Andie James: Hello everyone and welcome to First Encounter. My name is Andie James and I am a historical romance enthusiast and author. and I am joined today by Addy Du Lac and I am so excited for this. I know I say that every week and I always am excited to chat with everyone I talk about. or talk to rather.
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Yeah.
Andie James: But I I really am truly excited for this because I in the last two weeks read well not all of your books. I read your troublemakers trilogy. You do have another book, but and I loved them so much and I'm so excited to talk about them today. So welcome Addy
Addy DuLac: Thank you. I'm so glad you like them.
Andie James: Right. loved them. We'll get into it. But let me tell you all a little bit more about Addy and then we will just dive into our conversation. Born and raised in the Rainbow Twin Islands of Trinidad and Tobago, Addy Du Lac moved to the U.S. with her mother and elder sister at the age of 12. She was introduced to historical romance in high school through Julia Quinn and Lisa Kleypas and began writing historical romance while she received a double major in history and creative writing from the University of South Florida. In 2024, her debut novel One Season with the Duke, the one I still need to read and I'm excited to. Won three Emma Awards for Debut Author of the Year, Best Interracial Romance, and Best Book of the Year. Quite impressive. She enjoys crafting books with diverse characters and steamy happy endings. When she isn't plotting her next series or fighting through a new novel, understand that.
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: She enjoys watching movies and Asian dramas, traveling and tempting her fate with new recipes. Addy Du Lac lives in Florida with an eclectic library of books and a carefully curated wall of beautiful men. We might need to talk about that as well.
Addy DuLac: I mean, if I could like hide what the state of the rest of my living room looks like, I will absolutely show off my wall of beautiful men because they are, I mean, I'm very proud of them. Yeah,
Andie James: As you should be. It sounds amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, welcome Addy and thank you so much for joining me today. I'm really excited
Addy DuLac: Thank you for having me.
Andie James: that to talk about your books. your bio mentioned this a little bit. You said that high school is when you kind of really started reading historical romance.
Addy DuLac: Okay.
Andie James: and you mentioned specifically Julia Quinn and Lisa Kleypas, which are great places to start.
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: but why don't you just tell us a little bit more about your kind of journey that sounds so whatever. But your experience, yeah, reading romance I know. But yeah.
Addy DuLac: My journey, my journey to historical romance. Yeah, back through the winds of time. So yeah, so I got into romance in general through an erstwhile cousin. She's fantastic. Who, she now lives in England, but she introduced me, because she and her entire family, they,
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: all red, her, she and all her sisters, her mom, like they all read romance novels. So they were always around. But when we moved to
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: the, when I moved to the US with my mom, she, I mean, she brought her books and she was reading her books. And so I found hers and I was just like, can I read these? And she was just like, yeah, go ahead and read them. It's fine. It was different times back then. So I was reading it. This is technically in middle school, but then when I hit high school, I be like, I used to walk to my mom's office and then we would drive home from there because my school wasn't far away. But I got off school around like two o'clock and my mom didn't get off work until like five. So there were about three hours where I had to entertain myself while my mom was like, she was waiting while I was waiting. And I was in the, so I would inevitably end up in the... sort of break room at the city of Tampa,
Andie James: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: shout out to the city of Tampa. And there was a book there which I did not recognize, but listeners and watchers will recognize called An Offer from a Gentleman,
Andie James: yes.
Addy DuLac: which I, and I was like, what's this? What's this about? Who's the gentleman? I quickly found out that Gentleman was more like a title, like a position, and had very little to do with actual behavior because Benedict is a problem through that entire book.
Andie James: Well, yes.
Addy DuLac: Whoa! Like, but yeah, like it was, but I really liked it. I really liked his relationship with Sophie and eventually, and you know, from that I was like, well, what are the other books? And then I realized it was a whole freaking series and I was like, wait. So, and the city of Tampa was actually really, it was right next to the library. So I could literally walk over there and just be at the library waiting for my mom.
Andie James: Nice.
Addy DuLac: So then I was checking out books, then I got a library card and it was, that was it. I was just like, need that, I need, know, that I got all the rest of them. And I started going through them. Cause I had already, I already read historical books. I always, always reading, I was reading Charles Dickens and Wuthering
Andie James: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: Heights and like all the Brontes and all that and Austen. I was reading that in middle school, voluntarily. So.
Andie James: Right. Yeah. no, I hear ya.
Addy DuLac: Yeah, so like by the time, so I mean, it was always fun when they had like, know, like extracurricular reading when they were just like, yeah, earn points. And I was just like, I was just taking the test because I was like, I've already read this shit, right? So by
Andie James: Okay.
Addy DuLac: the time I saw that, yeah, so I was already, I already loved historical dramas. I loved, you know, all the Austen and Emma and like all kinds of stuff. So when I, but what I did not like is when I watched a historical drama and the ending wasn't happy. The happy people, the people in love didn't stay together. like movies like The Patriot was very, it pissed me off. And it made me start writing fan
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: fiction where Gabriel survived because I was just like, how dare you kill Heath Ledger? He just got married. This is stupid. so that
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: was. when I realized that there was a whole genre that was set in that time period, which, you know, I kind of like the floofy dresses and all the rest of it. But,
Andie James: who doesn't? Yeah.
Addy DuLac: right. But then the happy ending was guaranteed. Then I was just like, wait a minute.
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: I just, so that I mean, that was it. So I started off with, I started off with the Bridgerton series and then I,
Andie James: Okay.
Addy DuLac: and then I found Lisa Kleypas, which was a very different flavor.
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: of book and I was just like okay this is real I was like this is hot this is different so then I was getting into Lisa Kleypas and that one was the one Lisa Kleypas was the one I was sort of like not wanting my mom to find and from low key
Andie James: Okay.
Addy DuLac: but I got into Lisa Kleypas and that it was I think Brenda Joyce and Mary Jo Putney and then Eloisa James and then yeah Those were, that's the general ones that I was reading and then outside of that. I mean, I didn't, I didn't read, I will say I didn't really read widely in historical
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: romance because I'm a very, I'm not a very good reader, I'm not a very good reader for the writer, for a historical romance writer. I
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: just, I sort of, I sort of lock into a particular voice. So if I like the author's
Andie James: Yes, yes.
Addy DuLac: voice, which has nothing to do with their craft, it has nothing to do with how well the story is written, it's just the voice. If I can't get into the author's voice, then I have real difficulty finishing
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: the book. that became a problem for other authors, which I will not name. And so I couldn't really get into it. then so other people would be saying, my God, I love this book. And I'm like, I'm sure it's fantastic.
Andie James: It's great. Yeah. I just
Addy DuLac: Please tell me all about it. I'm not going to finish this thing. It's yeah.
Andie James: It's not for me. Yeah. Well, I think a lot of people read that way though. Like they find an author they like and then they kind of like
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: go deep and they devour and which is,
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: you know, what we as authors hope for once we accumulate a backlist. But
Addy DuLac: Right, exactly. That's the mean we're working feverishly at that at this point. But yeah, it is one of those,
Andie James: I know.
Addy DuLac: it's one of those things where I just feel bad because it ends up being one of those things where it's like, you should read broadly within your own. And I'm like, I'm trying, I'm trying, but I'm just not hanging in there.
Andie James: Trying to and honestly that is the reason I started this podcast because I was like, there's so many more people I need to read. Yeah. Yeah. But well, that's great.
Addy DuLac: Right. I need a list. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Andie James: I love it. And so what then turned I mean, I know you said one of your degrees that you got was in creative writing. So obviously you
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: love writing, but what turned you from the reading into writing and why did you decide on historical romance was one of the things you wanted to write?
Addy DuLac: well the writing has, the writing was there longer than the reading was. So I've been writing because again, I don't like, I dislike sad endings with a passion. So the fan
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: fiction started like pretty early. Any scenes
Andie James: Okay.
Addy DuLac: that I didn't, I felt it didn't end the way I wanted it to. Anything I didn't like, I have control issues. So anything I didn't like, I was like, I'ma fix this. So it started off with like the Patriot and City of Angels, that horrible movie with Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan where he just like, he gives up like immortality and like his wings and then she gets hit by a car. I was like, this is ridiculous. We're fixing this. It was just like all those kinds of things. And then
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: at some point, I think it was Pride and Prejudice. I think it was the 2025
Andie James: yeah.
Addy DuLac: Pride and Prejudice kicked in and I was bewitched body and soul by Matthew McFadden as we all were low-key up.
Andie James: Yes. He wasn't. I mean I love me some Colin Firth too. I can't pick a favorite because I love them both for different reasons. Yes. Yes. We won't. We won't, but yes.
Addy DuLac: This is what I'm saying, different reasons. We're not gonna go down that rapid hole, but yes, I'm like separate, but I'm like, is where, know, one instance where I'm like separate, but equal, can apply and everything's fine. Like it's like,
Andie James: Right.
Addy DuLac: it's okay for them. I'm like, there are aspects.
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: I like the length of the Colin Firth one. I like how in depth you're able to get
Andie James: Yes. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: into the story and the characters with the Colin Firth one. But I also feel like the Colin Firth one, they're very much sort of, they're playing the characters as characters and they're not playing the characters as if they were real people. And I think the difference in the 2005 one with Kira Knightley and Matthew McFadden is that like you really, when you're watching it, is it as sort of like picture perfect within the aesthetic of Jane Austen as the 1995 one? No, it's not. However,
Andie James: Yeah. my gosh.
Addy DuLac: the characters, like you feel the awkwardness of Darcy. Like you knew, like you knew he was,
Andie James: yeah. You so get that part of him.
Addy DuLac: like before you get into the fact that he was supposedly gonna propose when he shows up, immediately out, like you knew he was trying to do something, cause you were just like, bro, like this is not going well. So like you just, it's like, they just feel more real. And I, to me, if I could have the two, if somebody creates a, like a 2005 one that was like the length.
Andie James: Yeah, the depth. Yeah. That would be amazing. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: of the 1995 one, that would be a real contender. But I don't think anybody's doing that. Anyway, back to my, back to the rest of it. so... I was writing a Pride and Prejudice fanfic.
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: And I was like, well, we already know what happened with Darcy and Elizabeth. And I thought, why do what happened? What if I write a story that focuses on their children?
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: And so hypothetically children. So I like made up this broad thing of like all these kids that they were having. And I was writing this fan fiction of like all their kids. And then I realized very quickly that the deeper I went into it. They were completely tangential and they had nothing to do. with anything and the show, what I was writing was sort of primarily made up of original characters that I was making up. And
Andie James: Hm. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: so at that point I was like, well, if I already have the setting, maybe I should just try to like do it. So
Andie James: Mm.
Addy DuLac: that was college. So college I said, you know what, I'm gonna take this fan fiction and I'm gonna try to like build it out and like really write this. And that was, and that. that manuscript that I tried to build out and like that I but I not tried to I did I built it out and I really sunk in deep and that and then eventually 10 years later it morphed into one season with the Duke so that's how I got started you know two
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: lifetimes ago it was a fan it was it was a Pride and Prejudice fan fiction but clearly anybody
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: who reads it is gonna be like where is that and I'm like don't worry about it
Andie James: Things evolve. Things evolve. That's great. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: It's, yeah. Yeah.
Andie James: Well, I'm very excited to read that one because like I said, I was this is a good transition point here because I loved your troublemakers.
Addy DuLac: Thank you.
Andie James: and I think it's interesting that you mentioned Julia Quinn because one of the things we talk about in historical romance circles
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: is everything these days is compared to Bridgerton when it comes to historical romance, right?
Addy DuLac: Yeah,
Andie James: Like it's
Addy DuLac: it is.
Andie James: just inescapable because it's kind of become the broad thing. It's it's the touch point people can understand when they don't have more context for historical romance. And some Right, exactly. Exactly. And so in
Addy DuLac: It's also the only touch point they have in broader media, if you think about it, like, culturally.
Andie James: some sense it's great because it gives a general idea of like, yes, this genre. But in other ways, it's like things that really aren't similar to Bridgerton at all are compared to Bridgerton. And it's like, well, yeah.
Addy DuLac: Yeah, like the Bridgerton books, low-key.
Andie James: so and and that is another piece there, right? Is that the books are very different from the show. Like there's this the core
Addy DuLac: Super different.
Andie James: piece there. But the people that really love the show and aren't necessarily familiar with the books or the genre, just recommending them to read the Bridgerton books may not be the best thing. And I feel like your books are actually like a really good piece for people who love the show because
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: it's It feels more, I feel like these books were kind of a perfect blend of some like old school historical romance sensibility with more modern takes and more diverse characters. And
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: I feel like that is kind of the good blend for the people who connected with something in Bridgerton the show and are now looking for some entry point into maybe checking out some books. And
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: I feel like these are the kinds of things we need to be recommending rather than as much as we love them, the actual Bridgerton books or Kleypas or those things, because
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: I I I feel like there's a different there's there's that difference there. Does that yeah.
Addy DuLac: It is different. And I think also, while we love our queens, the reality of the situation is we were the audience that they were writing for, the mindset of that, which is kind of why like people who were actual, who not were, are fans of the book, right? And were reading it when it was coming out. We sometimes get a little... I don't know, I feel like sometimes we're just like, we're trying to protect our babies because we're just sitting down there like, stop yelling at them, it's not their fault, kind of a situation. And there's so much
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: pushback when they read the books and they're like, my God, this is so gross, or this character is so problematic or whatever, right? And the reality of the situation is like, they're problematic within the mindset. that we currently have and our current
Andie James: Right.
Addy DuLac: views on sex and sexuality and marriage and all those sorts of things. Not in the sense that we like marital rape or anything like that, but in the sense of like, we do not, we do not, as a record, we do not. But I mean in the concept of,
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah. We do not. Right.
Addy DuLac: you're, if you're come, if the person who's reading it, the people who are, they're writing it for the people who are buying it. I was in middle school, I was in high school, my mom is the one buying it. It's, you're talking about boomers, you're talking Generation X. And these are the people, they're the first people buying it. Those are the people primarily reading it when they're being sent out. And those are the people writing it. And the mindset with respect
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: to what a woman is going to be comfortable reading and what kind of a sexual, what kind of, how she's going to be able to. relate to it comfortably, this other person having like a sexual journey, it requires a little more coaxing than we are comfortable with now. And it requires
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: a lot more like the men that they would be wanting to read about are men that aren't necessarily abusive, who give like the kind, the idea of the framework that they would have needed in order to see okay, I'm gonna let my hair down and do the thing. It's more aligned with the Rhett Butler than it is aligned with, you know, Tom Holland's Spider-Man, right? Like it's just not, right? And so when, so, but if you're reading a Rhett Butler-esque character, you're just like, my God, he's a rapist. And it's like, now, yes, because, and the real difference is not necessarily that. we see sex differently, but more that we are more comfortable in our sexuality and we are more comfortable just seeing a girl just be like, yeah, let's do it. Whereas my mom's generation will be reading it and they may be like, she's kind of a little too free with it. Like he didn't have to work at all. And it's just like, the work is what makes you a good girl.
Andie James: Yeah. Right.
Addy DuLac: who's being liberated,
Andie James: Right.
Addy DuLac: right? I'm like, if not, then you're a harlot. And now it's the difference. So I think
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: like, because the Bridgerton books in particular and Lisa Kleypas because
Andie James: Mm.
Addy DuLac: that is the mindset, those are the people that they're writing for. that is the sort of cultural mind frame that it's coming from.
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: It's very dangerous to try to see. think it's, I also think it's unfair. to sort
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: of pretend like across all time and history, people are going to be like the views of problematic are because you're ignorant. I'm like, it's not just because of ignorance. It's also because
Andie James: Right. Right.
Addy DuLac: there's a framing of all of like human interaction that is
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: that people need it. They need that framework. And it's not because they have they're like bad people or anything like that. So I think for
Andie James: No. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: like Bridgerton, what makes it really to me sort of what has people like it sort of shoots people in the foot is that the books were written for people
Andie James: Okay.
Addy DuLac: who were written and but the show is crafted for people who are right now right so they're
Andie James: Yeah. It's written for now. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: written with those people in mind and so the the most people who are like annoyed are the people who are like from back then who were reading it back then and we're fine and now they're still alive and they're watching the show and they're just like you changed it what happened right but
Andie James: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: It's hard, like you can't really, it is, to me that's the main issue. It's like, but also like, because you know, just like all the rest of it, like, cause my books are fabulous. But I think it's also like,
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: like if you're going to be recommending historical if you're going to be recommending historical romance, it should be historical romances that were written within the last five, 10 years. Like not necessarily all the way back there. I'm like, now you're just, you're setting them up to fail. Like you want to bring them
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: in, you know.
Andie James: Well, and I feel like that's a conversation that's maybe hopefully finally starting to happen a little bit right now. Is that,
Addy DuLac: That's part of it! Yeah.
Andie James: you know, because I mean, obviously our genre is not the cool girl at the moment and she's struggling a little bit, within kind of greater romance. and you know, so when people are like, I'm trying to get into historical like you see posts on threads and Instagram and stuff and Everyone's always recommending like these old authors. And I love them. They are classics
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Yeah!
Andie James: of the genre for a reason. Do not get me wrong here.
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: People recommend them for a reason because they are so good. They are the foundation, but it's like we're missing so much of what's new and fresh and current and might help those people lock into wanting to read the genre a little bit more.
Addy DuLac: Yes. Yes.
Andie James: And I think part of it too though is just the shift in the way the market has worked, right? Because so
Addy DuLac: Yes.
Andie James: much of what's being published newer right now tends to be in indie space, either through small presses like like your books or self
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: published. And it is just harder to be discovered, to be found.
Addy DuLac: get the word out. Yeah.
Andie James: And so we're not like you don't get the the mass of focus and attention.
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: like these older authors did. So everyone knew them, everyone read them. And now
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: it's harder it's like we we haven't created the right avenue yet to get a foc a central focus and and message about books in the indie space. I don't know how to do that.
Addy DuLac: Yeah, I mean, that's I mean, we're both we're both fighting that battle, low key, like,
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: because different divisions, battle. like, it's because
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: it's it is the mean it is the main struggle. And when you have and the real issue is that it's so easy to be drowned out by the sort of juggernaut that is publishing when they are decidedly pushing in the opposite direction. even when they do publish you, right? Like even when you are the author that they sort out because they want more diverse voices or whatever and then like they get you, they get
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: you under contract and then you sort of rot, right? Like they have like different imp... they're trying out different imprints and they put you in the imprint that they are going to give the least marketing and visibility to and then you're there. But you can say that they... but they can see that they published you, right? And like you can...
Andie James: They publish you. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: They did publish you and you know are a good tax write-off but at the same time like they're not doing anything with you and that is the and of course you're now your IP is held hostage right because now you can't get it back and it's very
Andie James: It's
Addy DuLac: it's very disheartening and it's very annoying also because you're sort of looking at them like how do you have like no imagination for what to do with this like I find it It is crazy to me, or it depends. If I put on my tinfoil hat, I find it wildly suspicious. But
Andie James: Ha ha ha ha.
Addy DuLac: when I take off the tinfoil hat, it's just sort of crazy to me that the, that historical romance started dying when Bridgerton came out. Like that seems.
Andie James: Mm-hmm. I know, I know.
Addy DuLac: Like I don't understand how everybody was at home watching Bridgerton and nobody took a quick circle around the block to historical romance at all. And that, so to me, like that is, I mean, you can talk about like the book sizes, you know, the mass market, paperback size and like, you know, they're like, this is what you got in the grocery store. That's not.
