You can't help but ask the most beloved author of contemporary romance. Even though she's heard the question many times, the answer is disconcerting. What is love? "Is it bad if I say I haven't the faintest idea?" Felicia Kingsley, author of 17 bestsellers, translated in twenty countries, and three and a half million copies sold, is honest: "Every story reveals a different way of loving, so it's difficult to define." Ultimately, however, she offers a kind word about the most misunderstood and universal feeling, of which the thirty-eight-year-old Emilian writer is a brilliant interpreter: "Love pushes us to overcome natural human selfishness, taking us beyond our individualism."
Love—the passionate, erotic, and overwhelming kind—is once again the subject of her latest novel, "The Hollywood Scandal," published by Newton Compton Editori. In Cagliari, her only Sardinian date, she will present it on Saturday in the Winter Garden at Palazzo Doglio. At 5:30 pm, she will have a conversation with Giuditta Sireus, artistic director of the Jane Austen Club, which is organizing the event (which sold out in less than an hour after its announcement), followed by a book signing from 7:00 to 8:30 pm. The conversation with Felicia Kingsley, pen name Serena Artioli, is the highlight of the tenth edition of "Literary December," the Jane Austen club's festival.
On one side Sofia Cortez, and her frustrated ambitions as a reporter for major investigative stories, on the other Hayden West, the king of gossip: the novel is a lively confrontation between two strong personalities.
«The dual point of view is something I use often, I've experimented with it in other novels and I enjoy it because it allows me to tell the story through both characters, showing their differences».
It is also a challenge between two opposing ways of interpreting journalism.
The two protagonists represent two very different worlds that, at a certain point, learn to coexist and support each other: what seems like simple gossip turns out to be the tip of the iceberg, something much more serious and related to an international news story that actually happened.
In the novel, gossip is a form of power: is it a criticism of society?
"No, not at all. I don't demonize gossip; it used to be called social commentary. It's useful: it allows us to grasp social changes, and I myself view it that way."
Is your background as an architect useful in your writing?
"What I learned in architecture has become my working method: I design the book as if it were a building, defining characters, plot, twists, and ending. It's my natural way of writing."
She's a prolific author: what matters more in writing: method or inspiration?
"I'd like to have a method and a routine, but I'm inconsistent: sometimes I write a lot, other times I don't touch the keyboard. This makes it difficult to meet deadlines, even though in the end it's always the idea that guides me, because without it I can't write."
Your novels recur with the theme of rivalry between a man and a woman that later turns into ardent love. Why are these stories so popular?
Fiction thrives on conflict: without it, there's no story. As Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet says, we always tell the hero's journey, and in romance, that journey is falling in love, not everyday life. Consequently, I describe the meeting, the attraction, the differences to overcome, and the final decision to stay together: the further apart the two start, the more interesting the journey becomes.
Today we are all more confident with our emotions, yet it is still difficult to express our feelings. Why?
"Feelings make us vulnerable, and that's why we struggle to expose them: handing them over to someone also means giving them the power to hurt us, for example by not reciprocating. We're therefore more protected when we keep them to ourselves, waiting to see if the other person is willing to lay themselves bare like us."
More than two centuries after “Pride and Prejudice,” is Mr. Darcy still the ideal man?
Everyone has their ideal, but the perfect man doesn't exist, and in romance novels, protagonists often end up resembling each other. In romance novels, however, we know we're reading fiction; they're two or three hours of escape, like a mystery or fantasy, which lightens the burden of everyday life without creating false expectations about real life.
How much do you draw from your experience in outlining the characters?
"In general, not so much. Only in "Stronze si nasce" did I create a character inspired by a personal experience, a toxic friendship with a fake friend. Otherwise, my characters are invented and constructed to suit the plot."
Which of your protagonists is most like you?
«None are in my image and likeness, but there are small traits, all my own quirks, in each of them».
Your novels are beloved by young readers. What's your relationship with the community, and how do you cultivate it?
"Every day I share a little of myself on social media: not just promotion, but also the story of the publishing world as I've come to know it, including my mistakes and my experience working with professionals. I believe the community deserves something more, not just an invitation to buy my books."
