Rebecca Rosenberg
Author Interview - Rebecca Rosenberg
Author of Madame Pommery, Creator of Brut Champagne and License to Thrill: Lily Bollinger (A Champagne Widows Novel
About License to Thrill: Lily Bollinger (A Champagne Widows Novel):
The Nazis wanted her wine. The critics wanted her downfall. Lily Bollinger gave them a legend.
1940: THE RESISTANCE Newly widowed and surrounded by war, Lily Bollinger faces a choice: surrender her heritage or fight. To save her house, she transforms into a steel-spined matriarch, outfoxing the Nazi "Wein Führer" in her own cellars while harboring Resistance fighters in the dark.
1967: THE COUNTER-ATTACK At sixty-eight, Lily is a legend, but her legacy is under siege. As her three quarrelsome nephews threaten the succession, the elite critic Cyril Ray dismisses her as an "aging widow" past her prime. To crush her rivals, Lily launches her most radical gamble yet: an unlikely partnership with a British spy named James Bond.
1975: THE FINAL RECKONING On her seventy-fifth birthday, the Grand Dame believes her accounts are settled. But a secret key arriving from her own "James" unlocks a final twist, redefining everything she thought she knew about the war, her heart, and her wine.
Based on a true story, Lily Bollinger survived the Nazis and outfoxed the critics, proving that becoming a legend is the most delicious revenge.
About Madame Pommery, Creator of Brut Champagne:
In 1870 Champagne, France, Madame Pommery becomes a widow with a late-in-life baby, a failing winery, when the Prussians invade France, making her home their headquarters. Madame Pommery must learn to break every rule she lived by to survive the Franco-Prussian War and create the most beautiful champagne house in the world.
Author Interview - Rebecca Rosenberg
Author I draw inspiration from:
2026: I’m a huge fan of Daphne du Maurier because of her ability to weave mystery into the mundane. She uses these highly specific, unreliable perspectives that force you to question every discovery alongside the protagonist. In My Cousin Rachel, for example, you spend the entire book oscillating between love and suspicion because you’re so locked into the narrator’s head. It makes for an incredibly immersive, unsettling experience.
2022: Dahpne du Maurier, Kate Quinn, Elizabeth Hutchison Bernard
Author Interview - Rebecca Rosenberg | Author I Draw Inspiration From
Favorite place to read a book:
2026: My favorite place to read is a bubble bath. It’s my version of a digital detox—no phone, no distractions, just total immersion in the story. It’s the perfect way to catch the subtle shifts in a novel, even if it means all my favorite paperbacks end up with 'pruney' pages from the steam.
2022: In a bubblebath with champagne or coffee
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with:
2026: In Rebecca Rosenberg’s Champagne Widows, Barbe-Nicole Clicquot isn't just a widow with a vineyard; she’s a 19th-century powerhouse with a literal superpower called Le Nez. This "Nose" is so sensitive she can practically smell a lie from across the Seine or detect a single rogue grape in a mountain of harvest. While everyone else in 1800s France was just trying to survive Napoleon, she was busy inventing the riddling rack to turn cloudy, mud-like wine into the crystal-clear champagne we drink today.
Stuck in an elevator, she would be an absolute nightmare of productivity. While you're frantically pressing the "Call" button, she’d be standing in the corner with her nostrils flaring like a Thoroughbred, diagnosing the elevator’s mechanical failure by the specific "notes" of scorched copper and industrial-grade lubricants. Before the fire department could even arrive, she’d have determined that the lift is just a poorly constructed bottle of bubbly—convinced that if she could just tilt the entire car at a precise angle and give us a brisk, daily quarter-turn, the mechanical "sediment" would settle in the ceiling and we’d be "riddled" back to the lobby in a state of sparkling perfection.
2022": Silver Dollar Tabor in the 2024 novel Silver Dollar by me, Rebecca Rosenberg! Because I am writing about Silver Dollar now, and she was a complicated and fascinating character during the roaring twenties-- a novelist, poet, movie actress, burlesque dancer and flapper. I would have like to talk some sense into her! Much like Zelda Fitzgerald!
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author:
2026: I knew I wanted to be an author when I realized my brain had become a waiting room for the most high-maintenance ghosts in history. It started when I discovered women like Charmian London, who co-wrote fifty books while Jack London took the credit, and Baby Doe Tabor, who went from silver mining royalty to a penniless hermit. Now, it’s a full-blown haunting. These women don't just 'inspire' me; they petition me in my dreams like a rowdy board of directors. Currently, my subconscious is being picketed by an Italian Circus Queen, Sarah Bernhardt—who apparently needs me to remind everyone she spent her spare time debunking mediums—and six Egyptian female Pharaohs who are tired of being 'hidden' in the footnotes of history. I’m not so much a writer as I am a secretary for a long line of historical heroines who refuse to be ignored anymore.