Andie James: Yeah. That's legit, but I don't think that's that's not it.
Addy DuLac: No, I think it was, I think it was a sort of a two pronged attack. I think that didn't help. But I think the reason it
Andie James: Yeah. That was part of it for sure.
Addy DuLac: was part of it. But I think the real issue is there was an evolution happening within historical romance and nobody was tracking it and it wasn't being pushed. And so when game of and I think really what it seemed like publishing didn't catch on to is like They saw what was happening with Game of Thrones. And then, maybe it's because Bridgerton, the way each season is sort of spaced out. the
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: hype dies and then it comes back. Where
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: it shows like, like Game of Thrones, right? Or Shadow and Bone and all kinds of stuff. Like those are shows where, again, strong fantasy element. There's
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: a lot of like that kind of stuff going on. And there's some hot guy with some dude could have wings. Like you have Carnival Row, like you have this glut of shows that are fantasy that have some hot main lead and like you kind of want them to have sex, but you're not going to get it. And if you write like low key, right? Or they do have
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: sex. mean, I mean, Orlando Bloom was tearing up Evangeline or whatever her name was in Carnival Row. So like you have like all these different shows that are leaning to that. another one I'm immediately thinking of is
Andie James: yeah. Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: Wheel of Time, another one, fantastic. These are fantastic shows that are right there in Romantasy And
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: also you have, so you had this sort of perfect storm of you have all these shows that are doing Romantasy Everybody's trying to push, you know, every, you know, the new, new byword is, you know, inclusion and diversity, which I, I'm for. And I like it, but that you have that, and then you're trying to figure out a way to sell this to an audience. that is that the presumption is, is, you know, it's mainly white, which is not true, but that's the idea, because that's who they're marketing it to. And they're trying to do that, but they're also trying to do it in a way that sort of is sort of palatable. So
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: it's a way that people will swallow easily, sort of. So it's like, it's easy to believe that, you know, there's like a black you know aristocrat if he's part satyr right or if some some girl with a fairy like some girl with wings is flying around the place right but so it's like that kind of thing and i feel like honest to god the reason Romantasy took off is because you had like all these shows that were feeding the imagination of the public and then
Andie James: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: if you want to get the diversity in there it's a lot easier for people to swallow diversity in a historical setting if somebody has wings if they're dragons involved, if there's something like that, because then the fallback, maybe this is like a hot take the fallback is it's a fantasy world. It doesn't have to be real. It doesn't have to be realistic. It just has to be well written. You have that
Andie James: Yeah. Right. We can have that break from yeah, reality.
Addy DuLac: distance. And I think it's a lot easier marketing wise. Like it's a lot less, you get, it's like, you get to serve both masters and everything's great, right? when it comes to historical romance.
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: With Bridgerton, again, it's a lot easier, right? Because then they're sitting down there and they're like, well, mean, it's not real music. Nobody's playing Mozart, technically. It's vitamin C, or it's, know, right? It's technically Taylor Swift, always Taylor Swift. I know there's something like that going on that
Andie James: Mm.
Addy DuLac: is telling the audience, this is in real life, right? So like, don't worry. It's like, don't worry about so much about the fact that Simon's black, right? It's okay that he's a black Duke because this isn't real life. This isn't real, you know? But there's no reason, but there's no need. But to me, like, I think like that becomes a thing where it's like, you don't need to do that. But when you're playing so much into the fantasy, it's hard to then take it to the books, which are not actually. actually fantastical.
Andie James: No.
Addy DuLac: Like historical romance is not about the fantasy is the the fantasy is more about the the man who's teachable and actually listens and is invested right like that's the fantasy but
Andie James: Right.
Addy DuLac: the world the world is not the fantasy right like the
Andie James: Yeah. The world is the setting in which we place our story to have
Addy DuLac: Correct.
Andie James: the fantasy of the the love and the man and the all of that. Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: Right, exactly. So, so like when you're doing but when you're doing something like that and the world is not fantastical, all of a sudden now everybody wants everything to be historically accurate, right? Like now, now there's, which
Andie James: It becomes a challenge. Yes. Which
Addy DuLac: again is a sort of, it's not real historical accuracy that they're looking for. They're just looking for something that's historically plausible and they don't realize that that's what they're going for. And that's where the ignorance comes in because they don't realize what is historically plausible. And that's where I come
Andie James: And that's
Addy DuLac: in.
Andie James: Yeah. I was gonna say that's why your books are so important. Because
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: so the let's let's refocus on your books because they're fantastic. So this is a trilogy,
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: but you're writing some more, correct? Yeah. Yay! I'm so excited
Addy DuLac: Yes!
Andie James: for them. So this is the Troublemakers trilogy. We follow three female friends who met at kind of a finishing school, I don't know, ladies school,
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Yeah.
Andie James: and became friends because They they were the three minority, not white, diverse the ladies that stood out because they weren't like everybody else, right? And so
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Right.
Andie James: they band together, they become fast friends. So each book focuses on a different one of these lovely ladies.
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: how did you come up with this? And one of the things, I mean, you were talking about kind of the historical reality. And so one of the things I noticed, and maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here in this conversation, but All of your heroines are biracial and they are the product of mothers who come from different from white English settings. So we've got Chinese, Indian, and Caribbean black.
Addy DuLac: Bien.
Andie James: but they all have white fathers, which is what
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: would have been most kind of historically accurate because of the colonization and
Addy DuLac: Yeah, exactly. Every
Andie James: Getting right. So like did you was that intention right colonization? Like Yes. We're gonna go to
Addy DuLac: other colonization, like that's exactly what's going on. That's how y'all ended up all over the place, know, like, right?
Andie James: these places and we're going to take these women and we're gonna have children. Yes. whether it be loving or not, that's a whole other conversation. yes. This purpose is these are loving matches. Yes, which
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We can get into that in like different books, but for this one, for these purposes, yes, they were loving marriages in these ones. Yeah. Yeah.
Andie James: I but so I mean, how did you come up with the the concept for this series because I mean it's obvious that you thought through this before because there's really good connecting links throughout. Like you plant seeds for books two and three in one and refer to things from one and you know, it it
Addy DuLac: Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Andie James: works together really well. Although you can read them all individually. And so if you just want to read one, read one.
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: but they they work together really well. And I guess the kind of what was your thought process going into this because As much as I talk about my struggles as an indie author, I know it's so much harder for authors of color to get their books noticed when
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Yeah.
Andie James: we're focusing on characters of color. And so I like I'm rambling now, but like how did you come up with this? What was your initial instincts?
Addy DuLac: So I, it's funny, when I was doing, I was just finishing, I had just finished One Season with the Duke and
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: I wanted to write, when I got done with that, I thought, I kept thinking, if I want to get the book, the series, because it was supposed to be a series, but that didn't work out. So, if I was going to do a series, I want it, like I knew that the the sort of like the traditionally published or I presumed that the traditionally published series would need to be, like the, they would have to be sort of more white people, like at the center is what I was assuming. like, can't
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: think of a different way to say that, but that's what I assume. but I always really wanted to write a, series that was closer to the kind of romances that I grew up with watching around me in Trinidad.
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: So in Trinidad, it's not like we're some kind of utopian society, but interracial marriages and interracial relationships are sort of the, like, it's basic. So nobody's shocked, nobody's surprised. Nobody's surprised to find a Korean dude with the last name Rodriguez or Gonzalez. Like that is pretty
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: basic, right? So that is the culture that I grew up in, right? It was very multi-religious, multi-ethnic,
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: multi-everything. So you ended up with these crazy mixes of people. Well, crazy to an audience outside of the Caribbean. Anybody in the Caribbean watching this, they're like, yeah. Because what was happening, because colonialism, is England was
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: bringing England, the British weren't necessarily always bringing all the poor people that they were stealing to run their plantations. They weren't bringing them to England. They're bringing them to their colonies. And that's exactly what happened in Trinidad. It started off with the Amerindians that they slowly killed off. and well that was technically Spanish. And then you establish these slave plantations for cocoa for for not really cotton definitely sugar cane
Andie James: Sugar. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: definitely coconut like all of these things right. So all these cash crop plantations and when you get rid of slavery when slavery's when slavery's not both abolished and sort of has run its course by the end of like 1838 in England and its in Britain and its colonies, you still have to find workforce. And that's when they started. You already have the British Raj sort of starting up. So they take all the poor people in India that can't hack it because they've because they've absolutely destroyed local economies. And they say, hey, we got an economy over here for you to prop up. And they basically, and they get them in these indentured labor and same thing with China, right? So they get them in these indentured labor contracts, which at first was meaningful white people, but then they branched out because equal opportunity, right? So then they bring them over and that's how you end up with the, lot of the English speaking Caribbean islands. You have the three basic demographic, like it's different. Everybody Island has different concentrations of pretty much three demographics. It's East Indian, African, Chinese.
Andie James: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: You get different concentrations of both depending on which Island that you're in. But those are the main, those are the main three
Andie James: Does he mean?
Addy DuLac: that are, that are basically, those are the main three that are working. Those are the main
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: three that are working pretty much in the same areas. Right? Those are the ones living next to each other. Those are the ones forming relationships. That's what's happening. So, and then as time goes on, like in Trinidad in particular, as time goes on, you get like Syria and you get like all the different ones in there. But you end up with this population that's like crazy diverse on this tiny little island.
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: And you have to get along because after a while you run out of land and it's just ocean, right? But you can't push everybody into the sea. So get along, right? And so
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: I wanted that. I wanted to write that in a historical setting. However, it's like, you know, and I was like, but
Andie James: Yeah. And I love it.
Addy DuLac: it could be so cool. And but the, but the issue really was I wasn't sure that I would get a publisher that would say, yeah, write a black male lead and a South Asian female lead. That's fine. Like I knew I felt like in some way And lot of the, it was mostly because most of the books that I was seeing when I was looking around, was interracial was white and black. That was it. Occasionally,
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: mean, mean, not to, not to, no, to not talk about like Courtney Milan, who also has like, she would have like both Asian leads or Asian and white leads. Like you have those things in there. But most of the time when you're talking about interracial, it's white and black. Like that's it, you know, and I. I didn't have anything against it. Like those couples definitely show up. And I'm writing at least like a whole bunch of them I'm writing like that's probably going to end up happening. But I also wanted to, just, was like, but that's not to me, that's not interracial. Like that's like, that's such a narrow definition of interracial to me. So I was just like,
Andie James: Very narrow definition.
Addy DuLac: no, there are other ethnicities out here. Like we are all doing the thing. And yeah.
Andie James: Well, I think some of that comes with maybe the background of the author, because as
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: an American white woman, I mean, America is dominated by the white and black narrative, right? And
Addy DuLac: It is!
Andie James: so like in our brain, like that's probably where we naturally go to, right?
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: because it's just such a scar on our history. I mean, we don't talk about
Addy DuLac: And then.
Andie James: the indigenous enough, like that's a whole other thing. But don't get me started on how we still ignore
Addy DuLac: That's a whole lot of imputation, yeah. Yeah. Scars all over the place
Andie James: We still ignore, but anyways. but I think that's a lot of it too. And I think another piece is that because so much of our genre is dominated by white women authors, speaking as one,
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Yeah.
Andie James: you know, and I well, and I touched on this this week because I led a collaboration that is releasing starting next week, right? For
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: autumn novellas. And it wasn't intentional, but like we ended up being a group of eight white women and
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: because we, you know, just who can who can participate at what time and
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: and I'm like kicking myself now for not being more intentional about making sure we had included a better
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: diversity of representation and authors because one of the things I mentioned to you when we were emailing before, like part of the reason I loved your books and I think they're so important. And maybe this is just me being shy because I think literacy is like dead critical reading, right?
Addy DuLac: Yeah,
Andie James: but like these books, you do not shy away from encountering or encountering, describing, explaining just the blatant bigotry and racism that
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: existed at the time well still exists, but at the the
Addy DuLac: Yeah!
Andie James: setting and time period of your books.
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: in the society, especially, you know, the divide between the aristocracy and not, right? You address that
Addy DuLac: Yeah!
Andie James: as well. But you really go there and you write some really nasty characters who have some horrible viewpoints and you
Addy DuLac: Yeah!
Andie James: just share that. And I think it's so important because I don't feel like I could write that. I feel like people would assume that's my viewpoint as a white woman, and I would be raked over the coals. But it's so important.
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Yeah!
Andie James: Important to have that conversation, to not gloss over it and it be the fantasy and to address
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: the reality. And so that's why we have to be so much better. And where I fell short of including
Addy DuLac: Okay.
Andie James: intentionally the more diverse voices who can tell those stories in a way that I don't think we can.
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Yeah. No. And I think to your to your to your point, for me, I think what I think is important, and I think that sometimes doesn't always get... So like, when I was writing mine, I... It was important for me to show the racism because I wasn't interested in writing a fantasy world. I was interested in writing a historical romance with diversity that was real and plausible. It's realistic romance is what I'm trying to do. And the reality is even racism comes in different shades. What
Andie James: amen. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: I mean by different shades is they're the... the Harrisons of the world, you know, those who don't know. And then there's the Basil's mom, right?
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: And both fall into the category of people who are racist or classist or imperialist or whatever, all three, right? But the reality of the situation and even not necessarily very strongly at all with the racism, but the classism a little bit, And definitely
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: with the imperialism a little bit is Ellie's dad, right? And the thing is, Ellie's...
Andie James: Yes. I was gonna say I yeah, I loved that dynamic.
Addy DuLac: Yeah, anything is like all of it. And to me, what was important was it's not, cause to me it's not about the demonization. It's not about the blame. What it is about is showing there are people who are well-meaning and like in the, in the book specifically, you can be well-meaning and fall short, you can also be, but what's important is not necessary or to me rather. What is important is not that you don't make the mistake. What's important is that you recognize it and you learn. So like Basil's mom is definitely, I don't think anybody's reading book one and not realizing that Basil's mom is racist. But Basil's
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: mom of Basil's family with the exclusion of Basil is the one who's like the lightest shade of it. And so she's the one that's, if anybody's getting like sort of I don't know, rehabilitated or like fastest. It's Basil's mom, right? Like of the racist chain, she's the weakest link. So she's like.
Andie James: She's still a kind person. She wants to try to recognize and bring people in, but she's colored by. Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: She is, she's kind, has, right. She has kind, she's got good minus. She is, right? Like she, she's colorblind in like the worst way, right? So you're like, like she's
Andie James: Yes. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: definitely the, the well-meaning white person, right? And you're just
Andie James: Yes. Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: sort of like, yeah, but you can't be doing that. And so I think it's, and like for her, and I also felt it was important to show that yes, this is a flaw, it's fantastic. There's a huge flaw in her. but she's also a loving mother. And
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: when it comes to her prioritizing her worldview and
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: her view of like where the classes should be and who should be in those classes, the buck, like that line, if you force her to choose between that and her son, incidentally
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: her favorite son, she is choosing her son every single time.
Andie James: She's choosing her son over her status or her standing within, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that's, yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like that is the, so like that's the choice that she makes. And that is why she's able to accept Ada. That is why she's able to be his ally against his father, against his brother, against any, like she will do it because she's like, that's my baby boy.
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: And he's not actually hurting anybody. This is more about status than it is about integrity or anything like that, right? So she's like, We can discuss this. But like when you get and so like they're different and then there's like and then there's like the other ones, right? Like there's Harrison and Trent and you're just like, you know, y'all just, y'all just need to be buried under the jail. You all are a different level, right? And this
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: was like, so I, so to me, and I feel like, but that's also like the racism that you encounter and like, how do you adjust? How do you deal with it? Some of it is snide, some of it is intentional, some of it is unintentional, but you all have to deal with it, right? And And that's part of the society, right? So you escape some of it, but you're not escaping all of it, right? So,
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: no, your best intentions.
Andie James: Well, that's another part of the books, I think, though. Is so you show like the different, as you said, shades of of the racism here and the different ways it plays out, with different characters. But you also have a variety of ways that that impacts and affects your characters of color, right? And so,
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: you know, in we were talking about Basil Basil. He
Addy DuLac: No.
Andie James: is kind of the hero in the first book, Miss Thornfield. He is married to Ada, who is of Chinese descent.
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: And you know, his big they kind of have to marriage a conveniency thing and there's
Addy DuLac: Yes.
Andie James: is are we gonna stick with it or are we gonna null it, right? Like that's kind of the question.
Addy DuLac: Right, exactly. Yeah.
Andie James: it's much more complicated than that, but but hi what's
Addy DuLac: Yeah, but that's pretty much the gist of it. It's like, we stick with it? Yeah.
Andie James: Yeah, but like for him, kind of what's holding him back is his family, knowing like their
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: reaction, they're not gonna accept her, they're gonna be horrible to her. Well, maybe not his mother, like we said, but like in general,
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: his father, his brother. And but she's like, I can handle this. Like she's she's making that choice. And she's like, I if that's
Addy DuLac: Yes.
Andie James: the only thing holding you back, like I still want this, I still choose you, I still like
Addy DuLac: for sure.
Andie James: you know, and so it's like she's handling it in one way. In the second book. you know, we really get what do we do to protect our family versus taking care of ourselves. That's that's a huge,
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: huge piece. But the final book, Miss Hawthorne, I think you do a really interesting thing with our hero Richard. and this is part of part of why I said some of your books feel a little old school is we have a we have a mistress on page. She is a character,
Addy DuLac: shall do.
Andie James: she is a villain, she's horrible. we do not like her.
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: but she and she's like one of the most vile out there with her racism people.
Addy DuLac: yeah.
Andie James: And so there's this question of why is Richard with this woman who like abhors him, right?
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Andie James: And
Addy DuLac: And who he low-key opposed as well. Like, he's not exactly a fan of Earth. Yeah.
Andie James: he does. No, like they they're very much using each other for different reasons.
Addy DuLac: Yes!
Andie James: And that is the bargain they have struck, right? Is that
Addy DuLac: Yes.
Andie James: like we know what this is, we know what we're getting out of this, and we're choosing to ignore the other pieces. But
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: it's really beautiful and heartbreaking all at the same time when there's kind of a part towards the end of that book when Ellie kind of finds out that she was his mistress and is like ha this woman's horrible. How could you and
Addy DuLac: Yeah, exactly.
Andie James: you know, and he's just He's like I you know, and you can see how much he's internalized, like I just needed someone to accept me and love not love me, but like I needed that kind of connection and I didn't care what it ca how it ca I'm not explaining this well, but like
Addy DuLac: If you will allow, it was
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: the kind of situation where he, the likelihood of him finding, he did not believe that it was a real possibility that he would be able to find somebody as he is a Chinese man in the middle of England and one of the few on the Proud. He did not believe that it was likely that he was going to find somebody that would value him. and his culture and accept him as he was. So what he was willing, I mean, like
Andie James: Yes. Thank you. Yes, I was not explaining that well, but thank you.
Addy DuLac: you were, but I could see you were like, I'm not doing this right, and people are gonna yell at me, and you're not. It is that, but the thing is it is kind of ugly and sad in the sense that I think he says something along the lines of like, you eat what's in front of you sometimes.
Andie James: Yes. that was such a beautiful line. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: And it's like, sometimes you don't, you know, and it's like, is it what you want? No, but if you're starving, you eat what's in front of you, right? Right. Yes.
