Mimi Matthews, Gray Ghost and The Muse of Maiden Lane

Oh!!! Such a treat this week. Mimi Matthews bestselling author of The Siren of Sussex sits down to talk about the last book in her Belles of London series - The Muse of Maiden Lane.  We talk about the joys and challenges of finishing a beloved series and we have a very forthright conversation about the inspiration for Teddy, her artist hero who uses a wheelchair.  And while neither of us drink a Grey Ghost (she was on deadline and I struggle with St. Germaine... here is Mimi's recipie for this striking cocktail.

Grey Ghost Cocktail (in honor of my heroine's gray hair).
It's made of ½ oz Crème de Violette,
1 oz St Germain Elderflower Liqueur,
and 5 oz Brut Champagne

serve cold in in a champagne flute!

A 2024 BookBub Best Historical Romance!
One of Parade's Best New Books of November 2024!
One of Amazon's and Apple's Best Romance Books of November 2024!

A silver-haired equestrienne and a charismatic artist turn a scandalous bargain into a vibrant portrait of love.

Stella Hobhouse is a brilliant rider, stalwart friend, skilled sketch artist—and completely overlooked. Her outmodish gray hair makes her invisible to London society. Combined with her brother’s pious restrictions and her dwindling inheritance, Stella is on the verge of a lifetime marooned in Derbyshire as a spinster. Unless she does something drastic…like posing for a daring new style of portrait by the only man who’s ever really seen her.

Aspiring painter Edward “Teddy” Hayes knows true beauty when he sees it. He would never ask Stella to risk her reputation as an artist’s model but in the five years since a virulent bout of scarlet fever left him partially paralyzed, Teddy has learned to heed good fortune when he finds it. He’ll do anything to persuade his muse to pose for him, even if he must offer her a marriage of convenience.  

After all, though Teddy has yearned to trace Stella’s luminous beauty on canvas since their chance meeting, her heart is what he truly aches to capture….

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Transcript

Molly Fader (00:02):

Hello everybody. Welcome to Day Drinking with Authors, the podcast series where I pick a book, the author picks a drink, and we discuss both. Today I'm here with Mimi Matthews to discuss the fourth book and Her Bells in the Bells of London series. This is called The Muse of Maiden Lane. Mimi writes about a lot of characters that we don't often see in historical romance. Her characters are racially, socially, economically, physically, neurologically diverse, which makes her portrayal of Regency England. One of my very favourites, I'm going to read the back cover copy from my mama, the Muse of Maiden Lane, a silver-haired equestrian and a charismatic artist turn a scandalous bargain into a vibrant portrait of love. Stella Hobhouse is a brilliant writer, stalwart friend, skilled sketch artist, and completely overlooked her out. Modish Grey Hair makes her invisible to London society, combined with her brother's pious restrictions and her dwindling inheritance.
(01:02)
Stella is on the verge of a lifetime marooned in Derby Shire as a spinster unless she does something drastic like posing for a daring new style of portrait by the only man who's ever really seen her aspiring painter. Edward Teddy Hayes knows True Beauty when he sees it. He would never ask Stella to risk her reputation as an artist's model. But in the five years since a, it's one of those words that you read and you know how to, it's clear in your head me all the time. How would you say it? Virulent vir, virulent. Virulent. Oh my gosh. Thank you. Mimi Virulent bout of Scarlet Fever left him partially paralysed. Teddy has learned to heed good fortune when he finds it, he'll do anything to persuade his muse to pose for him, even if he must offer her a marriage of convenience. After all, though Teddy has yearned to trace Stella's luminous beauty on Canvas since their chance meeting her heart is what he truly aches to capture. Oh, Mimi, welcome to Day Drinking with all their, thank you Mimi Matthews (02:01):

So much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Molly Fader (02:04):

Well, I have been a fan of your books for a long time, and this is the fourth book in the series, but you bring everybody back for this one. Mimi Matthews (02:14):

Yeah, you know what, it's sort of a struggle for me as somebody who likes to write. You wouldn't know it from some of my books, but I like a limited cast as an author because any scene where there's a tonne of people in the room, my stress gets higher and higher as I'm writing it, like, oh, so many people, so many different voices and characters. But for anything where it's the final book in a series and I've only done two series, and so when I do the final one, it's like the readers usually want to see all of the characters back, so I found that a little bit stressful writing it. But yeah, all of the bells of London and their husbands show up and a lot of the characters from my parish Orphans of Devon series, which is where Teddy first appeared, he was a supporting character. He was one of the heroine's brothers, so some of those make an appearance too. But yeah, I wondered if I should do a cast list or a family tree or So one of those diagram agrees. Molly Fader (03:22):

