KABOOM!

When the years 2017 (Ms. Brittany Carter) and
1765 (Georgian bad-boy, Mitchel Killgower) collided in Shehanne Moore's time slip tale The Writer and The Rake I anticipated sparks. A meteor shower worth of flash points and pointed flashes…and then I met Brittany, interviewed her actually, and all I can say from the experience is: Mitchell, you have my sympathies, she’s hilarious, but more than a handful.
 
This is what Brittany Carter had to say for herself.

​Best brace! 

What three items from 2017 (and unobtainable in 1765) did you most miss?
Brittany: Fags darling. Definitely fags and maybe even more fags. I mean I can’t smoke these disgusting bloody cigar things that they think pass for fags. And I’m telling you now, I don’t know Mitchell likes them either or he wouldn’t have kept pinching my humble stash of two, or three, okay it was twenty, packets. Was that three things? I’m really not very good at counting as such. Voddie was another consideration.  I mean I know it existed then but not in England. Had Mitchell been a Russian count that would have been fine. What is it about you bloody authors that you can’t stop torturing your characters in such mean ways? When we are such nice people and never any trouble to you? Decent bloody shoes is another thing. I mean I know there’s shoes in 1765 but they were not as we know them.
 
(Well, that will make me popular with the anti-smoking brigade, writers, and cobblers. But a least the Russians come out reasonably unscathed.)
 
What three ‘inconveniences’ or conventions common to 1765, drove you insane?
Brittany: The bloody servants for starters. Do you know every morning the average Georgian housewife was expected to spend like two hours instructing them?  It was why breakfast wasn’t held till God knows when, oh all right, it was 11am.  You have no idea the run-ins Mitchell and I had over that stupid convention. Then there were the damned dinners with all these same bloody servants standing about like stuffed trouts, eavesdropping on every word—Mitchell and I had one or two, oh all right, maybe it was three or four—when he was very lucky to have me around, helping him with his inheritance problem. Also, did I tell you about the baths? I don’t know why they wasted time heating the water, because by the time that bath was filled, it was stone bloody cold.
 
(I felt it was prudent to smile (weakly) at this stage, and move on fast.)
 
Adjusting to 1765 would challenge the most competent of modern day women. What was the greatest challenge you faced?
Brittany: Well darling, can I just say it began with M and ended with L? But being so very competent—and I trust that is what you are saying—I daresay that biting my tongue was a challenge. Did I also mention the fact that women were shaped differently? I could never get the shoes on, or the dresses to fasten properly. I’d also have to say that contraception was a huge problem then. Have I mentioned more than one thing? And quite an important thing unless one has a few items in one’s handbag? To quote Mitchell, “for my behavior I do apologize.”
 
(Intrigued? Read the book!)
 
What three things irritated you the most about Mitchell?
Brittany: Just three? Oh well. Mitchell’s bossy. I mean they do say it takes one to know one, but not in this instance. I suppose that, in addition to being a man of his times, he’s a very confident, assured and powerful man of his times, so that makes him ten times your average bossy man. Even his son can’t relate to him because of that. Also, once he’s gone for broke he will do anything to obfuscate. Like he just doesn’t want to be thought lacking when it comes to being in control and you frankly just get to the point where you can do without it. And I wouldn’t call him helpful. You have no idea how I needed him to get rid of that Time Mutant Mort and he just wouldn’t do it. Or how I cut my foot and all he did was complain about the bloody mess on the carpet.
 
(Hmmm… Maybe the carpet was valuable. Mitchell is paying me a visit shortly after Brittany, I prefer that he turns up from his interview well-disposed towards me)
 
In your eyes, what three things redeem Mitchell?
Brittany: Now darling, this would mean giving spoilers. So, staying away from him and me, let’s say he does become kinder to his son.  He tries to make out that he’s not father material, but you do see that underneath he respects Fleming and the fact they are just very different people. He actually accepts his own position with good grace and despite everything I’ve said above, he is absolutely the kind of man to take your back in every way.  
 
What three things bewildered you about Mitchell?
Brittany: His pig headedness. I mean, there he was without a brass farthing to his name and he would still try to put me out. If that is not being pigheaded, when he needed me to stand any kind of chance of inheriting Killaine House AND he was desperate to inherit, I don’t know what is. Or why he’d do that either. Would someone kindly explain? Then there was his tendency to go for broke, meaning he tiresomely back pedaled more than a high wire artist’s bicycle several times. You think someone would learn, but no. Also, despite everything, I couldn’t quite get why his marriage had been such a mess. You know his wife hadn’t liked him at all? Not even a teeny tiny baby bit. She actually preferred anyone to him.
 
(Yikes, not a subject I’ll be touching on with Mitchell when he visits)
 
If Mitchell was a piece of furniture, what would he be? And Why?
Brittany: I think he’d be more like these fancy stag heads you see on walls, you know, tangle with them at your peril. I know that’s not furniture as such. Either that, or some of these vast, multi-drawered wardrobes. So complicated you don’t know which drawer to open first and when you do, you will wish you hadn't. 
 
Sum up Mitchell--the good, the bad, the downright ugly.

Got a quote where you put Mitchell firmly in his place?
Brittany: Oh, how long have you got. The problem with Mitchell though, is his comebacks.  
Still, I rather feel this was one where he was sort of silenced….. for  a little moment anyway.  It was after a run in over the servants.
 
“So as conditions go, it does not prevent you from sitting on your backside?”
“You know, I almost think you’re taken with my backside, the amount of times you mention it.”
 
Gluts... Well, I know where my eyes will be wandering when Mitchell visits. "Thank you for visiting Brittany… Yes you can help yourself to my vodka collection on your way out. And again, it’s been a pleasure."
 
Blurb: The Writer and the Rake
 
1765 had bugger all to recommend it.
He saw her coming. If he’d known her effect he'd have walked away.
 
When it comes to doing it all, hard coated ‘wild child’ writer, Brittany Carter ticks every box. Having it all is a different thing though, what with her need to thwart an ex fiancé, and herself transported from the present to Georgian times. But then, so long as she can find her way back to her world of fame, and promised fortune, what's there to worry about?
 
Georgian bad boy Mitchell Killgower is at the center of an inheritance dispute and he needs Brittany as his obedient, country mouse wife. Or rather he needs her like a hole in the head. In and out of his bed he’s never known a woman like her. A woman who can disappear and reappear like her either. 
 
And when his coolly contained anarchist, who is anything but, learns how to return to her world and stay there, will having it all be enough,  or does she underestimate him...and herself?  

About Shehanne Moore
When not cuddling inn signs in her beloved Scottish mountains alongside Mr Shey, Shehanne Moore writes dark and smexy historical romance, featuring bad boys who need a bad girl to sort them out. She firmly believes everyone deserves a little love, forgiveness and a second chance in life.
Shehanne caused general apoplexy when she penned her first story, The Hore House Mystery—aged seven. What didn’t she work at while pursuing her dream of becoming a published author?
 
Visit her hamster run blog http://shehannemoore.wordpress.com/
 
What hasn’t she worked at while pursuing her dream of becoming a published author? Shehanne still lives in Scotland, with her husband Mr Shey. She has two daughters. When not writing intriguing historical romance, where goals and desires of sassy, unconventional heroines and ruthless men, mean worlds collide, she plays the odd musical instrument and loves what in any other country, would not be defined, as hill-walking.
 
The Writer and The Rake: get it here

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