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<\/p>\nIt was nearly 40 years ago that Philippa Gregory\u2019s debut novel, Wideacre, was published, lauded at the time as a \u201cbodice-ripper with brains\u201d given the number of sex scenes which it contained. <\/p>\n
The Georgian England romp, published in 1987, is being adapted by Happy Prince, the team behind last year\u2019s TV production of Jilly Cooper\u2019s Rivals \u2014 but Gregory is expecting to find the promotion a bit \u201cweird\u201d. <\/p>\n
Everybody will want to talk to her about sex when the TV series comes out, she predicts. But sex, in her experience, is something that she has felt \u201cdifferent about at different stages\u201d of her life.<\/p>\n
Gregory, now 71, said: \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a little bit weird to be talking about the joys of sex, when it\u2019s not the most important thing any more.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s different writing about it when you\u2019re at peak sexual activity and pre-children. You feel different about sex at different stages of your life. Or at any rate, I do. I don\u2019t know if everybody does, but I certainly see a change in my own personal sexuality and libido, and certainly that\u2019s reflected in the writing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gregory, whose bestselling novel The Other Boleyn Girl was adapted in 2008 into film starring Natalie Portman as Anne Boleyn and Scarlett Johansson as Mary Boleyn, said she is still very interested in using sex as a metaphor within her work.<\/p>\n
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The production company behind Rivals, Happy Prince, is adapting Philippa Gregory\u2019s first novel<\/p>\n
ROBERT VIGLASKY<\/p>\n
In her upcoming novel, Boleyn Traitor, which will be published next month, she has included \u201ctender\u201d lovemaking between the courtier Thomas Culpeper and Henry VIII\u2019s fifth wife, Catherine Howard.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cI was so glad to have in the heart of this novel \u2014 which is about male power and male toxicity \u2014 a relationship which really suggests the possibilities of an equal, tender, loving, passionate sexual relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n
The main character in the novel is the lady-in-waiting Jane Boleyn, better known as Lady Rochford, the sister-in-law of Anne Boleyn, who served five of Henry VIII\u2019s six wives.<\/p>\n
Jane was executed at the Tower of London in February 1542, condemned for facilitating Catherine Howard\u2019s infidelities, an act of treason. Gregory believes that Jane may have been a spy for Thomas Cromwell.<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cIt\u2019s not history \u2014 it\u2019s speculation. It\u2019s putting together things. So I\u2019m publishing it as a novel, but what normally happens when I say something in a novel, quite often a historian will then check it out and they will find evidence which we haven\u2019t found.\u201d <\/p>\n
Gregory, born in Kenya while her father was serving as a radio operator and navigator for East African Airways, has written more than 40 books that have been translated into more than 30 languages and sold more than 12 million copies.<\/p>\n
\u2022 The Other Boleyn Girl review \u2014 stylish with solid performances<\/a><\/p>\n Like a growing number of people, she now lives in a multi-generational home \u2014 mainly with her daughter, Victoria, in Leicestershire, but also with her son, Adam, in Haringey, north London.<\/p>\n She explained: \u201cI live with my daughter and son-in-law. We\u2019ve got two wings of our house. Post-Covid, we bought a house together, and they have one wing and they have their own front door and kitchen \u2026[Victoria] will pop in and she\u2019ll say: \u2018Should we have a glass of wine?\u2019 And we\u2019ll sit in the garden and we\u2019ll have a glass of wine. It\u2019s just lovely.\u201d<\/p>\n Gregory, who has been divorced three times, describes her daughter\u2019s two young sons as \u201cthe loves of my life\u201d.<\/p>\n She said her son \u201cobserved quite closely\u201d when she was living with his sister for about six months, and then suggested they do the same thing in London. <\/p>\n