The Official Essex Sisters Companion Guide (2 page)

Book 1 in the Essex Sisters series

Teresa Essex
has a unique lot in life. Actually . . . she’d rather prefer that lots were not mentioned. She knows far too much about playing the odds: her widowed father gambled away any spare penny owned by their family. Shillings that should have been spent on gowns and governesses for Tess and her three younger sisters were spent keeping her father’s horses in proper condition for the racetrack.

When their father dies, the sisters become the wards of the Duke of Holbrook, who knows far more about brandy snifters than children. But Tess’s challenges have just begun. With nothing more than a horse each for a dowry, and a drunken duke as a chaperone, she and her sisters must achieve respectable marriages.

In the manner of romantic heroines from the time of Jane Austen, Tess must make a decision whether to marry for financial, prudent reasons, or to follow her heart. But unlike those tales in which heroines prudently make the correct decision, whatever that might be, here fate steps in and Tess must learn a hard lesson: not how to play at love, but how to play at that most serious of pursuits . . .

Marriage.

Book 2 in the Essex Sisters series

What cruel twist of fate put
Annabel Essex
in a carriage on her way to Scotland (the place she abhors) with a penniless earl (she longs to be rich), and all the world thinking they’re man and wife? Sleeping in the same bed? Not to mention the game of words started by the earl—in which the prize is a kiss. And the forfeit . . .

Well. They are almost married, after all . . .

Book 3 in the Essex Sisters series

Imogen, Lady Maitland
, formerly Imogen Essex, has decided to dance on the wild side. After all, she’s in the delicious position of being able to take a lover. A discreet male who knows just when to leave in the morning.

But Lady Maitland is still under the watchful eye of her former guardian, the wildly untamed Rafe, Duke of Holbrook. She laughs at the idea that someone so insufferably lazy and devoted to drink can demand that
she
behave with propriety.

It’s Rafe’s long-lost brother, Gabe, a man who looks exactly like the duke but with none of his degenerate edge, who interests Imogen. To Imogen, he’s the shadow duke . . . the man who really ought to hold the title.

But when Imogen agrees to accompany Gabe to a masquerade, whose masked eyes watch her with that intense look of desire? Who exactly is she dancing with?

The duke or the shadow duke?

Rafe . . . or Gabe?

Book 4 in the Essex Sisters series

Pleasure for Pleasure’s
heroine,
Josephine Essex
, is quick of wit and lush with unfashionable curves.

Nicknamed the “Scottish Sausage” within a week of her debut on the marriage market, her chances of matrimony look dim. So Josie does what no proper young lady should—she challenges fate. She allows the scandalous Earl of Mayne to take her under his tutelage, discards her corset, and flirts outrageously.

Shakespeare’s play title
Measure for Measure
refers to a person receiving the punishment he deserves.

In this novel, Josie gives precisely what she deserves:
Pleasure for Pleasure.

by Eloisa James

When Jody first approached me with the idea for an Essex Sisters companion consisting of historical essays addressing various aspects of the novels, I imagined contributing a couple of pages. But once we began discussing possibilities that went beyond historical investigation, my contribution grew to include an original novella, extra material that had previously been published only on my website, and this narrative essay, which traces my initial idea for the quartet to an “extra” chapter set a decade after
Pleasure for Pleasure
, the final book in the series. While Jody and I quickly agreed to include material already available to readers, the really crucial question for me had to do with
Kiss Me, Annabel
, which exists in sharply different versions.

The original plot of
Kiss Me
sprang from the fact that my husband is an observant Catholic, whereas I was introduced as a child to a confusing medley of religions, from Lutheran to Buddhist, none of which I now practice. I wanted to write a novel in which hero and heroine are not of one mind with respect to faith.

My editor at the time found the second half of the novel far too dark. The change she requested required me to cut the last nineteen chapters and rewrite them. As it happened, I was reading Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books aloud to my daughter
at the time; I credit those books with inspiring me to reshape my overly dark story into a lighthearted road trip (with a detour into the mysteries of butter churning).

The two endings are so different that I don’t think it’s possible to say that one is “better” than the other. Reading the original draft all these years later, I love the focus on Ewan’s faith, as well as all the drama. But I might as well add that when I recounted the original plot to my current editor, Carrie Feron, her eyes grew round and she said that she likely would have found the story a bit dark.

For me, including the original half of
Kiss Me, Annabel
here definitively transformed this companion from a bunch of complementary essays to something that questioned our conception of a genre novel. Why shouldn’t a book exist in two different versions, as long as each ends happily? Why shouldn’t a reader be able to follow—and take pleasure in—two completely different paths by which the same characters end up in the same place?

Once I accepted that, the temptation to meddle with other parts of the series was irresistible. As I again immersed myself in the world of the Essex Sisters, I found loose ends in
Pleasure for Pleasure
that, interestingly enough, all had to do with bullying. The novel is a reader favorite, not least because Josie’s experience of being labeled with the horrid nickname the “Scottish Sausage” resonates with so many readers. What happened to the other girls mentioned in the book, who were ostracized along with Josie? What about the young lady deemed unmarriageable because her brother was “silly,” leading everyone to assume that her children would be cognitively impaired? Or the “Wooly Breeder,” so named because she had unruly, curly hair and a father who owned many sheep?

