A Q&A with Hope C. Tarr, Author of Irish Eyes (2023)

Welcome back to the Secret Victorianst for a different sort of blog today—an interview with fellow historical novelist, Hope C. Tarr. You might remember Hope from the virtual panel event I did with Lady Jane’s Salon, the NYC-based romance readers’ club she co-founded, back in 2020. Next month, Hope’s debut historical novel Irish Eyes will be released by Lume Books, and I know readers of the Secret Victorianist are going to love it. Irish Eyes opens on the Aran Islands in 1898 and takes readers on a journey, with its heroine Rose, to the streets of late nineteenth/early twentieth-century New York City. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Hope and enter for a chance to win a copy of her novel below!

SV: How did you first get the idea for your novel, Irish Eyes?

Hope: Irish Eyes is very much a love note to my Irish ancestors, who came to America on the coffin ships at the height of the Great Hunger. For years, I batted around the idea of writing something with an Irish heroine. Finally, on a hiking trip to Western Ireland in (gulp) 2008, I stopped at the famed Cliffs of Moher and gazed across Galway Bay to the trio of islands known as the Arans, and Rose O'Neill’s story began taking shape in my mind. Back in Manhattan, running along the Hudson River, looking out to Ellis Island and Lady Liberty helped further flesh out Rose’s story.

SV: How did the book evolve from your first to your final draft?

Hope: Whoever first said that “writing is in the rewriting” was wise indeed. Irish Eyes changed so many times. Originally, I had a prologue, in fact two prologues, which I really loved. The first prologue began with Rose in 1922 at mass narrating her life story to the parish priest. The second prologue started with Adam, Rose's future love interest, at the Battle of San Juan Heights during the Spanish-American War. I've actually shared that prologue on my History With Hope Substack! To pick up the pacing and start in the thick of the story, both of these very different prologues ended up on the chopping block. A la Stephen King, sometimes you really do have to murder your darlings. 😉

But by far the biggest shift in molding the story was also the scariest. At the onset, I'd written the entire book in my trusty go-to perspective: third-person. But something was missing. The story wasn't... gelling. As a reader, I'd always adored novels written in the first-person—du Maurier’s Rebecca, anyone? —but I'd never had the courage to try first-person POV myself. Once I did and rewrote the entire book in Rose's voice, it all began coming together.

SV: How did writing historical fiction differ from the genres you've written in in the past?

Hope: After wonderful years spent writing 20+ romances for Penguin, Harlequin, and Macmillan, I was ready for a BIG change. Ready to push the boundaries of genre and do a deep dive into history, in this case, mostly early twentieth-century history. Ready to write the sort of big, sweeping historical novel that I'd grown up devouring. Books like Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, technically romance, where you get to spend time with the characters, who evolve over not days/weeks/months but years. In other words, a saga. For a while now, “saga” has been something of a dirty word in American publishing. For that reason, I suspected I was going to have a tough time selling this book, especially as it would be my historical fiction debut, which probably explains why it took me so long to finish it and then shape it into a shoppable manuscript. That being said, if I had to sum up the experience of writing Irish Eyes and bringing it to this point, that word would be “freeing.”

SV: Do you have any tips for writers of historical fiction who are trying to make their books relatable to modern readers without being anachronistic?

Hope: Admittedly, this can be a tough balance to strike, especially when keeping in mind younger readers, who approach fiction with a very different set of expectations than I did at that age. With Irish Eyes, as with any historical fiction, I try to step back and ask myself, “how critical is this point/word/phrase to telling a great story?” If the answer is “not so much,” I may leave it out rather than veer into anachronism. But I also think it's important to understand how we've collectively evolved over the eras. And not evolved. So many of the issues addressed in Irish Eyes—immigration, the roles and rights of women, labor reform, income inequality—are eerily reflective of our present moment. History is cyclical, not linear. It's important to bear in mind that we are making "history" every waking moment.

SV: Your novel, while it's one woman's story, touches on major world and local events, e.g., WWI and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. What was your process like for naturally weaving these references into the novel?

Hope: The biggest challenge in writing Irish Eyes was to decide what historical events not to include. (Back to murdering those darlings!). The book covers 24 years in Rose's life. While the 24/7 news cycle is a recent phenomenon, newspapers were a big, busy feature of turn-of-the-century life. In writing the novel, I put in, and later took out, several events that, while interesting, wouldn't have directly impacted the immigrant community of my fictional heroine and her growing family. For example, the assassination of President McKinley (September 14, 1901) gets a brief mention while the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of March 25, 1911, in Lower Manhattan, gets a half-chapter.

SV: You're a New Yorker yourself. How did this help your process in writing the book?

