Elizabeth The Barbary Coast. Well it's where we get the the word barbarian from. And that she refers to beards that the Barbary Coast is the coast of North Africa. It was. Controlled by the Ottoman Empire for quite a few hundred years and they use the North African coast Tunisia Libya Morocco as a base of operations to raid Europe. And that continued for many many centuries and not a lot of people realized that the American navy only came into existence because they I think it was Thomas Jefferson worked out that they were paying 10 percent of their GDP in tribute to the Barbary Coast pirates. So rather than them paying for that that money could go into the Navy and the the classicU.S. Marine songs from from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli relate to that in particular and in the end it was around 1830 where the Pirates of the Barbary Coast were finally. Squelched. And and the French did that. And that's why we've got French speaking North Africa. And that was done too. But to finally end the slavery what is also interesting too is that people don't realize that the Barbary Coast pirates rated as far north as Iceland. They they used an island just in the Bristol Channel called Lundy as a base of operations and that they raided all across Cornwall and Dorset in Ireland. Absolutely incredible. And that's the setting. The early sic early 16 hundreds is the setting for the De Wolf of Wall Street.

Mel Now there is so much written about pirates there is so much research you can do you can go right down the I guess a tunnel of research and not come out again. Tell me about some of the color that you can bring into those stories because it's so rich isn't it.

Elizabeth It is. And that's one of the reasons why I really enjoyed it the heart of the Course says series. Technically it's a regency but because it's set in Sicily in North Africa there is a home of. An entire fresh perspective that you can bring to the genre. Sicilian culture is is is so so rich and so historic because it was a very important piece of land that was fought over by the Phoenicians the ancient Greeks the Romans the Byzantine empire the Ottoman Empire. All the way through. So it say here a different culture that you're bringing to the very traditional English Regency period as well.

Elizabeth So that's a lot of fun.

Mel I love Georgia to higher everyone we've had our beautiful Melinda Sara Mallory Hammond on here who writes Regency romances and we're going to have her on again and she's appeared on escape to the country which we can't get here in Australia but I'm going to keep trying.

Mel But as you say there is there's a whole genre around that Regency romance and you've made this part of it your own. But by taking the Barbary Coast approach haven't you.

Elizabeth And that's it. And Georgia Hey I was a little bit of an inspiration as well. Her very first novel was set during the Elizabethan period. And and.

Elizabeth To my embarrassment I can't remember the Beaujolais I think is the name of that particular one and that was a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun reading that. And yet Georgette Heyer best known for a regency also dabbled in in different time periods as well.

Mel And that's something that I want to talk to you about because you have dabbled in different time periods. I think I found one in 10.

Elizabeth Seventeen something like that it was definitely the 11th century yet I've gone as far back as 235A.D. the high point of the Roman Empire.

Mel Do you have a favorite. I guess a favorite period because once you start going across history no I only teach high school history so what I've heard of everything that you've mentioned but I don't know anything about any of it in depth. Do you think you specialize or do you think you'll keep jumping around and coming up with different things.

Elizabeth I'll keep jumping around. I've stuck in the Regency period because sort of again sort of quite right. I've got to be consistent in that time period. But I do plan to do a sequel to the Roman novel. I'd like to go back to medieval England because there's there's a a series that that I want to do set in the early 13th century which again is a blend of romance. And. And.

Elizabeth Crime and murder mystery. So I love the combination of the two.

Mel And this is real fodder for for the writer's brain and the ideas and as you said you've got your new series coming up. Do you find that your readers follow you.

Elizabeth They do. And I'm very blessed in that regard. Every new release there's an exploration of the back catalogue as well. So I'm. Thrilled that I've got a readership that enjoys time hopping as much as I do.

Mel I found a seer offenders a lady in the Demick books drop yesterday and I actually read the Alice network. Have you heard of that. No no. KATE.

Mel KATE someone I've forgotten her name as well. And I picked up this book and my point is she wrote about well will one then she read about what will do and then I went back and she had a whole series of different time periods as well. And I'm wondering whether that's a bit of a trend now that we're now following authors. Not like I want to read bodice ripper so I'll only read them across you know across all this.

Elizabeth You think we find out and we keep it. I hope. I hope that's the case because there's. I think if you start with you enjoy history and if you know.

Elizabeth If you get a consistent experience as a reader from one particular author I think I think they I think people will follow you across. John Rose. Philippa Gregory is another example of that. Of course she's best known for her Tudor period but she's also written in the late 17th hundreds as well. And also in the 20s and 30s if I recall as well. So I think if there's that consistent voice and that consistent experience all the way through. Yes I do think readers will follow you.

Mel Yeah. And I think once you build a world and trust your author with the research that you actually learn about a world so your readers have trusted you to do the research and does that come from your journalism background.

Elizabeth Yes it does. Because and and also from that very first bodice ripper run that I read. It presented a different view of Richard the Third. And of course sort of prior to that. Well no you know evil evil king Richard. This particular also presented him in a more sympathetic light and actually gave an all an alternative villain. To the murders of the princes. And from that it sort of. It was sort of. OK. OK. This is this is something that I can really see. So it's something that I've tried to bring into all of my books.

