And when I can treat myself to a new Kristan Higgins book, what strikes me the most is always the community that she builds: family, neighbors, friends, townspeople, a cohesive and caring whole. Her stories are affirming, without being treacly; funny, but still full of substance; and they always put a big smile on my face.

Meredith has a deadline in August.  And so do I, since 10 days ago when my agent emailed and said she wanted the first draft of the next tour-de-force done by August 1.  LOL, guess no-matter how much I deny being in the shitty-first-draft camp, I’ve been unmistakably tainted by my undeniably shitty first drafts.

Had things been different we’d hold a much grander celebration.  But now we’ll just toss this little interview out and call it a release party.  Enjoy!

You have said on this blog that you brainstorm to blaring Top 40 hits on the radio. Can you give me some examples of songs that have helped Bound by Your Touch and Written on Your Skin take shape?

I knew that was going to be a dangerous confession! In many cases, the lyrics are very simple, even trite. But when they touch off an image or a vibe that brings alive some aspect of the characters’ relationship, they become profoundly important to my brainstorming.

With Bound by Your Touch I was particularly struck by “Eyes Open,” by Snow Patrol. The lyrics brought to life, for me, how James inhabits the wreck he has made of his life — the numbness he courts to get through his days, the anger he represses beneath his easy, freewheeling charm (“All this feels strange and untrue… My bones ache; my skin feels cold… The anger swells in my guts and I won’t feel these slices and cuts”). They also capture how central Lydia becomes to his journey toward redemption. He desperately needs to see himself clearly, and that only happens for him when he sees himself through her eyes (“I want so much to open your eyes because I need you to look into mine… “). The lyrics also seem to capture how his redemption ultimately becomes her path to freedom as well (“Get up, get out, get away from these liars, because they don’t get your soul or your fire / Take my hand, knot your fingers through mine, and we’ll walk from this dark room for the last time / Every minute from this minute now, we can do what we like anywhere…”).

So, on my playlist, this would be a “James” song.

With Written on Your Skin, the most influential bit of music wasn’t even a whole song — it was the fiddle solo that comes about two and a half minutes into Dave Matthews’ “Crush.” Seriously — whenever I was stuck, I would listen to that thirty second snippet. It’s funny; listening to it now, in order to answer your question, I can’t understand any longer what I found so inspiring. But I recall being enchanted by how its ecstatic and dramatic quality was leavened by hints of humor. It got me into the headspace of the power play between Mina and Phin, which is certainly dramatic but also, occasionally, very funny.

And here’s the mildly embarrassing part of this answer: another song I listened to quite often when writing Written on Your Skin was Britney Spears’s “Circus.” Mina, the heroine, is a force, and this song is about a woman under pressure (“All eyes on me in the center of the ring just like a circus”), who rises to the challenges thrown at her, and demands that anyone who wants her attention earn it the hard way (“Don’t stand there watching me, follow me, show me what you can do”). Mina, of course, has never met someone who can follow her, much less someone who can beat her at her own game. Until, of course, she meets Phin.

I have to girdle myself to do my research. But you, you like history. You would read primary sources even if you don’t have a book to research. What kind of historical readings do you enjoy the most?

I find travelogues immensely interesting. Judging by what I can find in my university library (and on Google books as well), they were greatly in vogue throughout the Victorian period. Since the authors are generally foreigners to the land about which they’re writing, they end up documenting the social scene and the local mores and everyday customs, all the little things that they would never think to remark on with regard to their own society. Victorian-era travelogues written by Americans visiting England are hugely useful for this reason.

My favorite sorts of travelogue are those that were written and initially published for a limited audience of family and friends; they’re chatty and personable, and often pair fabulous descriptions of various cities and countries with bits of gossip and social commentary about influential figures of the day.

You have written both damaged heroes (Duke of Shadows, Written on Your Skin) and roguish, golden-boy heroes (Bound by Your Touch). Which one do you enjoy better? Or do you just like to alternate them to keep things interesting?

Oh, I think James (Bound by Your Touch) is fairly well damaged, too. Certainly he’s better at hiding it — from himself as well as others. That fabulous sense of humor makes his scars a bit more difficult to spot.
I can’t really imagine writing a perfectly well-adjusted hero. I’m sure I will one day write a hero who *seems* perfectly well-adjusted,but ultimately I find my characters’ flaws more interesting than their talents. And I find it particularly interesting when their talents are inextricably linked with their flaws — as James’s humor and charm are.

Your two 2009 releases are both set during the 1880s, late Victorian, so to speak. The Victorian reputation in pop culture is the cover-the-piano-leg prudishness. But prudishness was largely a phenomenon of the Victorian middle class. The upper class were a rather naughty bunch–upon whom the middle class frowned mightily, I might add. In another one of your interviews I’d read, you mention that you’d come across “descriptions of parlor games played during country weekends that, let’s just say, you wouldn’t want your teenage daughter playing with her friends.” Inquiring minds want to know. What kind of parlor games are we talking about, exactly?

So, the upper crust played a lot of intellectual parlor games — freestyle poetry or charades, for instance. But they also played rather more physical games, which many of us might recognize from childhood: Blind Man’s Bluff, Sardines (hide-and-seek in which only one person hides; as others find this person, they must squeeze in to hide with him/her), and various “Sit on me” games, like Squeak Piggy Squeak.
Have you played any of these games since you turned sixteen or so? Probably not. Why not? Because piling into closets together, groping each other, or sitting on each other becomes rather more risque once you hit puberty.
Now think of a whole lot of adults playing these games after a night of wine and champagne, in a dark, sprawling country house in the middle of nowhere. Good, clean fun… no?

