Fiction Scribe

Today we welcome Catherine Delors to the site to talk about her book Mistress of the Revolution as well as about what inspires her.

I hope you’ll join me in welcoming her to the site.

Hello and thank you for stopping at Fiction Scribe, Ms. Delors. Tell the readers a bit about yourself.

Well, I was born, raised and educated in France. I came to America as an adult and became an attorney in California. I have been practicing law for over ten years. Now I split my time between Paris and Los Angeles. It’s a fairly complicated life, but I like it this way.

What brought you into the world of writing? When did you start?

Mistress of the Revolution is my first book. I began thinking of it in late 2004. I wrote a few chapters at random and, before I knew it, I was hooked.

You are currently on virtual tour for your novel Mistress of the Revolution. Could you tell us a bit about the book?

Mistress of the Revolution is a fictional memoir by a French noblewoman exiled in England. It is supposed to have been written in 1815, at the time of the collapse of Napoleon’s regime. My heroine, Gabrielle, now middle-aged, reflects on her past. And political events once again overtake her personal life. It is the story of a woman who tries to keep her humanity through adversity.

What inspired you to write Mistress of the Revolution? Where did the idea begin?

The idea came from a conversation I had with my late father. We were talking about the name of a street in the little mountain town where I had spent all of my summers as a child. It was named, my father told me, after Pierre-André Coffinhal, Vice President of the Revolutionary Tribunal. I knew nothing of that character, though the street itself had always been familiar to me.

So I began to look into Coffinhal’s life. I found a perfect novel character, in fact. That immediately piqued my curiosity, about him, and about the whole French Revolution.

What character do you relate to the most and why?

Without any doubt, the character closest to my heart is Gabrielle, my narrator. Mistress of the Revolution is told in the first-person and often I had to put myself in Gabrielle’s shoes. Yet 200 years separate us. Gabrielle in many ways resembles me, but our circumstances are totally different. I was fortunate enough to receive an education and many other opportunities that were denied to women in the 18th century.

What is your favourite part of the book?

I have many favorite parts in the book. I am fickle, and sometimes one part moves me more than another, depending on my mood.

I particularly like the passage when Gabrielle interacts with her granddaughter in England. She is stricken by the child’s resemblance, in looks and manners, to her late husband. It is the blend of love and hate, of the present and the distant past that draws me to that passage.

As for the passage I had most pleasure writing, it is probably the scene at the Opera, when Gabrielle meets Villers, Lauzun and the Duke d’Orleans.

What draws you about writing?

Writing makes me forget the things that don’t go quite right in my life. It is a tremendous source of joy. I find it completely addictive.

Are there any authors who have inspired you in your writing?

Many! Jane Austen, because I love her novels, especially Persuasion, and also because she would have been a contemporary of Gabrielle, my heroine. So I tried, in my own modest way, to copy Jane’s style.

I also love sweeping romantic stories, like Wuthering Heights, and Doctor Zhivago. And French 19th century novels as well: Bel-Ami, by Maupassant, Balzac, Flaubert. While I was writing, I didn’t realize that I drew much of my inspiration from these works, but when the book was completed, one of my first readers said: “Wow, it’s like Doctor Zhivago, only set during the French Revolution!� You cannot imagine how happy it made me to hear my novel compared to that book I admire so much.

What are you working on now?

I just completed my second novel, also a historical set in Paris a few years after Mistress of the Revolution. I started working on the third one, but the going is very slow, because the promotion of Mistress of the Revolution is taking up most of my free time.

What are your dreams for your writing?

I believe that I have the same dreams as any other writer: I want people to read my book, to love it, to be moved by it, to continue thinking of it once they are done reading.

When you are not writing novels, what do you do? How do you find time to write?

I have two day jobs: I am a mother and an attorney. I write during my “freeâ€? time, which means late at night and whenever I have any down time during the day. I don’t sleep very much…

Do you have any advice for writers?

Don’t get discouraged. Work harder at perfecting your writing. Keep trying. Start a second book and put to good use the skills you learned writing the first one. And don’t ever get bitter.

Thank you very much for your time.