Eloisa's Desk Archives - Eloisa James

"A reigning queen of romance" - CBS Monday Morning

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Eloisa's Desk

Extras: Eloisa's Desk

Since I’m a professor in my other life, I’m always writing pieces for magazines, blogs, and newspapers. You’ll find essays here that deal with everything from the craft of writing, historical research, raising children—and living in Paris!

Shakespeare (and Eloisa) in Quarantine

Eloisa talks Shakespeare (specifically King Lear), quarantine, and Say Yes to the Duke. From the Fordham website: While the actual date of Shakespeare’s birth is not recorded, his birthday is celebrated around the world on April 23, three days before he was baptized at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. To celebrate the Bard’s life […]

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It’s In His Kiss by Julia Quinn

This review of Julia Quinn‘s It’s In His Kiss originally appeared in Eloisa’s Pillow Talk section in October 2011. It’s In His Kiss opens with a prologue from the hero’s point of view, which is absolutely appropriate because after reading this book, I ended up thinking it was one of the funniest portraits of a […]

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End of School Debris

One of the complexities of being a writing mother, for me, lies in a passionate wish to catch my children’s lives, for good or bad. For example, when Anna was diagnosed with Lyme’s Disease for the third time, I wrote Duchess by Night, which includes a child infected by rat bite fever. (I also moved […]

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On Creating a Less-than-Perfect Heroine

Enjoy this look back at Eloisa’s thoughts while she was working on the final Essex Sisters novel, Pleasure for Pleasure I’m working on Josie’s story right now. So if you’ve read Much Ado About You, you know that Josie is plump. Plump, wonderful and as sharp-tongued as a Regency private detective from the ’30s. I […]

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With the Help of Jane Austen…

Enjoy this tidbit from when Eloisa was writing The Taming of the Duke. The book I’m writing at the moment (as yet, untitled) circles around the production of a play — and yes, for those enthusiasts out there, Miss Gillian Pythian-Adams is the producer. The obvious progenitor of this kind of novel is Jane Austen’s […]

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My First Year as a Published Author

Remember how much you longed to be a teenager? When I was unpublished, the published state looked just as glorious as the magic year thirteen does to a eleven-year-old girl. I had no problem visualizing myself signing my name with a flourish and meeting my editor at fancy New York lunches. But First Years are […]

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Georgian England Loved to Laugh

Enjoy this essay Eloisa published as a countdown to the release of Desperate Duchesses, which was a shift in setting for Eloisa from Regency England. Georgian England loved to laugh. The Georgians were a long way from the strait-laced Victorians: they laughed about sex, scandal, fashion, alcohol and any other pleasure you can think of, […]

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