Your 2010 release is currently titled Wicked Becomes You. Along with Bound by Your Touch and Written on Your Skin, they are a trifecta of total triumphs as far as titles go. Who came up with those titles, you, your editor, or the marketing team at your publishing house? Are there any interesting stories behind those titles?

Yep, they were all my suggestions. Generally, I come up with a list of possible titles for each book, submit it to my editor and agent, and we all confer. (What this pithy summary elides is the many days I spend ripping my hair out while brainstorming titles. Some of my rejected suggestions are laughably bad.)

Interesting stories, hmm… Well, Written on Your Skin was named before it was written, and my agent floated the concern that the title conjured an erotic romance rather than a historical. I occasionally wonder if this is why WOYS ended up being even hotter than BBYT — I “wrote to the title”, as it were.

Then again, when a friend of mine heard the title, she said, “Rethink that. It sounds like it’s about a serial killer.”

Ah, well. You can’t win ‘em all.

Yes, you can, Meredith. Your gorgeous books will win readers and influence aspiring writers! Congratulations on the book release. I’m getting off my bum to the bookstore this minute!

These questions may be standard, but the answers are anything but.  Every writer seems to have a slightly (or drastically) different way of working.

Some of the methods I’ve come across make me white with terror.  For example, covering my entire living room wall with color-coded 8×6 Post It notes. Or outlining.  Others turn me green with jealousy (ahem: the Shitty First Draft).  All of them fascinate me. There may, in fact, be something a bit neurotic about the avidity with which I read explanations of methods that I know won’t work for me.  It reminds me of that phase in eighth grade when my friends and I used to get together to bake brownies, drink milkshakes, and watch exercise videos.

Anyway, there’s a specific reason that craft — and in particular, craftly excellence — is on my mind.  I’ve just reread Sherry’s new release, Not Quite a Husband.  NQAH effortlessly blends superb prose, incredibly nuanced characterization,  sizzling chemistry, very hot sex, and other manner of high drama (rebellions! potentially fatal illnesses! death-defying treks! many whizzing bullets!) into a moving, dare I say epic romance that traverses a not-so-familiar but altogether fascinating part of the world.  It’s a tour de force, and since I share a blog with her, I get to ask how she does it.  Sherry, brace yourself for interrogation!

(Sherry: When I first joined RWA–after finishing the first draft of PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS–and heard people mention the RWA craft-loop, I used to think it was women more dexterous than me talking about their macramé.  That should tell you how much I know about craft.  So read at your own peril!)

Sherry, I understand that the idea for NQAH was sparked by a viewing of The Painted Veil.  How do you proceed once you’ve got the seedling of an idea?  Do you outline, do you daydream, or do you simply begin to write?

I am an epic fail as an outliner.   For doubters I submit the initial outline for DELICIOUS.  You need to break out a microscope find any similarity between that and the final book.

I do daydream.  And certain scenes of intense conflict play in my head.  I think that is one of the best things about the crafting of a story, daydreaming.  You see all the sparkling bits.  Everything works perfectly and seemlessly in theory.  And you conjure all these exciting scenerios.

And then you have to write it.

Many years ago, some friends of mine told me a joke about a first-generation translation software.  During the testing stage, the software performed satisfactorily in translating words and simple phrases.  Then someone got the bright idea to see how well it did with idiomatic expressions.  So in went the proverb “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

And out the other end came “The wine is good, but the meat has spoiled.”

I often feel like that when I put pen to paper.  My beautiful idea, it translates into spoiled meat.

Are you a fan of the “shitty first draft” approach — i.e., do you write without editing — or do you pause to polish as you go?

I used to sneer at the shitty first draft.  I edit and I polish and I spit shine.  And yet somehow I have always, without fail, ended up with an elegantly shitty first draft that makes my editor throw my contract onto a bonfire and drunk-shag her gay best friend.

Lately I have been reconsidering joining the shitty first draft club.

What does your writing schedule look like?  Do you write every day?  Do you have an actual schedule?  Do you write for long stretches, or in short, intense bouts?

When it’s not publicity season, I do write just about every day.  But I am terrible at time usage.  I write fifty words and I go visit a gossip blog.  Come back write another fifty words and check my mail.  Maybe another fifty words and then I’ll look at a romance review site to see what people are talking about.  (But that’s the great thing about writing: Once I have smoothed everything out, nobody knows it was written fifty words at a time. )

When the kids are in school, I work from 8 to 2:30.  When the kids aren’t around, I love to goof all morning (8 to 2:30, ha!) and then write till about ten in the evening.  (One of my sorely regretted shortcoming is that I can neither wake up early nor stay up late.)

If you could change one thing about your writing process, what would it be?  Also, how has your process changed since you wrote Private Arrangements?

I would love to stop writing when I don’t know what to do.  Just stop, and do something else until I have it figured out.  I was able to do that with PA in everyway: five years between first draft and second to learn what I need about writing, then stop and start as necessary.

What’s changed, obviously, is the arrival of the deadline.  It was worst with DELICIOUS, during most of the writing of which I was in grad school at the same time.  My first draft was pure filler, just me putting down words to get to “The End.”  And roundly rejected as such by my wise and strict editor.

I am still learning how to pinpoint in advance where my story is likely to go off-track.  It’s always hard to judge your own writing, it’s even harder judging it on a schedule.  The temptation is always there to just keep writing, instead of recognizing you might have to rework large chunks.

Do your characters ever “surprise” you?  Do you ever experience moments of serendipity when re-reading a draft — that is, do you discover things about the characters from re-reading sentences that you yourself wrote?  If so, what surprised you about Bryony and/or Leo as the story developed?

My gentlemen always surprise me.  Because I go into a book with the heroine much more fully envisioned than the hero, part of my journey is then to figure out who is this man who loves this rather spectacular yet also rather spectacularly troublesome/difficult/maddening woman.  I don’t know if I get inspired while re-reading.  It’s more likely to happen when I’m just thinking about the story, or when I’m actually in the middle of writing it.