I will say as a person who's read, perhaps not all of the books, but several of the books, I recognise lots of people, but it has that effect of making you want to go back and read the other couples. But I mean, this must have been, if you are a person who likes a small cast of characters, this must have been difficult. Mimi Matthews (03:41):

My favourite things are when it's hero and heroin and it's just the two of them, and they're sort of long scenes conversations, a ball or whatever, but when it's a tonne of people sort of drifting in and out and what some of that I think I get from my mom. So growing up I loved to read a lot of fantasy books or really intricate sort of gothic sort of books, and a lot of those, when you would start, it would have a list of all the characters at the beginning. And my mom said one time when I recommended her one of these books, she goes, anything with a cast list At the beginning, I'm not reading. She didn't want anything with maps, anything with a family tree, anything with a cast, it's like that's too much. It's just too much to hold in your head as you're reading. And so I have that in mind a lot as I'm writing. It's like, yes, I Molly Fader (04:33):

Know. Yeah, my mom wouldn't like that. Mimi Matthews (04:34):

My mom does not want to read something with this many characters and it needs to be really small. So if they're at an isolated house and it's just the two of them, all the better. Then it's just a lot of atmosphere and angsty conversation and romance. Molly Fader (04:50):

Well, one of my questions was this difficult to write because you have two kind of reclusive characters. One teddy, because he's in a wheelchair, a bath chair, and so it's sort of limited to where he can go at this country house, at this country house party, and your heroine has this grey hair that at the beginning of the book, she has dyed in an effort to sort of stand out and not to attract attention to, she's trying to get a husband and it kind of goes wrong. So it's just the two of them. But I wondered if that was hard, but apparently not. Mimi Matthews (05:28):

Well, it was hard in terms of there was so much difficult about this book for me, and one of the things is that the way that I wrote the first three books is they almost overlap a little bit, which was foolish of me in hindsight because it really anchored me to a timeline for the final book. Oh my gosh, rookie mistake. Rookie mistake. It was like, they have to be here this time, and then there's a five month gap and then they have to be here. I was like, ah. So trying Molly Fader (06:03):

To, nothing will trick get you. Nothing gets you like a timeline, nothing gets you, and as a reader, I'm one of those readers who I don't care. You tell me it's Tuesday, I believe it's Tuesday, I don't care. Mimi Matthews (06:15):

A lot of time those are, yeah, unless it's some mystery and there's specific importance to the dates or the days, but for a romance, I'm just like, eh, how much time has passed? Who knows a week? How long have they known each other? Who knows? But Molly Fader (06:30):

But when you set it up like that, a reader and then you blow it, a reader who is the opposite of me will email you. Mimi Matthews (06:38):

Yes, yes. You're in the final passes of it. Your copy editor is like, let's talk about the timeline. We just want to clarify the timeline. I get that comment on all of my books. They always my editor and also the copy editor. That's always a question. Okay, where are we with the timeline? My response is like, one day I'm going to write a book where there is no time. This is why I have to switch to fantasy or sci-fi because I can't manage a timeline. Molly Fader (07:07):

Well, writing books that overlap, I've done that as well. And you think it's clever and it's a treat for the readers who get into it. You get all those breaks. Mimi Matthews (07:19):

Exactly. Yeah. It was so much fun for the first three books, but it really came back to bite me in the final book where I had to sort of tie it all together and it meant that the characters meet at a house party, but then they can't meet again for this very long period of time. So I was like, okay, epistolary section book, which is how I solved it because I love an epistolary novel. Oh my gosh, I love it. Anything, Molly Fader (07:45):

I was reading this book and I have not read Historical Romance in quite a while, and reading your book, I was reminded why I love it. This book has all the things I love, which is a country house party, which is the letters that they have to write to each other, and then it's a sort of a desperate spinster. This is her only chance of any kind of life, Mimi Matthews (08:10):

Right? The sort of powerlessness that comes from the era despite even if you have a heroine who's bucking up against the status quo, there are still these restrictions that it's very hard for a woman who is of that time to overcome. Molly Fader (08:28):