Andie James: If you're starving for any kind of connection and affection and this is all you think is available to you, you're gonna eat it. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: You eat it, you know? And so it sounds very crass, right? And it sounds very crude. I don't think Ellie's like, that's disgusting. Like, Ellie's not exactly a fan. But it's also very,
Andie James: But it's so real. Yeah, she's like, what?
Addy DuLac: yeah, but it's also very real. It's very real. We
Andie James: It's very real.
Addy DuLac: accept the love or the relationships that we think not only that we deserve, but also that we think that is available to us sometimes. And if you're that desperate and the point where he engages in that relationship and maintains it, he is desperate. He is reaching a low point emotionally. so, you know, read the book to find out which. like, for details, read the book. Yeah.
Andie James: Yes, read. Yeah. And you should read these.
Addy DuLac: But like he, but like, yeah. And I think that, but continue, but that's the point she was trying to make. Continue.
Andie James: Yes. No, yes. you did that much better. But I just think i you just you show so much nuance in the different forms of the racism, but then also the impact, I think. And I just think
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: that was really it was really good. I, you know, as a white woman, I needed
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: to read these. I think it's important that we read this because we don't understand in the same way. like we just don't. and So we're talking a lot about the diversity in this books because it's a highlight of them. I think it's what makes them so wonderful. But these are great romances. Like I just want to talk about that. Like these are so
Addy DuLac: Okay, yeah.
Andie James: like romantic and I love them all in different ways. And I, you know, we haven't talked about the second book a lot yet, but that one, it's so interesting because There's a lot of kind of duty and and and that kind of sense in this book. our main character, our our heroine in that one is of Indian descent. East Indian, yes, Regina. And
Addy DuLac: Regina.
Andie James: then her hero, Leo, he
Addy DuLac: Bye bye.
Andie James: finds out he's a he's a black man and he finds out
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: that he has inherited a baronetcy or a baron. He's he's a baron. I was gonna
Addy DuLac: Mm, a barony. Yeah.
Andie James: say, yes. not a baronet, a baron. and
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: at first he's like, I'm not gonna claim this, hell no. Like, I don't are you kidding me? Like, I don't wanna deal
Addy DuLac: I don't
Andie James: with the aristocracy, I don't want any of this shit. And then it's kind of there's a lot of backstory, but basically, like Regina, there's there's a contract that has been struck between her family and this title. It's not necessarily a person, it's that she's
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: set to marry whoever the baron is. And there's been a string of deaths, so she's been engaged for years to like a a series of people. And so
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: when Leo it's so funny because when he finds out that like because he's had feelings for her that he needs to suppress and she's amazing, yeah. And
Addy DuLac: Well yeah, because she's freaking fabulous and she's awesome. Yeah. Yeah.
Andie James: so there's there's been feelings and whatever. And so then and he's like when he finds out that he kind of is aware of her situation, but he doesn't know the title and When it all comes
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: together and is revealed, he's like, Well shit, now I need to like claim this thing because I need to marry her. Yeah, I know. It's so great. It's so great. And like,
Addy DuLac: Now need to think about it. Yeah, like, now I need to reconsider, you know? Now he's like, now I gotta think about it. Yeah.
Andie James: and it's just it's so romantic. And there's different and the final book, Ellie is our our heroine. And I really loved that one. And I mean, I don't I'm not obviously there's been shades of this in books before, but the way you described She's kind of been in love/slash infatuated with our hero Richard from like 15, 16, somewhere in there. When she
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: first saw him, he is the brother of her friend, our heroine in the first book.
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: and she but the way you describe, I think, kind of her almost creating not a dream world, but like this whole other like scenario kind of in in her world of like. How they could be and who he is and what it would look like if they're in love. Like she kind of creates this fantasy world a little bit, and it's not like this crazy, unrealistic. Like he does, you know a little bit of delulu right? But it's like
Addy DuLac: Yeah, just a little bit of the Lulu. Just a sprinkle of Lulu.
Andie James: she's allowed herself to take these feelings and kind of create this imagined, and because it's such a strong feeling, she maybe thinks it's a little more real than it actually is. I identify with that so much. And I was just like, like, I just the
Addy DuLac: Who do I? Yeah, who do I?
Andie James: way you wrote it, I was like, my God, yes. Like I used to, you know, you were talking about you would take fan fiction and write these alternate endings. I I did that my whole life. I didn't necessarily do the writing, but I imagine the stories in my head. And
Addy DuLac: You
Andie James: it's like you can create kind of these other realities that feel very real after a while, right?
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Yeah.
Andie James: Or, you know, you have a crush on someone and you just it's like you think about them so much that maybe you imagine them in a way that is like based on how you understand them, maybe totally not completely real either. And
Addy DuLac: that way.
Andie James: I j I just loved that aspect. And i
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: it ends up working out okay. But
Addy DuLac: Yes, yes.
Andie James: but like I just thought that was so Like I said, I've seen shades of that in books before, but I felt like the way you wrote it, I was like, Yes, I understand this girl.
Addy DuLac: Right? I think like, I feel like I sort of ended up like, not like in a real way, but like sort of like shooting myself in the foot a little bit because like, because when I, that is, because first of all, like I do that all the time. Like it's just like, I know exactly what's going to happen. It's going to be this and it's going to be this and everything's yeah. I'm like, I'm like, we're going
Andie James: This is a romance writer's brain.
Addy DuLac: to do the whole thing and everything's going to be perfect and everything's going to be happy.
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: And then like reality shows up and you're just like, well, that was rude. Like that was not at all.
Andie James: Yeah. That's not what I hoped for.
Addy DuLac: No, at all. I think like with, but I think what I, what I, what was so fun for me with respect to Ellie and Richard was, yes, she has had this crush. Yes, he's been
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: around for a long time. And they do have this sort of special camaraderie between the two of them. And that like, I don't think anybody could pretend like he even doesn't pretend like that's not real. Right.
Andie James: They do. They do. Yeah. Yeah. It's not totally it's not delulu in that there is like something to base that in. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: Like there is something there. The problem is, what's interesting is both of them have these false images of the other that
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: while they've known each other for so long, despite the fact that they've known each other for so long, neither view of the other is real. So like she has this view of him as like, He doesn't, he's always like a jokester, he's always the prankster, he's always charming, he's always all these things. The idea of Richard having a temper and having like a dangerous temper is not something that she has ever considered. The idea of him, she could not, she probably wouldn't have been able to imagine him being cold and cutting. She would not have just like, which is part of what I felt was important for them to explore like. It's very difficult for her to imagine him lonely. It's very difficult
Andie James: Uh-huh.
Addy DuLac: for her to imagine him desperate. It's very difficult for her to imagine him as anything other than this brilliant paragon of manhood that she saw when she was 15. And she was like, and he's been knocking it out of the park ever since, right? She was like, every time I see that man, he is like a drink, you know, drink of cool drink of water for the eyes, right? And, but. the reality of situation, he is all those things. He's a human being. So he gets angry, he makes mistakes. There are times when he's feeling something and he takes it out on the wrong person and he doesn't like, and you know, and he's ashamed and he has like all these different things and he makes stupid choices. You know, all these things happen. And Ellie presents herself, which I think was, which is why that third book, was like, it was sort of unexpectedly difficult because I had this idea of Ellie. And then when I started writing it, was like, both of them are so moody, like both of them are so ex-ty. And I was looking at Ellie, was just like, god damn it, girl, okay. I thought I knew what I was doing with you. And now I'm writing it and Ellie is, she's so, not in the sense of, not necessarily about her race, but about like her body. Like she's so self-conscious and she's
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: so like weirdly aware of herself in like, Like not in the sense of like, I'm the black girl in the room. Like to her, that's like a point of pride. She's like, y'all are going to deal with me. Like that's not an issue, but it very much is the way of like, she's very secure in that aspect of herself, but physically she's not. And
Andie James: Mm. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: I liked, and the idea that she could have, I liked the idea of playing because she is very young. She, all of them, all of the girls are very young, but I
Andie James: Mm-hmm. Yeah. They're all young.
Addy DuLac: think for Ellie, it's a combination of her being young and weirdly more sheltered than the other two. She is the most sheltered and so she has this very
Andie James: Yes. Yeah. Her father's always been able to lend a certain level of protection for her.
Addy DuLac: Yeah, and he's been and I mean, she is the most privileged of the three of them. Like, you know, to
Andie James: yes. Yeah. Her father's a bycount.
Addy DuLac: write your father's a viscount. like, there's a she's not like the idea of and she also is like a little bit of a bully, but like a lovable bully, but a little bit of a one. But like she uses her powers for good. But like she is very used to getting her way. And there's a there's a sort of sort of naivety that
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: shows up there that I think readers who see her in book one and book two would not expect to find that in her. But I thought that that's, but that was the thought to me that was the key to both Ellie and Richard. They have the private face that they show sometimes to nobody. And then the public
Andie James: Well yeah it it
Addy DuLac: face that they show outside that they're comfortable with people knowing.
Andie James: Yeah, exactly.
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: It works because now that it's focused on her book, we're not just seeing her from the outside like we do. We're like
Addy DuLac: Exactly.
Andie James: we're getting to know the innermost her. And
Addy DuLac: Right.
Andie James: so it's you can see how those pieces work together, right?
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: And it's very much for Richard as well. Yeah, like you said. So
Addy DuLac: Yeah, but I thought that was, was, and I thought it would be so interesting if you have these two people who the real, they really end up falling in love when they can get past the crush stage. Like they have to get past the crush stage in order to fall in love in the sense
Andie James: Yes. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: of like the crush stage is what is holding them back from it almost. Cause they don't understand the other person. I feel like Richard, and you see more, you're going to see more of it in book four, when he's,
Andie James: Mm. I'm so excited.
Addy DuLac: he's very much a caretaker. He's very much a, and not in like, I mean, I feel like he would end up coming across as like, not like a daddy dom sort of way where he needs somebody to be weak or anything like that. But like in the sense of he genuinely loves taking care of people and he likes, he loves, he really does. And he likes to feel needed. He needs to feel needed. So, and it is the way. Like Acts of Service is 110 % the way he shows affection. So you get that in book one, right? Like he is, yeah. Yeah,
Andie James: you absolutely get that in the first book. Like the way he treats his sister. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: like that is his baby girl, okay? Like that is his baby sister. And even in this book.
Andie James: Yeah. And he's had to watch out for her and protect her since they lost their parents and yeah.
Addy DuLac: Yeah, and they were both pretty young when that happened.
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: like he and even before that, because it's just the two of them. Right. And so when you are the two Chinese people, not like that, you know, I'm
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: like, literally you walk around and you are literally the two Chinese looking people like in the room. It's for it forces you to sort of like when you're closing around, it's kind of around each other first. Right. So
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: she is as which I also thought was fun, like she is as protective of him as he is of her. Like they are equally protective of each other. like
Andie James: Yes. Yes.
Addy DuLac: Richard is very much a, like he is the person who he wants to feed you. Like he wants to make sure if you mention, God forbid you mention to Richard, like there's a thing that he cooks that you like every single, that all you have to do is mention that you have a craving and he's showing up with that, he's like, he's showing up with like a care basket, right? Like he is that person.
Andie James: Again, the fantasy man.
Addy DuLac: And exactly, right? I'm like, it's not a problem. But like that is the way he is. And I think like with Ellie, he admires
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: and he loves the fact that she is so audacious and she's so like, like that, you know, she's like, she's a fighter. She's a brawler like him, right? Like she will throw hands up with the slightest provocation, right? But at
Andie James: Yeah. Yes.
Addy DuLac: the same time, I think the part of her that brings out the tenderness in him is the fact is when he realize when he realizes how isolated she is and how
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: like and how when he when he notices like how sort of self-conscious she becomes when she doesn't have like her posse around her when she doesn't have her dad behind her and he realizes
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: like she needs not like again it makes him sound like he has white knight syndrome but it's not quite that it's more
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: like those like that aspect, that huge aspect of his personality that's like, I need to protect the baby. Like that comes out when he knew this, those things. And I think after, you know, the failed confession, like after you have things like that, the
Andie James: No.
Addy DuLac: way when he's watching her and he's dealing with her in those cases, it, like it sort of pulls at his heartstrings,
Andie James: yeah.
Addy DuLac: the fact that She's trying so hard, but he has already recognized that she is isolated. And she's whole, but she, and like, he's like, like that kind of thing. The idea that she does need him. She needs him to take care of her. She needs him to protect. She needs, she needs him to protect her. And not in the sense, not physically, but like emotionally, like she needs that kind of
Andie James: Yeah, yeah.
Addy DuLac: nurturing and that kind of protection from him. That is a trait in the two of them that it is part of why Ellie falls in love with him. She falls in love with that nurturing aspect of him
Andie James: Yes. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: because it is something that her father is. Her father is that person, right? And so like that's so like them like not realizing that and like him realizing, she likes the fact that I do that stuff. And it's like, that's literally what she's here for. Like it is your dream scenario. Like.
Andie James: Yeah. I don't know. It's interesting. Well, one of the other things that's dealt with in that book too, which is interesting. I mean we touched on this, but there's a lot to do with class, right? As well.
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: we touched on our father, which is a whole other conversation that I don't know if we have time for today, but that's that's great. But
Addy DuLac: We'll see. Yeah.
Andie James: But I think it's interesting too because, you know, there's a lot of focus, obviously, in the book, because of the characters you're dealing with on the racism and the bigotry
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: and just those horrible thoughts. But there's there's a point where she she thinks she questions because there's an assumption of
Addy DuLac: Yes. Yes.
Andie James: whether or not she's legitimate.
Addy DuLac: Okay.
Andie James: And I thought it was interesting because you had shown in previous books that Regina's mother had always been pretty cool towards her. And like I'd always thought it was because of her very audacious and outrageous kind of bravado and behavior
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: and attitudes and saying, like, that girl's gonna get you in trouble, you know? But it seemed like a lot, like you can get over this, right? And then it comes like it clicks in her head like, my God, she thinks I'm illegitimate. And so it's like, even though you have this woman, this Indian woman who's been judged her whole life based on that,
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: it's like she's still making judgments and assumptions based on this other element, you know, within society and how we judge people, right? Thinking
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: like the legitimacy. and then, like I said, there's a whole issue in multiple books, not just this one, but with class as well. Because some of these people are in the aristocracy and some aren't. And kind of this, how dare you bring these people into our elevated ranks? And yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so
Addy DuLac: Yeah, is that... real? Yeah. Yeah. Who told you to invite her to the cookout? She has not invited. Yeah.
Andie James: there's just so many layers there though.
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: And that's so true though, again, in life. Like oftentimes we focus on one of those in a story we're telling as the main focus. But they're all intertwined. Just like,
Addy DuLac: Yes.
Andie James: you know, we see racism and sexism all the time. And like I mean, the sexism
Addy DuLac: Yes.
Andie James: is inherent in these based on the time period, but like yeah Yeah. But it's just
Addy DuLac: Yeah
Andie James: and so I I also really appreciated that about these books that you're showing kind
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: of the multiple layers that affect how we view each other and how we see the world around us and and
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Yeah. how it, and I think like also like how that, because I think that intersectionality is what ties into
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: the different experiences, right? Like, like it's
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: important, like I felt like it was important to know that like Leo's experience as a, like Leo and Richard are both minorities, right?
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: But Leo, Leo's experience as a black man, like especially sexually,
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: is going to be very different experience to Richard's, right?
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: Because Richard is, as a Chinese man, he is dealing with the biases and the assumptions about him is about him being not masculine. It's about him being effeminate. It's about him being not man enough, right? Whereas
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: with Leo, like it could lean. wildly in the other direction, right? Like, and neither's true, but it is, but the assumption is gonna give Leo a little more play than Richard is gonna
Andie James: Yes. Right. The assumptions, the stereotypes, the yeah.
Addy DuLac: get, right? He doesn't have to, he doesn't have to twist anybody's arm. But like, when it comes, but I also thought it was interesting when it came to like money, like with respect to Basil,
Andie James: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: right? Like Basil, socially Basil is way more privileged than Richard or Leo,
Andie James: yeah.
Addy DuLac: right?
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: However, financially, the most privileged person financially is Richard.
Andie James: It's Richard.
Addy DuLac: He is in control of all of his assets. He has a shit ton of assets, right? And then you get Leo, who's solidly in the middle. He's got like neither end of both, but he's... Right. But like, so you have like a Nepo baby and you have like,
Andie James: He's like, I got my own career. I'm like doing my thing. Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: you have two Nepo babies and then you have the self-made man in the middle, right? But it's
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: different, but all of them have... And also like, I feel like the, because you have the model minority myth, like nobody's overly nonplussed when Asian, and particularly like Richard, like he's Chinese, like him getting ahead and him
Andie James: Mm.
Addy DuLac: rising, especially because you have his dad behind him, right? His white daddy. It's like, it's not that weird, because he's sort of following the norms. of what is supposed to happen, right? But when you get to Leo, Leo is, I thought, what I thought was interesting in exploring with Leo is part of the black experience that like, or just the minority experience, but particularly the black experience where you excelling paints a target because you'd think that you like that like, You think that if you
Andie James: Mm.
Addy DuLac: play the game and you don't antagonize anybody and you stay in your corner and you keep your nose clean and you keep your head down, you should be fine, right? But there's another side of that, of if you keep your head down, but you excel, that
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: is just as bad or worse, right? Because now you're painting a target on your back and now
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: people, because you are not, Keeping your head down and keeping your nose clean is good because it's what you should do as a good citizen, right? You shouldn't be causing problems for the white man. But if you excel to the, right? You shouldn't be causing problems. But if you excel
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: in a way that takes opportunities from the white man, right?
Andie James: Yes, it becomes threatening, right?
Addy DuLac: Now you're not conforming to the place that they've decided. is the highest that you can achieve. Now you're excelling, now you're going past that. They don't like that either.
Andie James: You're you're you're reaching beyond your place. You're yeah. Yeah. Like how dare you? Yeah.
Addy DuLac: Right. You're rising above what I think you should be. Right. And so for Leo, even before he gets into the, with the whole, you know, the barony and all the rest of it. Right. That's a whole other situation. Like before he even
Andie James: Well Nazi Yeah.
Addy DuLac: reaches there, he's had several experiences where, again, he is driven. He's intelligent. He's strong. He has all these. He's a strong leader. He's charismatic. He has all these things. He is called to leadership. He is called to lead and he leads naturally. If you leave him alone and you let him do his thing, he is going to end up the leader. He is going to end up as the front. That is the character that he has. But that gets him in trouble again and again and again and again, because they're like, you could go so far, but if you start going a little too fast, now everybody's looking at you like, who told this man he could be here? Right?
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: So maybe we should send him home. And so for him, I thought, what if you, if you have somebody who has so much PTSD around excelling, right? And the fear of it. then, mean, like, and he has so much PTSD, becomes a private investigator. He don't want nobody seeing him anywhere, right? Like, he don't even want to be visible. And like,
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: and then you take that and you put him in a position of the highest visibility. He finds out by nature. by the law of the land, is incontrovertible. They cannot deny it, they cannot take it away, no matter how mad they are, they're just gonna have to suck it up and take it up to Jesus because this is sorted out, right? He is entitled, literally and figuratively, to this position of power,
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: this seat at the table. not just, you know, just land and wealth and all the rest of it, but like quite literally power. He has a seat in parliament. He has a seat in the House of Lords. He has legislative power. He has all these things to go there. And then they're like, you can have all these things. And it's just like, liked putting, playing with that and like turning it on its head because I think so many times you assume, and again, like in these typical stories we read, he finds out he's the Baron, like that's the happy ending, right? Like he has all these things and you he gets the girl and it's done. And I'm like, but what if he's... but what if it like
Andie James: It's not.
