Interview with April J. Skelly

I always enjoy encountering a new, well-written cozy mystery, and A Lethal Engagement, which kicks off a new historical series set during the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is a gem. Among other things, the Gilded Age was a time when the daughters of rich US robber barons married impoverished European noblemen. Cora Beaumont is in this category, and when we meet her, her engagement to the second son of a duke has been contracted but not announced. You can find out more about what happens next from this interview with April J. Skelling, Cora’s creator.

I’ve read a lot of historical mysteries, but I don’t remember ever encountering one set on an airship. And what an airship! It might as well be a Cunard liner. What inspired you to set this novel there, and what can you say about the ship itself?

I have always been fascinated with the Titanic—even from the time I was a small girl. When I started really looking at writing a Victorian murder mystery, I loved the idea of a locked room mystery aboard an ocean liner … but that’s been done (very well!) several times before. I wanted something that would add a unique twist, and then I thought, what if it was an airship? I tried to take all the opulence of those famed ocean liners and put it into an airship, and the Lady Air took flight!

Your main character is Cora Beaumont, a young lady we might today call a “dollar princess.” But she, too, is quite unusual for her time and place. What brings her to the Lady Air?

I did take some historical liberties with Cora as an American heiress. A Lethal Engagement is set before Consuelo Vanderbilt’s engagement to the Duke of Marlborough, but by 1890 daughters of wealthy American businessmen were marrying into the British aristocracy. I did try to give Cora some of that American spirit that tended to set American women apart from their more reserved English counterparts, though Cora’s English friend, Ophelia Hortense, is quite plucky.

A Lethal Engagement is also set at a time ripe with political tensions as the women’s suffragette movement gained traction. 1890 was a pivotal time, for women and society, and the changes those things would mean for the men of the day as well. I wanted to capture some of that tension, some of that desire and uncertainty in Cora. She longs for her freedom but still has ties to the society in which she was raised. She became a wonderfully complex character for me to create.

From the moment we meet her fiancé, Terrance Tristan, he seems a bit underwhelmed by his engagement. What can you tell us about him?

Terrance Tristan, bless the man, underwent many changes over the course of writing this book. It took me a long time to figure out his character, but at the beginning of the book, when he is first engaged to Cora, I believe he’s mourning the loss of his freedom and is quite nervous about his impending nuptials—feelings I’d expect wouldn’t be terribly out of place with an arranged marriage. And then I dove deeper into his character … but you’ll have to read the book to find out what I discovered about him.

Cora actually seems to get along better with Nicholas, Terrance’s older brother—an awkward situation, to be sure. Could you say a bit about that?

As the elder brother and the heir, Nicholas feels it’s his duty to ensure the safety of all members of his family, and that it’s his job to make sure they remain unscathed by scandal and ill repute. This puts him in a natural position to interact with Cora without all the awkwardness that surfaces between Terrance and Cora due to their recent engagement. The pressures surrounding Nicholas are different than the ones surrounding Terrance; however, all those pressures get confounded when Nicholas is dragged into a murder investigation with Cora. Then the real fun begins.

Before we get to the mystery, I also have to ask you about Lady Ophelia Hortense Davenport, known as Phee to her friends. She’s also a rather unconventional Victorian lady (at least according to our general misperceptions of Victorian ladies). Introduce us to her, please.

Lady Ophelia Hortense Davenport is not the quintessential Victorian lady—at least not when one looks underneath the surface. Phee quite knows how to act the part … until no one is looking. If Cora was going to be a brash American heiress, she needed an audacious partner in crime. With A Lethal Engagement also being a murder mystery, multiple body drops can get a bit heavy. Phee became the comic relief and also one of my favorite characters in the book.

This is often an amusing book, despite the seriousness of murder. One of the humorous elements is two very conventional Victorian ladies, Tilly Remlaude and Georgiana Nyland. What is their role in the novel?

I figured if I was going to flout convention in two of the main cast of characters, I should also represent the conventional Victorian lady. The two became foils, as I think they probably often were in real Victorian circles. The English and the American societies that merged during the course of all the Gilded Age marriages were two ends of a spectrum. They didn’t always mesh well, just like Cora and Tilly Remlaude. There is an underlying enmity simply due to what each character represents. It’s compounded when both women want the same thing.

Nonetheless, this is a murder mystery. Could you set up the crime for us, and explain how Cora and Nicholas become involved in solving it?

Without giving too much away, the mutilated body of a young suffragette is discovered, and it falls to Cora as the owner of the Lady Air to discover who has committed this heinous act aboard her airship. As Cora will not be persuaded otherwise, Nicholas feels he has no choice but to become involved as well, both to protect Cora and the Tristan reputation. But when another body is discovered …

Are you already working on a sequel, and if so, could you give a few hints about what to expect?

I am! I’m actually about 2/3 of the way through the first draft of a sequel that I do hope will eventually make its way into the world. We have largely the same cast of characters, but this time, our locked room mystery takes place during one of the opening balls of the season. Society is terrified and sensationalized—it appears that Jack the Ripper may be back, and not even the royal family is above suspicion. The bodies of women are dotting London, their hearts and other internal organs missing. Cora is at odds with the Tristan matriarch, and neither Terrance nor Nicholas may be able to help her this time. And she will need all the help she can get, when the killer puts a target on Cora’s heart.

Thank you so much for answering my questions!

It’s been my pleasure! Thank you so much for having me!

Writing books full of murder, mayhem, sometimes magic, and always kissing, April J. Skelly is an author, reader, and lover of all things fantasy, medieval, and fairy-tale-romance. As an avid life-long reader and a former high school English teacher, she’s always been fascinated with the written word. A Lethal Engagement is her latest novel. Find out more about her and her books at https://www.ajskelly.com.

Photograph of April J. Skelly © Nate Vogel. Reproduced with permission.