Hope: Living here as I've been privileged to do, the city's history is all around, waiting to reveal its stories to those open to knowing them. I was here in 2011 for the centennial commemoration of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire at the Brown Building (formerly the Asch Building) where the factory was housed in 1911. The long-anticipated memorial was dedicated in October 2023. The adjacent Washington Square Park began as a potter's field when a series of yellow fever outbreaks starting in 1797 caused the city morgues to overflow. Human remains still rest beneath the elegant fountain and curated plantings. McSorley's Old Alehouse, NYC's oldest continuously operating bar (1854-present), which I recently revisited for another History With Hope episode, serves the same cheddar cheese and onion platters it did back when the great illusionist Houdini stopped in for a post-performance pint.

SV: What historical novels have you read and loved recently?

Hope: I'm very keen on World War II at the moment, likely because I'm working on the sequel to Irish Eyes, set in occupied Paris. I recently finished, and loved, Good Night From Paris, by Jane Healey, a fictional account of the real-life Hollywood screen actress, Drue Leyton, who was living in Paris with her French husband when the Second World War broke out. Rather than return home to the States, Drue accepted a position broadcasting from Paris to the (then neutral) US. Under the Nazi occupation, she repeatedly risked her life working for the Resistance.

SV: What should we look forward to seeing later in the American Songbook Series?

Hope: As I cagily slipped in above, I'm at work on a sequel, Stardust! The second book in my American Songbook series, Stardust follows Rose's granddaughter, Daisy, into the late 1930s and 1940s. Fashioned in the image of her indomitable Irish grandmother, Daisy will take the reins of Rose's Kavanaugh's Department Store when the time comes. In preparation, Rose sends Daisy to Paris to apprentice with the iconic couturier and fragrance entrepreneur, Coco Chanel. In shadowing the mercurial Chanel, Daisy is thrown into the thick of a glittering and treacherous cast of characters—American and British expats, the Parisian haute-monde, war correspondents, and German spies—all of whom congregate at the Hotel Ritz. While she's there, the Nazis invade and occupy Paris. Like the world-famous Chanel No. 5, a blend of 80 secret ingredients, no one in occupied Paris is what they at first seem. 😉

Hope C. Tarr

SV: Thank you so much for speaking with me, Hope, and for giving me the chance to read Irish Eyes ahead of publication. 

Hope: Thank you so much for having me! I hope readers will enjoy Irish Eyes as much as I loved writing it.

Would you like to win a signed paperback copy of Hope C. Tarr’s Irish Eyes, alongside a signed paperback of my own historical novel, Bronte’s Mistress? If so, sign up to my monthly email newsletter here. Anyone who subscribes to the newsletter between 21st November 2023 and 7th December 2023 (the Irish Eyes release day!) will be entered into a random draw to win both books. Already signed up? Spread the word to friends and family who might want to win and stay in touch with me via Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

(More!) Novels of the French Revolution

Back in October, to celebrate the release of Ribbons of Scarlet (2019)—a multi-authored historical novel about the women of the French Revolution—I strayed out of the nineteenth century and into the late eighteenth, with a round up of the best novels I’d read set during that tumultuous period.

I reviewed Andrew Miller’s Pure (2011), Hilary Mantel’s A Place of Greater Safety (1992), Daphne du Maurier’s The Glassblowers (1963), and the most iconic of all novels of the French Revolution, Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities (1859).

Eight months later, I’m back, with thoughts on three more novels, which take this bloody conflict as their backdrop.

Mistress of the Revolution, Catherine Delors (2008)

Delors’s novel centres on noblewoman Gabrielle—first, on the trials and tribulations of her childhood, doomed adolescent love and horrific forced marriage, and, later, on how she becomes embroiled in the events of the revolution. Gabrielle’s lot is a believable, if dramatic, one, but her character is underdeveloped and she seems to offer little beyond her attractiveness (her main bargaining chip throughout the book). There’s plenty of sexual content to titillate and horrify by turns, and Delors covers a lot of ground historically, incorporating some great details. Yet, on occasion, passages of political exposition become a little skim-worthy.

Becoming Josephine, Heather Webb (2013)

Webb’s protagonist’s biography would strain our credulity were it not true! This novel takes the future Empress Josephine as its subject, from her childhood in Martinique, to her terrible first marriage (there’s a theme here), to her love with Napoleon, to the pressures mounted on her to produce an heir, and beyond. Josephine was placed to be a great observer of the revolution, so these sections in particular are well wrought, and the nuances of her relationship with Napoleon come through. However the later parts of her life are a little rushed. I wish Webb had ended sooner, so the book had a clear novelistic arc vs. bordering on dramatized biography.