I loved it, and then you give us a twist on a marriage. Well, it's a marriage of convenience, but your heroin says, I don't want a marriage of convenience. I want to love you. Mimi Matthews (08:39):

I think by this point, she's already falling in. I think the reader sees she's already partway in love with him, but just to tell him, this is my intention for us going forward. This is what this is going to be. And of course, he's already in love with her by that point. I don't know. It's a spoiler. I think the reader can tell very early on that he's just thunderstruck by her. He really is. And the more he knows her, the more he gets to know her and sees all of her qualities and how much they're in harmony with him that he just sort of falls even harder. But he's such an analytical and sort of acerbic, irreverent sort of guy, and I think that deep down really does not want to be hurt by making himself vulnerable because he's had some disappointments and so is a bit guarded, even though he probably wouldn't say I'm guarding myself, but that's really what it is. Molly Fader (09:33):

And the fact that he is in a wheelchair from the Scarlet Fever, your decision, I mean, this was a character that you introduced four books ago in a previous series. Mimi Matthews (09:43):

He was in the previous series. He was in book three of the previous series, A convenient fiction, and that was sort of not a long time after he had been sick and he had got Scarlet Fever and caught a secondary infection while he was ill, which went into his spine, and it made it so that he lost a lot of movement in his legs and then became very, so he's not fully paralysed, but he can't bear his own weight
(10:09)
And just he took it hard being ill. And then because he was sort of the man of the house at this point, the parents had passed away and he had an older sister. So he sort of fell into quite a deep depression. And that's sort of where you meet him in that book as he's first coming out of that depression and with the encouragement of his brother-in-Law, who plays a big role in his life, but readers really loved Teddy's character, and I loved him too. He was one of those characters you write where it's just a supporting character, but they keep trying to become a main Molly Fader (10:48):

Character. He has real main character energy. Mimi Matthews (10:51):

He has main character energy. And so I knew that eventually he needed to get his own story, but I wasn't sure of who was going to suit him. And then when I started the new series, I didn't really have an idea at first for each of the bells of London who they were going to end up with. But the more I wrote Stella, the more I felt like how perfect she would be for Teddy. And so by the time I got to book three in the Bell series, I knew Teddy had to show up. Molly Fader (11:21):

I have two questions from that, and I'm going to write down the second one so I don't forget it. I feel like Teddy walks such a fine line because the sickness and the wheelchair and what has happened to him plays a big part in his life, but it is like an internal conflict and an external conflict in some ways. And I feel like you walk such a fine line and a careful line where it's not his only character trait. There's still so much going on and he's not a sad character and he's not an angry character. And I was wondering how did he come clear to you? Was it harder to write him or was it harder to edit him, if that makes sense? Mimi Matthews (12:14):

I feel like with Teddy, I sort of imbued a lot of my own frustrations with my injury in it. So just some of my readers know, I feel like I always tell the same story and people are probably like, yes, yes, we heard this about your injury, but I was in a really bad car wreck. I had to have a cervical spine anterior fusion in the front of my neck. They fused in the Don Fuse, a solid your own bone, and it makes it solid, and that's supposed to happen after you have discectomy infusion. But the bone after it fused in, my neck broke. And so they had to do a revision fusion and the whole thing was just a big mess because there was a lot of damage to my neck after it broke the facet joints above where the hardware was disintegrated because of the instability.
(13:07)
So I lost a lot in terms of mobility at the time. I've got a lot of it back now, not so much moving my head, but I still can't drive, but I couldn't drive. I moved home even though I had graduated law school and passed the bar and everything, I had to move home. And so I had a lot of, and it was a very long rehab from the surgery. You're in a hard brace for about nine weeks. So a lot of the frustration I felt, and it was mostly depression certainly and sadness and all those feelings and pain dealing with the pain, but the loss of privacy, needing people to help you, the frustration where you feel like, I don't want that help. I want to do this myself. Or I used to be able to do this myself, and now my world has become so small because I'm not sort of out every day doing these things. I've put all a lot of that feeling into Teddy and then it Molly Fader (14:05):

Resonated for sure. Absolutely. I mean, he was a fascinating, fully formed character. Mimi Matthews (14:13):