For example, in PA, Camden, until I reached the chapter set in Copenhagen, was more an obstacle in Gigi’s way than anything else.  Copenhagen was when I realized his loss–and I went back and revised their interaction up to that point to reflect that.  In DELICIOUS, only in the third draft did I understand what manner of man Stuart was.  His sense of honor drove the story from that point on.

In NQAH, I wasn’t really completely sure of Leo until the scene with the microscope.  (Potential spoiler: On the day Bryony decided to speak to him about an annulment, he brought home a present for her, even though their marriage had been equally terrible for him.)  That spoke of his strength of character and his capacity for love.  That was the foundation of their future.

Imagine that you’re asked to guest lecture in a class on writing the novel.  The students write in various genres.  What aspect of craft would you choose to speak about, and why?

Conflict and conflict resolution. We are storytellers–or at least we should be.  As long as there is strong conflict and an equally strong resolution, we can have a good story.

There is an Austen-like quality to the openings of your three published novels, in which a wry, nameless voice comments sagely on the events about to unfold.  It’s charming and incredibly effective, as is the way you transition very skillfully into deep POV.  But what I’m curious about are your thoughts, as both a reader and a writer, on the first-person point of view.  Very few romance novelists have used first-person POV with success.  Do you think there’s something inherent to the genre — or perhaps specifically to historicals — which makes third-person POV more effective than first-person?

The biggest romance of our time has been written in first-person POV.  Yes, Twilight.  So there definitely has been phenomenal successes.  And when the generation of girls who grow up with Twilight move onto romance, I hardly think they will have much problem with first-person POV.

I myself am completely neutral.  When I saw that there are a lot of readers who don’t care for first-person POV, I was really surprised.  To me it’s like writing on paper versus writing on a laptop.  It’s just a way to write a story, a means to an end, not the end itself.

My own contemporary romance–completely a romance, with nothing remotely women’s fiction or chick lit about it–is in first person POV.  The beginning of the story had its origin in a quickie writing contest at Dionne Galace’s blog a while ago.  And it just so happened that I banged out those 200 words in first-person POV.

At various point, I’d considered whether to switch to third person.  Or whether to add to the narrative with scenes written from the hero’s POV, either first- or third-person.  But the more I write exclusively in the heroine’s first-person POV, the more I like it.  When a romance is written in the heroine’s  first-person POV, you experience the hero much more vividly and directly.   He is more mysterious and interesting and sexy, because you don’t get to know his secrets and his innermost thoughts except as they are revealed to the heroine.   I don’t ever fall in love with my heroes but I’m looking at this one with starry eyes.   Starry, starry eyes…

::wipes drool off keyboard; resumes professional demeanor::

As for why 3rd-person POV is almost universally deployed in historical romance, I think it is a reflection of the importance of the hero’s character development.  Thanks to the First Golden Age of Historical Romance writers, the hero’s arc is a huge part of historical romance.  And you cannot capture his journey properly from the heroine’s first-person POV.  You have to show it from his POV.

But, for instance, the secondary romance in Delicious was written entirely from the heroine’s POV.  That particular story could easily have been turned into a first-person POV narration, because the journey is largely hers.

So my 2-cents conclusion, when the H/H both have significant story arcs, you need to have both of their POVs.  When he doesn’t need so much of changing and growing up and whatnot, then heroine first-person POV should work just fine.

Writers of historical romance have to walk a tricky line between historical accuracy and effective communication with a contemporary audience.  Readers — and writers — want to be able to sympathize with their heroines and heroes, so writers have to wrestle with, and sometimes defy, certain historical probabilities (for example, the prevalence, in other time periods, of certain beliefs about class, race, and religion to which we no longer subscribe).  Diction also stymies me quite often.  (Example: the verb “stymie,” which I adore, wasn’t used to mean “to impede, obstruct, or thwart” until 1902.  Grr!)

How do you negotiate these often-conflicting demands?  Or do you even see them as conflictual?  To put it another way, how do you articulate the distinction between historical fiction and historical romance?  What limitations — and possibilities — do you see within the genre with regard to critically exploring the less savory aspects of times gone by?

The limitations–and possibilities–within the genre with regard to critically exploring the less savory aspects of times gone by is, er, determined by what I can stomach?  And the distinction between historical fiction and historical romance is that I rarely read the former because their endings tend to suck?

LOL, seriously, Meredith, you cannot have asked this question to a person who has thought less of these things.   But just for you, I’m going to scrape together the few thoughts I’d had over the years.

As for critically exploring the less savory aspects of the past, my guide is PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.  What does it explore?  Nothing.  Do I love it?  I do.  And I also look at the present.  If I were to set a story in the present–and I have, my almost finished contemporary romance–would I be exploring the dark underbelly of American life?  Nope.  Am I aware of the dark underbelly of American life?  Yes, I’m a pretty avid consumer of news and investigative reporting.  Do I want to read about it in fiction?  Not at all.  And if I don’t want to read about it, why would I want to write about it?

But I think I answered a different question than you asked.  I think the darkness of history–history, period–holds more of a fascination for you than it does for me.    Then you can only use your own limitations as a test.  How much grittiness, pain, and inhumanity can you put into a romance before an optimistic new beginning is no longer possible for you to imagine for your characters?  Write to that limit if you would like to challenge yourself as a writer.  Half that if you want historical romance mainstream success.  Somewhere in between if you are hoping for both.

(Hey, nobody ever said it would be easy.)

(Or was that even what you were asking?!)

As for historical attitudes, I like to think I’m not writing bigots.  That even if my characters held views typical of their era, they would not let those generalized prejudices trump human decency and kindness.

