1--What is the title of your latest release?
REMEMBER WHEN. Book 4 of the Ravenswood series
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
Clarissa Ware, Dowager Countess of Stratton, mother of the Ravenswood clan, finally gets her own happy ending with the man she has secretly loved since childhood, despite his somewhat lower social standing.
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
The mansion and park of Ravenswood in Hampshire already existed from the previous three books in the series. Although the stories sometimes stray to other places, like London, I like to center them mostly around Ravenswood itself since it is central to the series and readers will be familiar with it. This story takes place almost entirely there, with a few scenes set at Clarissa’s childhood home ten miles away.
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Probably not. I am a 21st century author, living a quiet existence in a modest home in rural Saskatchewan, Canada. She is a Regency-era British aristocrat. She lives in the realm of my imagination, which seems very real indeed when I am in the process of writing but is not reality in fact. I keep my imaginary life and the real thing quite separate.
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Dignified, loyal, warm-hearted.
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
I’m not sure if this is something I learned since I surely knew it already from personal experience. But it was knowledge that was reinforced. Clarissa is going through a mid-life crisis as her fiftieth birthday approaches. Her family—four sons and two daughters, can’t understand her decision to spend the summer alone at Ravenswood when all of them want her with them so they can lavish her with the love and company and care she showed them during their growing years. And when she decides to move out into a small place of her own, they become deeply alarmed and collaborate in schemes to save her from herself. It is possible to love too much, I have discovered, especially as a parent or as the child of an older parent. It is hard to learn to love and let go. I have always been a bit of the managing sort. I love my family so much that I want to solve all their problems. When I fictionalized the dilemma in this novel. I could see clearly what hard experience has taught me in real life—not to love less, but to love more wisely—and less possessively.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
I edit constantly. I add or change details and change the wording. Once I get the feeling that all is not just the way I want it (it happens frequently!), I find it impossible to move onward until I have gone back through the book and changed it to be the way I want it. I may in the course of writing the book go back many times and keep on changing what I have written. By the time I come to the end, it is more or less the way I want it to be. Any changes I then make as I reread the whole thing in editor mode will almost always be merely cosmetic. The details will be as I want them. When I do a final read-through, I switch to reader mode and transfer the book to my Kindle so I will be less tempted to tinker with it one more time! At some point one has to let go and wait for one’s editor to have her say.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Licorice and caramel toffees. But I ration myself to one of each per day, after supper. One of my favorite moments of the day!
9--Describe your writing space/office!
I do most of my writing during the summer out on the screen deck at the back of our house. I have no bugs there but lots of fresh air and greenery to look about upon as I write. I sit in the middle of a sofa, with my phones on one side of me and my desk calendar and book notes (mainly lists of characters) on my left. My large mug of coffee sits on the coffee table in front of me. Bliss! If I have to stay inside, I sit in a plush orange chair in my study. It wraps around me and allows just enough room for my laptop too. My essential papers will be on the footstool.
10--Who is an author you admire?
I have pondered this question for days. It is incredibly difficult to answer. I admire numerous authors, but I can’t think of one who stands out above all others.
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
Yes. FREDERICA by Georgette Heyer. I had always wanted to be a writer. But when I grew up, I was busy with marriage and motherhood and a time-consuming teaching career (high school English) and did not know anyway exactly what I wanted to write. I did try my hand at contemporary Harlequin romances, but the two I submitted were justifiably rejected. Then I picked up a copy of FREDERICA and fell in love. Even though I had always been a voracious reader, somehow I had never encountered Heyer until then. I devoured everything she had written, felt bereft when I came to the end—and decided that I was going to have to write my own Regency romance. The first one was A DARING MASQUERADE. So that Heyer book was a fateful discovery indeed.
12--Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
When I finished writing my first Regency back in 1983, I did not have a clue what to do with the manuscript. There was no internet and no googling in those days. I ended up taking a Canadian address from inside a Signet Regency book and sending the whole book there with a very brief covering letter. I had a reply a couple of weeks later. I had sent it to a distribution warehouse! However, someone there had read it, liked it, and sent it on to New York. A week or so after that I was home from school sick with a migraine headache and was literally staggering past the phone to make myself a cup of tea when it rang. It was Hilary Ross, editor of the Signet Regency line. She had read the book and liked it and offered me a two-book contract. My first reaction was that there was no one at home with whom to share my excitement (I phoned my mother in Wales). My second reaction was—What? Does this mean I have to do this all over again?
