The Smythe-Smith Quartet

About the Smythe-Smith Quartet

The Smythe-Smiths (and their notorious musicale) made their first appearance in my third novel, Minx.

My hero and heroine were attending an amateur musical performance, and I thought, “Bad music is so much funnier than good music,” so (perhaps in honor of the Veterans Park Elementary School band concerts my parents were forced to sit through) I created the annual Smythe-Smith musicale. Every year there seemed to be enough cousins to put together a string quartet, and every year they sent Mozart spinning in his grave.

A number of years later, I wanted to put my hero and heroine at a social gathering that didn’t have dancing, and it occurred to me—there was no reason these characters shouldn’t have to suffer through a Smythe-Smith performance, as well. After a while, it began to be an inside joke between my readers and me. And I think we all started to wonder about those poor girls who were forced to pick up their instruments year after year.

So with Just Like Heaven, A Night Like This, The Sum of All Kisses, and The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy, I finally placed the Smythe-Smiths on center stage.