Diction?  Well, diction can go to hell.  I look up just about every word I suspect isn’t old enough, even some I don’t suspect at all.  Still, a more modern word or two might slip through and I’m actually okay with that.  Think of it this way, do we expect our medieval authors to write in middle-English?  Even Laura Kinsale’s For My Lady’s Heart contained only modified middle-English.  And a lot of Victorian idiomatic usage we wouldn’t understand at all.

Riffing on that last question, do you think that it’s inevitable and even *requisite* to write heroines who are, in some way or another, proto-feminists?  I ask, because I think you’ve done a great job of this; your heroines’ concerns and convictions feel familiar and sympathetic to me while at the same time feeling true to the period in which they live. How do you walk the line between creating a character who feels “progressive” for her time and a character who feels anachronistic or (to invoke a much-dreaded word) “feisty”?

I don’t think it is inevitable or requisite to write proto-feminists.  The trick to making a heroine’s concerns and convictions feel familiar, I think, lies in her struggle for more control over her life and her choices.  There is nothing remotely feminist about that primal human urge for freedom, security, and respect.  It is a universal struggle.  (What the feminists did was to force society as a whole to recognize that women had these same aspirations, that we deserved to have the same opportunities–the struggle itself is timeless.)

That line between creating a chracter who feels “progressive” but still true to her time and a character who feels anachronistic or even feisty, ummm.  Okay, assume your basic research is correct, you have the right feel for your era in your book, that line, I believe, lies in your heroine’s dignity or lack thereof.  Lizzy Bennet still feels fresh and modern as a character today.  Yet because of her dignity, intelligence, and restraint, she never comes across as wrong for her own time.  The feisty heroines are the ones with no understanding of the consequences of their actions, they are the Lydia Bennets of the world, blithely dragging everyone into trouble and expecting to be patted on the head for it.  Lydia, the original TSTL (too stupid to live) heroine, you will note, has no dignity whatsoever.

What makes a book an instant wallbanger/DNF (did not finish) for you?

Incompetence/stupidity on the part of the heroine. And I’m not talking about IQ, but EQ.  A woman without self-awareness and sound judgment is not going to be able to hold onto any kind of happiness.

But that’s usually a mere DNF.

If, however, the hero looks upon this paragon of TSTL and pronounces her extraordinary, then it becomes an automatic wallbanger.

Finally, name a plot that you would never write yourself, but you would love to see written by a fellow author of historical romance.  Why wouldn’t you write it, and why would you love to read it?

LOL, anything I want to read, I will write myself.  Stuff I wouldn’t write, menage for example, I am also not terribly interested in reading.

Your question, however, makes me curious.  What is it for you?

Meredith: Oh, easy: a paranormal-ish romance set in Roman Britain.  At present, my knowledge of the period is so slim that I can’t imagine writing it.  But I’m thinking a starcrossed love between a Roman soldier (who  — naturally — was raised and trained by Druids before he was rounded up and shipped off to Rome, where he learned to disavow his formerly “savage” ways) and the proud Celtic lass whom he once loved, and who is now devoted to fighting the evil Roman overlords to whom he has sworn allegiance!  …I mean, just think of the fun possibilities.  He is fighting down the magical powers he has long since repressed.  She’s determined to reawaken him to his true self.

And on top of that… they used a lot of oil in those Roman baths… 

Okay, I didn’t have to tie her down, then shove a mike in her face. (Is it just me or does it sound terribly dirty? *g*) But you get my gist. The Treasure Keeper hits the stores today.

Go get your copy.

You wrote six straight historical romance and one book of mermaid novellas (2 historical, one contemporary) before you burst on to the scene anew in 2005 with your Drákon series, beginning with The Smoke Thief, featuring an ancient race of dragons who have learned to shapeshift and pass as humans. I know, from a podcast you did with Sandy Coleman of All About Romance, that it had been a long-held desire for you to write romances with fantasy/paranormal elements. Did you also always want to do something with dragons? Or was it a case of “Hmm, vampires, no. Hmm, werewolves, no. Hmm, dragons, well, well, well?”

Actually, you pretty much summed it up right there! I realized I wanted to write about shapeshifting creatures of some sort, but I felt that there were already so many good werewolf/vampire novels out there, I really didn’t want to plunge into that pool.

I used to live in the foothills of Los Angeles, where there are a lot of red-tailed hawks. And I have pet house rabbits. A person with pet rabbits always keeps a sharp eye out for predators when they’re outside playing. I learned to recognize entire family groups of hawks, and I suspect they learned to recognize me. One cast of at least thirteen would circle by nearly every day at bunny playtime in my backyard. Being the superior, brilliant human that I am, I would stand in my yard and try to shoo them away by waving my arms and jumping up and down and yelling, “Go away!” Which astonished my neighbors (not in a good way) and totally frightened my bunnies—but not the hawks. Finally one day the hawks very firmly and rudely responded by, um, loosening their collective bowels directly above me. Seriously. I had to run away and hide under the porch. And it was a huge mess upon landing.

Anyway! Hawks. Despite all that, it’s impossible not to admire their elegance in flight. One afternoon as I was idly watching a courting couple above me, their fantastic circles and loops and turns—with the back of my brain simmering over my shapeshifting, werewolf/vampire dilemma—the answer came to me. It seemed so obvious. Not hawks (I mean, come on, they tried to poop on me!), but dragons. Dragons can fly, dragons are mystical and interesting, and plus, since they don’t actually exist, I could make up whatever traits I wanted to about them.

The Drákon books have been an instant hit with both readers and critics alike. The Smoke Thief was Romantic Times’s Historical Romance of the Year. The second book in the series, The Dream Thief, which totally blew me away, made the New York Times bestseller list and was named by Amazon.com its #1 Romance of the Year. Bantam, your publisher, obviously did anticipate just such a reception, as the series is brought out in hardcover. Did you personally expect this level of success?