2022: When I found out about Baby Doe Tabor's story, I knew I would have to write a book about her.
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook:
2026: The "Literary Survivalist" Approach
"I’m a Kindle devotee purely for self-preservation. I like the idea of carrying an entire library in my purse without needing a chiropractor on speed dial. It’s the ultimate digital escape—until the battery dies, at which point it becomes a very expensive, very sleek paperweight.
I have a complicated relationship with Paperbacks. I love them, but since my favorite reading spot is a bubble bath, they usually end up with 'pruney' pages and a permanent scent of lavender. They’re basically literary sponges. Hardbacks are beautiful for the shelf, but reading one in bed is like bench-pressing a tombstone; one slip and you’ve got a broken nose and a concussion.
2022: paperback
The last book I read:
2026: I just finished Karen Kondazian’s The Whip, though my review is slightly biased by the fact that my book club treats 'suggested reading' like a Broadway casting call. Our 88-year-old member didn’t just read the book; she showed up dressed as the protagonist, complete with a taxidermied bear and a bullwhip.
It’s hard to give a dispassionate literary critique when you’re discussing 19th-century stagecoach drivers while a woman in her late eighties is expertly cracking a whip near the appetizers. It certainly kept the discussion focused. As for the book itself, it’s a gritty, fascinating look at Charley Parkhurst, but I’ve learned that if a story is good enough to make a grandmother arm herself with a whip and a forest predator, it’s a story worth telling. It was immersive, high-octane, and—thanks to my club—the first time I’ve ever been physically intimidated by a historical biography.
2022: Reading ARCS like mad! The Smell of Old Books by Barbara Davis, All That is Sacred by Donna Carbone, The Emerald Necklace by Linda Rosen, Always Orchid by Carol Van de Hende, and The Secrets We Hide by Patricia Sands, The Eves by Grace Sammons.
Author Interview - Rebecca Rosenberg | The Last Book I Read
Pen & paper or computer:
2026: My process is a chaotic blend of 19th-century scholar and high-stakes gambler. I do all my heavy lifting—the plotting, the deep research, and the intricate character timelines—on pen and paper, mostly because my brain needs the tactile friction to function. But once I move to the computer, the safety net disappears.
I never save different drafts. I view the manuscript as a block of marble and my keyboard as a digital chainsaw; I’m carving away in real-time to reveal the story hidden inside. It’s a bit like a literary 'Choose Your Own Adventure' where I’ve deleted the 'Go Back' button. Some people call it 'sculpting,' but my husband calls it 'living on the edge.' There’s something incredibly motivating about knowing there is no 'Draft B' to retreat to—it forces the story to show its face or get left on the cutting room floor.
2022: computer
Book character I think I’d be best friends with:
2026: I’m convinced Lily Bollinger from Champagne Widows and I would be best friends, mainly because we share the same philosophy on crisis management: when in doubt, pedal faster and keep the glasses full. I’d love to be the person riding a bicycle alongside her through the vineyards of occupied France, helping her dodge Nazis while she maintains her perfectly coiffed hair and iron-fisted control over a global empire. We’d get along famously because I wouldn't judge her for drinking champagne when she’s happy and drinking it when she’s sad—as she famously said, she never touches the stuff otherwise, 'unless I am thirsty.' I can see us now: me frantically taking notes on her life for my next book while she tells me to stop being so 'literary' and help her check the fermentation levels. It would be a friendship built on mutual respect, high-speed cycling, and a shared refusal to let a little thing like a World War ruin a good vintage.
2022: Lady Sibell Mackenzie, spiritualist, believer in ghosts and reincarnation, and popular author of mystical romances! Sisters of Leod Castle by Elizabeth Hutchison Bernard
Author Interview - Rebecca Rosenberg | Book Character I’d be Best Friends With
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a:
2026: a mother, a grandmother, a lavender farmer, a champagne maker, world traveler-- still time yet for all of those
2022: Champagne expert and France tour guide, which I practice as much as I can!
Favorite decade in fashion history:
2026: I am a total devotee of the Roaring Twenties, mostly because I see it as the greatest sartorial jailbreak in human history. While researching my novel Silver Echoes, I realized that women weren't just changing their clothes; they were staging a coup against the corset. I love the era because it was the first time women decided that being able to breathe and dance at the same time was a basic human right.
