Regarding the misprint in the new trade paperback editions for When He Was Wicked and It’s in His Kiss – so sorry about that! This was due to a printing error. My publisher has issued a statement with instructions on how to read the correct pages online and how to obtain replacement copies. Please visit their website for more information.
FAQ Category: Really Specific Questions About JQ's Books
Because sometimes you have a very particular question…
What is “A Strange Fascination”?
“A Strange Fascination” is a very short story I wrote in 2014 for the Scottish magazine My Weekly. Very few readers outside of Scotland ever saw it, though, so I dusted it off and gave it to my bestie Stefanie Sloane to include as a freebie with her Costswolds Christmas novella “Under the Mistletoe.”
Is Thomas Harcourt Dead?
Warning: Here Be Spoilers.
No, really. Spoilers. Stop here if you haven’t read The Girl With the Make-Believe Husband.
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He’s dead. Really. At least that was my full intention when I wrote TGWTMBH. (No fun acronyms here.) He was dead when plotted the book, and he was dead when I wrote it. And if I hadn’t meant for him to stay dead I would never have named him Thomas. (I don’t repeat hero names, and I do have a soft spot for Thomas Cavendish.) But…
I hadn’t anticipated how much readers would take to him. After all, he exists only the in brief snippets of the letters he writes to his sister. Also, I wrote those snippets after the book was almost completely finished, so to me he didn’t feel quite as integral to the story as he did for everyone else. (You felt his presence throughout the entire reading experience, whereas I got to know him only at the very end of the writing experience.)
But now I’m hearing from readers who tell me they are sure he’s still alive. After all, no one found a body. (This is where I gently point out that no one looked; it was a war zone and too dangerous.) I could tell you that I know where the body is buried. Because I do; I did a ton of research on the area, and I actually grew up close by. But if you didn’t believe that he was dead in the book, I don’t think anything I say here would convince you.
So is he dead? Well, I think so. I mean, he is unless I think of a semi-plausible reason he’s not. Which I haven’t.
Yet.
How are The Lady Most Likely and The Lady Most Willing connected?
They’re not. Well, not much. We did take one side character from The Lady Most Likely… and turn him into one of the heroes of The Lady Most Willing…, but beyond that, the only thing they have in common is their collaborative form. And that we had a lot of fun writing them!
What happened to Posy Reiling (from An Offer from a Gentleman)?
I hadn’t planned on writing more about Posy, but so many readers asked about her that I made her the focus of An Offer from a Gentleman: The 2nd Epilogue. She also gets a brief update in To Sir Phillip, With Love.
Do Francesca and Michael (from When He Was Wicked) ever have children?
Read When He Was Wicked: The 2nd Epilogue for your answer! And as an aside, I have to say that this short piece might be my favorite thing I’ve ever written.
In Minx (published 1996), William Dunford falls in love with Henrietta Barrett and marries her, but in How To Marry A Marquis (published 1999) he’s a bachelor again. What gives?
Even though How To Marry A Marquis was written and published after Minx, it’s actually set earlier. Minx takes place 1816/7, and How To Marry A Marquis takes place in 1815. As I was writing How To Marry A Marquis, I needed a dashing, handsome bachelor for one of the scenes. When it occurred to me that Dunford was still single, I thought to myself, “Why not?” It was a lot of fun to revisit him.
Why didn’t Robert and Victoria (from Everything And The Moon) appear in Brighter Than The Sun?
Is Ned Blydon (from the Splendid trilogy) ever going to get his own story?
Yes! His story was unveiled in a novella titled “A Tale of Two Sisters,” which you can find in the Where’s My Hero? anthology. For those of you unfamiliar with Ned, he appeared in my first three books: Splendid, Dancing At Midnight, and Minx.
This is the most up to date information on this topic as of June 2022. Subscribe to JuliaQuinn.com News & Site Updates and JQ's Newsletter to receive any updates to this information.