God, no. Like most novelists, I try to write the very best book I can every single time. But still, some books just end up being better than others. I don’t know why. As a writer, I do feel a certain tingle of excitement when I compose something I think is good…but I don’t necessarily expect anyone else to think it’s good. I only hope that they do, LOL.

It was a very happy surprise to get the call from my agent telling me that Bantam planned to release THE SMOKE THIEF in hardcover. In fact, I couldn’t really believe it for a while; I thought maybe they had made a mistake. Or that they would come to their senses and change their minds. But they put together a lovely package for it, and I think I’m very, very lucky that it turned out so well.

One thing I love deeply about your books is that they feature power couples. So often in romance–and particularly paranormal romance–the balance of the power is tilted, sometimes overwhelmingly, toward the hero. But your heroines have stunning abilities and nerves of steel and are full equals of your heroes. One of my favorite moments from Queen of Dragons, the third book in the series, is when Kimber, the hero, says to Maricara, the heroine, “Let me ask you, king to king…” Ah, it just melts me when a man is strong enough to be secure in the presence of a strong woman. Can you tell me a bit about how you arrive at this dynamic balance between the hero and the heroine?

It’s a very delicate balance, isn’t it? Personally I don’t enjoy a story as much when either the hero or the heroine has far more power than the other, either by societal or supernatural means. Because I chose to set the Drákon Series in the eighteenth century, and then chose my characters to be beasts disguised as humans, I had already set up a radically inequitable balance between the males and the females. Georgian society never exactly embraced the notion of women’s rights, and on top of that you’ve got this wolf pack-like tribe of beings whose ruling faction asserts that it’s biologically impossible for a female to lead, for example. It’s a double whammy against the girls!

So I definitely needed my heroines to have backbones of steel to deal with this. They were both underestimated and undervalued, even by their own kind. Yet they’re not soft, fragile little flowers who wilt in the face of difficulty. In my mind, these women are real, and that means they must behave in realistic ways. Even today we struggle with the consequences of sexual inequality, so imagine how much more extreme, and socially acceptable, it was then. I don’t know a single woman who feels she’s of lesser value than a man, and certainly not merely because she happened to born with a pair of ovaries instead of the other stuff.

Like real women throughout history, these drákon females have learned to relish their own strengths, to hone them; they understand that the foundation of their world is fundamentally unjust, but they adapt to it. They stretch their boundaries as they can, and sometimes they simply flat-out shatter them. Whether that means challenging the layers of rules that constrict them, or more directly just running away to live free, they make the choice not to endure the role their society attempts to force upon them.

Of course, that means they need a man—a male drákon—who is smart enough and wise enough not only to accept the heroine as she is, but to cherish her strength and individuality. It’s one of the facets of his character that makes him a hero: he falls in love with all parts of this amazing creature, even the aspects of her that buck societal norms and directly challenge his own authority.

In another interview with All About Romance, you described yourself as a young girl as “Scrawny. Chalk-white pale. Lank, dark hair that would never hold a curl. Terminally clumsy.” And you wore coke-bottle glasses because you were “one tiny degree away from being legally blind.” But then you went on to become a runway and print model in Japan. I find that absolutely fascinating—a real life transformation story. How did that impact how you view femininity and beauty and how you craft your heroines?

It’s interesting how our childhood shapes us, isn’t it? In my case, I didn’t get rid of the glasses until junior high school, and by then I was so profoundly shy that my mother enrolled me in modeling and acting classes to try to open me up a bit. I enjoyed acting and tolerated modeling, but I never thought it would really lead anywhere. It was a shock to get an offer to model in Japan as a teenager, and to this day I am so grateful for it, because it turns out that traveling to other countries and learning about other cultures is something I love.

But modeling was only ever a job to me, one I always realized would be extremely provisional. In the end, I modeled professionally for about eleven years, which was longer than most girls I knew. I did it around high school and college and then a little later, and the very best part of it was always getting to travel.

However, modeling is a grueling, fiercely competitive and sometimes vicious line of work, and it can breed monsters. I never once thought of myself as beautiful; I had a good look for a strong market, I was very lucky and that was enough. When you’re surrounded by peers whose jaw-dropping physical attributes become almost commonplace, you search for a deeper connection. You search for the mind, for the heart. You want to learn the who of the person instead the what.

That’s what truly matters. I still believe it. Physical beauty has its advantages, but it’s fleeting, and there’s nothing you can do about that. It’s far more important to develop the beauty of your soul, because that’s forever (or, if you’re of a more non-theological bent, it’s for the whole of your lifetime, at least).

Most of the other models I met were deeply insecure about their looks. That’s natural, when you consider how much emphasis is placed upon the seemingly random arrangement of skin and cartilage and bone. Girls I worked with would freak out over a chipped nail. They had reason to. You could lose a job over it, which might be a significant loss of income. A chipped fingernail! It’s a weird, weird profession.

I’m way happier as a writer, LOL.

You live with half a dozen bunnies and a dog. Now lots of people have dogs, so the dog is not very surprising. How did the bunnies come about? And is that the reason I never read about rabbit stews in your book?

Ha! Once, I think in my first novel (a medieval) I had the hero go hunting and catch a hare for dinner, and I felt like such a traitor after that I never have anyone eat rabbit again. I’ve also managed to insert the names of almost every one of my rabbits (there’s been quite a few of them over the years) into my books, just for fun.

Many, many years ago, I was a desperately impoverished associate editor at a small weekly paper in Malibu (which shall go nameless but does still exist; it’s a really great paper, actually). We had an office parrot and one of my jobs was to go to the local pet store and get him (her? none of us were really sure) supplies.

