The XO Interview: Megan Frampton
Witty and fluffy Regency romance meets rage against the patriarchy
Sometimes only a light and sparkling Regency romance novel will do, and when that mood strikes, I turn to Megan Frampton. She not only writes wonderfully escapist books set among the English aristocracy, but does so with an eye toward equality. We chatted about her core story, why it matters who initiates the first kiss and her most feminist novel yet.
How did you first discover the romance genre? Which book was The One for you?
The first book that imprinted on me, the one that made me want to read more stories like that, please, was Barbara Cartland’s The Penniless Peer. I think I was about eleven years old, and I discovered the book in my parents’ library (both were big readers). It had a heroine with a heart-shaped face named Fenella and a hero named Perequine. The cover was glorious; it has a pivotal moment in the book (a duel), the heroine pleading with the hero, her attitude suitably demure, while he regards her with all his haughty mien. There were also plenty of ellipses, and a scene where the heroine gives the hero more than his share of food, which stuck with me for food reasons. It was an omelette, and she tipped the pan so he couldn’t see she was giving him about seventy-five percent of it.
(Note: I came to find, decades later, that Cartland basically plagiarized Georgette Heyer, and both had strongly anti-Semitic sentiments in their books. There’s also threat of violence, and some sketchy behavior on both the hero and heroine side).
We’ve talked about how historical romance authors have been doing the work to incorporate feminist and anti-racist principles. Can you talk more about that?
One of my core stories is about choice and the balance of power. I suppose I’ve been a feminist for most of my life, though I do still find myself peering at things through a male gaze, which irritates me no end. The racism element, the understanding of systemic racism and how it impacts people, is only a more recent awareness—the result of having white privilege in the first place. But my books imagine a world where people are equal, so that if I present a duke with every benefit possible, I pair him with a woman who floors him, who makes him feel undone and aware that his privilege can’t get him what he wants, at least in this case. My heroine is always the one to initiate the first kiss, also—if he were to kiss her first, it might be unclear if he is exercising his power, with her feeling as though she cannot refuse.
Presenting a world that is not entirely white is important, though I do not write from those points of view—theirs are not my story to tell. I do think it’s important to have protagonists who want to treat everyone equally, so my dukes, for example, are as enlightened as I can make them (and they are humble enough to know they have more to learn. Like me).
Your historical romances are unapologetically witty, light and fluffy, recognizing that we’re all just here for a delightful time. What goes into creating a light and fluffy romance novel? It’s more work than it seems, right?
All writing is hard, no matter if you’re Megan Frampton or Fyodor Dostoevsky. Creating a light and fluffy romance—which I most definitely write!—doesn’t mean denying the impact of the plot on the protagonists. When I’m writing, I feel as though I’m making my characters suffer, even though the result, to the reader, might not seem like suffering. But my voice is naturally humorous and sparkling, and so the action reads that way, even if it doesn’t feel like that in my head.
Your new book is His Study in Scandal and it’s book two in your School for Scoundrels series and it pairs a widowed heroine with a potential husband...for her own daughter. Conflict! What else can you tell us about the book?
This one seems to be my most feminist novel yet; an early review says, “I have never read a book that portrays anger at the patriarchy more than this book. If you're looking for someone who shares your rage about the way women's autonomy has been erased, Megan Frampton's rage radiates off the page.” (To be fair, the reviewer did not love the book overall, but she recognized what I was doing, perhaps even better than I did).
The heroine has never gotten to make her own choices in life. She is beautiful, and valued only in terms of being an object. Her late husband the duke dictated what she could do and how she could dress. When he dies, she is determined that no man will ever be in control again. So when she falls in love—when she considers the possibility of marriage with another man—she is terrified. In the era I write in, wives were considered to be the property of their husbands, and he could do whatever he wanted to her, short of murder, I suppose (but even then I imagine somebody would say she was asking for it because she’d talked back, or whatever).
The hero is a classic rake, but he is immediately smitten when he meets the heroine at a pleasure house where they have an anonymous tryst. He doesn’t understand himself why this woman is different from the others he’s been with, but she is. He tries to understand her situation, but because he is male—even if he is illegitimate, he still owns that male privilege—he makes a few blunders, which causes the book’s conflict.
How do romance novels bring you joy?
I’m going to sidebar for a moment and recount a story I heard from a college friend; his mother was German, from Germany, and his father was Japanese, from Japan. They met and married in America, but neither spoke the others’ language. My friend’s mother made food for her husband, and she would ask him how he liked it, to which he would reply, “It’s good for secondary food.” Eventually, she understood that, for him, rice was primary food, and all other food was secondary.
That’s me and romance. It doesn’t matter what genre I am reading in, I am always looking for the potential romance, wanting to find the connection between humans (not always romantic, btw). Knowing that romance will have a satisfying and happy ending brings me great joy, because I don’t have to worry that it won’t all work out. I do read other genres, but they always feel like “secondary food” because they aren’t my main source of reading happiness.
PS: Don’t miss Megan’s own Substack, Megan Frampton Comes Alive.