Little, Edward Carey (2018)

Carey’s Little (my most recent revolutionary read) is a very different beast. Like Webb, he takes a real person, who had a front row seat at the revolution, as his main character. In this case, it’s Marie Grosholtz, still famous the world over as Madame Tussaud. However, Carey isn’t constrained by history. His novel reads as an imaginative response to the art of waxworks, against the backdrop of a violent period when real bodies were frequently dismembered. His Marie (referred to by other characters as “Little” due to her diminutive size) is obsessed with bodies—their innards and their outer flaws and features. Illustrated by the author, this isn’t a read for the faint-hearted or weak-stomached, but it captures the madness and horror of the French Revolution, as well as the obsession with objects (clothes, wigs, locks, wax figures), which gave so many eighteenth-century Parisians their livelihood.

Do you know of any more great books set during the French Revolution? Let me know—here, on Facebook, on Instagram, or by tweeting @SVictorianist.

My first novel, Bronte’s Mistress, about the older woman who had an affair with Branwell Bronte, is available for pre-order now. Subscribe to my newsletter for monthly updates below.

 

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Writers’ Questions: How do I write a query letter?

In August 2020, my debut novel, Bronte’s Mistress, about the older woman who had an affair with Branwell Bronte, will be published by Atria Books. It’s been a long road to getting traditionally published and I’ve had to learn a LOT along the way. So, in this Writers’ Questions series, I’m sharing some advice about the process to help fellow writers. 

Signing with a literary agent is the most common first step if you want a contract from a major publisher. In a previous blog post, I wrote how to find literary agents that might be a good fit for you and your novel. But once you have your dream list, what next? I hate to break it to you, but it’s time to write the dreaded query letter.

Query letters are almost always query emails in today’s digital-first era of communication. Think of them as similar to the cover letters you might write when applying for jobs. The role of a cover letter is to get you an interview. The role of a query letter is to get an agent to read your manuscript.

Different agents may have different requirements for the queries they receive so it’s ALWAYS important to check out their agency website to understand their specific asks, but there is formula that will work pretty universally.

It goes like this:

Dear AGENT NAME,

I am querying you because PERSONALISATION [This is where you can mention how you found them. In Acknowledgments of a book you loved? On Twitter? Via #MSWL? Don’t know what these things mean? Read my earlier post.]

DESCRIPTION OF YOUR NOVEL [This should be similar in length to what you might find on the back of a published book. It begins with the main character vs. a long description of the setting and/or backstory. Who are they and what is their predicament? Don’t give away your ending. This is a spoiler-free zone.]

TITLE, LENGTH, GENRE & COMP TITLES [Unless you mentioned any of these in your personalisation section above.]

DESCRIPTION OF YOU [Don’t overthink this. Your bio should be one to two sentences mentioning anything relevant. For example if your novel is for children and you have children, mention it! If your main character is a cardiologist and so are you, wonderful! If you’ve had stories published in the New Yorker, shout it from the rooftops. Otherwise, simply saying “I live in PLACE and work in THIS DAY JOB” is fine.]

Thank you for your consideration, [Or other appropriate sign off.]

YOUR NAME

Some common mistakes to watch out for include trying to be quirky (e.g. writing the letter from your main character—don’t do this!), getting the agent’s name wrong (I addressed my letters by first name since I didn’t want to assume whether agents were Ms/Miss/Mrs/Dr etc.), spending too long on your biography (the query letter should be about your novel more than about you), and not leading with character in your novel description.

It should also go without saying that you shouldn’t be rude to or threaten the agent (you wouldn’t threaten a recruiter in a cover letter!), yet agent horror stories pop up about this all the time.

Below, I’m inserting my query letter, which led me to signing with an agent. I’m not saying it’s perfect, but it did the job:

Dear Danielle,

I am querying you as we have similar reading taste (I also love Wuthering Heights, Rebecca and anything by Jane Austen) and I thought my historical novel, BRONTË’S MISTRESS, might be of interest to you.

Yorkshire, 1843. Lydia Robinson is mistress of Thorp Green Hall—or at least she should be. But her daughters are rebelling, her mother-in-law is scrutinising her every move and her marriage is hanging by a thread following the death of her beloved younger daughter a year earlier. 

That’s when Branwell Brontë arrives to act as her son’s tutor. Branwell is imaginative, passionate and uninhibited by the social conventions that Lydia has followed without question since her girlhood. He’s also twenty-five to Lydia’s forty-three and oh so very easy to manipulate. 

A love of literature, music and theatre soon bring mistress and tutor together but Lydia is being watched—and not just by her husband. Her servants and the governess (Branwell’s judgmental sister Anne) are starting to ask questions. Her daughters are embarking on romantic entanglements of their own. 