The pet store, which I very much hope is now out of business, was a sad, small, dirty place. They sold all kinds of animals, and usually for heaps of money (it was Malibu, after all), but one animal they could not sell was this full-grown rabbit. It was a brown lop, nothing fancy or unique, but they kept it in an aquarium because it kept figuring out how to open the wire cages. The aquarium was so small the rabbit couldn’t even stretch out.

I watched this rabbit for almost six months, cramped and miserable in his glass prison. No one wanted him. I knew nothing about rabbits. I had no money. I could barely afford my rent, but one day I just couldn’t take it any longer, so I bought the rabbit.

I named him Christopher, until I saved up enough cash to have him neutered, and then I named her Katherine. LOL. She was brilliant and sassy and I loved her to pieces. She led to two more bunnies—brothers, abandoned Easter bunnies—and then to another one with a deformed ear, and so on.

That’s how it began. Right now I have five rabbits, some very old, one very young, all rescued, all house rabbits.

You need a good sense of humor to have house rabbits, and a lot of wood toys. They chew through everything.

Book four of the Drákon series, Treasure Keeper, hits shelves today itself. It features a son of the original Drákon couple from The Smoke Thief, the girl he first fell in love with when he was thirteen, and is set in a most intriguing and dangerous time and place. Would you tell us something about it?

Well, twist my arm, LOL. THE TREASURE KEEPER is the tale of Rhys Langford, who (as you mentioned) is the youngest son of Kit and Rue from the first book in the series, and Zoe Lane, daughter of the local seamstress (also a drákon). We glimpse them together as youngsters briefly in QUEEN OF DRAGONS, and she seems a little cold then, even as a girl, but it’s all explained in the new book.

I wanted Zoe to have different abilities from the other drákon, and so, something like a chameleon, she has the Gift of invisibility. She also sees ghosts in glass, and is shadowed by the dead (but not in a creepy way). She’s run away from the confines of the English shire in which she was raised because her fiancé (not Rhys!), who was sent out into the human world, has gone missing. Rhys, however, is also missing, because it turns out the drákon have a dire human enemy: the sanf inimicus, human dragon hunters. Both Rhys and Zoe’s fiancé are thought to be dead, but only Rhys shows up to haunt her in spectral form.

He starts off in the story a lot like what you’d think the younger, handsome son of a ridiculously privileged family would be: cocky, sophisticated, fairly wild and irresponsible. But deep down he’s also kind, protective, and genuinely in love with Zoe, the only vibrant thread of true life in his now-gray existence.

Zoe’s made it to Paris, and it’s just a few years before the French Revolution. It’s a dangerous and gritty and exciting time. Plus, she’s hiding out in a castle, which is pretty cool, LOL.

I had a great time with both the setting and the protagonists. Every time I get to delve into this world, I learn something new. It’s such an amazing process, and I’m truly delighted that other people have enjoyed the stories of the drákon as much as I have. I know I’ve said this before, but I feel so, so fortunate.

Well, I know I’ll be at the bookstore to pick up my copy. Thank you so much, Shana, for talking with me. And thank you for writing your wonderful books.

Thank YOU for your kindness! I was thrilled that you wanted to chat. Like a lot of folks, I’m a big fan of the Fabulous Sherry Thomas!

::blushes::

Below are links to excerpts for Shana’s Drákon books

• The Smoke Thief
• The Dream Thief
• Queen of Dragons
• The Treasure Keeper

And after a whole week of rushing about (okay, there was a day of writing in my contemp romp and a half-day of frowning over the next historical project), I look around and these are the things I have not done:

1)Send Christmas presents to agent and editor
2)Read either of the manuscripts I promised I’d read for possibly blurbing
3)Sort and shred the mountain of statements that have been accumulating since I was still in grad school
4)Put up our paltry few strings of Xmas lights, b/c junior kidlet delights in them
5)Laundry (His Hawtness dealt with the previous load, and since I’m not currently on deadline, I feel like I should do more.)

Boy, more and more I’m beginning to think people love historical romance for the abundance of servants! And maybe they read Harry Potter for the house elves.

Before I rush off to fight the neverending War on Dirty Clothes, let me point you to RT’s website, where you’ll find the video interview I did with the awesome Morgan Doremus during RWA San Francisco. You can also see the videos here and here.

I was rather wondering about the timing of the videos being featured on RT. Morgan Doremus had told me that usually they’d haul out the clips when there’s some news about me or my book. And then Meredith Duran told me that PA has been nominated for a RT Best Historical Debut award. I haven’t seen it posted anywhere so I’m going to have to trust that Meredith wasn’t just having fun with me.

Okay, off to the seasonal frenzy again.

Dec 10 Update: Sent presents. Put up lights. And did laundry.

If you ever wanted to know what a fiction buyer does and/or how books get into libraries, well, here’s everything you ever wanted to know. So herewith, Super Librarian!

(Round of applause)

I think being the fiction buyer/selector for a library system sounds like an awesome job. Can you tell me how you got promoted/transferred/recruited to this position?

It’s not as hard as you’d think. All it took for me was having my Master’s degree in Library Science, some past job experience and a passion for adult fiction. One of the benefits of working for a system as large as Orange County Public is that there is a lot of opportunity to transfer. I started out in the organization as a branch manager for one of our libraries in Garden Grove. When a position opened up in the collection development department, thanks to a series of retirements, I got an interview and eventually got the job.

The trick is pouncing on the opportunity. As many librarians will tell you, awesome jobs such as this one do not come along every day. You usually have to wait for someone to retire or die. I can attest to that, as I’ve pretty much decided the only way I’m leaving is on a stretcher.

How many titles do you typically recommend/purchase in a given year?

On average I purchase anywhere from 40-60 titles per week. Obviously, with a system as large as ours, I’m purchasing multiple copies of those 40-60 titles.