I am so glad. I also feel like the restrictions of the era in terms of just the technology, basically the accessibility of even getting in and out of a building, getting in and out of a vehicle, the design of the wheeled chair he uses, they were not really made to operate independently.
(14:35)
You usually had an attendant of some kind. So it was like by the time you're in a wheelchair, you are pretty much consigned to being a quote invalid. But Teddy doesn't want that. He wants to go places. He wants to do what he wants to do, and he has an attendant who helps him. He sometimes has to lift him in and out of the chair or convey him up and down the stairs, that sort of thing, because there's no other mechanism to get from point A to point B, and it's one of those sort of necessary evils for Teddy, he's willing to put up with it, but it takes a little bit of a toll on him. Also, the fact that people feel quite free seeing you in a wheelchair. There's some of that today. People see you with any kind of an appliance, a neck brace, a wheelchair, a cane, whatever there are some people are going to be, what happened to you? Oh, you hurt this. Well, have you tried this procedure? Have you tried this supplement? This happens all the time. And of course it happens to Teddy too, and it really takes, it's the loss of privacy in your own body really takes a toll, but he doesn't let it diminish him, even though it obviously many times is very frustrating to him.
(15:54)
He is really intent on seizing his life and having a full life despite the fact that he has to struggle with these other accessibility issues. Molly Fader (16:07):

And I really liked how his marriage and his relationship to Stella and in a way gave him some of that privacy back almost. I think because of their love it felt, it didn't feel like it just felt like they were such a unit, a pair, and the intimacy of all the things that she would end up doing to help him was just going to be part of what their intimacy was. I just knew Mimi Matthews (16:38):

Exactly that it came from love loving each other so much and that it was something she wanted to do. She wanted to be that person for him, and that it wasn't anything like she was being his nurse or taking on the role of caring for an invalid, that it was just something that came from when you love somebody, you're there for them and you are sort of the guardian of that privacy of their privacy. You sort of stand between them and the encroachments of the rest of the world and become, you're just like a unit with them. You're a single unit in that way. Molly Fader (17:17):

So Mimi Matthews (17:17):

I felt that was really authentic to a lot of time what happens if you have some sort of injury or disability that you have somebody in your life who you love and trust to let them see you at your most vulnerable and know that they're always going to have your back and be there to support you. And I recently saw somebody say, I'm trying to think where I saw this. They felt like, oh no, because it means that she's just going to be his nurse, which I felt was diminishing what the relationship you have if you're married or in a partnership with somebody who you love and one of you or both of you have some sort of disability. It's not like you suddenly or someone's attendant. I mean, that's not it at all. So hopefully that was clear. Molly Fader (18:09):

I felt like it was very clear. I felt like it was very clear and very well done. Thank you so much. And the intimacy was very sweet and very charged at the same time. You had a lot of sexual emotional tension going on throughout the book, which is again reminded me of why I love historical romances when being alone in a room together is so, Mimi Matthews (18:33):

It's so exciting. Yes, exactly. It makes everything have carries so much more emotional and sort of sexual tension weight. It does a touch of a bare hand, does a lot of heavy lifting. Molly Fader (18:46):

It really does not my stories. It really does. And it does a lot of heavy lifting when a very skilled writer is doing it right when that moment really comes to life, which it does in your book. Mimi Matthews (18:58):

Oh, thank you so much. Molly Fader (19:00):

So you said something a few minutes ago that you did not know when you put together the proposal for the Bells of London or you started to think about this series, you did not know who these characters were going to end up with? Mimi Matthews (19:13):

Not all of them. I knew Evelyn Mel Traver, the heroine and Siren of Sussex. I knew she was going to end up with Ahmed Malik who had been another character from Paris, orphans of Devin. So I knew that. And then as I was writing that Felix Hartford just appeared in one scene sometimes because I'm aster. So stuff. I Molly Fader (19:37):

Was going to say, you are coming off like a pants here, which is not easy when you're plotting books over with a Mimi Matthews (19:45):

Timeline Molly Fader (19:45):

That over whatcha Mimi Matthews (19:47):

Doing. I like a challenge. I constantly am making a challenge for myself, and sometimes I don't mean this to sound self like I'm so smart. I don't mean it like that, but I think our subconscious, when you're writing and you're sort of used to being a pants, I think your subconscious is doing a lot of work laying some breadcrumbs and you don't even realise it as you're doing it. And then as you get to the end and you're doing revisions or you sort of see, ah, this person, this was significant, this means something. And you sort of build on that a little bit. And that's what happened with Felix Hartford. And so I knew that he was going to be the hero in book three. And then book two, the fact that there was a man at the ball gruff, battle scarred army captain. Molly Fader (20:41):

