“I’ve been working toward a girl gang my whole career,” the author tells EW.
“The Avengers, but make it MacLean.”
“This story is very much about women who live in between worlds,” MacLean tells EW.
Avon
“Which is something that women have to do generally in the world.”
Bombshelldrops Aug. 24, but EW can exclusively reveal the sinfully gorgeous cover for the novel below.
Check it out and read more from MacLean below.
What made you decide to give them a full book, and why was now the time?
SARAH MACLEAN:I had an idea for Hell’s Belles.
Bareknuckle Bastards is set in Covent Garden.
The tavern fromDay of the Duchessis in Covent Garden.
These are these characters are still all here.
Sesily and Caleb were inWicked and the Wallflower, which was the first book in Bareknuckle Bastards.
That’s when I started to noodle the idea of Hell’s Belles.
So the novella got put away as a concept.
Your books are always feminist, but they often engage with the discourse happening in our contemporary world.
How would you sayBombshelldoes that?
As people whose anger and frustration can really move a needle.
I’m really interested in how women are portrayed historically in all of these spaces.
What the first book does explore is spaces that are for women.
And I’m talking about all women cis women and het women and queer women and trans women.
Spaces where women can thrive.
Spaces where they feel safe.
I’m really interested in the way that the world views women as dangerous.
People have to take care around women.
All your titles in the series, though not announced, will have that duality.
What appealed to you about that?
All my books are somehow about the way the world views women and the way women mold the world.
And the way the world attempts to change us and the way we we end up changing it.
The world attempts to change women in so many ways.
And one of the ways that it attempts to change women is by using these weaponized words.
This cover is so beautiful: the dark colors, the red brocade and velvet gown.
It has the darkness of Bareknuckle Bastards, but also something more sinful or romantic.
Can you explain conceptually what your conversations were like?
The Belles are the next logical leap for me as a creator.
It feels like I’ve been working toward a girl gang my whole career and here we are.
We all live in between places.
It’s not just women; it’s other marginalized people too.
Romance does such a good job of painting the picture of those in-between experiences and in-between places.
And so with the cover, we kept coming back to this idea of [living in between].
We wanted it to feel modern, but also like a historical romance.
We wanted it to be sexy, and we wanted it to have a little bit of mystery.
Because every one of these books is going to tackle all of those things.
All of those things are in here, and I wanted the cover to say that.
As you mentioned, you really do have quite the collection of characters at this point.
Can we expect some other Sarah MacLean familiar faces to pop up?
So, we’ll see the bastards again.
I never want to leave my characters.
How would you say Hell’s Belles reflects your evolution as a writer?
It feels like I’m pulling my punches less now.
I feel like this is the new thing.
It’s a new setting for me, in some ways, because it’s getting more modern.
I’ve left behind the Regency squarely.
Where are their chaperones?"
What you’ll find here will be a little darker thanBridgerton.
It’ll be hopefully just as fun, but a little bit more of an adventure.
There will be brawls involving women.
There’s a rival gang.
Imagine the Bridgertons, but with a twist of action-adventure.
