As we draw closer to the publication of A Most Intriguing Lady, author Sarah Ferguson sat down with her friend, collaborator and co-author Marguerite Kaye to chat about the creative process, their inspiration, and of course their brand new book! 

Read on to find out more, and don’t forget to pre-order your copy of A Most Intriguing Lady here. 

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Marguerite: Welcome to my friend and collaborwriter Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York. I hope you’re ready to answer some very probing and serious questions?

Sarah:  Thank you to Mills and Boon for giving us the opportunity to chat here. As always, I shall be forthright and honest, though I’m not sure about serious. Our conversations are never entirely serious. Fire away!

Marguerite: I’ll start with an easy one. What is your favourite thing about writing?

Sarah: Aside from working with you, you mean?

Marguerite: I’ll take that as read!

Sarah: Well then, apart from working with you, I think what I love most is the creative process. Seeing characters that have lived in my head, or that you and I have talked about, coming to life on the page. I love giving them a past, a whole history that defines who they are and how they behave, even though we might never share that history with the reader. I love our discussions about how those characters might react to different situations, and how we bat ideas back and forwards, usually involving me going off on a flight of fancy, and you gently reining me in. Sometimes not so gently!

I also love immersing myself in the narrative we create together and escaping, just for a while, the real world and all its challenges. Oh yes, and I love that every second of the time I’m writing, I’m stepping back in time, immersing myself in history and an alternative world, one where we can actually control the outcomes and what happens. Such power!

Oh yes, and I love thinking that our book will give our readers an escape from the real world too, that when they pick up the book they’ll be immersed in Lady Mary’s adventures, and get respite for a short while from whatever issues they face in their own life. Oh, I really love that, don’t you?

Marguerite: Definitely. I’ve been escaping into romance since I was a teenager, when I started reading my mum’s collection of Georgette Heyer and Barbara Cartland books in secret. I still can’t believe that now I’m writing historical romance – and it amazes me even more that I’m now collaborwriting with you. I could never have imagined that happening, but I’m delighted that the opportunity has arisen. Which brings me to my next question. What has surprised you most about our collaborwriting?

Sarah: It’s fun, isn’t it?

Marguerite: It is! If it was a chore, we wouldn’t have got beyond the first book, would we?

Sarah: Very true, whereas we’re already thinking about writing book three together! I think what has surprised me most is how collaborwriting has forged such a strong friendship between us.

 

Bonus: listen to our exclusive A Most Intriguing Lady playlist on Spotify, featuring music hand-picked by the Duchess and Marguerite

 

Marguerite: And being such good friends had also really improved our writing, don’t you think?

Sarah: Oh yes, I agree. We understand each other, the way we think, so we can play to each other’s strengths and compensate for our weaknesses. But perhaps just as importantly, it means we can be critical without either of us taking offense.

Marguerite: Yes! I remember how difficult you used to find it, to tell me that you didn’t agree with something I proposed, or that you thought the tone of something I’d written was all wrong. I used to have to drag what you really thought out of you. Now you are quite happy to tell me that something is rubbish, and to say what it should be too. In fact sometimes, when we are in full flow, I find I have to really run to keep up with your thoughts and ideas, they flow so fast.

Sarah: Isn’t it lovely though, having someone to share those moments with, when the writing is going so well? And when it’s going badly too, when we are struggling, it is so much better when there’s two of us rather than one.

Marguerite: You’re right, it can be a very lonely place, being a writer with a story that isn’t working. Is that the aspect of writing you like least?

Sarah: No, because I do like a challenge, and that’s how I see it when we have to fix something, or make it work better. I think the aspect I least like is when we have a great idea for a plot line, or a character I fall in love with, who doesn’t make the final cut because they aren’t key to the narrative. Because it’s all about pace – you see, I do listen! As a result, I must say, though I admit to being biased, that A Most Intriguing Lady is a real page turner.

Marguerite: As I’ve said a few times, you have taught me about pace too. I’m terrible for letting the characters go on and on analysing their thoughts, and each time I do now, I have your voice either in my head or on the end of the phone saying, blah, blah, blah, enough introspection, let’s get on with telling the story.

Sarah: My Netflix perspective, you call it. Is that your next question, who shall we cast in any dramatization of our book?

Marguerite: Ooooh, excellent question, but let’s save that for another day and keep people guessing. Let’s finish with a couple of classic questions. Firstly, if you could have three guests to dinner, living, dead or fictional, who would they be?

Sarah: The ‘unsinkable’ Molly Brown. Anne Frank. Charlotte Grey. And Queen Elizabeth the First.

 

Bonus: pre-order your exclusive signed edition of A Most Intriguing Lady, available only at WHSmith

 

Marguerite: That’s four, but I’ll let you off. Next, tell me something about yourself that might surprise everyone, even me?

Sarah: I fly helicopters. I gallop horses. I don’t cook. I adore people. I find humour in all I do. I climb mountains. I doodle avidly. I have written 78 books.

Marguerite: Aha! That leads me onto my final question. Will there be any more collaborwriting? I’m asking for a friend, obviously!

Sarah: I think you know the answer to that one. The question should be, which book will we collaborwrite next? Will it feature Leonie, a new character, or the further adventures of Bert and Beckman, who feature in A Most Intriguing Lady?

Marguerite: Both, I hope!

Sarah: As ever we are of one mind.

Marguerite: Thank you for taking the time to chat, and to answer all my questions.

Sarah: It was a pleasure, as always.

 

A Most Intriguing Lady is published in the UK on 30 March 2023. Pre-order your copy here. 

Scandals, seduction and secrets… and one woman’s quest to uncover the truth. The most intriguing historical romance of 2023. Perfect for fans of Bridgerton.

Lady Mary Montagu Douglas Scott has a secret. Overlooked and underestimated by all who meet her, the wallflower daughter of Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch has a sharp intelligence and keen powers of observation. Traits that make her perfect to uncover society crimes – those whose wealthy victims have their pride and reputation at stake.

Unnoticed amongst the ballrooms of grand houses, Mary uncovers stolen jewellery, missing money, and saves reputations. When Mary meets Colonel Walter Trefusis, an unlikely alliance is formed as the two work together. And soon Tre will see that between diamond thefts and scandal there is more to this wallflower than meets the eye.

By Becky Lushey