Part of the reason this companion took two years to assemble was that I found myself writing new, discrete novellas to answer those questions.
A Midsummer Night’s Disgrace
, included here, tells the story of the sister of “Silly Billy,” and her recognition that she was tired of being shunned; instead of silly, she chooses to be scandalous.
A Gentleman Never Tells
, another new novella, is being published in tandem with the companion; it answers the question of what happened to the “Wooly Breeder,” while also considering the long-term consequences of bullying on the bully. I hope readers will be happy to see that Josie and her husband, the Earl of Mayne, make a brief appearance in the companion, and then reappear in company with their daughter in
A Gentleman Never Tells.

To my dismay, I am not a fast writer. I spend a lot of time thinking about a new series before I pitch it to my editor. With her input, I may throw around ideas for as long as a year before writing the first chapter. In the case of the Essex Sisters series, I sent an initial letter to the editor I had at the time, while I was in the midst of writing my previous series. The letter below was written just after
Fool for Love
, the second book in the Duchess in Love series, was printed. I had two more novels in the Duchess series to go, but I was already thinking out the plot of the Essex Sisters.

Letter to my Editor

August 18, 2003

I thought I would put into writing my ideas for my next few books. I’m planning to continue several aspects of the Duchess series that I consider my strengths: depictions of female friendships among sassy, intelligent heroines, and sexy plots. One aspect of the Duchess series that I definitely want to use again is a continuing story. I’ve had so many letters since
Fool for Love
was published, and readers appear almost desperate to read the next installment of Esme’s story. I want to create that same momentum with these four books.

The series will focus on the lives of four sisters, orphaned before the book began and raised by a young, flamboyant guardian, the Earl of Ilchester, a man who is not their relative. The second sister, Imogen, will serve as the continuing story. In the first book, Imogen is in love with a Regency version of a wild boy: a gorgeous, reckless,
over-indulged young duke. They elope in the beginning of the book against her guardian’s wishes. Imogen’s young husband dies in the end of the book in a rash carriage accident. In the fourth book in the series, she will finally marry her guardian.

The eldest sister, Kate, is sharp-tongued, insecure and managing. Her story will be woven with Imogen’s in the first book. Kate is jilted at the altar, and ends up marrying Lucius Felton, from
A Fool Again,
the short story I wrote for Avon. I have a rough idea of the younger girls’ stories. The youngest sister, Lucy, is plump and ungainly. Her sister Cecily arranges for her to be compromised by the Earl of Amherst, thinking that she will never manage to find a husband on her own. But the plan goes awry, and Cecily has to marry Amherst herself.

I’m going to try the device of opening each novel with a flashback chapter to when the family of sisters were 9–14 years old, and had just been adopted by their uncle. I hope you like these ideas!

The letter made interesting reading, all these years later. By the time I actually wrote the Essex Sisters series, my ideas had changed. The books switched order, as Imogen’s story was originally the last of the four. The flashback chapters disappeared once I discovered that they killed the momentum of the plot. The girls’ original guardian was going to be the “Earl of Ilchester”; in the published series, he’s called Rafe, Duke of Holbrook. The girls themselves have changed names too: Lucy became Josie (a good choice—Josie is far too impudent to be a “Lucy”!)

But the core idea, a four-book series tracing the life of four sisters, remained intact. I firmly believe that romances, while escapist, must be rooted in the author’s own experience. For example, I was a plump young wallflower, which led directly to Josie’s experiences. The inspiration for the series as a whole came from my childhood, growing up with my younger sister, Bridget. We were inseparable as children, and lived in the same town as adults for many years. I created a family of sisters because I wanted to take a shot at depicting that deep and persistent bond.

Bridget and Eloisa

I decided early on that I wanted to portray one of those sisters responding realistically to grief (or my experience of it)—in other words, not with immediate acceptance, but with anger. The grieving sister, of course, is Imogen, who loses her young husband in
Much Ado About You
.

The plot point was influenced by a romance that I deeply loved as a young girl,
Rose in Bloom
, a Louisa May Alcott novel published in 1876. Draven Maitland’s wild ride on Blue Peter is modeled, to some extent, on my memories of weeping over the death of a similarly feckless young man in
Rose in Bloom
. (By the way,
Rose in Bloom
is available free online at
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2804
. If you adored
Little Women
, I’m certain that you’ll enjoy reading
Rose in Bloom
.)

But I was determined to turn a portrayal of grief into a tandem exploration of sisters. In the midst of her rage and grief, Imogen behaves horribly toward her oldest
sister, Tess. After
Much Ado About You
was published, I received a small avalanche of mail telling me how much readers disliked Imogen.

That was precisely the point. I didn’t want Imogen to be sweet. She is so angry when her husband dies that she lashes out at one of the people whom she knows will love her no matter what—her oldest sister. I firmly believe that a novel is only as good as the challenge it sets the author, and it was a true challenge to rehabilitate Imogen. I’m still happy every time I get a letter telling me that the reader initially loathed her, but changed her mind after reading
The Taming of the Duke
.

Jody found a blog that I wrote back when I was writing
The Taming of the Duke
that explains a bit more about what I mean by the challenge of writing.