Beverley Oakley’s War of the Wedding Wagers releases this week, and she was kind enough to answer some questions for us.
You can get your copy of this delightful historical romance HERE!
Did you always know you wanted to be an author?
Always! Well, for at least as long as I could tell stories. I’m the oldest of three sisters and when we went on our holidays to our beach cottage in South Australia where there was no television, my sisters were my captive audience for the ‘School for Witches’ stories I used to write from about the age of seven.
What is the first story you remember writing?
I wrote my first romance when I was seventeen. At least, I thought it was a romance until, after ten badly photocopied form rejections, an editor kindly told me that romances don’t end with the heroine drowning on the last page. (I guess I was going through my teenage angsty stage. I certainly remember that it was only when I reached the last page that I suddenly thought drowning my heroine would be far more dramatic than giving her a happy ending.)
How did you get from there to where you are today?
It was my husband, Eivind, who gave me the confidence to keep writing. He was a Norwegian bush pilot I met in the Okavango Delta in Botswana, the day before I was flying home to marry my stockbroker boyfriend in South Australia. When Eivind said goodbye, wishing me well in my marriage, he also asked to read my (second) novel, which I happened to have on a floppy disk. Later – after my former boyfriend and I parted ways, and after eight months of letter writing between Eivind and me – I flew back to live in the Okavango, where I continued to write while we both worked in the safari industry.
It took me another seventeen years to get published, but I wrote several more books while working as an airborne geophysical survey operator in the back of low-flying survey aircraft during 8-hour sorties during a year-long contract in Namibia, and other long worldwide contracts. As I was often the only woman on long survey contracts around the world, writing romance was a wonderful diversion for me.
How much research do you do into the time period and places you write about?
My addiction to social history and reading the Classics from when I was very young, has given me a thorough historical background to my stories. The most bizarre ‘real histories’ are constant inspirations. It might be the woman who scandalized society by dressing up as a man – like Lady Caroline Lamb when she became obsessed by Lord Byron. I often read history books just to get ideas for my fiction.
Do you have any experience dressing in character or participating in living history situations or are you more a fan of libraries and online resources?
I’ve been making historical costumes, and corsets, for years – Georgian, Regency, Victorian – and often put on events that showcase the different layers a lady needed in order to be properly dressed. I describe how the chemise was constructed so there was no wastage, and why it was the first garment closest to the skin, beneath the corset. This knowledge is really useful for constructing realistic scenes as I want to know how constricted my heroine would be by her clothing for various adventures.
What drew you to the era you write in?
I suppose the clothing is a large part of it. I grew up in the mountainous kingdom of Lesotho, which is landlocked by South Africa, and didn’t have many playmates in the remote region where we lived, at 11,000 feet above sea level and near the top of one of the world’s greatest mountain passes. For many of these years I was confined to a hip to waist plaster cast, so getting into a pretty dress was a novelty. I also adored making mud pies and playing outside BUT always in my best, prettiest dresses.
What do you think would be the most difficult part about living in that period?
I used to wish I was born 200 years earlier but would have been what was then termed ‘a cripple’. In fact, when I was little, the doctors did advise my parents to send me across the border to the ‘Crippled Children’s Home’ to be looked after.
Incredibly, having been born unable to walk, I was in fact the first ‘test case; for an operation that proved successful, after we emigrated to South Australia, and I walked properly and without pain for the first time at the age of seven. (My surgeon was knighted for his work and my hips became famous. Well, X-rays of my hips did as they were used for worldwide teaching.)
Being told I’d never walk, then suddenly gaining mobility, was the greatest gift I could have received.. I think that’s why Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ resonated so much with me. In the story, the little mermaid accepts that in order to receive the gift of legs to achieve her heart’s desire (to become human and therefore have the chance to win the love of the prince), she will have to suffer pain as if every step was walking on the edge of knives.
The poor little mermaid never got her prince. But I got mine. I got my prince, my heart’s desire which was to walk. And to walk with no pain.
What are your favorite kind of characters to write?
I love characters that need redeeming. I didn’t realise, until it was drawn to my attention, but many of my romances have redemption themes. Sometimes it’ll be the rake who needs reforming but often it will be the spoiled rich girl whose redemption arc is central to the story.
Do you have a specific trope that you’re drawn too?
Yes, it’s Redemption. I don’t know why because I’ve pretty much been a good girl most of my life. 😉
Where is your favorite place to write?
Anywhere. I travel and move around a lot so although I have an office, my work might just as easily be on a boat or the back of a plane.
Does it change depending on where you are in the process?
No, because I have to adapt to just meeting a deadline wherever I am.
Which comes first for you: the plot or the characters?
I like to start with a set-up. For example: to what lengths would a young widow go if she discovered her abusive late husband has willed her son to be brought up by his distant cousin?
Do you know where the story is going before you begin, or does it come to you as you write?
I’m a discovery writer, so once I start the setup, the story flows organically. By the time I’ve finished my 80,000 words, I then know my characters, their motivations, and some unexpected twists and turns. I then reverse engineer everything, starting from the beginning, again, so that the story unfolds — hopefully unpredictably for the readers. And I do take pleasure from the number of reviewers who say they didn’t know how the story could possibly end up happily, but it did.
When it’s difficult to physically travel, how do you find ways to escape?
I’m very lucky to be married to a pilot so, with staff travel, and a daughter living in Norway, I travel frequently and often with not too much planning beforehand.
From all your books, who is your favorite hero and why?
My favourite hero is Hugo Darracott from The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer. I love his sly humour and the slow revealing of his character which took even me by surprise. But then, I love surprises!
