Hello! Today we are excited to chat with Darcy Burke to celebrate the release of the boxed set of her Phoenix Club series, books 5-8!

Welcome! Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what got you into writing? I started reading romance in junior high school and apparently that’s when I started writing. A friend of mine from that time says she remembers me sitting on my bed writing! (I do not remember this.)

What inspired you to write Historical Romances? Historical romance was my first love. My mom says I started reading her Harlequins, but I don’t remember those. I do remember reading her Kathleen Woodiwiss and falling deeply in love with her books. I also read a lot of Victoria Hold and similar books when I was younger. I went on to get a degree I history, so I have always been enchanted with the past!

What do you enjoy most about writing Historical Romances, and what do you enjoy the least? I enjoy the research and the history. I like transporting to another time without actually living there without antibiotics, hot running water, and flushing toilets! There is nothing I don’t enjoy about writing historical romance. I suppose sometimes it can be hard to find exactly the information I’m looking for.

What are some of your favorite tropes in Historical Romances? Are there any you don’t enjoy as much? My all-time favorite trope is secret or hidden identity. I love a big reveal! I also love found family and a group of family or friends that I and readers can get to know and spend time with over several books. The one trope I have never cared for is secret baby. I can’t get over a character not telling a parent they have a child. When one parent thinks the other is dead, I can excuse it, but it’s still not a story I enjoy.

What inspired this series in particular? As a parent to a neurodivergent kid, I’ve seen first hand what it looks like to be excluded (and I’m sure we’ve all been excluded at some point in some way, I know I have) and I wanted to write a series about a club that strove to be inclusive, started by a guy who, as a second son whose father was very hard on him, had felt somewhat excluded. The Phoenix Club is a place where people can come together and find themselves or even rise from the ashes of something.

When writing a long series such as The Phoenix Club books, how do you go about planning it? Do you have a set number of books in mind from the start? I do tend to plan a certain number of books, but that’s something I’ve learned along the way. When I first started The Untouchables series, I had planned a prequel and four books. The series sold so well and became so popular, that I ended up writing 12 books and then two spin-off trilogies. With the Phoenix Club, I had an eight book plan with an overarching plot regarding the club and specifically the club’s owner who was the hero of the final book. That book is the longest book I’ve published!

Of books 5-8, which characters’ story did you enjoy telling the most and why? I don’t like to choose favorites, but I really loved Impossible. The heroine, Ada, was such a joy to write. I also loved Insatiable. The heroine is autistic like my daughter and we had great conversations about how I should write certain scenes.

Is there a minor character in the series that you’d love to give their own book one day? I think about writing a story for Mrs. Tallent in Impossible. After her husband died, she was running his farm on the hero’s estate. Then she becomes the estate’s steward. I have ideas and may write her story at some point.

If one of The Phoenix Club books were to be adapted into a movie or show, which one would you pick, and who would you cast as the couple? The whole series has to be adapted, lol. Seriously, I couldn’t choose just one. It’s such a great group of family and friends that it would be perfect for a bingeable streaming series. Eight seasons with eight episodes each. That’s the only way to do it justice.

Darcy Burke is the USA Today Bestselling Author of sexy, emotional historical and contemporary romance. Darcy wrote her first book at age 11, a happily ever after about a swan addicted to magic and the female swan who loved him, with exceedingly poor illustrations. Click here to Join her Reader Club.

A native Oregonian, Darcy lives on the edge of wine country with her guitar-strumming husband, artist daughter, and imaginative son who will almost certainly out-write her one day (that may be tomorrow).

They’re a crazy cat family with two Bengal cats, a small, fame-seeking cat named after a fruit, an older rescue Maine Coon with attitude to spare, and a collection of neighbor cats who hang out on the deck and occasionally venture inside. You can find Darcy at a winery, in her comfy writing chair, or binge-watching TV with the family.

Her happy places are Disneyland, Labor Day weekend at the Gorge, Denmark, and anywhere in the UK—so long as her family is there too.