Addy DuLac: fills him with fucking dread? Like what if it fills him with terror?
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: The idea of having... which is I think— What I liked... I love playing with that in my books and we're gonna continue doing that, is I like playing with the idea of like... you think like what would typically be the happy ending, but what is the reality behind that? You know, like with Basil, it's like, yeah, it's
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: a great love story, you know, like it's interracial love, it's fantastic, you know, she gets married into the aristocratic family. What could go wrong? I'm like, the family is wildly racist. That's what's going wrong, right? so what is right? So then what does that mean for her and is it worth it?
Andie James: Yeah. Nothing's going on. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: Is it worth it for him? Is it worth it for her? Is that something that you want to walk into? Right? Same thing. And then you get like, Leo, it's like, yeah, you get this great and both Leo and Regina, this position
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: of power has, could potentially have a huge cost. is a huge bullseye for him. And for her, you could be trapped in a marriage with some guy and you have no idea what you're dealing with, but it's supposed to bring your family position. You don't know how long that's going to last. You could die in childbirth. husband could accidentally throw you down the stairs on purpose. Like all kinds of stuff could happen legally he can do what he wants. So like
Andie James: Yeah. Right.
Addy DuLac: is is it a sure thing? Probably not. And then when you get to Regina it's like you know she gets the man of her dreams she gets the man that she's been like looking up like waiting for her whole life and then it's like great but you realize that you are now a black girl married to a Chinese merchant right in in Victorian England right it's just like and it's like, is your nature suited to that of somebody who should be a little deferential? No. At all. Yeah.
Andie James: Not so much, but well, I am so excited for what's to come because as you pointed out, there's more books coming in this series,
Addy DuLac: Yeah! Yeah!
Andie James: which I'm super excited about. but before we go today, I do want to talk about another project that you have.
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: similar similar to myself. You're talking with other authors. And so tell
Addy DuLac: Yes!
Andie James: us about the Tea Salon What is the Tea Salon Why did you create it? How can we tune in?
Addy DuLac: Okay, so the tea salon was sort of born of my own frustration. And I kind of speak to what you were talking about earlier with respect to how easy it is to end up with, you know, a pretty much all white like footprint, right? Like when you're not like doing the work. You did. Be Joan.
Andie James: Well, and the thing is, I called myself out on it. No one else did. No one mentioned it because it's so not novel. Like it doesn't, it doesn't we don't notice it's
Addy DuLac: Right, exactly. It's not something that you think about. Right.
Andie James: it's normal for there to be a collab with all white women authors. Like no one mentioned it to me. No one mentioned it to me. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: Yeah, right. especially in historical. Yeah. Yeah. And then you sort of look around and you're like, huh, interesting, you know, but like, but
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: like, for me, I think what I got. And this is, this is not like pointed at anybody in particular. This is like, I saw it as a widespread issue. Yeah, like writ large. Yeah.
Andie James: Yeah. Well we're at large in our yeah. A big problem for everyone.
Addy DuLac: I think the issue is, especially when it's you're talking about how we are going to get marketing, how you get visibility as an author of as a black or BIPOC author writing specifically those characters. You you end up in the. You end up in a situation where a lot of times, if even if the it's very difficult for influencers or anybody to find you and want to showcase your book. It's difficult to find, people to buy your book. If they do buy your book, the influencer is probably not talking about your book. Like you get, there's a very, there's sort of a dearth of opportunity to get yourself in front of an audience. That's not something that you are like, you know, painstakingly building one person at a time. Like, right. There's not a lot of time for you to dazzle people with your personality, you know, kind of situation, right? Like on a handy dandy podcast, like. There's no interviews,
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: like there's nothing really there. And then when you do get people who are like, I read this book, look at this beautiful cover. It's like great, but they don't talk about the book. They just sort of post the picture and they say, look at this cool cover. This book's coming September 4th. And then they move on with their life and then nothing happens. And so the post doesn't get really any traction at all. And You can see the difference and it's like they know videos are working better, but you don't get a video. They know these things, they know what works and you can see it. but also a lot of influences the focus, cause I don't want to say it's about like anything. It's just, trying to get monetized, right? That's the point. That's the goal and monetization. mean, to do that a lot of times, just like the publishing industry, you're following trends. You're not setting them. You have to follow the trend. have to find the trend and follow it. And if the trend is not, and it has never been black or BIPOC voices. It's you following that trend is not going to help you meet your goal
Andie James: Mm.
Addy DuLac: of getting, you know, 5,000 views on like 5,000 likes or 1 million likes, no matter what people tell you. Like that's just not, it's not there yet. It would, I would love for it to be, but that's not there yet. And so what I found. For myself and also when I was looking around,
Andie James: Mm.
Addy DuLac: the same thing you were talking about is all the podcasts that you know and love, right? Like all of them, nine times out of 10, you have the token author of color, one or two on a list that's like 20 deep, right? And or more often than not, what you get is the ones that are trending. So somebody's mentioning, so the one that they're mentioning is Beverly Jenkins and that's it.
Andie James: yeah. She's like a rage at the moment because her books aren't yeah. Yeah. yeah.
Addy DuLac: Right? Right, it's Beverly Jenkins, yeah, or Kennedy Ryan. Those are the two that people, those are the only two Black people publishing. One is historical romance, one is contemporary. All the bases
Andie James: It's contemporary. Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: are covered. What's the problem? Let's keep going, right? Who do we need, right? So it's like,
Andie James: Who else do we need? Yeah. Yeah, so sad.
Addy DuLac: so that is a lot of times what I, again, what I noticed. And when I'm dealing, and so when I notice that, And it was a crime and it wasn't specific to, and I don't want people to think it was specific to a white podcast or white influences. It's not. It is across the board. is white and. Yeah. No, you're fine.
Andie James: It is. And I can say I've only been sorry, I'm cutting you off here, but I've only I started this podcast less than a year ago. Like the first like true episode was January of this year.
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Yeah.
Andie James: but and I mean granted, some of this is how long some episodes have been out versus others, but I can definitively say that my episode I did talking about Alyssa Cole and my episode I did talking about Beverly Jenkins are my two
Addy DuLac: Thank
Andie James: least streamed. Episodes by far.
Addy DuLac: Right? Yeah.
Andie James: and then alongside that, not as far down, is
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: my book that fact it was a sapphic romance, right? So it's like
Addy DuLac: Right, right.
Andie James: I and you know, I I want to give my platform to this, but if your main goal, it's not mine. I mean, would I like to
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Right, exactly.
Andie James: be able to make some money off this? Hell yes.
Addy DuLac: Sure, yeah.
Andie James: But it's not my main goal. But if your main goal was to monetize and you see those statistics, you see that people aren't engaging with that content, you're gonna stop doing that content. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: Yeah. You're going to. Yeah. And you're going to give and you're going to focus on fourth wing and, you know, ACOTAR and like all the rest of the ones that everybody wants to wants to look at. And so. Right. But but no, that's exactly what I mean. Thank you. I mean,
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, sorry I cut you off. But yeah.
Addy DuLac: that's adding adding, you know, adding force to my point. So what I so when I saw that I I started getting very I got I got very frustrated. I was very disheartened. But it also feels like. when you, if you complained about it, if you complained about the fact that, you know, influencers of colour, like they just really weren't giving you, and even if you were, it was never historical romance. It was never
Andie James: No.
Addy DuLac: historical romance, authors. It's always contemporary, it's always something else, which again I have to beef with, but it becomes, when that's what you write, it becomes very frustrating that you are not con- that- that you just can't get the same level of support as other voices in there, which are perfectly valid and perfect. And I have no beef with it, right? Like, but that is hard. It is hard. And so what I decided was I could be mad about it.
Andie James: Mm.
Addy DuLac: or I could be mad and do something about it. So, which is probably also where you in with your podcast, right? Like that's what you were trying to do, right? So, I
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: mean, I think everybody with a podcast is like, I have something to say and I just need some recording devices, you know? Right? I know, like who gave her the megaphone? with
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: me, so with the Tea Salon, I thought I would... come up with a podcast that is by a Black, you know, historical romance, particularly focusing on historical romance or historical romantasy, right? Like, you have to be writing, so the only requirement to get on that show is you need to be an author of colour and you
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: need to be... Actually, it's basically you need to be an author of colour and you need to be writing... historical romance because another site, another section, another subsection that gets slighted a lot and you can't get traction anywhere really is an author of color that does not write about characters of color. They don't
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: acknowledge it. They don't, you don't get, you still aren't getting traction because you're still an author of color. But a lot of times, influence, especially influencers of color, if they're trying to put a point on it, they're not supporting you unless you're writing about it as well. Which I can also understand because it's a brand thing, but at the same time it's like, if you understood how hard this industry was, and if you understood how difficult it was to get in the door, you'd be, you'd recognize that even an author of color, writing historical romance that is not centering people of colour, it's still a different voice, it's still giving you a different vibe and it's still, their work is still just as vital to support. So the Tea Salon is meant to support just people of colour who are writing historical romance or historical like, romance-y kind of thing.
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: I, that is my main, that is, that is my, that is what I care about. So I have, and I don't care whether it's new, I don't care whether it's old, I don't care at all. I
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: just want them to come on there and talk about their stuff and talk about their stories that they've published and their own story and their own journey because I feel like we just don't get, we barely get any openings to do that. And the openings that we do get, sort of, it can feel a lot of times like a little perfunctory. And I just wanted to be like, no, this is all, this is all we're talking about. This is all we're talking about. This is all I care about. Let's do this here. I, right.
Andie James: The focus. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: And it's like, but I also did know that by, by making that point again, to your earlier point, was I going to get famous and popular over this? No. Was I going
Andie James: No.
Addy DuLac: to get like two streams? Yes, was I super excited when I reached my latest episode with Mae Moore, who's another fantastic author with Dragonblade. So excited.
Andie James: so excited to read her book. Yeah, it's
Addy DuLac: Over Christmas, I'm going to be in Paris, there's like a whole kindle that I'm just going to be like reading all the things, catching up finally in the airport.
Andie James: Love it. Yeah, I can't wait.
Addy DuLac: like, yeah, the... Yeah, so that one got, I think it was like 15 or 16 streams and I was so freaking excited. I was just like, my god,
Andie James: yeah.
Addy DuLac: 16 people, 16 whole humans. That was exciting to me because, which is the bars in hell. It's like a tripping house in hell. But I was excited
Andie James: Ha ha ha
Addy DuLac: because I was just like, either one person 16 times or 16 people, right?
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: saw this
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: and they said, I'm gonna watch this. I think it's cool. So I really wanna, I don't wanna focus on like one, the only, like, so I wanted to focus on that. So I'm trying to get more people and I would like to, I may have to start like reaching out to authors and being like, hey, like sliding into their DMs like a weirdo. Like hopefully they get in.
Andie James: Do it, just slide in. When you're first starting out, you just gotta be like, Hey, I'm doing this thing. But yeah, no, that's great. But I know, yeah. So you just talked with
Addy DuLac: Yeah, hey friend, you know, would you like to participate? know, but yeah, that's the piece of life.
Andie James: Mae Moore. You've had what, two other episodes? I'm trying to remember. I was looking at it earlier.
Addy DuLac: Yeah, so it was Mae Moore my my inaugural episode was the fabulous Lisa Rayne who I will reach out to again and be like, hey, Lisa, you want to do again? Because she had
Andie James: Lisa Rain. Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: that Highlander book, which was a similar situation. Like she came out, she
Andie James: Yes. Yes.
Addy DuLac: sort of like there was no there was nothing about it almost. And I think like what she was talking she talks about in her episode was. There were so many people who said, I read the book, I loved the book.
Andie James: Mm-hmm. Uh-huh.
Addy DuLac: And when people discovered that Black people were in Scotland on TikTok and he came out,
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: all of a sudden her book blew up because everybody knew the book and they had bought it and they had read it, but nobody had spoken about it. All these people, they hadn't posted about it, they hadn't done anything. And her book blew up because it was a book that everybody knew about, everybody low key thought wasn't real, but it was fun and it was a good book. And then this
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: Scott, this black Scottish man showed up with dreads looking literally like the dude on the front of the cover and everybody lost their minds. And Lisa was just like,
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: I'm part of what Lisa, while she was excited and she, you know, that was awesome. Part of what she talked about was she was just like, where the hell were you? Like if you knew,
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: if this many people, there was, you knew, if enough people knew about this book for it to go viral because of one dude, the only difference
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: is that they started posting about it. And it's just like, if y'all, if y'all as in the ubiquitous y'all, like
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: if you actually posted and actually
Andie James: If he would have shown up.
Addy DuLac: spoke, if you actually show up and it's like, we love you buying our books. We love you doing these things. Nobody's upset about the buying of books. But if you buy the
Andie James: Yeah. No.
Addy DuLac: book and you enjoy it, like, then you should be giving more than a cover. you should be giving more than a post every 30 posts. You should be talking and telling, screaming about it. Like the same way you scream about it when the Scottish dude on TikTok shows up, right? Like, so that kind of thing, that's like, I'm like, no, we're about to scream. We're about to holler. We're about to hoot and holler about it. So that's the idea. Round of.
Andie James: Great. Well, I will post a link in the show notes that you can find to the YouTube channel for the Tea salon so you can see it.
Addy DuLac: Yes.
Andie James: And I know coming up on Friday, September 11th, you are talking with my friend Isabella Kamal. I'm so excited.
Addy DuLac: Yes!
Andie James: her, well, not she just released another book, but the
Addy DuLac: He's not dead.
Andie James: I know she's got she's got stuff going on.
Addy DuLac: she busy? Yes, which is pretty exciting.
Andie James: but a lady's guide to subterfuge in science is kind of her her yeah. And then she released a I'm blanking on the name all of a sudden it's the something of Venus.
Addy DuLac: Is he coming to the temple of Venus? Yeah.
Andie James: Yeah, Temple of Persephone and Something of Venus. I'm blanking right now. I've read it, I've read it, but these are great books as well from Isabella.
Addy DuLac: Damn it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Andie James: but anyway, so that's coming up, and if you're listening
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: to this later, you'll still be able to find it because there'll be the link to the YouTube channel so you can look at that. So there's a couple episodes out of the Tea salon, and you should definitely
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: check that out. I know I'm excited to go watch them now that
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: like I knew you were doing this, but then I was like, I rediscovered it and like it, so I need to go back and watch, but I'm very excited.
Addy DuLac: Yeah, Yay!
Andie James: so everyone, I will have info on how to find Addy's books. I'll link to
Addy DuLac: with me.
Andie James: her website and all that stuff in the show notes. and if you happen to be, I mean, Addy's a Florida girl. I am not, but I am flying to Florida in January. And if you're in the area, you should definitely
Addy DuLac: Yes! Yes!
Andie James: come join us. We're both gonna be at this fantastic event that's called Swoons Fest
Addy DuLac: Yes. Yes.
Andie James: and I'm delighted because this is an event focused on historical romance, and like that does not happen. That does not happen. Like, I
Addy DuLac: Finally. It does not. There are literally two that I'm aware of. It's Swoons Fest and and Spill the Tea, like that's it. Like those are
Andie James: No, this is the event I am going to spill the tea. Yeah, yeah, I know.
Addy DuLac: the two and I was just like, wow, like, just please God, we're still out here. ugh.
Andie James: Yeah. There's just I know. So even though, you know, I am as far away from Florida as you can be in the Pacific Northwest,
Addy DuLac: Yeah
Andie James: I am flying to this event and I cannot wait. And so in January, Addy and I are both gonna be there along with some other fantastic authors. So check out Swoons Fest. If you're in the area or if you're not, like this is a great event to go to. It's gonna be January 16th, 2027. And I'm so excited to meet you person.
Addy DuLac: yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Yeah, and it's very new. I know! I was like, it's so new, and like, I really want to support, like, every time anybody talks about Swoons Fest, I'm like, it was fantaastic! Everybody go! Everybody participate! Everybody-
Andie James: I know. I had so much FOMO last year. I was like, I am going now. Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: It was so good. I was, I wish it was one of those situations. it was like one of those things where it was like, was so, I was genuinely like in the best way shocked at how well organized and how well thought out it was.
Andie James: And I have so many friends I'm gonna meet in person for the first time. I'm so excited. Isabella is gonna be there as well. We just mentioned her. So it is May Moore's gonna be there. It's gonna be stacked. I'm so excited. Liana De La Rosa, like Cecilia Renee, I know she's gonna be there as well. It's gonna be great.
Addy DuLac: Yeah, Isabelle, Min Ma is gonna be there. Yeah, and Cece, Cecilia Renee. Yeah, Cecilia Renee, like she's on my cohort. Yeah, she's gonna be there too. Yep, she's gonna be stalking me on the East Coast now. So fair enough. I invited her, I asked her to come, so it's a voluntary filming.
Andie James: Yeah. Well, Addy, thank you so, so, so much for joining me today. I
Addy DuLac: Thank you for having me. I'm so glad.
Andie James: was so happy to have you. And I like this sounds horrible, like, but I was glad I had I had a reason to be forced to read these books because they've been on my TBR forever. Like
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: I I don't know if you remember this, but I like set a reading goal for things I wanted to read for the year and these books were on it. And so it was like I was like, Yes, I I I have to read them now. Like and like I said,
Addy DuLac: Yeah, yeah, yeah! Not right!
Andie James: that sounds bad, but it's like a I'm excited because there's no only so much time in the world and then there's things you have to read for other reasons and so
Addy DuLac: That is actually, no, I take it as intended as a compliment because I think like the reality of the, yeah, I think like the reality of the situation is like you have,
Andie James: It is intended as a compliment. Yes.
Addy DuLac: a lot of times it feels like, especially if you have like, I don't know if you have like, you have a side hustle, which is like technically your main hustle like I do. But like, you know,
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: like if you have that, you have like all these other responsibilities, like a lot of authors like have kids, they have like all this other shit that they're trying to juggle. It makes it feel like reading something that you, the thing that you provide
Andie James: You want to read.
Addy DuLac: to others you cannot participate in because this is you lazing about, right? And, but yeah, so it's like, I understand entirely this idea of like, no, I have to, this is work. It's officially work now, go away. Yeah, exactly.
Andie James: Yeah. Well no, I don't mean it as work, but it was like the excuse to need to read these things. I've wanted to. It's like now I I have a reason that I need to read these things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: Right! Right, exactly, and nobody can argue with you and they're just like, you're just sitting, you're taking a break? It's like, I am not taking a break. I have to. Yeah, yeah, so go away. Let me finish. But no.
Andie James: Like, I am not. I'm I need to read these. This is work. It's great. Well, anyways, Addy, it has been an absolute pleasure. And thank you so much for joining me today. I can't wait to meet you in January.
Addy DuLac: Yes! Thank you for helping me. Yes.
Andie James: and everyone, check out the Tea salon. So, all right, and read Addy's books. Read these books, they're so good. And talk about them. Don't just read them, talk about them. Yes.
Addy DuLac: Yes, please. I'm the troublemakers. Yes. Yeah. Talk about it. Thank you. Thank you.
Andie James: All right. Thank you everyone. Thanks for tuning in today and happy reading and happy listening. All right. Bye.
Addy DuLac: Bye.
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Yeah.
