On this week’s Romance Thursdays I have the lovely Felicia Grossman. You can also check out last weeks interview with Michelle Major where we talked about small-town romances and more.
Romance Thursdays is a feature that spotlights romance authors to highlight how amazing the romance writing community is. Each week I’m will be interviewing a different romance author from across subgenres as well as both traditionally and self-published. I want to share their experience writing romance and why they love it so much. While also focusing on their writing and books.
Felicia Grossman is the author of The Truitts series, which includes Appetites & Vices and Dalliances & Devotion. I adored reading these two and you can check out my reviews of the first and second book now. Grossman has also written a novella The Sweet Spot, that features in the Love All Year: A Holidays Anthology. Now let’s get into the interview.
Hi Felicia, and welcome to Angel Reads. For those that haven’t read anything by you yet. Tell us a little about yourself and your books?
Hey! Thank you so, so, much for having me! I’m originally from Wilmington, Delaware. I’m a romance author. I am also a lawyer -some of the time. I primarily write historically set romances (though I have a short in an anthology called Love All Year that is contemporary). My first series, the Truitt Series was set in the area I grew up. It’s multigenerational (the couple in the first book are the parents of one of the leads in the second) which was both fun and kind of challenging to write.
Why did you start writing romance novels? Is there anything in particular that drew you to it over other genres?
My grandparents owned a news store in Atlantic City where they sold genre fiction on wire racks and I loved looking at the romance covers when I was little. My grandmother was also a huge romance reader because she wanted that guaranteed happy ending and wasn’t going to waste time on a book without one. I think the first romances I read were those I found lying around their house. And when I started writing, I only wanted to write happy endings so here we are.
The Truitt’s series stands out against other historical romances because of the setting and characters. Why did you choose to set the series in the US?
I’m Jewish and American and write primarily Jewish main characters. So while my family wasn’t necessarily in the U.S. during the periods I write about, the experience I wrote in those first two books is culturally similar to my own.
I’d argue that the American Jewish experience is unique and fundamentally different than even that of Jews in other former British colonies in that it is almost completely inorganic, i.e., the community and its structures developed in accordance with a very specific vision and strategy created by the leadership at the time. I say this because those early leaders wrote a lot of essays and letters about exactly what they were doing and why.
This was possible due to emerging European philosophy of the time, the extremely small size of the initial Jewish community in the U.S., and the specific political outlook of the non-Jewish leadership in early days of the United States. Thus, there’s a lot of really explicit material to use when writing the experience and, honestly, as I said before, it’s much more similar to my own current experience than anything happening anywhere else in the world at the time, including in England.
Also, with the U.S., I don’t have the problem where I have to mentally think about the couple and their family leaving within two generations to ensure their later survival. But that’s another story.
What is your favourite thing about romance as a genre? Why do you like reading and writing it?
I’m definitely an “HEA” person. I like being able to read a book, fall in love with the characters, and see them happy in the end. It’s just satisfying. One of the most challenging but best things about writing romance is discovering what that HEA looks like for each specific, unique, set of main characters. That’s part of the adventure, not just the journey but creating the right destination for them (especially as they often don’t know what it looks like in the beginning either).
Historical romance is a major sub-genre of romance. What drew you to it over subgenres of romance?
The dresses (I’m only half-joking, there is no one who loves a fancy dress as I do. I started dreaming about prom at like five–not the dance, not the date, the outfit). And you know, I also was a history major.
What are some of your favourite tropes that you like reading and writing in the romance genre?
I had this discussion the other day and it’s pretty clear that I love to write limited relationships. I like to have characters who think they know exactly what they want, negotiate it perfectly, and then spend the book realizing they need something else entirely and have to figure out how to grow and change so they can have it. It’s kind of my thing.
In reading, I love enemies-to-lovers even though it is so hard to execute well. I have a thing for the “bad boy with a heart of gold.” I’m allegedly descended from several so it might be genetic. And I tend to like plots that border on “banana-pants.” I grew up with a father who loved opera so I’m willing to full-on Barber of Seville and Die Fledermaus level of silliness.
Who are some of your favourite romance authors? Who inspired you to write?
Okay, so I’ll stick just to Histrom or we’ll be here forever: Beverly Jenkins is a complete inspiration. Her stories are amazing but the way she builds her communities and threads in social history that makes her stories so rich is just unparalleled. Joanna Shupe is another writer who is extraordinarily deft and clever with her use of history. Eva Leigh makes me laugh like no one else. Sarah McLean is amazing at writing couples that bring out the best in each other. Rose Lerner is so meticulous and her tone and mood are so unique and lovely and melancholy and delicate–and while that will never be me (I’m like the opposite), it’s just beautiful to read.
What are some of the ways that you think we can start overcoming the stigma of romance novels?
Um…if you know, tell me, because my own mother and sister are super literary snobs (though to be fair to them, the snobbery isn’t limited to romance, they turn their noses up at mysteries, thrillers, and sci-fi so…). In all seriousness, I think the more readers discuss romance novels, both favourably and critically, in honest, forthright, and interesting ways, the less stigma there will be. Some of the discussions around the genre are brilliant and fascinating and especially the work reviewers and bloggers are doing, truly engaging in the genre in serious ways, is what makes readers–new and old– excited and interested. Us authors just have to produce work that lives up to that responsibility.
Thank you so much for coming by Angel Reads. It was lovely having you here. And I can’t wait to read more of your books!
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If you haven’t checked out Felicia Grossman’s books yet and love historical romance, then get on it, they are fantastic. I hope that you enjoyed this weeks interview and join me again next week with a new author.
If there is an author that you would like to see featured here, please do let me know and I will try my best. If you are a romance author and would like to be apart of Romance Thursdays, don’t hesitate to message me.
Have you read any books from Felicia Grossman before? Are you excited for more Romance Thursday posts? Let’s Chat!
About the Author
Felicia Grossman is the author of American historical romance novels Appetites & Vices and Dalliances & Devotion, as well as the contemporary novella The Sweet Spot. A Delaware native, she now lives in the midwest for her family and two dogs. When not writing romance, she enjoys eclairs, cannolis, and Sondheim musicals.
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