Mel Yeah. Now you talk about Dragon Blade prop publishing is that Kathryn Leveque or is that your own brand.

Elizabeth No that's Catherine Alibek.

Mel I was a bit confused there I just assumed you were an indie publisher but clearly not.

Elizabeth No I'm a hybrid. I got my back catalogue back from an earlier publisher. Every year there are a number of different. Collaborations. That are self published. My most recent self published one is a sweet little novella called The Promise of the bells. And that came from a know a concept of reimagining legendary characters in a regency setting so I chose the Dick Whittington and his cat.

Mel And that was a lot of fun. I could find out you can find out about these everyone on Elizabeth's website it's got a little heading there called blue stocking bills and I didn't even know what that was about that bunch of authors.

Elizabeth Australian New Zealand the United States all with a passion for history and different time periods. And we do at least one this year it'll be two anthologies. The most recent one they've done was one set of set for Valentine to a Valentine's in Bath and there's another one we've got planned for October.

Yeah.

Mel Now something that frustrates me like anything now I'm talking to you you’re clearly so good at your research is you build worlds you do everything yet romance novels and especially historical romance novels bodies readers get written off as rubbish and yet if a man writes that he becomes a hero and he's a marine he writes of maritime history and he's fantastic. Are you finding that your readership like I think people like us automatically respect our romance authors because we know the work behind it.

Mel But you're finding as a wider research is still being written as a bodice ripper not that anyone says to my face but I think it comes from a misunderstanding of what romance is.

Elizabeth And once I explain to people that that romance has a very very long history the word actually comes from Romans and it refers to the narrative structure that narrative structure we see in great epic adventures like Beowulf like Ivanhoe and where there's there's a hero's journey. And there's a a strong narrative arc that evolved in too much of Alaric romances again Ivanhoe is a perfect example of that then in more recent times perhaps the late eighteen hundreds to the early 20th century romance simply became a word to describe a love story. But once I explain that no the romance has a young as a wide and noble history. It's like the light goes on for a lot of people.

Mel I fought very long and hard for this everybody I work and all boys schools and I constantly say Oh that is so romantic and like I go away.

Mel Got nothing to do with romance and I give them that speed and I say romance has a grand tradition and I and I make them go and look it up and then we start to build out what romance is and they get a real surprise because in today's language it's about boys kissing girls isn't that what that's it.

Mel But just about every John Wayne movie he ever made has a romance in it.

Elizabeth Big and and you can call those romances because it follows a hero's journey. And there is there is a romantic romance arc in it because for rum looking at it from purely the hero's point of view he's got to have something to fight for. And and it's it's fighting for a principle and it's also fighting for the for the woman he loves. And. Gosh if if we if we appreciated that. The difference that men and women bring to two relationships. And within that that. That pure romance way I think would be a whole lot better off.

Mel I agree with you. And this is going to bring I want to bring in now your you've been likened to Daphne de Murray and now she is not known. I think she's only written one or two romances.

Elizabeth The other thing she wrote everything she wrote were grand sweeping sagas.

Elizabeth What they they were. I'm sort of very honored to be compared tribute to Mario. I like.

Elizabeth To broaden the romance. I think the the love story arc is is beautiful and necessary because it would be a romance without it. But to me the acknowledgement of feelings only goes part of the way to the promise that romance brings and that is the happily ever after. So I do like to. Bring the hero and heroine through some kind of trial that they have to work in partnership together as as a couple to be forged by fire to give that happily ever after. True authenticity. You know feeling feelings are amorphous. They they come and they go. But if you've got stakes together and work work in partnership together and that is proven through the story then to me that justifies the happily ever after.

Mel I think it is it Diana Gilbaldron and I'm not quite sure how you pronounce her name. She writes the most amazing heroines and heroes and I just love her novels. Tell us about the heroine that you put with kid Hardaker.

Elizabeth Oh she is she's great. She's great she's she's a bit of a blue stocking but she's a she's a realist there as well. And it was something that a reader actually mentioned that you know Kit was a man with no no past Sophia Green was a woman with no future and it was sort of this this balance between the two that I'd instinctively written but had articulated in that way and that's always a pleasant surprise. Sophia is an archeologist she works with her with her uncle.

Elizabeth And it's there that she and Kip begin to butt heads. They also butt heads because Sophia is is very protective of her young cousin.

Elizabeth Kit thinks the cousin is a bit of a flake and yeah she is. But but together there's an appreciation of recognition of their relative vulnerabilities and each of them have to take a risk in pursuing that romantic relationship.

Mel And they wouldn't be true romances if we didn't have settings of a grand scale. And I think that's what historical novels do best we have we have these amazing settings we have these amazing stories and we have lots of beautiful ships.

Elizabeth Oh yes yes yes. Kip has a schooner which is one of the smaller ships because that's it gets in and out of places. I've had great fun learning about seafaring learning about how to short sale much larger ships about fire ships. So to be...