Andie James: But I I really am truly excited for this because I in the last two weeks read well not all of your books. I read your troublemakers trilogy. You do have another book, but and I loved them so much and I'm so excited to talk about them today. So welcome Addy
Addy DuLac: Thank you. I'm so glad you like them.
Andie James: Right. loved them. We'll get into it. But let me tell you all a little bit more about Addy and then we will just dive into our conversation. Born and raised in the Rainbow Twin Islands of Trinidad and Tobago, Addy Du Lac moved to the U.S. with her mother and elder sister at the age of 12. She was introduced to historical romance in high school through Julia Quinn and Lisa Kleypas and began writing historical romance while she received a double major in history and creative writing from the University of South Florida. In 2024, her debut novel One Season with the Duke, the one I still need to read and I'm excited to. Won three Emma Awards for Debut Author of the Year, Best Interracial Romance, and Best Book of the Year. Quite impressive. She enjoys crafting books with diverse characters and steamy happy endings. When she isn't plotting her next series or fighting through a new novel, understand that.
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: She enjoys watching movies and Asian dramas, traveling and tempting her fate with new recipes. Addy Du Lac lives in Florida with an eclectic library of books and a carefully curated wall of beautiful men. We might need to talk about that as well.
Addy DuLac: I mean, if I could like hide what the state of the rest of my living room looks like, I will absolutely show off my wall of beautiful men because they are, I mean, I'm very proud of them. Yeah,
Andie James: As you should be. It sounds amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, welcome Addy and thank you so much for joining me today. I'm really excited
Addy DuLac: Thank you for having me.
Andie James: that to talk about your books. your bio mentioned this a little bit. You said that high school is when you kind of really started reading historical romance.
Addy DuLac: Okay.
Andie James: and you mentioned specifically Julia Quinn and Lisa Kleypas, which are great places to start.
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: but why don't you just tell us a little bit more about your kind of journey that sounds so whatever. But your experience, yeah, reading romance I know. But yeah.
Addy DuLac: My journey, my journey to historical romance. Yeah, back through the winds of time. So yeah, so I got into romance in general through an erstwhile cousin. She's fantastic. Who, she now lives in England, but she introduced me, because she and her entire family, they,
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: all red, her, she and all her sisters, her mom, like they all read romance novels. So they were always around. But when we moved to
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: the, when I moved to the US with my mom, she, I mean, she brought her books and she was reading her books. And so I found hers and I was just like, can I read these? And she was just like, yeah, go ahead and read them. It's fine. It was different times back then. So I was reading it. This is technically in middle school, but then when I hit high school, I be like, I used to walk to my mom's office and then we would drive home from there because my school wasn't far away. But I got off school around like two o'clock and my mom didn't get off work until like five. So there were about three hours where I had to entertain myself while my mom was like, she was waiting while I was waiting. And I was in the, so I would inevitably end up in the... sort of break room at the city of Tampa,
Andie James: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: shout out to the city of Tampa. And there was a book there which I did not recognize, but listeners and watchers will recognize called An Offer from a Gentleman,
Andie James: yes.
Addy DuLac: which I, and I was like, what's this? What's this about? Who's the gentleman? I quickly found out that Gentleman was more like a title, like a position, and had very little to do with actual behavior because Benedict is a problem through that entire book.
Andie James: Well, yes.
Addy DuLac: Whoa! Like, but yeah, like it was, but I really liked it. I really liked his relationship with Sophie and eventually, and you know, from that I was like, well, what are the other books? And then I realized it was a whole freaking series and I was like, wait. So, and the city of Tampa was actually really, it was right next to the library. So I could literally walk over there and just be at the library waiting for my mom.
Andie James: Nice.
Addy DuLac: So then I was checking out books, then I got a library card and it was, that was it. I was just like, need that, I need, know, that I got all the rest of them. And I started going through them. Cause I had already, I already read historical books. I always, always reading, I was reading Charles Dickens and Wuthering
Andie James: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: Heights and like all the Brontes and all that and Austen. I was reading that in middle school, voluntarily. So.
Andie James: Right. Yeah. no, I hear ya.
Addy DuLac: Yeah, so like by the time, so I mean, it was always fun when they had like, know, like extracurricular reading when they were just like, yeah, earn points. And I was just like, I was just taking the test because I was like, I've already read this shit, right? So by
Andie James: Okay.
Addy DuLac: the time I saw that, yeah, so I was already, I already loved historical dramas. I loved, you know, all the Austen and Emma and like all kinds of stuff. So when I, but what I did not like is when I watched a historical drama and the ending wasn't happy. The happy people, the people in love didn't stay together. like movies like The Patriot was very, it pissed me off. And it made me start writing fan
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: fiction where Gabriel survived because I was just like, how dare you kill Heath Ledger? He just got married. This is stupid. so that
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: was. when I realized that there was a whole genre that was set in that time period, which, you know, I kind of like the floofy dresses and all the rest of it. But,
Andie James: who doesn't? Yeah.
Addy DuLac: right. But then the happy ending was guaranteed. Then I was just like, wait a minute.
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: I just, so that I mean, that was it. So I started off with, I started off with the Bridgerton series and then I,
Andie James: Okay.
Addy DuLac: and then I found Lisa Kleypas, which was a very different flavor.
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: of book and I was just like okay this is real I was like this is hot this is different so then I was getting into Lisa Kleypas and that one was the one Lisa Kleypas was the one I was sort of like not wanting my mom to find and from low key
Andie James: Okay.
Addy DuLac: but I got into Lisa Kleypas and that it was I think Brenda Joyce and Mary Jo Putney and then Eloisa James and then yeah Those were, that's the general ones that I was reading and then outside of that. I mean, I didn't, I didn't read, I will say I didn't really read widely in historical
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: romance because I'm a very, I'm not a very good reader, I'm not a very good reader for the writer, for a historical romance writer. I
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: just, I sort of, I sort of lock into a particular voice. So if I like the author's
Andie James: Yes, yes.
Addy DuLac: voice, which has nothing to do with their craft, it has nothing to do with how well the story is written, it's just the voice. If I can't get into the author's voice, then I have real difficulty finishing
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: the book. that became a problem for other authors, which I will not name. And so I couldn't really get into it. then so other people would be saying, my God, I love this book. And I'm like, I'm sure it's fantastic.
Andie James: It's great. Yeah. I just
Addy DuLac: Please tell me all about it. I'm not going to finish this thing. It's yeah.
Andie James: It's not for me. Yeah. Well, I think a lot of people read that way though. Like they find an author they like and then they kind of like
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: go deep and they devour and which is,
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: you know, what we as authors hope for once we accumulate a backlist. But
Addy DuLac: Right, exactly. That's the mean we're working feverishly at that at this point. But yeah, it is one of those,
Andie James: I know.
Addy DuLac: it's one of those things where I just feel bad because it ends up being one of those things where it's like, you should read broadly within your own. And I'm like, I'm trying, I'm trying, but I'm just not hanging in there.
Andie James: Trying to and honestly that is the reason I started this podcast because I was like, there's so many more people I need to read. Yeah. Yeah. But well, that's great.
Addy DuLac: Right. I need a list. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Andie James: I love it. And so what then turned I mean, I know you said one of your degrees that you got was in creative writing. So obviously you
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: love writing, but what turned you from the reading into writing and why did you decide on historical romance was one of the things you wanted to write?
Addy DuLac: well the writing has, the writing was there longer than the reading was. So I've been writing because again, I don't like, I dislike sad endings with a passion. So the fan
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: fiction started like pretty early. Any scenes
Andie James: Okay.
Addy DuLac: that I didn't, I felt it didn't end the way I wanted it to. Anything I didn't like, I have control issues. So anything I didn't like, I was like, I'ma fix this. So it started off with like the Patriot and City of Angels, that horrible movie with Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan where he just like, he gives up like immortality and like his wings and then she gets hit by a car. I was like, this is ridiculous. We're fixing this. It was just like all those kinds of things. And then
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: at some point, I think it was Pride and Prejudice. I think it was the 2025
Andie James: yeah.
Addy DuLac: Pride and Prejudice kicked in and I was bewitched body and soul by Matthew McFadden as we all were low-key up.
Andie James: Yes. He wasn't. I mean I love me some Colin Firth too. I can't pick a favorite because I love them both for different reasons. Yes. Yes. We won't. We won't, but yes.
Addy DuLac: This is what I'm saying, different reasons. We're not gonna go down that rapid hole, but yes, I'm like separate, but I'm like, is where, know, one instance where I'm like separate, but equal, can apply and everything's fine. Like it's like,
Andie James: Right.
Addy DuLac: it's okay for them. I'm like, there are aspects.
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: I like the length of the Colin Firth one. I like how in depth you're able to get
Andie James: Yes. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: into the story and the characters with the Colin Firth one. But I also feel like the Colin Firth one, they're very much sort of, they're playing the characters as characters and they're not playing the characters as if they were real people. And I think the difference in the 2005 one with Kira Knightley and Matthew McFadden is that like you really, when you're watching it, is it as sort of like picture perfect within the aesthetic of Jane Austen as the 1995 one? No, it's not. However,
Andie James: Yeah. my gosh.
Addy DuLac: the characters, like you feel the awkwardness of Darcy. Like you knew, like you knew he was,
Andie James: yeah. You so get that part of him.
Addy DuLac: like before you get into the fact that he was supposedly gonna propose when he shows up, immediately out, like you knew he was trying to do something, cause you were just like, bro, like this is not going well. So like you just, it's like, they just feel more real. And I, to me, if I could have the two, if somebody creates a, like a 2005 one that was like the length.
Andie James: Yeah, the depth. Yeah. That would be amazing. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: of the 1995 one, that would be a real contender. But I don't think anybody's doing that. Anyway, back to my, back to the rest of it. so... I was writing a Pride and Prejudice fanfic.
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: And I was like, well, we already know what happened with Darcy and Elizabeth. And I thought, why do what happened? What if I write a story that focuses on their children?
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: And so hypothetically children. So I like made up this broad thing of like all these kids that they were having. And I was writing this fan fiction of like all their kids. And then I realized very quickly that the deeper I went into it. They were completely tangential and they had nothing to do. with anything and the show, what I was writing was sort of primarily made up of original characters that I was making up. And
Andie James: Hm. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: so at that point I was like, well, if I already have the setting, maybe I should just try to like do it. So
Andie James: Mm.
Addy DuLac: that was college. So college I said, you know what, I'm gonna take this fan fiction and I'm gonna try to like build it out and like really write this. And that was, and that. that manuscript that I tried to build out and like that I but I not tried to I did I built it out and I really sunk in deep and that and then eventually 10 years later it morphed into one season with the Duke so that's how I got started you know two
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: lifetimes ago it was a fan it was it was a Pride and Prejudice fan fiction but clearly anybody
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: who reads it is gonna be like where is that and I'm like don't worry about it
Andie James: Things evolve. Things evolve. That's great. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: It's, yeah. Yeah.
Andie James: Well, I'm very excited to read that one because like I said, I was this is a good transition point here because I loved your troublemakers.
Addy DuLac: Thank you.
Andie James: and I think it's interesting that you mentioned Julia Quinn because one of the things we talk about in historical romance circles
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: is everything these days is compared to Bridgerton when it comes to historical romance, right?
Addy DuLac: Yeah,
Andie James: Like it's
Addy DuLac: it is.
Andie James: just inescapable because it's kind of become the broad thing. It's it's the touch point people can understand when they don't have more context for historical romance. And some Right, exactly. Exactly. And so in
Addy DuLac: It's also the only touch point they have in broader media, if you think about it, like, culturally.
Andie James: some sense it's great because it gives a general idea of like, yes, this genre. But in other ways, it's like things that really aren't similar to Bridgerton at all are compared to Bridgerton. And it's like, well, yeah.
Addy DuLac: Yeah, like the Bridgerton books, low-key.
Andie James: so and and that is another piece there, right? Is that the books are very different from the show. Like there's this the core
Addy DuLac: Super different.
Andie James: piece there. But the people that really love the show and aren't necessarily familiar with the books or the genre, just recommending them to read the Bridgerton books may not be the best thing. And I feel like your books are actually like a really good piece for people who love the show because
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: it's It feels more, I feel like these books were kind of a perfect blend of some like old school historical romance sensibility with more modern takes and more diverse characters. And
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: I feel like that is kind of the good blend for the people who connected with something in Bridgerton the show and are now looking for some entry point into maybe checking out some books. And
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: I feel like these are the kinds of things we need to be recommending rather than as much as we love them, the actual Bridgerton books or Kleypas or those things, because
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: I I I feel like there's a different there's there's that difference there. Does that yeah.
Addy DuLac: It is different. And I think also, while we love our queens, the reality of the situation is we were the audience that they were writing for, the mindset of that, which is kind of why like people who were actual, who not were, are fans of the book, right? And were reading it when it was coming out. We sometimes get a little... I don't know, I feel like sometimes we're just like, we're trying to protect our babies because we're just sitting down there like, stop yelling at them, it's not their fault, kind of a situation. And there's so much
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: pushback when they read the books and they're like, my God, this is so gross, or this character is so problematic or whatever, right? And the reality of the situation is like, they're problematic within the mindset. that we currently have and our current
Andie James: Right.
Addy DuLac: views on sex and sexuality and marriage and all those sorts of things. Not in the sense that we like marital rape or anything like that, but in the sense of like, we do not, we do not, as a record, we do not. But I mean in the concept of,
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah. We do not. Right.
Addy DuLac: you're, if you're come, if the person who's reading it, the people who are, they're writing it for the people who are buying it. I was in middle school, I was in high school, my mom is the one buying it. It's, you're talking about boomers, you're talking Generation X. And these are the people, they're the first people buying it. Those are the people primarily reading it when they're being sent out. And those are the people writing it. And the mindset with respect
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: to what a woman is going to be comfortable reading and what kind of a sexual, what kind of, how she's going to be able to. relate to it comfortably, this other person having like a sexual journey, it requires a little more coaxing than we are comfortable with now. And it requires
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: a lot more like the men that they would be wanting to read about are men that aren't necessarily abusive, who give like the kind, the idea of the framework that they would have needed in order to see okay, I'm gonna let my hair down and do the thing. It's more aligned with the Rhett Butler than it is aligned with, you know, Tom Holland's Spider-Man, right? Like it's just not, right? And so when, so, but if you're reading a Rhett Butler-esque character, you're just like, my God, he's a rapist. And it's like, now, yes, because, and the real difference is not necessarily that. we see sex differently, but more that we are more comfortable in our sexuality and we are more comfortable just seeing a girl just be like, yeah, let's do it. Whereas my mom's generation will be reading it and they may be like, she's kind of a little too free with it. Like he didn't have to work at all. And it's just like, the work is what makes you a good girl.
Andie James: Yeah. Right.
Addy DuLac: who's being liberated,
Andie James: Right.
Addy DuLac: right? I'm like, if not, then you're a harlot. And now it's the difference. So I think
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: like, because the Bridgerton books in particular and Lisa Kleypas because
Andie James: Mm.
Addy DuLac: that is the mindset, those are the people that they're writing for. that is the sort of cultural mind frame that it's coming from.
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: It's very dangerous to try to see. think it's, I also think it's unfair. to sort
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: of pretend like across all time and history, people are going to be like the views of problematic are because you're ignorant. I'm like, it's not just because of ignorance. It's also because
Andie James: Right. Right.
Addy DuLac: there's a framing of all of like human interaction that is
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: that people need it. They need that framework. And it's not because they have they're like bad people or anything like that. So I think for
Andie James: No. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: like Bridgerton, what makes it really to me sort of what has people like it sort of shoots people in the foot is that the books were written for people
Andie James: Okay.
Addy DuLac: who were written and but the show is crafted for people who are right now right so they're
Andie James: Yeah. It's written for now. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: written with those people in mind and so the the most people who are like annoyed are the people who are like from back then who were reading it back then and we're fine and now they're still alive and they're watching the show and they're just like you changed it what happened right but
Andie James: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: It's hard, like you can't really, it is, to me that's the main issue. It's like, but also like, because you know, just like all the rest of it, like, cause my books are fabulous. But I think it's also like,
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: like if you're going to be recommending historical if you're going to be recommending historical romance, it should be historical romances that were written within the last five, 10 years. Like not necessarily all the way back there. I'm like, now you're just, you're setting them up to fail. Like you want to bring them
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: in, you know.
Andie James: Well, and I feel like that's a conversation that's maybe hopefully finally starting to happen a little bit right now. Is that,
Addy DuLac: That's part of it! Yeah.
Andie James: you know, because I mean, obviously our genre is not the cool girl at the moment and she's struggling a little bit, within kind of greater romance. and you know, so when people are like, I'm trying to get into historical like you see posts on threads and Instagram and stuff and Everyone's always recommending like these old authors. And I love them. They are classics
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Yeah!
Andie James: of the genre for a reason. Do not get me wrong here.
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: People recommend them for a reason because they are so good. They are the foundation, but it's like we're missing so much of what's new and fresh and current and might help those people lock into wanting to read the genre a little bit more.
Addy DuLac: Yes. Yes.
Andie James: And I think part of it too though is just the shift in the way the market has worked, right? Because so
Addy DuLac: Yes.
Andie James: much of what's being published newer right now tends to be in indie space, either through small presses like like your books or self
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: published. And it is just harder to be discovered, to be found.
Addy DuLac: get the word out. Yeah.
Andie James: And so we're not like you don't get the the mass of focus and attention.
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: like these older authors did. So everyone knew them, everyone read them. And now
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: it's harder it's like we we haven't created the right avenue yet to get a foc a central focus and and message about books in the indie space. I don't know how to do that.
Addy DuLac: Yeah, I mean, that's I mean, we're both we're both fighting that battle, low key, like,
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: because different divisions, battle. like, it's because
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: it's it is the mean it is the main struggle. And when you have and the real issue is that it's so easy to be drowned out by the sort of juggernaut that is publishing when they are decidedly pushing in the opposite direction. even when they do publish you, right? Like even when you are the author that they sort out because they want more diverse voices or whatever and then like they get you, they get
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: you under contract and then you sort of rot, right? Like they have like different imp... they're trying out different imprints and they put you in the imprint that they are going to give the least marketing and visibility to and then you're there. But you can say that they... but they can see that they published you, right? And like you can...
Andie James: They publish you. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: They did publish you and you know are a good tax write-off but at the same time like they're not doing anything with you and that is the and of course you're now your IP is held hostage right because now you can't get it back and it's very
Andie James: It's
Addy DuLac: it's very disheartening and it's very annoying also because you're sort of looking at them like how do you have like no imagination for what to do with this like I find it It is crazy to me, or it depends. If I put on my tinfoil hat, I find it wildly suspicious. But
Andie James: Ha ha ha ha.
Addy DuLac: when I take off the tinfoil hat, it's just sort of crazy to me that the, that historical romance started dying when Bridgerton came out. Like that seems.
Andie James: Mm-hmm. I know, I know.
Addy DuLac: Like I don't understand how everybody was at home watching Bridgerton and nobody took a quick circle around the block to historical romance at all. And that, so to me, like that is, I mean, you can talk about like the book sizes, you know, the mass market, paperback size and like, you know, they're like, this is what you got in the grocery store. That's not.
Andie James: Yeah. That's legit, but I don't think that's that's not it.
Addy DuLac: No, I think it was, I think it was a sort of a two pronged attack. I think that didn't help. But I think the reason it
Andie James: Yeah. That was part of it for sure.
