Harper St. George: Find What Makes You Happy
Harper St. George grew up in the rural backwoods of Alabama and the northwest Florida coast where her love of history began. She now makes her home in the Atlanta area writing historical fiction romance set in various time periods from the Viking Era to the Gilded Age. Her novels have been translated into 10 languages. Follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Harper St. George
In this interview Harper discusses the social and political differences (and similarities) at the heart of her new historical romance, The Stranger I Wed, her advice for other writers, and more!
Name: Harper St. George
Literary agent: Kevan Lyon
Book title: The Stranger I Wed
Publisher: Berkley
Release date: April 23, 2024
Genre/category: Historical romance
Previous titles: The Heiress Gets a Duke, The Devil and the Heiress, The Lady Tempts an Heir, The Duchess Takes a Husband
Elevator pitch: To gain access to her inheritance, illegitimate American heiress, Cora Dove, heads to England with her sisters to make a suitable match with a nobleman.
Bookshop | Amazon
[WD uses affiliate links.]
What prompted you to write this book?
This book is the first book in my new series The Doves of New York, which is itself a spinoff of my series The Gilded Age Heiresses. I love Gilded Age history in America, especially that which focuses on how American heiresses married into the European aristocracy. I think it’s a point of history that isn’t explored nearly enough. Over 100 of these marriages took place during this time which injected more than $1 billion into the European economy. There are so many different stories about these unions, and I love exploring them in my books.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
This book was contracted with my publisher in the spring of 2021, not long after The Heiress Gets a Duke released. I still had three more books under contract to come out, so it took about three years for this one to release. When I first pitched the idea, I only knew that I wanted to write a series about three illegitimate American sisters hoping to marry into the British aristocracy. I’d already written about an American industrialist family, so I wanted to explore a different part of history with this series. When I pitched the idea, I knew that I wanted the sisters to be the illegitimate offspring of an old New York family (similar to the Astors) rather than from a New Money family.
I started writing it during the summer of 2022 and turned in a rough draft to my editor in early 2023. It wasn’t until I started writing, that I really had a good idea of how I wanted the plot to develop. I knew I wanted Cora and Devonworth to enter into a true marriage of convenience, and I wanted them to get married fairly early in the book so that I could explore the nuances of that sort of relationship.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
My earlier series was published in mass-market paperback, but this series is being published in trade paperback, which was a big surprise. But it turns out the publishing process for both is pretty similar.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
I tend to do a bit of research about the political and social issues of the time before each of my books. For this book, Devonworth is a proponent of a public health bill that is being debated in Parliament. He hopes to bring clean water to the working-class tenement buildings that are being built in industrial cities. This reflects a real debate that took place in the 1870s. Roughly 20 years before the book takes place, Dr. John Snow had proven the link between bacteria in water and public health. However, politicians and wealthy landlords were still pushing back against the idea because of how expensive it would be to supply every home with clean water.
Similarly, Cora is involved in the fight for women’s rights and is involved in a back and forth with a politician that argues the woman’s place is at home. I was surprised that the main argument for women not joining the work force was that they would take away jobs that should go to men.
In both of these arguments, we see how those ideas are still reflected today but with different causes and groups of people. It proves the old adage true: The more things change, the more they stay the same.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
I hope they take away how important it is for you to find what makes you happy and pursue that and the rest will all fall into place.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Tenacity is important. Keep writing and trying.
With a growing catalog of instructional writing videos available instantly, we have writing instruction on everything from improving your craft to getting published and finding an audience. New videos are added every month!