Her debut novel,
A Lady’s Guide to Fortune-Hunting, received rapturous reviews, and at just 27 Sophie Irwin is already on book two. She attended The Gryphon School and studied at Oxford, where her dissertation asserted that Georgette Heyer helped to win the Second World War…

When did you first discover a passion for historical romantic fiction?
I started reading historical romance when my Grannie gave me a stack of old Georgette Heyer books when I was around 13. They belonged to my Grandad, who had died the year before, and she thought I might enjoy them – she was right, and as soon as I read the first one (Arabella) I was hooked. It was Heyer that got me into Austen, though their influence runs in the reverse, and I love them both for their wit, cleverness and romance – their sharply drawn characters and warm, knowing narrative. Historical romances are simply the best form of escapism that I have ever known and it’s a passion I will never tire of.

Explain your curious dissertation that ‘Georgette Heyer helped to win World War 2’?
Perhaps it was a little hyperbolic to say she won World War 2… But not by much! My dissertation was exploring the fact that the popularity of historical romance generally – and Georgette Heyer specifically – peaked massively during the Second World War. It was a phenomenon noticed at the time, anecdotally, in surveys, and in the media: The Times in 1939 called reading for pleasure “our safest refuge from the mental torment of war” (The Bookseller, in 1940, also wrote very snippily that public taste by 1940 was “mere drunk and disorderly novel reading”, which is so funny).
With bombing, rationing and pervasive fear eroding the national mood, the UK turned to Regency Romance as a vital form of escapism – one that, I believe, bolstered national spirit and enabled people to carry on. Heyer herself as aware of this, writing to her publisher – with her usual self-deprecation – that “I think myself I ought to be shot for writing such nonsense, but it’s unquestionably good escapist literature; and I think I should rather like it if I were sitting in an air-raid shelter”.
This was a pattern that was to continue – in times of peak international stress, we turn to Heyer and Austen and historical romance more than any other genre. As we all saw, in the early months of the pandemic in 2020.

What attracts you to the Regency period specifically?
The Regency period was so short – only a sliver of a decade at the close of the Georgian period – that its appeal could seem disproportionately enormous. But I think the fleeting nature of the period is a huge part of its appeal. The Regency years were the last, brightest days of Georgian decadence: a decade famed for its elegance and wit, before the slow onset of Victorian puritanism. And the close attendance to rituals and rules amongst all the revelry, the Regency seems to provide the most glittering, lavish and fascinating setting possible. It was a time of cultural and material excess and the novels set in this time lean all the way into its frivolity and vibrancy – the antithesis to whatever stress or weariness that might be plaguing you. You only have to look at the words used to review Regency romances – always ‘bubbly’, ‘sparkling’, ‘frothy’ – to understand that their livening and reinvigorating experience.
It’s the perfect backdrop for a comedy of manners – which is the genre of novel that most commonly finds its home here.

Were you inspired by Bridgerton’s revival in the nation’s passion for historical drama and romance?
I started my novel in 2019, a while before Bridgerton came to screens, so I wouldn’t say I was inspired by the TV series – though I did love it! And it was brilliant for introducing so many readers to the genre, who might never otherwise have realised how fabulous it is.

How do you think it is relevant in 2022?
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that Regency Romance is having such a revival at the moment, given the intensely stressful and uncertain times the world has just experienced. Historical romances are built for stress relief. It’s in their bones.
For time-pressed and stressed readers living through the unprecedented, a genre that is witty, adventurous, romantic and that guarantees a happy ending by its very DNA, is one of the safest and most comforting spaces there is – which is why it amuses me when critics of the genre cite its predictability, its dependence upon tropes, as proof somehow of its stupidity. The predictability is the whole point! And within this framework, romance writers do hard and clever work, following and bending and flirting with the genre’s rules to still create excitement, tension, and sense of danger and stakes, for a reader who starts the novel knowing the ending!
How important is a strong-willed heroine in today’s fictional narrative?
I think there has always been an appetite for strong-willed heroines – determined against all the odds, soldiering through whatever adversity the plot is throwing at them – though I think the difference now is that we’re also more interested in exploring more nuanced heroines. The role of heroine is becoming more complex, more three-dimensional and more varied, and I think this is really important – for so long, popular culture has tended to represent women quite simplistically, and I think it’s exciting to see so many more different versions of what a heroine can look and act like.

Explain the ladylike fortune-hunter…
The title is meant to be a bit pithy, a bit funny – lady to reference the time period, and then to contrast with the fortune hunting, which is really not a ladylike activity – to give a clear sense of the plot, and to show that the novel plays with the genre a little. Historically in Regency romances, the villains are fortune hunters and the heroines are morally pure women who would never pursue a man for his money – in my book this is flipped, where the heroine is the fortune hunter, and alongside all of the usual romance and escapades, the book also explores the difficulty of being a woman at this time, and disorders some of the gender norms of the time, bringing perhaps a bit of a modern perspective/sensibility to bear on the genre.

How do you think the book might be received by modern young feminist women?
Genres written for women by women are often degenerated as silly, worthless and/or dangerous (unsurprisingly, given that feminine enjoyment has always been a source of suspicion and ridicule, throughout history, no matter what it is women are enjoying) and then also on the other hand as perpetuating damaging views on gender roles (the hero as provider etc, women as needing rescuing).
I think on both counts, women’s escapist fiction is cleverer and more valuable than society sees it – and is often doing fascinating interrogations of gender and feminism, deep below the surface, all while delivering huge enjoyment in spades, which isn’t something that can always be said for the very literary and worthy novels of the age.
One of my key hopes for my novel is that it might show some readers who wouldn’t think the genre is for them, that it can be – especially young women!

What other projects do you have on the go?
Although it’s a standalone title, my next book is in the Lady’s Guide series, set in the same world, and in the same period, exploring the life of Eliza, the Dowager Countess of Somerset, who finds herself suddenly rich and independent after the death of her (awful) husband. It’s going to be a lot of fun… I used to work as an editor (on the other side of the fence), and I still edit part-time around writing.

Who has been your biggest inspirational influence?
I’d have to say Georgette Heyer – or Jane Austen, because without knowing it they did so much for other women (providing so many generations so many hours of enjoyment) and I that’s one of the noblest things I can think of.

A Lady’s Guide to Fortune-Hunting
by Sophie Irwin;
HB, HarperCollins, £14.99