Addy DuLac: was part of it. But I think the real issue is there was an evolution happening within historical romance and nobody was tracking it and it wasn't being pushed. And so when game of and I think really what it seemed like publishing didn't catch on to is like They saw what was happening with Game of Thrones. And then, maybe it's because Bridgerton, the way each season is sort of spaced out. the
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: hype dies and then it comes back. Where
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: it shows like, like Game of Thrones, right? Or Shadow and Bone and all kinds of stuff. Like those are shows where, again, strong fantasy element. There's
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: a lot of like that kind of stuff going on. And there's some hot guy with some dude could have wings. Like you have Carnival Row, like you have this glut of shows that are fantasy that have some hot main lead and like you kind of want them to have sex, but you're not going to get it. And if you write like low key, right? Or they do have
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: sex. mean, I mean, Orlando Bloom was tearing up Evangeline or whatever her name was in Carnival Row. So like you have like all these different shows that are leaning to that. another one I'm immediately thinking of is
Andie James: yeah. Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: Wheel of Time, another one, fantastic. These are fantastic shows that are right there in Romantasy And
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: also you have, so you had this sort of perfect storm of you have all these shows that are doing Romantasy Everybody's trying to push, you know, every, you know, the new, new byword is, you know, inclusion and diversity, which I, I'm for. And I like it, but that you have that, and then you're trying to figure out a way to sell this to an audience. that is that the presumption is, is, you know, it's mainly white, which is not true, but that's the idea, because that's who they're marketing it to. And they're trying to do that, but they're also trying to do it in a way that sort of is sort of palatable. So
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: it's a way that people will swallow easily, sort of. So it's like, it's easy to believe that, you know, there's like a black you know aristocrat if he's part satyr right or if some some girl with a fairy like some girl with wings is flying around the place right but so it's like that kind of thing and i feel like honest to god the reason Romantasy took off is because you had like all these shows that were feeding the imagination of the public and then
Andie James: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: if you want to get the diversity in there it's a lot easier for people to swallow diversity in a historical setting if somebody has wings if they're dragons involved, if there's something like that, because then the fallback, maybe this is like a hot take the fallback is it's a fantasy world. It doesn't have to be real. It doesn't have to be realistic. It just has to be well written. You have that
Andie James: Yeah. Right. We can have that break from yeah, reality.
Addy DuLac: distance. And I think it's a lot easier marketing wise. Like it's a lot less, you get, it's like, you get to serve both masters and everything's great, right? when it comes to historical romance.
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: With Bridgerton, again, it's a lot easier, right? Because then they're sitting down there and they're like, well, mean, it's not real music. Nobody's playing Mozart, technically. It's vitamin C, or it's, know, right? It's technically Taylor Swift, always Taylor Swift. I know there's something like that going on that
Andie James: Mm.
Addy DuLac: is telling the audience, this is in real life, right? So like, don't worry. It's like, don't worry about so much about the fact that Simon's black, right? It's okay that he's a black Duke because this isn't real life. This isn't real, you know? But there's no reason, but there's no need. But to me, like, I think like that becomes a thing where it's like, you don't need to do that. But when you're playing so much into the fantasy, it's hard to then take it to the books, which are not actually. actually fantastical.
Andie James: No.
Addy DuLac: Like historical romance is not about the fantasy is the the fantasy is more about the the man who's teachable and actually listens and is invested right like that's the fantasy but
Andie James: Right.
Addy DuLac: the world the world is not the fantasy right like the
Andie James: Yeah. The world is the setting in which we place our story to have
Addy DuLac: Correct.
Andie James: the fantasy of the the love and the man and the all of that. Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: Right, exactly. So, so like when you're doing but when you're doing something like that and the world is not fantastical, all of a sudden now everybody wants everything to be historically accurate, right? Like now, now there's, which
Andie James: It becomes a challenge. Yes. Which
Addy DuLac: again is a sort of, it's not real historical accuracy that they're looking for. They're just looking for something that's historically plausible and they don't realize that that's what they're going for. And that's where the ignorance comes in because they don't realize what is historically plausible. And that's where I come
Andie James: And that's
Addy DuLac: in.
Andie James: Yeah. I was gonna say that's why your books are so important. Because
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: so the let's let's refocus on your books because they're fantastic. So this is a trilogy,
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: but you're writing some more, correct? Yeah. Yay! I'm so excited
Addy DuLac: Yes!
Andie James: for them. So this is the Troublemakers trilogy. We follow three female friends who met at kind of a finishing school, I don't know, ladies school,
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Yeah.
Andie James: and became friends because They they were the three minority, not white, diverse the ladies that stood out because they weren't like everybody else, right? And so
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Right.
Andie James: they band together, they become fast friends. So each book focuses on a different one of these lovely ladies.
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: how did you come up with this? And one of the things, I mean, you were talking about kind of the historical reality. And so one of the things I noticed, and maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here in this conversation, but All of your heroines are biracial and they are the product of mothers who come from different from white English settings. So we've got Chinese, Indian, and Caribbean black.
Addy DuLac: Bien.
Andie James: but they all have white fathers, which is what
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: would have been most kind of historically accurate because of the colonization and
Addy DuLac: Yeah, exactly. Every
Andie James: Getting right. So like did you was that intention right colonization? Like Yes. We're gonna go to
Addy DuLac: other colonization, like that's exactly what's going on. That's how y'all ended up all over the place, know, like, right?
Andie James: these places and we're going to take these women and we're gonna have children. Yes. whether it be loving or not, that's a whole other conversation. yes. This purpose is these are loving matches. Yes, which
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We can get into that in like different books, but for this one, for these purposes, yes, they were loving marriages in these ones. Yeah. Yeah.
Andie James: I but so I mean, how did you come up with the the concept for this series because I mean it's obvious that you thought through this before because there's really good connecting links throughout. Like you plant seeds for books two and three in one and refer to things from one and you know, it it
Addy DuLac: Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Andie James: works together really well. Although you can read them all individually. And so if you just want to read one, read one.
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: but they they work together really well. And I guess the kind of what was your thought process going into this because As much as I talk about my struggles as an indie author, I know it's so much harder for authors of color to get their books noticed when
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Yeah.
Andie James: we're focusing on characters of color. And so I like I'm rambling now, but like how did you come up with this? What was your initial instincts?
Addy DuLac: So I, it's funny, when I was doing, I was just finishing, I had just finished One Season with the Duke and
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: I wanted to write, when I got done with that, I thought, I kept thinking, if I want to get the book, the series, because it was supposed to be a series, but that didn't work out. So, if I was going to do a series, I want it, like I knew that the the sort of like the traditionally published or I presumed that the traditionally published series would need to be, like the, they would have to be sort of more white people, like at the center is what I was assuming. like, can't
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: think of a different way to say that, but that's what I assume. but I always really wanted to write a, series that was closer to the kind of romances that I grew up with watching around me in Trinidad.
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: So in Trinidad, it's not like we're some kind of utopian society, but interracial marriages and interracial relationships are sort of the, like, it's basic. So nobody's shocked, nobody's surprised. Nobody's surprised to find a Korean dude with the last name Rodriguez or Gonzalez. Like that is pretty
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: basic, right? So that is the culture that I grew up in, right? It was very multi-religious, multi-ethnic,
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: multi-everything. So you ended up with these crazy mixes of people. Well, crazy to an audience outside of the Caribbean. Anybody in the Caribbean watching this, they're like, yeah. Because what was happening, because colonialism, is England was
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: bringing England, the British weren't necessarily always bringing all the poor people that they were stealing to run their plantations. They weren't bringing them to England. They're bringing them to their colonies. And that's exactly what happened in Trinidad. It started off with the Amerindians that they slowly killed off. and well that was technically Spanish. And then you establish these slave plantations for cocoa for for not really cotton definitely sugar cane
Andie James: Sugar. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: definitely coconut like all of these things right. So all these cash crop plantations and when you get rid of slavery when slavery's when slavery's not both abolished and sort of has run its course by the end of like 1838 in England and its in Britain and its colonies, you still have to find workforce. And that's when they started. You already have the British Raj sort of starting up. So they take all the poor people in India that can't hack it because they've because they've absolutely destroyed local economies. And they say, hey, we got an economy over here for you to prop up. And they basically, and they get them in these indentured labor and same thing with China, right? So they get them in these indentured labor contracts, which at first was meaningful white people, but then they branched out because equal opportunity, right? So then they bring them over and that's how you end up with the, lot of the English speaking Caribbean islands. You have the three basic demographic, like it's different. Everybody Island has different concentrations of pretty much three demographics. It's East Indian, African, Chinese.
Andie James: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: You get different concentrations of both depending on which Island that you're in. But those are the main, those are the main three
Andie James: Does he mean?
Addy DuLac: that are, that are basically, those are the main three that are working. Those are the main
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: three that are working pretty much in the same areas. Right? Those are the ones living next to each other. Those are the ones forming relationships. That's what's happening. So, and then as time goes on, like in Trinidad in particular, as time goes on, you get like Syria and you get like all the different ones in there. But you end up with this population that's like crazy diverse on this tiny little island.
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: And you have to get along because after a while you run out of land and it's just ocean, right? But you can't push everybody into the sea. So get along, right? And so
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: I wanted that. I wanted to write that in a historical setting. However, it's like, you know, and I was like, but
Andie James: Yeah. And I love it.
Addy DuLac: it could be so cool. And but the, but the issue really was I wasn't sure that I would get a publisher that would say, yeah, write a black male lead and a South Asian female lead. That's fine. Like I knew I felt like in some way And lot of the, it was mostly because most of the books that I was seeing when I was looking around, was interracial was white and black. That was it. Occasionally,
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: mean, mean, not to, not to, no, to not talk about like Courtney Milan, who also has like, she would have like both Asian leads or Asian and white leads. Like you have those things in there. But most of the time when you're talking about interracial, it's white and black. Like that's it, you know, and I. I didn't have anything against it. Like those couples definitely show up. And I'm writing at least like a whole bunch of them I'm writing like that's probably going to end up happening. But I also wanted to, just, was like, but that's not to me, that's not interracial. Like that's like, that's such a narrow definition of interracial to me. So I was just like,
Andie James: Very narrow definition.
Addy DuLac: no, there are other ethnicities out here. Like we are all doing the thing. And yeah.
Andie James: Well, I think some of that comes with maybe the background of the author, because as
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: an American white woman, I mean, America is dominated by the white and black narrative, right? And
Addy DuLac: It is!
Andie James: so like in our brain, like that's probably where we naturally go to, right?
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: because it's just such a scar on our history. I mean, we don't talk about
Addy DuLac: And then.
Andie James: the indigenous enough, like that's a whole other thing. But don't get me started on how we still ignore
Addy DuLac: That's a whole lot of imputation, yeah. Yeah. Scars all over the place
Andie James: We still ignore, but anyways. but I think that's a lot of it too. And I think another piece is that because so much of our genre is dominated by white women authors, speaking as one,
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Yeah.
Andie James: you know, and I well, and I touched on this this week because I led a collaboration that is releasing starting next week, right? For
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: autumn novellas. And it wasn't intentional, but like we ended up being a group of eight white women and
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: because we, you know, just who can who can participate at what time and
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: and I'm like kicking myself now for not being more intentional about making sure we had included a better
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: diversity of representation and authors because one of the things I mentioned to you when we were emailing before, like part of the reason I loved your books and I think they're so important. And maybe this is just me being shy because I think literacy is like dead critical reading, right?
Addy DuLac: Yeah,
Andie James: but like these books, you do not shy away from encountering or encountering, describing, explaining just the blatant bigotry and racism that
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: existed at the time well still exists, but at the the
Addy DuLac: Yeah!
Andie James: setting and time period of your books.
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: in the society, especially, you know, the divide between the aristocracy and not, right? You address that
Addy DuLac: Yeah!
Andie James: as well. But you really go there and you write some really nasty characters who have some horrible viewpoints and you
Addy DuLac: Yeah!
Andie James: just share that. And I think it's so important because I don't feel like I could write that. I feel like people would assume that's my viewpoint as a white woman, and I would be raked over the coals. But it's so important.
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Yeah!
Andie James: Important to have that conversation, to not gloss over it and it be the fantasy and to address
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: the reality. And so that's why we have to be so much better. And where I fell short of including
Addy DuLac: Okay.
Andie James: intentionally the more diverse voices who can tell those stories in a way that I don't think we can.
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Yeah. No. And I think to your to your to your point, for me, I think what I think is important, and I think that sometimes doesn't always get... So like, when I was writing mine, I... It was important for me to show the racism because I wasn't interested in writing a fantasy world. I was interested in writing a historical romance with diversity that was real and plausible. It's realistic romance is what I'm trying to do. And the reality is even racism comes in different shades. What
Andie James: amen. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: I mean by different shades is they're the... the Harrisons of the world, you know, those who don't know. And then there's the Basil's mom, right?
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: And both fall into the category of people who are racist or classist or imperialist or whatever, all three, right? But the reality of the situation and even not necessarily very strongly at all with the racism, but the classism a little bit, And definitely
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: with the imperialism a little bit is Ellie's dad, right? And the thing is, Ellie's...
Andie James: Yes. I was gonna say I yeah, I loved that dynamic.
Addy DuLac: Yeah, anything is like all of it. And to me, what was important was it's not, cause to me it's not about the demonization. It's not about the blame. What it is about is showing there are people who are well-meaning and like in the, in the book specifically, you can be well-meaning and fall short, you can also be, but what's important is not necessary or to me rather. What is important is not that you don't make the mistake. What's important is that you recognize it and you learn. So like Basil's mom is definitely, I don't think anybody's reading book one and not realizing that Basil's mom is racist. But Basil's
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: mom of Basil's family with the exclusion of Basil is the one who's like the lightest shade of it. And so she's the one that's, if anybody's getting like sort of I don't know, rehabilitated or like fastest. It's Basil's mom, right? Like of the racist chain, she's the weakest link. So she's like.
Andie James: She's still a kind person. She wants to try to recognize and bring people in, but she's colored by. Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: She is, she's kind, has, right. She has kind, she's got good minus. She is, right? Like she, she's colorblind in like the worst way, right? So you're like, like she's
Andie James: Yes. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: definitely the, the well-meaning white person, right? And you're just
Andie James: Yes. Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: sort of like, yeah, but you can't be doing that. And so I think it's, and like for her, and I also felt it was important to show that yes, this is a flaw, it's fantastic. There's a huge flaw in her. but she's also a loving mother. And
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: when it comes to her prioritizing her worldview and
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: her view of like where the classes should be and who should be in those classes, the buck, like that line, if you force her to choose between that and her son, incidentally
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: her favorite son, she is choosing her son every single time.
Andie James: She's choosing her son over her status or her standing within, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that's, yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like that is the, so like that's the choice that she makes. And that is why she's able to accept Ada. That is why she's able to be his ally against his father, against his brother, against any, like she will do it because she's like, that's my baby boy.
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: And he's not actually hurting anybody. This is more about status than it is about integrity or anything like that, right? So she's like, We can discuss this. But like when you get and so like they're different and then there's like and then there's like the other ones, right? Like there's Harrison and Trent and you're just like, you know, y'all just, y'all just need to be buried under the jail. You all are a different level, right? And this
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: was like, so I, so to me, and I feel like, but that's also like the racism that you encounter and like, how do you adjust? How do you deal with it? Some of it is snide, some of it is intentional, some of it is unintentional, but you all have to deal with it, right? And And that's part of the society, right? So you escape some of it, but you're not escaping all of it, right? So,
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: no, your best intentions.
Andie James: Well, that's another part of the books, I think, though. Is so you show like the different, as you said, shades of of the racism here and the different ways it plays out, with different characters. But you also have a variety of ways that that impacts and affects your characters of color, right? And so,
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: you know, in we were talking about Basil Basil. He
Addy DuLac: No.
Andie James: is kind of the hero in the first book, Miss Thornfield. He is married to Ada, who is of Chinese descent.
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: And you know, his big they kind of have to marriage a conveniency thing and there's
Addy DuLac: Yes.
Andie James: is are we gonna stick with it or are we gonna null it, right? Like that's kind of the question.
Addy DuLac: Right, exactly. Yeah.
Andie James: it's much more complicated than that, but but hi what's
Addy DuLac: Yeah, but that's pretty much the gist of it. It's like, we stick with it? Yeah.
Andie James: Yeah, but like for him, kind of what's holding him back is his family, knowing like their
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: reaction, they're not gonna accept her, they're gonna be horrible to her. Well, maybe not his mother, like we said, but like in general,
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: his father, his brother. And but she's like, I can handle this. Like she's she's making that choice. And she's like, I if that's
Addy DuLac: Yes.
Andie James: the only thing holding you back, like I still want this, I still choose you, I still like
Addy DuLac: for sure.
Andie James: you know, and so it's like she's handling it in one way. In the second book. you know, we really get what do we do to protect our family versus taking care of ourselves. That's that's a huge,
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: huge piece. But the final book, Miss Hawthorne, I think you do a really interesting thing with our hero Richard. and this is part of part of why I said some of your books feel a little old school is we have a we have a mistress on page. She is a character,
Addy DuLac: shall do.
Andie James: she is a villain, she's horrible. we do not like her.
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: but she and she's like one of the most vile out there with her racism people.
Addy DuLac: yeah.
Andie James: And so there's this question of why is Richard with this woman who like abhors him, right?
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Andie James: And
Addy DuLac: And who he low-key opposed as well. Like, he's not exactly a fan of Earth. Yeah.
Andie James: he does. No, like they they're very much using each other for different reasons.
Addy DuLac: Yes!
Andie James: And that is the bargain they have struck, right? Is that
Addy DuLac: Yes.
Andie James: like we know what this is, we know what we're getting out of this, and we're choosing to ignore the other pieces. But
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: it's really beautiful and heartbreaking all at the same time when there's kind of a part towards the end of that book when Ellie kind of finds out that she was his mistress and is like ha this woman's horrible. How could you and
Addy DuLac: Yeah, exactly.
Andie James: you know, and he's just He's like I you know, and you can see how much he's internalized, like I just needed someone to accept me and love not love me, but like I needed that kind of connection and I didn't care what it ca how it ca I'm not explaining this well, but like
Addy DuLac: If you will allow, it was
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: the kind of situation where he, the likelihood of him finding, he did not believe that it was a real possibility that he would be able to find somebody as he is a Chinese man in the middle of England and one of the few on the Proud. He did not believe that it was likely that he was going to find somebody that would value him. and his culture and accept him as he was. So what he was willing, I mean, like
Andie James: Yes. Thank you. Yes, I was not explaining that well, but thank you.
Addy DuLac: you were, but I could see you were like, I'm not doing this right, and people are gonna yell at me, and you're not. It is that, but the thing is it is kind of ugly and sad in the sense that I think he says something along the lines of like, you eat what's in front of you sometimes.
Andie James: Yes. that was such a beautiful line. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: And it's like, sometimes you don't, you know, and it's like, is it what you want? No, but if you're starving, you eat what's in front of you, right? Right. Yes.
Andie James: If you're starving for any kind of connection and affection and this is all you think is available to you, you're gonna eat it. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: You eat it, you know? And so it sounds very crass, right? And it sounds very crude. I don't think Ellie's like, that's disgusting. Like, Ellie's not exactly a fan. But it's also very,
Andie James: But it's so real. Yeah, she's like, what?
