Elizabeth Hoyt: The priest, death and … Batman

Elizabeth Hoyt, whose Duke of Midnight is out today (Oct. 15), explains the totally direct, straightforward path to creating Georgian England's very own Batman. Sarcasm, you say? Never! Which is to say that the path was not direct nor straightforward …

Elizabeth: My newest book, Duke of Midnight, is finally out this month. I say finally because, well, this book has a loooong history. About five years ago I had a wonderful idea: What if there was a shadowy masked figure wandering around the gritty streets of St. Giles, London? A man driven by revenge to both protect and patrol the slums? A man rather like … well, Batman.

Batman in Georgian England.

I pitched this idea to my editor and strangely enough she didn't immediately hang up the phone. Thus was born the Ghost of St. Giles. Unfortunately at this point my imagination went into overdrive. There are all sorts of reasons a man might decide to become a masked vigilante — interesting motivations that would make for a delicious hero, and I just couldn't decide: Was the Ghost a scholarly man by day, controlled and celibate, and only let his righteous rage out when he donned the mask at night? Or was he a man driven by despair, a man who had given up on life itself and was very, very deadly as a result? Or — or was he a powerful aristocrat, a man who seemingly had everything but was driven by a terrible incident in his youth to become the Ghost of St. Giles at night?

It will come as no surprise to you that I'm the type of woman who, when faced with the choice of dark chocolate torte, crème brulee, or apple tart with cinnamon ice cream, orders all three from the dessert menu.

I set out to write all three Ghosts of St. Giles: Winter Makepeace in Thief of Shadows is my priest Ghost, Godric St. John in Lord of Darkness is my death Ghost, and the luscious, dark chocolate torte of man Maximus Batten, the Duke of Wakefield in Duke of Midnight, is my Batman in Georgian England Ghost.

Except you may've noticed that Duke of Midnight is actually book six in my Maiden Lane series. This is because when given a perfectly straight and lovely path to travel, I will, without fail, wander off into the bushes to look at the scenery. I started thinking about all the other characters who inhabited this interesting world of the desperately poor and the fabulously wealthy. And of course a certain pirate (Mickey O'Connor in Scandalous Desires) popped up and demanded rather arrogantly that his story be told first.

Which is all to say that Duke of Midnight was a long time coming — at least for me, the writer. My Batman in Georgian England changed a bit, too, in the process. Maximus is darker than I'd originally envisioned, and lonelier as well. His heroine, Miss Artemis Greaves, turned out to be rather surprisingly tough — not a word one usually associates with a gentle lady's companion. On the whole, though, both Maximus and the world he inhabits in my Maiden Lane series became much, much more than I'd ever envisioned that day five years ago when I made a breathless call to my editor.

I hope you enjoy Duke of Midnight!

To find out more about Elizabeth and her books, visit elizabethhoyt.com.

Award-winning author Joyce Lamb curates and writes for HEA when she's not plotting her own romantic suspense novels. Of the eight she's had published, three have been RITA finalists. You can contact her at HappyEverAfterUSAT@gmail.com or connect with her on Facebook and Twitter (@JoyceLamb).