Fascinating. Mimi Matthews (20:41):

Made Julia, yeah, this is my cat, tall, dark recruiting battle scarred soldier. I can't remember how many books I'd written at one point and somebody was like, gosh, maybe Matthews really likes soldier heroes. I was like, yes, yes, I do so many soldier heroes. But yeah, so I knew that would be a good match for Julian book two, but it was about two books in before I realised who I was going to have for Stella. So yeah, I don't know everything all at once and they only, each contract I've done has been a three book deal. And so I didn't have to know about Stella and Teddy's story till the second contract. So by then I did know it would be them. But Molly Fader (21:30):

Yeah, that's still a wild and fun leap of faith. Mimi Matthews (21:34):

It is. And probably the reason that I am so stressed all the time. Molly Fader (21:42):

Mimi was saying before we started recording that this beautiful book comes out tomorrow, everybody rush out there and get it. Although by the time that this is aired, it will not be tomorrow. It'll be a few weeks ago. But she also has a book do on Friday, which is again, one of the perils of success maybe Mimi Matthews (22:02):

It feels like everything is happening all at once all the time. And for I'm hybrid, so I've done indie publishing and traditional publishing, but in the traditional publishing world, you're like a year out the book you're finishing to turn in, it's not going to come out for another year. So by the time one book comes out, you've already written two additional books. But yeah, so it's just like, I was lamenting this yesterday actually. I was thinking of seeing some new authors who are having their debuts with my same publisher, which just feels like such a big deal. And they're out doing all these things and I'm always like, well, I haven't done anything. I don't get to do anything. I hear. I just writing all the time. Oh my gosh. And lately what I've been doing is I've been just keeping a mental list of things I need to celebrate.
(22:59)
And then once I turn in this book on Friday and after I sleep for a couple days, then I'm going to maybe have some lunches and go do some fun stuff. I mean, that's what I think, but as soon as you turn in a book, other stuff always comes like, can you do this? Can you do that? And I try. I'm not very good at saying no. I try to say yes to a lot of things. My feeling is firstly, I'm really excited to have, I feel really lucky to have opportunities and I am really excited about them. And secondly, it's like every day of my career, I feel like I don't know when it's going to end. The publishing world is very volatile. You never know what's happening. And my health is very volatile, and I know at what point it's going to be like, well, riding is flaring my neck up too much. I can't do it anymore. And so I'm just making hay while the sun shines. Molly Fader (23:55):

And Mimi, I think that's the smartest, I mean, as somebody who's been in this business for such a long time and anybody listening who's a writer, that's really the only way to keep doing it, right, is to just keep doing it, just keep Mimi Matthews (24:08):

Doing it and to never sort of rest on your laurels. But it's like a double-edged thing because I mean, I would tell writers, enjoy your successes, really celebrate all your successes and be so proud of yourself. But at the same time, it's hard to slow celebrate, slow it down because you're like, oh, this great thing happened with this book, but then everybody around you and you're saying it to yourself to, okay, but what next? What have you done next? What's coming? Yeah. So it's a little bit hard to, I think it takes a little bit of a toll on your mental health, to be honest. Molly Fader (24:46):

I would agree. I would agree. Mimi Matthews (24:48):

Yeah. And because throw into all of the good stuff, as much as you avoid reviews, you do occasionally see bad things. And I don't think we're meant to be exposed to that level of criticism as human beings, which probably we get more now because of social media, seeing somebody say something hateful or seeing somebody who emails you something hateful, and you're like, ouch. Well, now I can't write Today. I feel like, well, my writing's apparently garbage because I did the mistake of going on Good reads, and now that's, oh my gosh. Good reads. Oh my gosh. Molly Fader (25:21):

One of the things I wanted to ask you is, and I know this is the fourth in the series, but the cover design of this series is so different, and I was wondering if you could think back to when it first arrived in your inbox and those who of you who have listened to the podcast that I love to hear about authors, how they respond to these covers. Did you know that this style, it's an illustrated or it's very graphic, it is illustrated. The typography is very unique, it's really cool and different while still, oh my gosh, feeling his struggle. Did you know that this was coming? Did you have a reaction that Mimi Matthews (26:00):

