Charming Him: An Odyssey in Research
by Louisa Masters
I got the idea for this book while I was travelling through Europe last year. Not surprisingly, it was in Monaco, where the book is set, that Ben and Léo were introduced to my imagination. Since I’d been right there just a short time before, when I sat down to begin writing, I thought setting would be a piece of cake.
Yeah. Sure.
I hadn’t accounted for the fact that my visit to Monaco was rather different from Ben’s, and my experience there was completely different from Léo’s, who lives there. Not only did I find myself checking things with Google Maps, I also did a lot of googling about flight times and routes, where one can actually land a helicopter in Monaco (the answer: nowhere.), dress codes, décor (it’s definitely worth going to the website for the Casino de Monte-Carlo and doing the virtual tour—wow!), the cost of top-end bespoke suits, luxury cars (in which I am a lot like Ben, in that I have no real interest, but was totally wowed by Léo’s), and a bunch of other stuff, including champagne.
Ah, champagne. That was a heap of fun to research. I’d known that there was some ridiculously expensive bubbly in the world, but I hadn’t realized quite how much—or how expensive it was. I spent hours wading through pages of information. Léo is fabulously wealthy, but tends not to be flashy (except for the car), so I didn’t think his favorite champagne would come in a diamond-studded bottle (yes, there are diamond studded bottles out there. What happens to the bottle once it’s empty?). Ultimately, the champagne I settled on wasn’t the most expensive one out there, but a bottle still costs more than my monthly mortgage.
I came away from researching for this book with a lot more knowledge about what money can buy, if you have enough of it, and I have to admit, I had a lot of fun. It’s fascinating to peer into the lives of the wealthy sometimes!
After getting off on the wrong foot—as happens when one accuses a stranger of being part of the Albanian mafia—Ben and Léo's attraction blazes.
They both know one thing: this is not a typical holiday romance and they're not ready to say goodbye.
Amazon US: https://amzn.to/37Vaiw6