Scarlett Peckham fell in love with romance novels when she was a kid, and has been writing about dukes, and the women who love them ever since. She is the author of The Society of Sirens, and Secrets of Charlotte Streets trilogies, and graciously took the time to answer my questions about her Georgian era settings, faith, trope subversion and much more. Enjoy!

1. Let’s start easy, what are your favorite tropes?

My favorite is only one bed! If I weren’t scared of being reptitive I’d put it in every book.

2. What is a trope you want to do?

I’d love to pull off a secret baby!

3. Regency England is almost a default romance setting, what drew you to the colonial era in particular?

My books are set in England in the Georgian era (1750s for Charlotte Street, 1790s for Society of Sirens)—so a little before the Regency. I’m attracted to that period because the social mores were a little more permissive than they became in the Regency and Victorian eras—it was the age of revolution, as opposed to the more conservative backlash that developed in response.

But I chose a “Regency-ish” milieu because I wanted to tackle that subgenre of romance, as I had grown up reading it.

My books center on themes of feminism and female agency and writing in a period where women lacked financial and political power makes it interesting to see how other kinds of power (social, sexual, romantic) can influence their lives and relationships. It’s also an interesting lens to look at our own culture and see what has changed—and what hasn’t.

4. You have extra stories based on The Secrets of Charlotte Street called The Erotics of Charlotte Street, Is there a different process for writing romance compared to erotica

When I write erotica, I’m specifically thinking about sexual transformation as the story arc. I focus on one protagonist, and what they want and need from the situation they are entering—what desire is this experience meeting, and how will that enable fulfillment and self-actualization.

When I write a romance novel I always have two protagonists within a wider plot arc. So, while those books have a lot of erotic elements, the sex scenes in them are as much about character development, plot and evolving relationship dynamics as they are about the erotic journey happening on the page. They are about building the wider story, whereas in my erotica the sexual journey is the story itself.

5. You don’t shy away from how the protagonists’ sexual journey is just as important as their emotions. Why do you feel this is pushed to the side in the conversation as just part of the fantasy? How do you use it to push the characters forward?

I think it’s important that there be a sexual arc in the book, the same way there are plot arcs and character arcs. All three of these are hugely important in painting the story of how intimacy develops between two people. My idea of a romance is a story of two people made more happy, self-actualized and expansive by what they find and create with the other person—they come to know and love themselves more in seeing their attributes recognized and cherished by their partner, and together they build something outside of themselves that nourishes them both. Their sexuality helps to build that relationship as much as their personality and environment, and for me it’s always a foundational part of the journey.

6. The Lord I Left was especially unique as you have nuanced conversations about religion and the deviance of sexuality between the evangelical reformer, Henry and whipping apprentice, Alice. There is so many layers to it, how did you approach the subject?

That book is heavily inspired by the writings and journals of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. Like my character Henry, he kept detailed accounts of his daily routines and his struggles with temptation. I thought it would be interesting to put a man locked in such a self-imposed system of denial into a situation of pure temptation with someone who had an opposing belief system. Alice is all about sensuality and flouting convention, and her joy and human decency elicits responses in Henry that feel right even though they shake his deepest convictions. I just find this set-up so inherently juicy!

I did take a lot of care to write this book in a way that interrogated Henry’s judgments and sense of shame without diminishing his faith—as his faith is a fundamental and beautiful part of him. His journey is to find a place of peace where he can rationalize love and sexuality with faith and ethics.

7. Your Society of Sirens takes common gendered tropes of the male rake, the virginal heroine, etc. and flips it on its head. Why did you choose these tropes and how it changes the characters by flipping the genders?

I have never met a trope I didn’t want to subvert, and gender reversals are my catnip. I like to play with tropes that are canonical to the regency genre and based in the power structures of that era, and then ask what it would look like if you actually did change the dynamics. Like, what would it mean in a relationship for a duke, who had all the power in the world, to be in a submissive relationship with his wife, who outside their marriage lacks any power of her own? What would it be like for a woman to live the lifestyle of a rake in an era where so-called promiscuity among women could literally ruin their lives?

8. Your latest book, The Portrait of a Duchess, features an interracial couple, and you’ve been pushing to include more diversity in a way that is truthful to the historical context yet pushes the boundaries. How do you maintain that balance?

I don’t know if I always do—it’s something I’m always trying to be thoughtful about. It’s important to me that my books be diverse and intersectional, but I don’t want to write novels that center on issues I’m not well suited to be the voice of as a straight white woman. 

I wanted to include a Black heroine as one of the three Sirens because women of color are so frequently on the front lines of pushing forward radical social change, and I wanted the world of the books to reflect that. In writing Cornelia’s story, I wanted to be honest about the cruelty and prejudice she faced as a Black woman in 18^th Century England, without making the book about her race.

I wanted to explore the way she navigated various aspects of society, as both an aristocrat and a biracial woman living primarily among artists and radicals outside the world she was born into. In all of the books in this series the heroines are partly motivated by fury borne of the power they lack and the prejudice they face by trying to claim it—and in Cornelia’s case, her race is a huge part of that. And I also wanted to explore how a white man, especially one of extreme privilege, might have to reevaluate his way of looking at the world when confronted with the prejudice the person he loves faces.

9. Why do you think historical romance has been so endearing, and what does it mean to you?

I think the trappings of the genre are so fun—the dresses, the horses, the balls, the candlelight. For me, my love of it is deeply rooted in the Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë books I read over and over growing up—not to mention all of my grandmother’s clench-covered bodice rippers I read in secret.

10. Any upcoming news or books you’d like to share?

My next Society of Sirens book, The Mistress Experience, is coming out June 25, 2024. And I also have a rom-com book releasing this summer under my other pen name, Katelyn Doyle. It’s called Just Some Stupid Love Story and comes out June 4^th.

You can learn more about Scarlett and her books at https://www.scarlettpeckham.com/