Balancing romance, social commentary and historical fiction

An opening caveat

First of all – I don’t write what are classified as romances. There are very strict rules and tropes that define romance and failure to abide by them can create disappointment and even anger among dedicated afficionados of the genre. Instead, I’d describe my books as historical fiction with a strong romantic element – if not always with a Happy Ever After (the sine qua non in romances!)

Indian Ocean by night

Having got that caveat out of the way, it is still an interesting challenge to entwine a love story within a novel that may be dealing with what can often be challenging or disturbing historical events such as war.

My latest novel, The Star of Ceylon, set in 1906, offers an example of this balancing act. There’s no war, but the book focuses on some weighty social issues such as colonialism, misogyny and sexism, sexual violence, and the treatment of natives by the colonial powers. Yet at the core of the book is a love story. There is a risk with marrying the tenderness of a love story with meaty social commentary: too much politics and you risk the reader feeling they’ve been bashed over the head with a manifesto, too much romance and you risk trivialising and glossing over the harsh realities of the times.

So, how to strike the balance?

The key is to make the big political background personal. The stories of the protagonists must be fundamentally woven from the cloth of the social injustices being portrayed. In the case of my main female character, her entire life is centred on one core social issue – the way the doors to education are being opened wider than ever – but as women try to pass them through them, they are slammed shut. This is all part of a larger picture that characterised the turn of the last century – a wave of feminism that led to women wanting the same rights as men – in voting, in working, in pay, in marriage and in education.

Stella and the Hunger for Academia

Temple statue

It is a passion for anthropology that is the driving force of Stella Polegate’s existence. She has had privileged access as her father is an eminent Oxford scholar and she acts as his research assistant, accompanies him on his expedition to study the Tamil peoples – yet is denied the chance to study for a degree herself. This injustice is articulated not by my voice as the author, but passionately by Stella herself. It colours almost every interaction she has – with her father, her brother, her father’s PhD student, with Norton Baxter (the other protagonist) and with Mrs Moreland, the wife of a senior civil servant she meets early in the book. It is also dramatized by the contrast with other female characters within the book – particularly Cynthia Metcalfe, who would run a mile from the merest whiff of anything academic.

Everything that Stella does – from the books she reads, the beliefs she holds, her attitudes to other people – stems from her thirst for knowledge. The events that befall her (no spoilers here!) all derive directly from this existential motivation.

Norton and the Injustices of Colonialism

A colonial relic in Sri Lanka

The same is true of Norton Baxter. It would have been possible to give Norton another reason to be in Ceylon (I originally planned for him to be a tea planter) but making him a civil servant placed him right at the beating heart of empire.

If I’d followed the first tack, he would have been an observer of empire from a more dispassionate distance. I’ve had characters in other books (The Pearl of Penang and Kurinji Flowers) who are living in the British colonies and experiencing the privileged expatriate life. But this is part of the backdrop. In the case of The Star of Ceylon I wanted it to drive Norton. He’s a young man with ideals and ambition – determined to prove himself to a judgmental father and with no particular axe to grind about the British Empire – it was a fact of life to most Edwardians living before the trauma of the Great War.

But – like Stella’s feminism – Norton’s awakening to the evils of colonialism is entirely personal. His opinions evolve as the book progresses based on what he witnesses first hand – the cruelty and entitlement of his boss – who sees himself as innately superior to the native Sinhalese; the teachings of his language tutor – a Buddhist monk; and what he witnesses on two visits to the jail. He sees it too on a hunting trip, where he can compare the quiet competence of a native guide to the overbearing behaviour of the other British men in the party, and he sees it every day in the professionalism and intelligence of the native clerks in the office, denied promotion because they’re not British.

In other words, I hope the reader will understand the social commentary of the book entirely by experiencing it through the eyes of Norton and Stella.

The Romantic Story

I won’t give away any spoilers here, but the love story is between Stella and Norton – a seemingly hopeless and completely impractical attraction. Their different lives, aspirations and ambitions make a future as a couple unthinkable. He is in no position to take a wife. She wants to return to England to fight for that career in academia.

A love story could never happen without the momentum given to it by the social factors discussed above and the events that derive from them.

In conclusion

The craft of creating believable characters and integrating them within the framework of larger societal changes relies entirely on seeing the two sides holistically. The socio-political aspects are not a backdrop, there to provide colour and background to a romantic story. The two are seamlessly interwoven, each driving the other.

Writing this post makes it seem as though I sat down and thought all this through before I started to write the book. But it wasn’t like that at all. The act of writing for me is less conscious and more instinctive, and the story evolves as I go (I am definitely not a planner!). Often readers are better at describing why and how a book works than the author is!

 I hope I’ve succeeded in doing what I’ve described here, in The Star of Ceylon. I certainly enjoyed the process. Read the book and let me know!

My thanks to Alison for inviting me onto her blog and for making me think about this.

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Connect with Clare on her website: https://clareflynn.co.uk

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So what’s The Star of Ceylon about?

Ceylon, 1906: Stella Polegate steps off the ship in Colombo harbour, her heart beating with contradictory emotions. As her father’s unofficial research assistant, she’s thrilled to explore this island of ancient temples and verdant tea plantations—yet painfully aware that her brilliant mind will remain uncredited, her academic ambitions dismissed simply because she is a woman.

When her father’s doctoral student makes unwelcome advances that escalate to violence, Stella’s carefully ordered world shatters.

With her reputation and future hanging in the balance, she finds an unexpected ally in Norton Baxter, a principled young civil servant whose growing disillusionment with colonial rule mirrors her own questioning of societal constraints.

As Stella navigates the suffocating expectations of colonial society, she must make an impossible choice. Should she accept the limitations imposed upon her gender or fight for the academic future she deserves? And can she trust Norton with her damaged heart when every man in her life has sought to control her destiny?

From the misty highlands of Kandy to the bustling port of Colombo, Stella’s journey becomes a defiant quest not only for love but for something far more elusive—the freedom to become the author of her own story.

Buy the book here: geni.us/1087-cr-two-am

My thoughts

You can always rely on Clare Flynn to evoke a strong atmosphere in her novels – she writes so visually, but also has the knack of exploring the inner workings of her characters’ minds.

A glimmer of change in colonial attitudes in the early part of the 20th century was stuttering into life; Stella and Norton represent this. However, the indolent lifestyle, spoiled children and entitlement were dominant. Even the more kindly supporting characters are shown with a patronising attitude to the local population.

Women were still trapped in 1906 in a way that reminded me of Jane Austen’s women characters: the assumption that to be a valid member of society women had to be married, run a household and bear children. Academic study, let alone gaining a degree was out of the question. The only way to gain intellectual recognition was publishing work via the husband or father’s name.

The book does not fight shy of controversial issues nor does the author let up on tension. As I was reading, I truly hoped the heroine would prevail, but so many obstacles were stopping her. Flynn doesn’t let up but makes us think about her characters’ tough choices in the context of their time. and they are tough choices! 

The ending was satisfying but felt a little unresolved. I sincerely hope Clare Flynn is writing the sequel! 

Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers –  INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO,  AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO  and RETALIO,  and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories.  Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. JULIA PRIMA,  Roma Nova story set in the late 4th century, starts the Foundation stories. The sequel, EXSILIUM, is now out.

Find out more about Roma Nova, its origins, stories and heroines and taste world the latest contemporary thriller Double Identity… Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email update. As a result, you’ll be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.