Spotlight & Giveaway: Becoming Madam Secretary by Stephanie Dray

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Stephanie Dray to HJ!

Hi Stephanie and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Becoming Madam Secretary!

 
Hello Reader Friends!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

In the heart of New York City, at the dawn of a new century, Frances Perkins wields her parasol not just as a shield against the sun, but as a symbol of her determination to forge a path of change. Her days are spent in the service of children in Hell’s Kitchen, but it’s the nights in Greenwich Village that awaken her heart. Surrounded by the likes of Mary Harriman Rumsey, Sinclair Lewis, and the enigmatic Paul Wilson, Frances finds herself entangled in a web of passion, intellect, and reform. Yet, it’s her fiery encounters with Franklin Delano Roosevelt that truly test her resolve. Initially clashing with the future President, Frances embarks on a tumultuous journey of love, ambition, and partnership that will challenge every belief she holds dear. As they navigate the treacherous waters of politics and personal sacrifice, Frances must confront what she’s willing to risk for love and country. Will their historic partnership flourish amidst adversity, or will it succumb to the pressures of public life and personal loss?
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

I didn’t think much of Franklin Delano Roosevelt when I first met him. But in my defense, almost no one who met him in those days dreamed he’d amount to much.He wasn’t born a great man, and I’m not even sure he was a good one. Goodness and greatness came later. When I met him, he was still an insufferable popinjay . . .

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

At heart, this is an enemies to lovers story. It’s not that Frances Perkins and Franklin Roosevelt were sexual partners; they weren’t. But they were political soulmates and it was hysterical to watch them clash at the beginning of the book when she loathed him for being such an arrogant dilettante and he thought she was a stuffy bluestocking. How that evolved into a friendship with tons of chemistry that changed world history was absolutely a delight to write.
 

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

The true romantic hero of Becoming Madam Secretary is Paul Wilson, the man who won Miss Perkins’ elusive heart. He was a passionate reformer who was obsessed with rooting out corruption at City Hall and busting up the gangs of New York City. He was also an economist, so Frances was deeply attracted to his brilliant mind. Of course, it helped that he was rich and handsome. What attracted him to Frances was, of course, that she was every bit as brilliant and the fun-loving kind of woman who could throw back a bourbon, gamble the night away, and attend church in a prim hat the next morning.
 

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

I cried so many times while writing this book. Especially during the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. And all the difficulties she had with her beloved Paul. In a particularly dark moment, she wrote, “Thank you for the years of grace dear soul, thank you for the days of peace and thank you for the hours of bliss no longer mine. I always knew that these must end, their span brief––I was not born to constant happiness, and if my heart is wrenched, my spirit low, now that these are gone, I thank you none the less that I have known the touch of love, the days of comradeship—the moment, oh so brief, when I was not alone. And if the pattern of my life is loneliness then all the more I sing in joy to know the days of comradeship, and by the glow of those beloved days I will warm my heart for all the rest of my long life.”
 

Readers should read this book….

because Frances Perkins was the most important woman in American history, bar none. Her influence is felt in every American life even a century later. And because hers is a compelling story of passion, politics and patriotism all wrapped up in one.
 

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

I am currently working with writer bestie Laura Kamoie on a new book about Abigail Adams, which will be called A Founding Mother. We are both very excited to return to our revolutionary roots.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: Happy to give away A copy of BECOMING MADAM SECRETARY, open Internationally so long as it can be delivered by Blackwells.

Also, for all who go to StephanieDray.com and sign up for my Historical Book of the Month Newsletter, you’ll get a free ebook, The Gingerbread Princess, which is a fairytale retelling.

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Do you have a sprinkler system in your workplace? When you last ate a restaurant, was your food free of rat droppings? Did you go to school as a child instead of working at a factory? Have you ever enjoyed a weekend off from work? Do you or anyone you know collect a social security check? If so, you can thank Frances Perkins! Her accomplishments are everywhere around us. If she were alive today, what issue would you want her to tackle in the workplace or elsewhere?

 
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Excerpt from Becoming Madam Secretary:

South Beach wasn’t as idyllic as the Damariscotta River, where I spent the summers of my youth canoeing in Maine. But it was the most natural countryside New York had to offer.
After a picnic lunch of sandwiches and a bit of walnut fudge, my friends and I all went into the water. In those days, women wore the kinds of bathing suits that made it impossible to swim. Mine was a black-and-white-striped taffeta bathing costume with matching silk stockings and lace-up slippers, the weight of which was sure to drag me under. So I held fast to the rope from the dock and jumped through the waves with Mary Harriman Rumsey.
Mary probably owned a beach or two, but she never lorded her money over us. Meanwhile, Red stayed submerged neck-deep, clowning around with the occasional splash. I knew he was self-conscious about the way his one-piece striped bathing suit exposed his pale skin and the gauntness of his frame. I never teased him about it and I didn’t let my friends tease him either, but I did make sure he ate another sandwich because Red brought out a protective feeling in me.
Of course, that wasn’t the feeling he hoped for . . .
When our friends were collecting driftwood for a bonfire, Red gulped down the last bite of curried egg sandwich, somehow managing to spray crumbs all around him. He usually jumped up when he was finished eating, causing a great plume of sand that rained down on fellow picnickers. But this time he stayed put and said, “Marry me.”
I brushed crumbs off my arms. “You say that to all the girls.”
“Yes, but they’ve all given me the mitten.” He inched closer on my towel. “C’mon, sweets. Don’t be aloof. We’ve got a lot in common. For one thing, we’re both restless and dissatisfied with this cruel world.”
“The difference is you don’t think there’s a way to fix it.”
“Not true! Maybe a little true. But I promise that if you find a way, I’ll write about you.”
“Oh, well, in that case, fixing the world will be worth all the effort.”
He laughed. “Be serious. Don’t you ever think about getting hitched? I might be a tall, ugly, thin redhead, but I’m not, methinks, especially stupid.”
“You’re not ugly and you have a fine mind,” I insisted. He was strange-looking, but my affections for him were such that I imagined I could see his inner beauty like an aura around him. I was still young enough to imagine mystical things like that, like one of the romantic heroines in my short stories . . .
“Then why not marry me?” Red asked.
“Because I’ve gone to a great deal of trouble of getting an education, and now I need to do something with it. Mrs. Kelley is entrusting me with convincing the state to adopt a fifty-four-hour workweek, and I cannot do it if I must also care for a husband and a home.”
“Doesn’t Mrs. Kelley have a husband and a home?”
“Not anymore,” I confided, lowering my voice, because it was still a scandal. “Her husband was a cruel louse and she divorced him. Yet another reminder of why I should be wary of marriage and concentrate on convincing the legislature to adopt my bill.”
“What will happen if you can’t convince the legislature?”
I swallowed hard because a bill like ours had already been struck down by the courts. But Mrs. Kelley was counting on my youthful energy and new ideas. “Well, if I cannot get it passed, Mrs. Kelley is likely to fire me, and then maybe I will be forced to give this work up and get married after all.”
Red grinned. “Then I’m rooting against you!”
I had been teasing before, but now I was serious. “You don’t dare if we’re to remain friends.”
He gauged me and said, “Oh, all right, don’t have a conniption. But haven’t you ever been in love with a man?”
“Yes, once . . .”
“Did you break his heart?”
Wiggling my toes in the sand, I decided to confess, “He broke mine.”
Red sobered. “Who was he?”
“Just a classmate at Wharton.”
“The villain enters stage right,” Red quipped. “Was he bookish and bespectacled or devilishly handsome?”
“Both. And terribly persuasive. He talked me into registering with the Socialist Party because it’s the only party that supported women’s suffrage.”
“So where did the romance go sour?”
“Well, he came to believe I wasn’t a good Socialist. He accused me of looking for ways to make the existing system better instead of upending the entire class structure, to all of which I pled guilty. And that was the end of love.”
Red tried to make sympathetic noises.
Really he did.
But in the end he burst into laughter. “Only you would get your heart broken over an economic theory. But don’t worry, I’ll stay sweet on you even if you become a dirty capitalist and make a million dollars.”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

She took on titans, battled generals, and changed the world as we know it…

New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Dray returns with a captivating and dramatic new novel about an American heroine Frances Perkins.

Raised on tales of her revolutionary ancestors, Frances Perkins arrives in New York City at the turn of the century, armed with her trusty parasol and an unyielding determination to make a difference.

When she’s not working with children in the crowded tenements in Hell’s Kitchen, Frances throws herself into the social scene in Greenwich Village, befriending an eclectic group of politicians, artists, and activists, including the millionaire socialite Mary Harriman Rumsey, the flirtatious budding author Sinclair Lewis, and the brilliant but troubled reformer Paul Wilson, with whom she falls deeply in love.

But when Frances meets a young lawyer named Franklin Delano Roosevelt at a tea dance, sparks fly in all the wrong directions. She thinks he’s a rich, arrogant dilettante who gets by on a handsome face and a famous name. He thinks she’s a priggish bluestocking and insufferable do-gooder. Neither knows it yet, but over the next twenty years, they will form a historic partnership that will carry them both to the White House.

Frances is destined to rise in a political world dominated by men, facing down the Great Depression as FDR’s most trusted lieutenant—even as she struggles to balance the demands of a public career with marriage and motherhood. And when vicious political attacks mount and personal tragedies threaten to derail her ambitions, she must decide what she’s willing to do—and what she’s willing to sacrifice—to save a nation.
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Meet the Author:

Stephanie Dray is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, & USA Today bestselling author of historical women’s fiction. Her award-winning work has been translated into many languages and tops lists for the most anticipated reads of the year. She lives near Maryland with her husband, cats, and history books.
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