I was amazed. So before this, for my indie titles and then all the forum publishers who own the rights to mind, I think it's none of them have been illustrated. It's always a picture. But I knew when I talked to my editor on the phone about it that she was sort of thinking of going for this more illustrated cover. And so they wanted to know sort of my ideas, and I sent them just a lot of history pictures. I sent them a lot of pictures of writing habits, the colours and things that are described in the first book. I sent them pictures of the horses that inspired Evelyn's horse and the background, things like that. And I don't remember how long it was, but my editor, Sarah, she actually emailed me on the weekend and she said, this sketch, this rough sketch just appeared in my inbox and I had to share it with you.
(26:51)
And it was just the rough draught of Siren of Sussex. And I was like, whoa. Wow. And yeah, I was so impressed by it. And then it was fascinating to see every revision they did added a new dimension to it, more detail and everything. So yeah, I just thought it was spectacular. And then same experience with Belle of Belgrave Square, which is one of my favourite covers, just the blues and the sort of beauty and the beast vibe and that she's reading a book. I just loved it so much. But yeah, it's been like that.
(27:27)
They always amaze me, and I'll tell you a secret because I am going to be revealing this cover the first week of December that the first book in my new series with Berkeley, the series is the Kre and Academy. The first book is Rules for Ruin. And when they sent me the cover of that, I almost crying blew my mom. And I thought, I mean, of course I'm just imagining, I don't know all the inner workings. I thought Berkeley has pulled out all the stops for this book because a lot of times as an author we're so creative and you're like, well, I'm not sure what they could come up with that would be different than what I imagined. I've already imagined all the permutation of what they could do. They did something I never even thought of, and I was like, how did that never occurred to me? But anyway, I can't wait. I can't wait to see it. I'm so excited to share it. I'm so excited to share it. Molly Fader (28:23):

One of the things that I wanted to talk to you about is your historical research in your books is so subtle to me. It's so lived in that you don't, it's not until the author's note that I realise, oh, you did do a lot of research, and I mean that in the best way that it's seamless. You don't go on, I Mimi Matthews (28:48):

Like it to sit very lightly on the page. I don't want to ever, I feel very conscious that I'm read by a wide sort of range of people, and I do not ever want to be somebody who is writing history in a way that is inaccessible or condescending or feels that it's a barrier to the story, if that makes sense. Molly Fader (29:18):

Totally. Mimi Matthews (29:20):

So I like it to sit very lightly on the page and to give you, I'm all about atmosphere as a writer and as a reader. That's what I like just about, I guess you would say. It's all just vibes. It's just vibes to sort of feel that as you're reading it. But also at the same time, I think sometimes, I mean, I love books that are heavy on history too. Don't get me wrong. I love a range of stories, but I think that one of the things that I really enjoy about writing in the Victorian era is how relatable a lot of the situations are. Despite the distance and time, they're still so relatable to things that we're struggling with today in our own lives, and sometimes the lighter the history sets, the more you feel that relatability and that sort of sympathy and empathy with these characters because it feels very relevant still, and it doesn't feel as distant as time makes sense, if that makes sense. That's my dog. I told you that. Is he a little dog? Molly Fader (30:30):

Sorry, she's a rescue. She's like, she's got a little bit of a terrier. She's the sweetest. But someone, I think my daughter just got home from school, so I knew that was Mimi Matthews (30:44):

Going to happen. I'm a huge animal lover. My dream is to sell enough books to buy a little farm, but by the time that probably happens, I'll be too old to maintain a little farm. My mom's like, you could just hire people. I'm like, yeah, I don't know. Then I'd have to sell even more books to hire people. The dream is becoming even more inaccessible. Molly Fader (31:04):

So one of the sort of historical elements about this book that, and again, the fact that the history sits so lightly, I know that that can only mean that you've done a tonne of research is about the very beginning of the impressionist art movement, which is what Teddy's art is in the vein of. He went and studied at the same place that Monet was studying, and one of the things that I loved about it in this book, it didn't even really occur to me what timeframe we were, it didn't even occur to me that it was an impressionism because nobody uses the language that we use now to talk about it. So you're describing it in a way that is then and current, and I thought that must've been so hard in a lot of Mimi Matthews (32:01):