Addy DuLac: yeah, but it's also very real. It's very real. We
Andie James: It's very real.
Addy DuLac: accept the love or the relationships that we think not only that we deserve, but also that we think that is available to us sometimes. And if you're that desperate and the point where he engages in that relationship and maintains it, he is desperate. He is reaching a low point emotionally. so, you know, read the book to find out which. like, for details, read the book. Yeah.
Andie James: Yes, read. Yeah. And you should read these.
Addy DuLac: But like he, but like, yeah. And I think that, but continue, but that's the point she was trying to make. Continue.
Andie James: Yes. No, yes. you did that much better. But I just think i you just you show so much nuance in the different forms of the racism, but then also the impact, I think. And I just think
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: that was really it was really good. I, you know, as a white woman, I needed
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: to read these. I think it's important that we read this because we don't understand in the same way. like we just don't. and So we're talking a lot about the diversity in this books because it's a highlight of them. I think it's what makes them so wonderful. But these are great romances. Like I just want to talk about that. Like these are so
Addy DuLac: Okay, yeah.
Andie James: like romantic and I love them all in different ways. And I, you know, we haven't talked about the second book a lot yet, but that one, it's so interesting because There's a lot of kind of duty and and and that kind of sense in this book. our main character, our our heroine in that one is of Indian descent. East Indian, yes, Regina. And
Addy DuLac: Regina.
Andie James: then her hero, Leo, he
Addy DuLac: Bye bye.
Andie James: finds out he's a he's a black man and he finds out
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: that he has inherited a baronetcy or a baron. He's he's a baron. I was gonna
Addy DuLac: Mm, a barony. Yeah.
Andie James: say, yes. not a baronet, a baron. and
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: at first he's like, I'm not gonna claim this, hell no. Like, I don't are you kidding me? Like, I don't wanna deal
Addy DuLac: I don't
Andie James: with the aristocracy, I don't want any of this shit. And then it's kind of there's a lot of backstory, but basically, like Regina, there's there's a contract that has been struck between her family and this title. It's not necessarily a person, it's that she's
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: set to marry whoever the baron is. And there's been a string of deaths, so she's been engaged for years to like a a series of people. And so
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: when Leo it's so funny because when he finds out that like because he's had feelings for her that he needs to suppress and she's amazing, yeah. And
Addy DuLac: Well yeah, because she's freaking fabulous and she's awesome. Yeah. Yeah.
Andie James: so there's there's been feelings and whatever. And so then and he's like when he finds out that he kind of is aware of her situation, but he doesn't know the title and When it all comes
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: together and is revealed, he's like, Well shit, now I need to like claim this thing because I need to marry her. Yeah, I know. It's so great. It's so great. And like,
Addy DuLac: Now need to think about it. Yeah, like, now I need to reconsider, you know? Now he's like, now I gotta think about it. Yeah.
Andie James: and it's just it's so romantic. And there's different and the final book, Ellie is our our heroine. And I really loved that one. And I mean, I don't I'm not obviously there's been shades of this in books before, but the way you described She's kind of been in love/slash infatuated with our hero Richard from like 15, 16, somewhere in there. When she
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: first saw him, he is the brother of her friend, our heroine in the first book.
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: and she but the way you describe, I think, kind of her almost creating not a dream world, but like this whole other like scenario kind of in in her world of like. How they could be and who he is and what it would look like if they're in love. Like she kind of creates this fantasy world a little bit, and it's not like this crazy, unrealistic. Like he does, you know a little bit of delulu right? But it's like
Addy DuLac: Yeah, just a little bit of the Lulu. Just a sprinkle of Lulu.
Andie James: she's allowed herself to take these feelings and kind of create this imagined, and because it's such a strong feeling, she maybe thinks it's a little more real than it actually is. I identify with that so much. And I was just like, like, I just the
Addy DuLac: Who do I? Yeah, who do I?
Andie James: way you wrote it, I was like, my God, yes. Like I used to, you know, you were talking about you would take fan fiction and write these alternate endings. I I did that my whole life. I didn't necessarily do the writing, but I imagine the stories in my head. And
Addy DuLac: You
Andie James: it's like you can create kind of these other realities that feel very real after a while, right?
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Yeah.
Andie James: Or, you know, you have a crush on someone and you just it's like you think about them so much that maybe you imagine them in a way that is like based on how you understand them, maybe totally not completely real either. And
Addy DuLac: that way.
Andie James: I j I just loved that aspect. And i
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: it ends up working out okay. But
Addy DuLac: Yes, yes.
Andie James: but like I just thought that was so Like I said, I've seen shades of that in books before, but I felt like the way you wrote it, I was like, Yes, I understand this girl.
Addy DuLac: Right? I think like, I feel like I sort of ended up like, not like in a real way, but like sort of like shooting myself in the foot a little bit because like, because when I, that is, because first of all, like I do that all the time. Like it's just like, I know exactly what's going to happen. It's going to be this and it's going to be this and everything's yeah. I'm like, I'm like, we're going
Andie James: This is a romance writer's brain.
Addy DuLac: to do the whole thing and everything's going to be perfect and everything's going to be happy.
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: And then like reality shows up and you're just like, well, that was rude. Like that was not at all.
Andie James: Yeah. That's not what I hoped for.
Addy DuLac: No, at all. I think like with, but I think what I, what I, what was so fun for me with respect to Ellie and Richard was, yes, she has had this crush. Yes, he's been
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: around for a long time. And they do have this sort of special camaraderie between the two of them. And that like, I don't think anybody could pretend like he even doesn't pretend like that's not real. Right.
Andie James: They do. They do. Yeah. Yeah. It's not totally it's not delulu in that there is like something to base that in. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: Like there is something there. The problem is, what's interesting is both of them have these false images of the other that
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: while they've known each other for so long, despite the fact that they've known each other for so long, neither view of the other is real. So like she has this view of him as like, He doesn't, he's always like a jokester, he's always the prankster, he's always charming, he's always all these things. The idea of Richard having a temper and having like a dangerous temper is not something that she has ever considered. The idea of him, she could not, she probably wouldn't have been able to imagine him being cold and cutting. She would not have just like, which is part of what I felt was important for them to explore like. It's very difficult for her to imagine him lonely. It's very difficult
Andie James: Uh-huh.
Addy DuLac: for her to imagine him desperate. It's very difficult for her to imagine him as anything other than this brilliant paragon of manhood that she saw when she was 15. And she was like, and he's been knocking it out of the park ever since, right? She was like, every time I see that man, he is like a drink, you know, drink of cool drink of water for the eyes, right? And, but. the reality of situation, he is all those things. He's a human being. So he gets angry, he makes mistakes. There are times when he's feeling something and he takes it out on the wrong person and he doesn't like, and you know, and he's ashamed and he has like all these different things and he makes stupid choices. You know, all these things happen. And Ellie presents herself, which I think was, which is why that third book, was like, it was sort of unexpectedly difficult because I had this idea of Ellie. And then when I started writing it, was like, both of them are so moody, like both of them are so ex-ty. And I was looking at Ellie, was just like, god damn it, girl, okay. I thought I knew what I was doing with you. And now I'm writing it and Ellie is, she's so, not in the sense of, not necessarily about her race, but about like her body. Like she's so self-conscious and she's
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: so like weirdly aware of herself in like, Like not in the sense of like, I'm the black girl in the room. Like to her, that's like a point of pride. She's like, y'all are going to deal with me. Like that's not an issue, but it very much is the way of like, she's very secure in that aspect of herself, but physically she's not. And
Andie James: Mm. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: I liked, and the idea that she could have, I liked the idea of playing because she is very young. She, all of them, all of the girls are very young, but I
Andie James: Mm-hmm. Yeah. They're all young.
Addy DuLac: think for Ellie, it's a combination of her being young and weirdly more sheltered than the other two. She is the most sheltered and so she has this very
Andie James: Yes. Yeah. Her father's always been able to lend a certain level of protection for her.
Addy DuLac: Yeah, and he's been and I mean, she is the most privileged of the three of them. Like, you know, to
Andie James: yes. Yeah. Her father's a bycount.
Addy DuLac: write your father's a viscount. like, there's a she's not like the idea of and she also is like a little bit of a bully, but like a lovable bully, but a little bit of a one. But like she uses her powers for good. But like she is very used to getting her way. And there's a there's a sort of sort of naivety that
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: shows up there that I think readers who see her in book one and book two would not expect to find that in her. But I thought that that's, but that was the thought to me that was the key to both Ellie and Richard. They have the private face that they show sometimes to nobody. And then the public
Andie James: Well yeah it it
Addy DuLac: face that they show outside that they're comfortable with people knowing.
Andie James: Yeah, exactly.
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: It works because now that it's focused on her book, we're not just seeing her from the outside like we do. We're like
Addy DuLac: Exactly.
Andie James: we're getting to know the innermost her. And
Addy DuLac: Right.
Andie James: so it's you can see how those pieces work together, right?
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: And it's very much for Richard as well. Yeah, like you said. So
Addy DuLac: Yeah, but I thought that was, was, and I thought it would be so interesting if you have these two people who the real, they really end up falling in love when they can get past the crush stage. Like they have to get past the crush stage in order to fall in love in the sense
Andie James: Yes. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: of like the crush stage is what is holding them back from it almost. Cause they don't understand the other person. I feel like Richard, and you see more, you're going to see more of it in book four, when he's,
Andie James: Mm. I'm so excited.
Addy DuLac: he's very much a caretaker. He's very much a, and not in like, I mean, I feel like he would end up coming across as like, not like a daddy dom sort of way where he needs somebody to be weak or anything like that. But like in the sense of he genuinely loves taking care of people and he likes, he loves, he really does. And he likes to feel needed. He needs to feel needed. So, and it is the way. Like Acts of Service is 110 % the way he shows affection. So you get that in book one, right? Like he is, yeah. Yeah,
Andie James: you absolutely get that in the first book. Like the way he treats his sister. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: like that is his baby girl, okay? Like that is his baby sister. And even in this book.
Andie James: Yeah. And he's had to watch out for her and protect her since they lost their parents and yeah.
Addy DuLac: Yeah, and they were both pretty young when that happened.
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: like he and even before that, because it's just the two of them. Right. And so when you are the two Chinese people, not like that, you know, I'm
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: like, literally you walk around and you are literally the two Chinese looking people like in the room. It's for it forces you to sort of like when you're closing around, it's kind of around each other first. Right. So
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: she is as which I also thought was fun, like she is as protective of him as he is of her. Like they are equally protective of each other. like
Andie James: Yes. Yes.
Addy DuLac: Richard is very much a, like he is the person who he wants to feed you. Like he wants to make sure if you mention, God forbid you mention to Richard, like there's a thing that he cooks that you like every single, that all you have to do is mention that you have a craving and he's showing up with that, he's like, he's showing up with like a care basket, right? Like he is that person.
Andie James: Again, the fantasy man.
Addy DuLac: And exactly, right? I'm like, it's not a problem. But like that is the way he is. And I think like with Ellie, he admires
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: and he loves the fact that she is so audacious and she's so like, like that, you know, she's like, she's a fighter. She's a brawler like him, right? Like she will throw hands up with the slightest provocation, right? But at
Andie James: Yeah. Yes.
Addy DuLac: the same time, I think the part of her that brings out the tenderness in him is the fact is when he realize when he realizes how isolated she is and how
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: like and how when he when he notices like how sort of self-conscious she becomes when she doesn't have like her posse around her when she doesn't have her dad behind her and he realizes
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: like she needs not like again it makes him sound like he has white knight syndrome but it's not quite that it's more
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: like those like that aspect, that huge aspect of his personality that's like, I need to protect the baby. Like that comes out when he knew this, those things. And I think after, you know, the failed confession, like after you have things like that, the
Andie James: No.
Addy DuLac: way when he's watching her and he's dealing with her in those cases, it, like it sort of pulls at his heartstrings,
Andie James: yeah.
Addy DuLac: the fact that She's trying so hard, but he has already recognized that she is isolated. And she's whole, but she, and like, he's like, like that kind of thing. The idea that she does need him. She needs him to take care of her. She needs him to protect. She needs, she needs him to protect her. And not in the sense, not physically, but like emotionally, like she needs that kind of
Andie James: Yeah, yeah.
Addy DuLac: nurturing and that kind of protection from him. That is a trait in the two of them that it is part of why Ellie falls in love with him. She falls in love with that nurturing aspect of him
Andie James: Yes. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: because it is something that her father is. Her father is that person, right? And so like that's so like them like not realizing that and like him realizing, she likes the fact that I do that stuff. And it's like, that's literally what she's here for. Like it is your dream scenario. Like.
Andie James: Yeah. I don't know. It's interesting. Well, one of the other things that's dealt with in that book too, which is interesting. I mean we touched on this, but there's a lot to do with class, right? As well.
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: we touched on our father, which is a whole other conversation that I don't know if we have time for today, but that's that's great. But
Addy DuLac: We'll see. Yeah.
Andie James: But I think it's interesting too because, you know, there's a lot of focus, obviously, in the book, because of the characters you're dealing with on the racism and the bigotry
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: and just those horrible thoughts. But there's there's a point where she she thinks she questions because there's an assumption of
Addy DuLac: Yes. Yes.
Andie James: whether or not she's legitimate.
Addy DuLac: Okay.
Andie James: And I thought it was interesting because you had shown in previous books that Regina's mother had always been pretty cool towards her. And like I'd always thought it was because of her very audacious and outrageous kind of bravado and behavior
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: and attitudes and saying, like, that girl's gonna get you in trouble, you know? But it seemed like a lot, like you can get over this, right? And then it comes like it clicks in her head like, my God, she thinks I'm illegitimate. And so it's like, even though you have this woman, this Indian woman who's been judged her whole life based on that,
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: it's like she's still making judgments and assumptions based on this other element, you know, within society and how we judge people, right? Thinking
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: like the legitimacy. and then, like I said, there's a whole issue in multiple books, not just this one, but with class as well. Because some of these people are in the aristocracy and some aren't. And kind of this, how dare you bring these people into our elevated ranks? And yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so
Addy DuLac: Yeah, is that... real? Yeah. Yeah. Who told you to invite her to the cookout? She has not invited. Yeah.
Andie James: there's just so many layers there though.
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: And that's so true though, again, in life. Like oftentimes we focus on one of those in a story we're telling as the main focus. But they're all intertwined. Just like,
Addy DuLac: Yes.
Andie James: you know, we see racism and sexism all the time. And like I mean, the sexism
Addy DuLac: Yes.
Andie James: is inherent in these based on the time period, but like yeah Yeah. But it's just
Addy DuLac: Yeah
Andie James: and so I I also really appreciated that about these books that you're showing kind
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: of the multiple layers that affect how we view each other and how we see the world around us and and
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Yeah. how it, and I think like also like how that, because I think that intersectionality is what ties into
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: the different experiences, right? Like, like it's
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: important, like I felt like it was important to know that like Leo's experience as a, like Leo and Richard are both minorities, right?
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: But Leo, Leo's experience as a black man, like especially sexually,
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: is going to be very different experience to Richard's, right?
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: Because Richard is, as a Chinese man, he is dealing with the biases and the assumptions about him is about him being not masculine. It's about him being effeminate. It's about him being not man enough, right? Whereas
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: with Leo, like it could lean. wildly in the other direction, right? Like, and neither's true, but it is, but the assumption is gonna give Leo a little more play than Richard is gonna
Andie James: Yes. Right. The assumptions, the stereotypes, the yeah.
Addy DuLac: get, right? He doesn't have to, he doesn't have to twist anybody's arm. But like, when it comes, but I also thought it was interesting when it came to like money, like with respect to Basil,
Andie James: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: right? Like Basil, socially Basil is way more privileged than Richard or Leo,
Andie James: yeah.
Addy DuLac: right?
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: However, financially, the most privileged person financially is Richard.
Andie James: It's Richard.
Addy DuLac: He is in control of all of his assets. He has a shit ton of assets, right? And then you get Leo, who's solidly in the middle. He's got like neither end of both, but he's... Right. But like, so you have like a Nepo baby and you have like,
Andie James: He's like, I got my own career. I'm like doing my thing. Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: you have two Nepo babies and then you have the self-made man in the middle, right? But it's
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: different, but all of them have... And also like, I feel like the, because you have the model minority myth, like nobody's overly nonplussed when Asian, and particularly like Richard, like he's Chinese, like him getting ahead and him
Andie James: Mm.
Addy DuLac: rising, especially because you have his dad behind him, right? His white daddy. It's like, it's not that weird, because he's sort of following the norms. of what is supposed to happen, right? But when you get to Leo, Leo is, I thought, what I thought was interesting in exploring with Leo is part of the black experience that like, or just the minority experience, but particularly the black experience where you excelling paints a target because you'd think that you like that like, You think that if you
Andie James: Mm.
Addy DuLac: play the game and you don't antagonize anybody and you stay in your corner and you keep your nose clean and you keep your head down, you should be fine, right? But there's another side of that, of if you keep your head down, but you excel, that
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: is just as bad or worse, right? Because now you're painting a target on your back and now
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: people, because you are not, Keeping your head down and keeping your nose clean is good because it's what you should do as a good citizen, right? You shouldn't be causing problems for the white man. But if you excel to the, right? You shouldn't be causing problems. But if you excel
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: in a way that takes opportunities from the white man, right?
Andie James: Yes, it becomes threatening, right?
Addy DuLac: Now you're not conforming to the place that they've decided. is the highest that you can achieve. Now you're excelling, now you're going past that. They don't like that either.
Andie James: You're you're you're reaching beyond your place. You're yeah. Yeah. Like how dare you? Yeah.
Addy DuLac: Right. You're rising above what I think you should be. Right. And so for Leo, even before he gets into the, with the whole, you know, the barony and all the rest of it. Right. That's a whole other situation. Like before he even
Andie James: Well Nazi Yeah.
Addy DuLac: reaches there, he's had several experiences where, again, he is driven. He's intelligent. He's strong. He has all these. He's a strong leader. He's charismatic. He has all these things. He is called to leadership. He is called to lead and he leads naturally. If you leave him alone and you let him do his thing, he is going to end up the leader. He is going to end up as the front. That is the character that he has. But that gets him in trouble again and again and again and again, because they're like, you could go so far, but if you start going a little too fast, now everybody's looking at you like, who told this man he could be here? Right?
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: So maybe we should send him home. And so for him, I thought, what if you, if you have somebody who has so much PTSD around excelling, right? And the fear of it. then, mean, like, and he has so much PTSD, becomes a private investigator. He don't want nobody seeing him anywhere, right? Like, he don't even want to be visible. And like,
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: and then you take that and you put him in a position of the highest visibility. He finds out by nature. by the law of the land, is incontrovertible. They cannot deny it, they cannot take it away, no matter how mad they are, they're just gonna have to suck it up and take it up to Jesus because this is sorted out, right? He is entitled, literally and figuratively, to this position of power,
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: this seat at the table. not just, you know, just land and wealth and all the rest of it, but like quite literally power. He has a seat in parliament. He has a seat in the House of Lords. He has legislative power. He has all these things to go there. And then they're like, you can have all these things. And it's just like, liked putting, playing with that and like turning it on its head because I think so many times you assume, and again, like in these typical stories we read, he finds out he's the Baron, like that's the happy ending, right? Like he has all these things and you he gets the girl and it's done. And I'm like, but what if he's... but what if it like
Andie James: It's not.