What is a fiction buyer’s typical day like?

It varies depending on the day of the week, with Monday usually being the busiest. Every day starts out with e-mail. A lot of e-mail. Then I’ll look at my budget, and figure out how much money I can spend that week. I field questions from our branches on a regular basis regarding weeding, upcoming titles, titles their library patrons are asking for etc. I read journals, select titles to purchase, and follow up with our support staff regarding data entry on the order. I also field patron requests, am on several committees, and handle special projects.

Do you deal with library reps from big publishers? Do you read Publisher’s Weekly, Library Journal, and other trade publications? What about book review sections of major newspapers? What about genre review publications such as Locus or Romantic Times? Do you give any weight to online reviews at reputable and highly trafficked sites?

I have some contact with big publishers, but not as much as I’d like. Publishers are much more focused on the retail market, and in some cases, I think libraries tend to fall through the cracks. That said, the library reps I have dealt with have always been extremely helpful, and attending conferences like RWA means my business card gets into the hands of editors who have been fantastic about passing my information along to their employers.

I read a lot of trade publications, the big four being Publisher’s Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus and Booklist. Since I also order some non-fiction, there are a handful of subject specialty journals I look at. Other sources include The New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times Book Review, and popular magazines that feature book reviews like Entertainment Weekly, People and Oprah magazine.

I don’t use the genre review publications all that much, but have found things like Romantic Times extremely helpful when it comes to finding information on reprints.

As far as online sources, I’ll admit I don’t look at their reviews all that often, but I do monitor “buzz.” If a book or author is generating a lot of discussion, I take notice and often times add them to our collection. Some examples from recent memory are J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series and Anna Campbell’s debut novel, Claiming The Courtesan.

Do you get sent advanced reading copies? Do you actually have time to read any at work, or is that time entirely taken up with dealing with stuff?

Being such a large library system, we do receive advanced copies either from Baker & Taylor or direct from the publisher. The only ones I read are the ones that actively interest me, but I always peruse the pile to see what jumps out. That said, the only reading I really do at work in on my lunch break! I also take special note if a publisher includes any kind of special packaging or add-ons with the ARC because that tells me there are some PR dollars behind the book/author.

Please tell me a little more about your decision making process. How do you arrive at a list of books for the library? Is it done on a continual basis or do you come up with a major list per a set length of time? Do you try to order books as they come out or will you sometimes go, hey, I totally overlooked that one when it was released but boy it’s so good I’m gonna get it for the library now?

Since I order every week, I’m gathering titles on a continual basis. In a perfect world I like to order titles about 1-2 months in advance, because, as we all know, publication dates aren’t always firm. That said, I’m not perfect, and have been known to overlook a title. Since I don’t have a crystal ball in my office, this is where patron requests come in extremely handy. Also, I monitor books/authors that are making the media rounds. A book might get dreadful reviews, but if the author was on the Today Show that has a tendency to trump what Publisher’s Weekly said about it!

Do you have a staff under you or do you work alone? Does your boss give additional input into your list? Is your recommendation final or is there a review/approval process? Do you ever have to fight to acquire a title?

I mostly work alone, but my department does have a support staff that takes care of data entry, searching journals (to weed out titles we’ve already ordered), and scaring up information on titles that our patrons’ requested. My boss occasionally gives me input, but generally speaking she lets me do my thing and doesn’t look over my shoulder too much. My recommendation is essentially final, but problems can arise after the fact. Maybe the book has pull-outs or pop-ups that the reviews didn’t mention. In which case, nice for personal use but really impractical for library lending! Also, while I’ve never had to fight to acquire a title, we have been known to field some complaints about titles we house in our libraries. There is a review process for this, and management takes the lead. Given our service population size, and number of libraries, we actually field very few complaints, and most of them tend to be about children’s or young adult material more so than adult.

Given that it is impossible for anyone to read all the new books that are published every year, how do you decide which books that you don’t read personally to purchase for your libraries? Is it based on popularity, reviews, patron requests, publisher push, interesting subject/summary, or criteria that I haven’t thought of yet?

The vast majority of what I buy is decided on the basis of reviews, but the other factors you mention also come into play.

Do you have a list of authors whose works you purchase automatically? Is it because they are popular or you love them or both?

Pretty much all the big name, best selling authors get purchased automatically regardless of reviews. Putnam could decide to publish Nora Roberts’ grocery list, it could get horrible reviews across the board, but I’m still going to buy it for our libraries. When it’s a big name, people still want to read it regardless of bad word of mouth.

Do you have a different standard/process for acquiring debut authors?
Do you have a different standard/process for local authors?
Do you have a different standard/process for small presses?

No, but I would like to offer some tips for small press folks. Libraries do buy small press titles, but it’s extremely helpful to us, and will help you in the long run, if you provide as much information as possible. Author, title, ISBN, price, and publication date. Has the title been reviewed anywhere? Not just the big trade journals, but maybe ForeWord magazine (which specializes in reviewing small press titles) or a local newspaper? If so, it’s nice to have copies of these, or at the very least a blurb. Also, how can I purchase the title? Is it available through Baker & Taylor, Ingram, Brodart, Amazon etc.? The more you tell me, the more likely I am to buy the book.

Do you pay attention to such advertising publications as Romance Writers of America’s Romance$ells? How much attention do you give them—i.e., read with interest or riffle through them once when they come in and recycle them? If you set them aside without reading them, what is your reason?

When I do receive material like this, I always look through it. A huge chunk of my job is staying on top of what’s in the works, and this type of material is helpful on that front. I can’t guarantee that I’ll buy your book just because you put it in something like Romance$ells, but it does succeed in putting your name in front of my face.

Do you receive author-generated publicity items? Do you pay attention to them?