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
Probably detective mysteries, though I try not to fall into any habit. I am constantly on the lookout for new books, authors, and series, without reference to genre.
14--What’s your favorite movie?
I don’t watch movies. I prefer to read.
15--What is your favorite season?
Usually whichever one is coming next. I enjoy each season, but after a while I look forward to the next one. I am very grateful that I live in a part of the world where there are four distinct seasons (Saskatchewan, Canada). I remember once complaining on the phone about the cold winter weather to my younger daughter, who was living in California at the time. She said something like “Oh, Mom, I would give anything to have changes of season.”
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
At the present stage of my life, I am merely thankful when there is another to celebrate! There are usually calls through the day from my children and grandchildren, who are scattered all over the continent. They make the occasion special.
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
I have just finished reading Barbara Kingsolver’s DEMON COPPERHEAD. It blew my socks off! I can’t really explain why. There is much darkness in the book, and it is very long, both of which I avoid as much as possible these days. A few times I felt as I was reading that I could not take any more and must abandon the book, but I was riveted. I couldn’t not keep reading. The writing was superb, and the main character and narrator was irresistible.
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Indian curries.
19--What do you do when you have free time?
I read.
20--What can readers expect from you next?
Book 5 of the Ravenswood series, REMEMBER THAT DAY, Nicholas’s story, is already written and due out in 2026. I still have two more books of the series to write—one for Owen and one for Stephanie. Expect these last three books to feature some characters from the Westcott series. Readers have been asking for stories for a few leftover characters and will be pleased, I hope, to find them in the Ravenswood world. I always enjoy mixing together characters from various series. It is relatively easy to do since almost all my books are set in Regency England.
Ravenswood #4
Discover the beauty of second chances at love and life in this heartfelt new novel from New York Times bestselling author Mary Balogh.
The Dowager Countess of Stratton, Clarissa Ware, née Greenfield, has just presented her younger daughter to the ton, and the rest of her life belongs only to herself. She returns to Ravenswood, intending to spend the summer alone there. But the summer has other plans for her.
Born a gentleman, Matthew Taylor has chosen to spend his life as the village carpenter. Growing up, he and Clarissa were close—dangerously so, considering his family’s modest fortune. As a young man, he never would have been a suitable match for the daughter of the wealthy Greenfields. Clarissa married Caleb Ware, the Earl of Stratton, so Matthew married another, though he was widowed soon after.
Now everything is different—Clarissa has already lived the life expected of her by society. And Matthew is as attractive and intriguing as he was when they were young. As their summer friendship deepens into romance, they stand together on the precipice of change—essentially the same man and woman they remember being back then, but with renewed passion and the potential to take their lives in an entirely new direction.
Romance Historical [Berkley, On Sale: January 7, 2025, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9780593638415 / eISBN: 9780593638422]
Slow and introspective Regency romance drags
Mary Balogh grew up in Wales. Before she was ten, she was writing long, long stories about children having spectacular adventures and always emerging victorious. For one of her stories she won a large box filled with Cadbury's chocolate bars, a far more gratifying prize than any trophy to a ten-year-old, especially in post-World War II Britain. Many years passed before she became a published author. All those pesky things like school and university and a teaching career and marriage and motherhood to three children got in the way of what seemed like a mere dream. Oh, and the move to Canada, which was supposed to be for two years but turned out to be permanent. But it happened eventually--the publication of that first book, A MASKED DECEPTION, a Regency romance, in 1985, and a two-book contract. Twenty-seven years and five grandchildren and one great-grandchild later, Mary has almost one hundred published novels and novellas to her credit, all of them historical romances, most of them set in the Regency era in England. She has won numerous awards and, to date, has had nineteen books on the New York Times bestselling list. She lives in Saskatchewan, Canada, with her husband of forty-three years. They divide their time between the rural town of Kipling (summers) and the capital city of Regina (winters).
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