Addy DuLac: fills him with fucking dread? Like what if it fills him with terror?
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: The idea of having... which is I think— What I liked... I love playing with that in my books and we're gonna continue doing that, is I like playing with the idea of like... you think like what would typically be the happy ending, but what is the reality behind that? You know, like with Basil, it's like, yeah, it's
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: a great love story, you know, like it's interracial love, it's fantastic, you know, she gets married into the aristocratic family. What could go wrong? I'm like, the family is wildly racist. That's what's going wrong, right? so what is right? So then what does that mean for her and is it worth it?
Andie James: Yeah. Nothing's going on. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: Is it worth it for him? Is it worth it for her? Is that something that you want to walk into? Right? Same thing. And then you get like, Leo, it's like, yeah, you get this great and both Leo and Regina, this position
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: of power has, could potentially have a huge cost. is a huge bullseye for him. And for her, you could be trapped in a marriage with some guy and you have no idea what you're dealing with, but it's supposed to bring your family position. You don't know how long that's going to last. You could die in childbirth. husband could accidentally throw you down the stairs on purpose. Like all kinds of stuff could happen legally he can do what he wants. So like
Andie James: Yeah. Right.
Addy DuLac: is is it a sure thing? Probably not. And then when you get to Regina it's like you know she gets the man of her dreams she gets the man that she's been like looking up like waiting for her whole life and then it's like great but you realize that you are now a black girl married to a Chinese merchant right in in Victorian England right it's just like and it's like, is your nature suited to that of somebody who should be a little deferential? No. At all. Yeah.
Andie James: Not so much, but well, I am so excited for what's to come because as you pointed out, there's more books coming in this series,
Addy DuLac: Yeah! Yeah!
Andie James: which I'm super excited about. but before we go today, I do want to talk about another project that you have.
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: similar similar to myself. You're talking with other authors. And so tell
Addy DuLac: Yes!
Andie James: us about the Tea Salon What is the Tea Salon Why did you create it? How can we tune in?
Addy DuLac: Okay, so the tea salon was sort of born of my own frustration. And I kind of speak to what you were talking about earlier with respect to how easy it is to end up with, you know, a pretty much all white like footprint, right? Like when you're not like doing the work. You did. Be Joan.
Andie James: Well, and the thing is, I called myself out on it. No one else did. No one mentioned it because it's so not novel. Like it doesn't, it doesn't we don't notice it's
Addy DuLac: Right, exactly. It's not something that you think about. Right.
Andie James: it's normal for there to be a collab with all white women authors. Like no one mentioned it to me. No one mentioned it to me. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: Yeah, right. especially in historical. Yeah. Yeah. And then you sort of look around and you're like, huh, interesting, you know, but like, but
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: like, for me, I think what I got. And this is, this is not like pointed at anybody in particular. This is like, I saw it as a widespread issue. Yeah, like writ large. Yeah.
Andie James: Yeah. Well we're at large in our yeah. A big problem for everyone.
Addy DuLac: I think the issue is, especially when it's you're talking about how we are going to get marketing, how you get visibility as an author of as a black or BIPOC author writing specifically those characters. You you end up in the. You end up in a situation where a lot of times, if even if the it's very difficult for influencers or anybody to find you and want to showcase your book. It's difficult to find, people to buy your book. If they do buy your book, the influencer is probably not talking about your book. Like you get, there's a very, there's sort of a dearth of opportunity to get yourself in front of an audience. That's not something that you are like, you know, painstakingly building one person at a time. Like, right. There's not a lot of time for you to dazzle people with your personality, you know, kind of situation, right? Like on a handy dandy podcast, like. There's no interviews,
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: like there's nothing really there. And then when you do get people who are like, I read this book, look at this beautiful cover. It's like great, but they don't talk about the book. They just sort of post the picture and they say, look at this cool cover. This book's coming September 4th. And then they move on with their life and then nothing happens. And so the post doesn't get really any traction at all. And You can see the difference and it's like they know videos are working better, but you don't get a video. They know these things, they know what works and you can see it. but also a lot of influences the focus, cause I don't want to say it's about like anything. It's just, trying to get monetized, right? That's the point. That's the goal and monetization. mean, to do that a lot of times, just like the publishing industry, you're following trends. You're not setting them. You have to follow the trend. have to find the trend and follow it. And if the trend is not, and it has never been black or BIPOC voices. It's you following that trend is not going to help you meet your goal
Andie James: Mm.
Addy DuLac: of getting, you know, 5,000 views on like 5,000 likes or 1 million likes, no matter what people tell you. Like that's just not, it's not there yet. It would, I would love for it to be, but that's not there yet. And so what I found. For myself and also when I was looking around,
Andie James: Mm.
Addy DuLac: the same thing you were talking about is all the podcasts that you know and love, right? Like all of them, nine times out of 10, you have the token author of color, one or two on a list that's like 20 deep, right? And or more often than not, what you get is the ones that are trending. So somebody's mentioning, so the one that they're mentioning is Beverly Jenkins and that's it.
Andie James: yeah. She's like a rage at the moment because her books aren't yeah. Yeah. yeah.
Addy DuLac: Right? Right, it's Beverly Jenkins, yeah, or Kennedy Ryan. Those are the two that people, those are the only two Black people publishing. One is historical romance, one is contemporary. All the bases
Andie James: It's contemporary. Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: are covered. What's the problem? Let's keep going, right? Who do we need, right? So it's like,
Andie James: Who else do we need? Yeah. Yeah, so sad.
Addy DuLac: so that is a lot of times what I, again, what I noticed. And when I'm dealing, and so when I notice that, And it was a crime and it wasn't specific to, and I don't want people to think it was specific to a white podcast or white influences. It's not. It is across the board. is white and. Yeah. No, you're fine.
Andie James: It is. And I can say I've only been sorry, I'm cutting you off here, but I've only I started this podcast less than a year ago. Like the first like true episode was January of this year.
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Yeah.
Andie James: but and I mean granted, some of this is how long some episodes have been out versus others, but I can definitively say that my episode I did talking about Alyssa Cole and my episode I did talking about Beverly Jenkins are my two
Addy DuLac: Thank
Andie James: least streamed. Episodes by far.
Addy DuLac: Right? Yeah.
Andie James: and then alongside that, not as far down, is
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: my book that fact it was a sapphic romance, right? So it's like
Addy DuLac: Right, right.
Andie James: I and you know, I I want to give my platform to this, but if your main goal, it's not mine. I mean, would I like to
Addy DuLac: Yeah. Right, exactly.
Andie James: be able to make some money off this? Hell yes.
Addy DuLac: Sure, yeah.
Andie James: But it's not my main goal. But if your main goal was to monetize and you see those statistics, you see that people aren't engaging with that content, you're gonna stop doing that content. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: Yeah. You're going to. Yeah. And you're going to give and you're going to focus on fourth wing and, you know, ACOTAR and like all the rest of the ones that everybody wants to wants to look at. And so. Right. But but no, that's exactly what I mean. Thank you. I mean,
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, sorry I cut you off. But yeah.
Addy DuLac: that's adding adding, you know, adding force to my point. So what I so when I saw that I I started getting very I got I got very frustrated. I was very disheartened. But it also feels like. when you, if you complained about it, if you complained about the fact that, you know, influencers of colour, like they just really weren't giving you, and even if you were, it was never historical romance. It was never
Andie James: No.
Addy DuLac: historical romance, authors. It's always contemporary, it's always something else, which again I have to beef with, but it becomes, when that's what you write, it becomes very frustrating that you are not con- that- that you just can't get the same level of support as other voices in there, which are perfectly valid and perfect. And I have no beef with it, right? Like, but that is hard. It is hard. And so what I decided was I could be mad about it.
Andie James: Mm.
Addy DuLac: or I could be mad and do something about it. So, which is probably also where you in with your podcast, right? Like that's what you were trying to do, right? So, I
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: mean, I think everybody with a podcast is like, I have something to say and I just need some recording devices, you know? Right? I know, like who gave her the megaphone? with
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: me, so with the Tea Salon, I thought I would... come up with a podcast that is by a Black, you know, historical romance, particularly focusing on historical romance or historical romantasy, right? Like, you have to be writing, so the only requirement to get on that show is you need to be an author of colour and you
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: need to be... Actually, it's basically you need to be an author of colour and you need to be writing... historical romance because another site, another section, another subsection that gets slighted a lot and you can't get traction anywhere really is an author of color that does not write about characters of color. They don't
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: acknowledge it. They don't, you don't get, you still aren't getting traction because you're still an author of color. But a lot of times, influence, especially influencers of color, if they're trying to put a point on it, they're not supporting you unless you're writing about it as well. Which I can also understand because it's a brand thing, but at the same time it's like, if you understood how hard this industry was, and if you understood how difficult it was to get in the door, you'd be, you'd recognize that even an author of color, writing historical romance that is not centering people of colour, it's still a different voice, it's still giving you a different vibe and it's still, their work is still just as vital to support. So the Tea Salon is meant to support just people of colour who are writing historical romance or historical like, romance-y kind of thing.
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: I, that is my main, that is, that is my, that is what I care about. So I have, and I don't care whether it's new, I don't care whether it's old, I don't care at all. I
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: just want them to come on there and talk about their stuff and talk about their stories that they've published and their own story and their own journey because I feel like we just don't get, we barely get any openings to do that. And the openings that we do get, sort of, it can feel a lot of times like a little perfunctory. And I just wanted to be like, no, this is all, this is all we're talking about. This is all we're talking about. This is all I care about. Let's do this here. I, right.
Andie James: The focus. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: And it's like, but I also did know that by, by making that point again, to your earlier point, was I going to get famous and popular over this? No. Was I going
Andie James: No.
Addy DuLac: to get like two streams? Yes, was I super excited when I reached my latest episode with Mae Moore, who's another fantastic author with Dragonblade. So excited.
Andie James: so excited to read her book. Yeah, it's
Addy DuLac: Over Christmas, I'm going to be in Paris, there's like a whole kindle that I'm just going to be like reading all the things, catching up finally in the airport.
Andie James: Love it. Yeah, I can't wait.
Addy DuLac: like, yeah, the... Yeah, so that one got, I think it was like 15 or 16 streams and I was so freaking excited. I was just like, my god,
Andie James: yeah.
Addy DuLac: 16 people, 16 whole humans. That was exciting to me because, which is the bars in hell. It's like a tripping house in hell. But I was excited
Andie James: Ha ha ha
Addy DuLac: because I was just like, either one person 16 times or 16 people, right?
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: saw this
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: and they said, I'm gonna watch this. I think it's cool. So I really wanna, I don't wanna focus on like one, the only, like, so I wanted to focus on that. So I'm trying to get more people and I would like to, I may have to start like reaching out to authors and being like, hey, like sliding into their DMs like a weirdo. Like hopefully they get in.
Andie James: Do it, just slide in. When you're first starting out, you just gotta be like, Hey, I'm doing this thing. But yeah, no, that's great. But I know, yeah. So you just talked with
Addy DuLac: Yeah, hey friend, you know, would you like to participate? know, but yeah, that's the piece of life.
Andie James: Mae Moore. You've had what, two other episodes? I'm trying to remember. I was looking at it earlier.
Addy DuLac: Yeah, so it was Mae Moore my my inaugural episode was the fabulous Lisa Rayne who I will reach out to again and be like, hey, Lisa, you want to do again? Because she had
Andie James: Lisa Rain. Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: that Highlander book, which was a similar situation. Like she came out, she
Andie James: Yes. Yes.
Addy DuLac: sort of like there was no there was nothing about it almost. And I think like what she was talking she talks about in her episode was. There were so many people who said, I read the book, I loved the book.
Andie James: Mm-hmm. Uh-huh.
Addy DuLac: And when people discovered that Black people were in Scotland on TikTok and he came out,
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: all of a sudden her book blew up because everybody knew the book and they had bought it and they had read it, but nobody had spoken about it. All these people, they hadn't posted about it, they hadn't done anything. And her book blew up because it was a book that everybody knew about, everybody low key thought wasn't real, but it was fun and it was a good book. And then this
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: Scott, this black Scottish man showed up with dreads looking literally like the dude on the front of the cover and everybody lost their minds. And Lisa was just like,
Andie James: Yeah. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: I'm part of what Lisa, while she was excited and she, you know, that was awesome. Part of what she talked about was she was just like, where the hell were you? Like if you knew,
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: if this many people, there was, you knew, if enough people knew about this book for it to go viral because of one dude, the only difference
Andie James: Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: is that they started posting about it. And it's just like, if y'all, if y'all as in the ubiquitous y'all, like
Andie James: Yes.
Addy DuLac: if you actually posted and actually
Andie James: If he would have shown up.
Addy DuLac: spoke, if you actually show up and it's like, we love you buying our books. We love you doing these things. Nobody's upset about the buying of books. But if you buy the
Andie James: Yeah. No.
Addy DuLac: book and you enjoy it, like, then you should be giving more than a cover. you should be giving more than a post every 30 posts. You should be talking and telling, screaming about it. Like the same way you scream about it when the Scottish dude on TikTok shows up, right? Like, so that kind of thing, that's like, I'm like, no, we're about to scream. We're about to holler. We're about to hoot and holler about it. So that's the idea. Round of.
Andie James: Great. Well, I will post a link in the show notes that you can find to the YouTube channel for the Tea salon so you can see it.
Addy DuLac: Yes.
Andie James: And I know coming up on Friday, September 11th, you are talking with my friend Isabella Kamal. I'm so excited.
Addy DuLac: Yes!
Andie James: her, well, not she just released another book, but the
Addy DuLac: He's not dead.
Andie James: I know she's got she's got stuff going on.
Addy DuLac: she busy? Yes, which is pretty exciting.
Andie James: but a lady's guide to subterfuge in science is kind of her her yeah. And then she released a I'm blanking on the name all of a sudden it's the something of Venus.
Addy DuLac: Is he coming to the temple of Venus? Yeah.
Andie James: Yeah, Temple of Persephone and Something of Venus. I'm blanking right now. I've read it, I've read it, but these are great books as well from Isabella.
Addy DuLac: Damn it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Andie James: but anyway, so that's coming up, and if you're listening
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: to this later, you'll still be able to find it because there'll be the link to the YouTube channel so you can look at that. So there's a couple episodes out of the Tea salon, and you should definitely
Addy DuLac: Mm-hmm.
Andie James: check that out. I know I'm excited to go watch them now that
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: like I knew you were doing this, but then I was like, I rediscovered it and like it, so I need to go back and watch, but I'm very excited.
Addy DuLac: Yeah, Yay!
Andie James: so everyone, I will have info on how to find Addy's books. I'll link to
Addy DuLac: with me.
Andie James: her website and all that stuff in the show notes. and if you happen to be, I mean, Addy's a Florida girl. I am not, but I am flying to Florida in January. And if you're in the area, you should definitely
Addy DuLac: Yes! Yes!
Andie James: come join us. We're both gonna be at this fantastic event that's called Swoons Fest
Addy DuLac: Yes. Yes.
Andie James: and I'm delighted because this is an event focused on historical romance, and like that does not happen. That does not happen. Like, I
Addy DuLac: Finally. It does not. There are literally two that I'm aware of. It's Swoons Fest and and Spill the Tea, like that's it. Like those are
Andie James: No, this is the event I am going to spill the tea. Yeah, yeah, I know.
Addy DuLac: the two and I was just like, wow, like, just please God, we're still out here. ugh.
Andie James: Yeah. There's just I know. So even though, you know, I am as far away from Florida as you can be in the Pacific Northwest,
Addy DuLac: Yeah
Andie James: I am flying to this event and I cannot wait. And so in January, Addy and I are both gonna be there along with some other fantastic authors. So check out Swoons Fest. If you're in the area or if you're not, like this is a great event to go to. It's gonna be January 16th, 2027. And I'm so excited to meet you person.
Addy DuLac: yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Yeah, and it's very new. I know! I was like, it's so new, and like, I really want to support, like, every time anybody talks about Swoons Fest, I'm like, it was fantaastic! Everybody go! Everybody participate! Everybody-
Andie James: I know. I had so much FOMO last year. I was like, I am going now. Mm-hmm.
Addy DuLac: It was so good. I was, I wish it was one of those situations. it was like one of those things where it was like, was so, I was genuinely like in the best way shocked at how well organized and how well thought out it was.
Andie James: And I have so many friends I'm gonna meet in person for the first time. I'm so excited. Isabella is gonna be there as well. We just mentioned her. So it is May Moore's gonna be there. It's gonna be stacked. I'm so excited. Liana De La Rosa, like Cecilia Renee, I know she's gonna be there as well. It's gonna be great.
Addy DuLac: Yeah, Isabelle, Min Ma is gonna be there. Yeah, and Cece, Cecilia Renee. Yeah, Cecilia Renee, like she's on my cohort. Yeah, she's gonna be there too. Yep, she's gonna be stalking me on the East Coast now. So fair enough. I invited her, I asked her to come, so it's a voluntary filming.
Andie James: Yeah. Well, Addy, thank you so, so, so much for joining me today. I
Addy DuLac: Thank you for having me. I'm so glad.
Andie James: was so happy to have you. And I like this sounds horrible, like, but I was glad I had I had a reason to be forced to read these books because they've been on my TBR forever. Like
Addy DuLac: Yeah.
Andie James: I I don't know if you remember this, but I like set a reading goal for things I wanted to read for the year and these books were on it. And so it was like I was like, Yes, I I I have to read them now. Like and like I said,
Addy DuLac: Yeah, yeah, yeah! Not right!
Andie James: that sounds bad, but it's like a I'm excited because there's no only so much time in the world and then there's things you have to read for other reasons and so
Addy DuLac: That is actually, no, I take it as intended as a compliment because I think like the reality of the, yeah, I think like the reality of the situation is like you have,
Andie James: It is intended as a compliment. Yes.
Addy DuLac: a lot of times it feels like, especially if you have like, I don't know if you have like, you have a side hustle, which is like technically your main hustle like I do. But like, you know,
Andie James: Yeah.
Addy DuLac: like if you have that, you have like all these other responsibilities, like a lot of authors like have kids, they have like all this other shit that they're trying to juggle. It makes it feel like reading something that you, the thing that you provide
Andie James: You want to read.
Addy DuLac: to others you cannot participate in because this is you lazing about, right? And, but yeah, so it's like, I understand entirely this idea of like, no, I have to, this is work. It's officially work now, go away. Yeah, exactly.
Andie James: Yeah. Well no, I don't mean it as work, but it was like the excuse to need to read these things. I've wanted to. It's like now I I have a reason that I need to read these things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Addy DuLac: Right! Right, exactly, and nobody can argue with you and they're just like, you're just sitting, you're taking a break? It's like, I am not taking a break. I have to. Yeah, yeah, so go away. Let me finish. But no.
Andie James: Like, I am not. I'm I need to read these. This is work. It's great. Well, anyways, Addy, it has been an absolute pleasure. And thank you so much for joining me today. I can't wait to meet you in January.
Addy DuLac: Yes! Thank you for helping me. Yes.
Andie James: and everyone, check out the Tea salon. So, all right, and read Addy's books. Read these books, they're so good. And talk about them. Don't just read them, talk about them. Yes.
Addy DuLac: Yes, please. I'm the troublemakers. Yes. Yeah. Talk about it. Thank you. Thank you.
Andie James: All right. Thank you everyone. Thanks for tuning in today and happy reading and happy listening. All right. Bye.
Addy DuLac: Bye.