Some, but not a lot. I give them moderate attention, but like advertising publications, just receiving one won’t guarantee that I’ll buy your book. My suggestion to authors is to highlight the fact that you’re a “local” author when sending this material to libraries in your immediate vicinity. Library patrons love to read local authors, and if you highlight that fact to a library in a nearby city, you’ll get some extra mileage.

Once you do decide to acquire a title, how do you decide how many copies to purchase for your system? If you have 10 branches and only 5 copies of a title, how do you decide which branches will house the copies—or is this a decision for other librarians?

Let me preface my comments by saying that there is never enough money. If I had my way, I’d purchase every romance published every month and there would be copies galore! Unfortunately, that’s not a possibility, so sometimes I have to settle for purchasing fewer copies than I would like. Since we are a county-wide system, I try to spread these out. I don’t want all of our copies to only be in one small portion of the county.

As for how I decide how many copies to buy? It’s not an exact science. Sometimes it is plain guess work, and I guess wrong. I do constantly monitor our holds lists though, and regularly purchase additional copies for titles that are proving to be popular among our patrons.

Do you have fiction authors that you love that you do not acquire in your official capacity for some reason? How much of this job is personal taste and how much is taking the general tastes of the public into consideration, i.e., is it a regular part of your job to acquire books that you’d rather eat worms than read?

The minute my job becomes about personal taste is the day I hope I get fired. It’s not about what I think people should read. It’s about providing people with what they would like to read. There’s a bestselling author that I purchase numerous copies of every time she has a new book out, and I swear a little piece of me dies inside every time I have to. But you know what? It’s not about me. I may think she’s a horrible writer, but a lot of people love her books, and who am I to argue? Likewise, there are authors I enjoy that other people just don’t get. You learn to take it all with a pretty heavy grain of salt after a while.

Does your budget contain a pre-determined breakdown by genre, as in this much percentage for romance, this much for literary fiction, this much for mystery, etc.? If it does, how was it determined? Does it change from year to year? Is it a reflection of what gets the greatest circulation?

If the budget does not contain a pre-determined breakdown, is it entirely at your discretion?

Our budget does not contain a pre-determined breakdown by genre. We do break down the budget by “type” (fiction, non-fiction, children’s etc.) and then we break it down according to library size and circulation. For example, I have a bigger budget for our large libraries that are open seven days a week than I do for the small libraries that might only be a couple thousand square feet and open five days a week.

It’s all up to my discretion. A big factor is circulation numbers. I have one branch where I can buy any mystery, regardless of sub genre, and I know it will circulate like gang busters. Likewise, I have libraries where science fiction is hugely popular and others where it collects dust. This is where I rely heavily on feedback from our branch staff. My focus is the system-wide collection, and theirs is the collection at their individual branch.

The trick is to make sure everybody has a little bit of everything. You strive for a well-rounded collection. That’s harder than it sounds when you are overseeing the adult fiction needs for 33 libraries. That said, one of the benefits to being a patron of a system this large is that just because the local library you use regularly might not have it, doesn’t mean we don’t have it somewhere else. We have a team of delivery drivers that go out five days a week, delivering requested materials all over the county.

I imagine a buyer at a bookstore would closely watch the sales number to see how her picks are performing? What is the feedback process for a library book buyer/selector? How do you know that your choices are being embraced/deserted by your patrons? Do you look at the circulation history for a title to see how well it did? Is such aggregated data even available?

Computers have made this aspect of my job a lot easier! I regularly look at circulation numbers to monitor how titles/authors are doing. One of the great things about a library system this size is usually the audience is out there somewhere, you just have to find it! Maybe vampire romance is dead weight at one location, but people are begging for it at another. Sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason. Again, I rely heavily on the staff we have on the “front lines” to provide feedback on what people are asking for, what they’re checking out, holes in their collection etc.

Have you ever made a purchase that later had your boss/patrons come to you and inquire what the heck you were thinking? Were any of those romances?

I have a fantastic boss who has yet to second guess me. Sometimes there is no telling what title will spark a complaint, and you can’t really do this job if you’re second guessing yourself all the time. That goes for branch staff as well. I’ve had numerous librarians tell me “such and such” doesn’t circulate at their location, and when I check the numbers down the road I discover it did very, very well for them. Again, there’s no crystal ball and it’s hard to predict. However, if something like this does comes up, my boss always asks me what my criteria was for selecting the “offending” title, and management handles the rest. Thankfully, there have been no major scuffles regarding romance titles on my watch so far.

And a pair of follow-up questions

1)At Austin Public Library, mysteries are the most popular books–as a group–with the patrons, followed by romances. How about your your system?

This is a hard question for me to answer, because with 33 libraries what’s “popular” can vary from branch to branch. That being said, what you think would be popular is. Anything Oprah is reading. Anything on the bestseller lists. If we’re talking raw circulation numbers, mysteries would probably win out. Romance is starting to pick up some steam, thanks to the better budgets we’ve had the last couple of years. Money was very tight for several years, and our romance collection really suffered. I’m still trying to fill out the collection with what I consider core authors and titles. As this has happened, I have notice that circulation is picking up. Also, our romance reading patrons aren’t shy about requesting titles and this has certainly benefited our collection immensely.

I will also add that while I keep hearing and reading that paranormal romance has hit it’s “peak” it is still insanely popular at several of our locations, with readers being very loyal to series.

2)Can you tell me when did the Orange County system begin to catalogue its romances?

We started cataloging them in early 2003, roughly a year before I hired on. Thank goodness, or else I would have made myself a total pest about getting it done! Not cataloging paperbacks is easily one of my biggest pet peeves. How do we expect library patrons to find anything if we don’t catalog it?

(Round of thundering applause)

Thank you so much, Super Librarian!