Ways. So I am a huge art lover, and I love impressionism. It was my first art love I got when I was 15, one of those really big coffee table books, and I think it's called the Big Book of French Impressionism, but loved the pictures. I mean, just how soft and the way the light and everything is diffused. So I already didn't know about it, but I didn't know as much about the early origins of it, how much pushback it got, and so it wasn't even called impressionism then. That didn't come until many years later. At the beginning, people just felt like, what are these authors doing? The work looks unfinished. It's not distinct. It's not really showing things as they are because they were playing with lights so much, and at the time, there was nowhere to really display these works. The salon in Paris wouldn't do it.
(32:56)
The Royal Academy in London wouldn't do it, and so they ended up being displayed. The para salon did basically a salon of rejects it was called, but in French, no, my French is horrible. The salon refuses. At any rate, people can figure that out how to pronounce that correctly. But that's where a lot of them were displayed initially. And little by little, these paintings caught on and really caught fire. But it was amazing to see the onset of this movement and to see, to research everything Teddy would've experienced at the beginnings of this and the other artists around him were experiencing as they were sort of breaking the mould in this new genre, Molly Fader (33:43):

So fitting for him to be so brave, that's that character, to be so driven and single-minded about this really different on the edge thing. It suits him so well. Yeah, Mimi Matthews (33:59):

Just like I like what I like, this is where my passion lies, and I don't care how many people tell me it's not good. I'm just going to keep doing it until I think I've come up with something spectacular, which is the masterpiece. He envisions himself painting, and Stella is very central to him painting this portrait that he imagines, which he thinks is going to be his master work, Molly Fader (34:26):

And it kind of is. Mimi Matthews (34:27):

It is. Molly Fader (34:28):

Yeah. Well, it's a beautiful book. You've created something special too, and I am so excited about this new series. You just teased that the cover will be revealed at the beginning of December. When will this book be out? Mimi Matthews (34:40):

It's going to be out in May of 2025. My publisher just put the arcs up on net galley, so some people are already starting to read it, which is always very nerve wracking. But I'm really excited about the new series. It was so much fun to write and to continue writing. The second book is what I'm finishing now. Molly Fader (35:02):

Can you tell us the series hook? What? Mimi Matthews (35:08):

It's basically, I've been describing it. The first book, sort of great expectations meets Peaky Blinders. It's a school Molly Fader (35:15):

Say No More. It's run Mimi Matthews (35:17):

By a sort of miss haha like character who has the idea, sort of like Ms. Havisham of forging young women into weapons, Molly Fader (35:25):

And Mimi Matthews (35:26):

She has a bunch of girls with unique skills, and they go out to disrupt the patriarchy and romance ensues romance places. Molly Fader (35:38):

I love it. That's a series that we need right now, for sure. Mimi, thank you so much for stopping by. I know you're busy. Thank so much for having me. Oh, I did it again. We didn't talk about your book, or we talked your book. We didn't talk about your journey. Please tell us what we're drinking today. Mimi Matthews (35:57):

It's called The Grey Ghost, and it is champagne, brute champagne, so very dry with elder flour liqueur and creme de violet, and it's sweet and a little bit fruity and dry, and I felt like because it's grey, that it was very suitable for Stella's silver hair. Molly Fader (36:20):

I love it. I love it. I had to make a confession. I have a violent reaction to Mimi Matthews (36:27):

Elder flower. Molly Fader (36:28):

Elder flower. Mimi Matthews (36:29):

Oh, no, Molly Fader (36:30):

It's all right. It's all right. The champagne and the Mimi Matthews (36:34):

C Violette, the champagne on its own is Molly Fader (36:35):

Fine. I'm not sure what that drink will be called, but it's delicious and it is. It's an absolutely perfect drink for your heroin. I love it. Also dry and kind of bold. Mimi Matthews (36:48):

Yeah. Molly Fader (36:48):

Yeah. Mimi Matthews (36:49):

Anything with champagne, I think. Molly Fader (36:51):

Yes. More celebrations. Mimi in the future. More celebrations for you. Mimi Matthews (36:55):

Absolutely. Molly Fader (36:56):

Thank you again, so much for stopping by. Everybody at home. Please, if you haven't started this series, start with the siren of Sussex. You will not regret it. Thanks everybody. Bye-Bye. Mimi Matthews (37:07):

Thanks, Molly. Bye.