With her husband’s health failing, Branwell’s behaviour growing more erratic and exposure threatened from several quarters, it’s up to Lydia to create a chance for her own happiness. Can she find meaning in her life without losing her children along the way?

BRONTË’S MISTRESS, complete at 80,000 words, is the true and previously untold story of the woman Mrs Gaskell called "that bad woman who corrupted Branwell Brontë". The novel is the result of my meticulous research into the time Anne and Branwell Brontë spent at Thorp Green Hall. I have two degrees from the University of Oxford, including a Master’s (with Distinction) in nineteenth-century literature. By day, I work in advertising. By night, I write fiction and run a successful blog on nineteenth-century literature and culture—the Secret Victorianist.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

Finola

You might have noticed that I used a rhetorical question, which some writers say is a no-go in query writing, but I think one can work (though definitely not more than one!).

I also didn’t include comp (comparative) titles as I couldn’t come up with recent novels I thought were a perfect fit. Once we “went on submission” with the manuscript to publishers, we did include comp titles, thanks to my agent’s knowledge and guidance. These were Longbourn (2013) by Jo Baker and Z (2013) by Therese Anne Fowler.

Writing a query letter can be tough but it’s a wonderful exercise in discovering the heart of your novel and how best to sell it to others. It’ll help you answer that dreaded question “what’s your book about?” from now until forever, hopefully without boring those around you. Even if you’re not quite ready to query, starting to draft the letter can be really useful.

Do you have any other questions about finding, querying or working with a literary agent? Let me know—here, on Facebook or by tweeting @SVictorianist.

And if you want to learn more about Bronte’s Mistress, including pre-order and order links, launch events and more, sign up for my email newsletter below:

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Novels of the French Revolution

Back in June, the Secret Victorianist attended the Historical Novel Society Conference in Maryland (read my full review of the event here). While there, I was lucky enough to receive a signed advanced reader copy of Ribbons of Scarlet (2019), a novel jointly written by six historical novelists depicting the lives of many of the women who played an important role in the French Revolution, which began in 1789.

Ribbons of Scarlet is now top of my TBR (to be read) list, but in honour of the novel’s release on October 1, in this week’s blog post, I’m straying out of the nineteenth century and back into the eighteenth to share with you some of my favourite reads set during, or inspired by, the revolution that rocked Europe and changed France forever.

A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens (1859)

Dickens’s depiction of the revolution, written seventy years later, influences how its events live on in popular imagination to this day. Expect narrow escapes from the guillotine, long imprisonments and rampant blood lust.

Aside from being a classic, A Tale of Two Cities offers a great glimpse into British responses to the revolution on England’s doorstep. It also has one of the best openings of any novel in English (check out my close reading here). Bonus fun fact: I once appeared as Monsieur (yes, Monsieur, not Madame) Defarge in a school play.

The Glass Blowers, Daphne du Maurier (1963)

Daphne du Maurier dug into her own family history to inspire her 1963 The Glass Blowers, a wonderful novel that examines the revolution through the eyes of a middle class family in the provinces. The novel deals with the divisions within families occasioned by any civil war and the misinformation that fuelled much of the paranoia that dominated the French Revolution.

Her main character, an unobtrusive first person, is representative of many men and especially women of the period, who tried to maintain domestic normality, while war and political strife ravaged the country.

A Place of Greater Safety, Hilary Mantel (1992)

Reading Hilary Mantel’s dense and captivating novel is as close as we can come today to experiencing the French Revolution blow by blow. Focused on Paris, Mantel illuminates the lives of three of the conflict’s main actors—Georges Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and Maximilien Robespierre—with a huge cast of supporting characters.

The novel is replete with interpersonal as well as political drama but this isn’t a story of ordinary people. If you want to dig into the nitty-gritty of factions, espionage and corruption, this is the book for you.

Pure, Andrew Miller (2011)

The most recent novel on my list, Pure isn’t really a novel of the Revolution at all, but of the years preceding it. Our protagonist is an engineer tasked with clearing the graveyard at Les Innocents in Paris, which is literally overflowing with corpses and therefore endangering the health of the city's residents.

The book captures the rising tensions in Paris in the 1780s, the bureaucracy of Versailles, the autonomy of different parts of the city and the fading influence of the Catholic Church. There’s even a cameo for Dr Guillotine himself as social discord rumbles, creating a dramatic stage for our central story. It’s dark, compelling, and beautifully told.

Other French Revolution related novels that are on my radar include Catherine Delors’s Mistress of the Revolution (2008), Edward Carey’s Little (2018), and, of course, Ribbons of Scarlet. But I’d love to hear what other books on the topic you’d recommend I check out! Let me know—here, on Facebook or by tweeting @SVictorianist.