They went from being buttoned up like Victorian upholstery to wearing fringe and bobbing their hair—essentially telling the 19th century, 'Thanks for the lace, but we’ve got places to be.' I’ve always been grateful to F. Scott Fitzgerald for capturing the glitter of it all, though I suspect even he was just trying to keep up with the sheer velocity of those women. Every time I put on a pair of comfortable shoes, I feel like I’m personally honoring a 1920s flapper who died so that I would never have to deal with a bustle or a whalebone stay.
2022: Roaring Twenties
Place I’d most like to travel:
2026: My husband and I are currently planning to circumnavigate the globe, mostly because I’ve realized it’s the only way to ensure I’ve properly scouted every possible location for a historical scandal. However, no matter how many continents we cross, all roads—and my GPS—eventually lead back to the Champagne region of France.
I have a borderline spiritual need to walk the footsteps of the Champagne Widows. While most tourists are there for a nice tasting, I’m basically a forensic investigator in a sunhat, trying to find the exact spot where Barbe-Nicole Clicquot decided to revolutionize the world with a wooden rack and sheer audacity. I tell my husband we’re going for the 'culture,' but he knows the truth: I’m just trying to see if Le Nez works better when you’re standing directly over a 200-year-old cellar. I won't be satisfied until I’ve personally thanked the soil for giving us the women who turned cloudy grapes into a global necessity.
2022: Next on my bucket list is Singapore, China and VietNam. In the past few years we have traveled India, Egypt, Europe, and led a tour of Champagne. We love to travel!
My signature drink:
2026: My signature drink is Champagne, which I’ve successfully rebranded as 'active field research.' Since I spend my days writing about the Champagne Widows, I feel like I have a moral obligation to stay in character. If I’m interviewing a winemaker or digging through 19th-century history, I can’t exactly show up with a Diet Soda; it would be a professional insult to the ghosts I’m writing about!
2022: Brut Champagne
Favorite artist:
2026: My favorite artist is Peter Max, mostly because his work feels like a high-speed chase through a neon factory. I love that he paints these characters dripping with so much color and emotion that you can’t help but project your own life story onto them.
His style is the ultimate 'choose your own adventure' for the eyes; he provides the vibrant bones of a character, and I get to fill in the eccentric backstory. It’s a lot like my writing process—vivid, a little chaotic, and heavily reliant on the idea that if you add enough bold color to a situation, eventually the meaning will reveal itself.
2022: Gustave Klimt which we will see in depth in Austria in September
Number one on my bucket list:
2026: My bucket list is currently a high-stakes battle between my inner explorer and my inner sommelier. On one hand, I’m determined to revisit the legends—I need to see if the Taj Mahal and Machu Picchu are still holding up okay without me, and I’m pretty sure the Great Sphinx has a few more secrets to whisper if I just stand there long enough.
On the other hand, my husband and I have a 'new business' list that looks like a Bond villain’s travel itinerary: Easter Island, Angkor Wat, and Morocco. But let's be honest—all these exotic coordinates are really just elaborate detours on the way back to Champagne, France.
2022: To see my children happy.
Anything else you'd like to add:
2022: To have the Champagne Widows Novels make it to the silver screen (It is being shopped now)
Find more from the author:
https://www.facebook.com/rebecca.rosenberg.novelist,
https://www.facebook.com/rebeccarosenbergnovels,
https://www.instagram.com/rebeccarosenbergnovelist/
https://rebecca-rosenberg.com/
https://www.amazon.com/Champagne-Widows-Novels/dp/B0BSTJPZX3
About Rebecca Rosenberg:
Champagne geek, lavender farmer and award-winning author of historical novels
Rebecca Rosenberg fell in love with sparkling wine in Sonoma, California, where she lives on a lavender farm with her family. She and her husband founded Sonoma Lavender, the country's largest lavender company. (See Sonoma Lavender article in the New York Times.) Her book Lavender Fields of America was published in 2022.
Rebecca has pursued decades of delicious research in the wine caves and cellars of France and California. She is a champagne historian and speaker for Breathless Wines, and a columnist for Sparkling Discoveries. She is also a speaker for the National Women's History Alliance and an interviewer for the Historical Novel Society.
Champagne Widows Novels
Rebecca discovered the real-life widows who made champagne a world-wide phenomenon, and the award-winning novelist knew she'd dedicate years to telling their stories. These remarkable women include Veuve Clicquot, Madame Pommery and Lily Bollinger.
Her other gold medal award-winning novels include the Gold Digger series, The Champagne Widows Series, The Secret Life of Mrs. London.
