Please
welcome New York Times and international best-selling author Patricial Maxwell
aka Jennifer Blake. A charter member of RWA, she’s the recipient of many awards
including RWA’s Lifetime Achievement Award. With over sixty books translated
into twenty languages and thirty million copies in print, she continues to
evolve in this ever changing publishing landscape.
How
does she do it? Read on…
P.B. What
are your fondest memories of growing up in Louisiana?
J.B. I was brought up on a farm in the
northern part of the state. It had vegetable gardens and pastureland, but most
of it was woodland with a creek running through it. Roaming the animal trails
with my faithful dog, picking wild berries, hiding out with a book at the very
top of a tall pine tree—where my mom couldn’t find me to assign chores—were
favorite times. My grandparents lived next door and were great storytellers; it
was always special to spend the night with them. Another highlight was the
annual family reunions where everyone enjoyed scrumptious covered dishes
brought by friends and relatives, and visited back and forth until it was time
to go home.
P.B. Do
you remember the moment that you decided to write your first book?
J.B. As
with so many other authors, I once threw a book against the wall with the
famous words, “Even I could do better than that!” But the catalyst for putting
words on paper was a colorful and disturbing dream. In it, I was a young girl
in ancient Scotland who had lost her family during wartime, and was being
comforted by a kilted highlander. The scene was so vivid I didn’t want to
forget it. Capturing it in words set me on my path to writing books – though
the incident has never found its way into a story.
P.B. What
do you remember most about the day that you received ‘the call informing you
that an editor was buying your book?
J.B.
It wasn’t a phone call for me, but a snail mail letter—Yes, I go back that far!
I picked it up from our rural mailbox at the end of a long drive and
immediately tore it open. I read it and smiled, and smiled and read it over and
over again, all the way back to the house.
P.B. You’ve
managed to produce an impressive body of work during your writing career. What
would you consider your most satisfying achievement?
J.B. That
I’ve met every writing goal I ever set for myself is a special pleasure.
Remembering I’ve made the best seller lists in every book format—hardcover,
trade size paperback, mass market paperback and e-book titles—is also
gratifying. But most satisfying of all is contact from readers saying how my
stories helped them escape from the disappointments, illnesses and tragedies in
their lives.
P.B. What
is the best career advice you have ever received? Have you ever received advice
that you wished later that you hadn’t taken?
J.B. The
best advice: “Write the book you’d like to read.” It’s absolutely true that
writers who are voracious readers are often ahead of the game, seeing
possibilities for different directions in genres or picking up on trends long
before traditional publishing takes notice. Added to that, the book that
intrigues you will probably intrigue readers as well.
The
worst advice: “Forget historical romance; it’s as dead as the Dodo Bird.” This
was in 1972 when I suggested writing a historical romance after reading
Woodiwiss’s THE FLAME AND THE FLOWER. It took New York the better part of two
years to understand this new type of historical romance was nothing like the
male-oriented epics from the 1940s and 1950s. If I’d written that historical
romance when I wanted, I’d have been much further ahead than it turned out
after I was asked to do my first sensual historical romance in 1975.
P.B. If
you were to offer any advice to a romance novelist at the beginning of their
career, what would you want them to realize?
J.B. It’s
self-defeating to chase genres and trends for the money; write in them only if
they fire your imagination. Create the story that won’t let you sleep at night
and feeds you bits of scenes and dialogue all day long. The enthusiasm you
bring to that book will be transferred to the reader, creating excitement in
them as well.
P.B. If
you had to choose among all of your books, could you pick a favorite?
J.B. I
actually have a half dozen favorites out of the 67 I’ve written. Different
books are special for different reasons: a character or theme; the difficulty
of the story situation, the intriguing format, where I was in my life at the
time, and so on. The most fascinating was ROYAL SEDUCTION: I never knew what my
Ruthenian prince was going to say or do next. Then a paragraph from that book
managed to capture my basic attitude toward being alive: “Spiteful and mean the
world might be, with greed and malice and ugly death both in town and
wilderness. But there were in the dusty march of days flashes of brilliance,
sweet moments gilded with glory, snatched splendid and whole from the dreary
parade.”
P.B. You
write both historical and contemporary romances. Do you have a preference?
J.B. Historical
romances lend themselves more easily to grand drama and sweeping romantic
gestures. You don’t have to worry about keeping up with current slang or using
technology that may become obsolete and, if you build your historical world
carefully enough, it’s like going back in time and taking readers with you.
Contemporary romances allow the writer to “lighten up,” to be freer with
attitudes and incidents, and to stop worrying about whether some word or phrase
was current in your book’s time period. My best case scenario would be
alternate between the two. If I could only write one, however, I’d probably
choose historical romance.
P.B. What
do you think have been the most significant changes in both genres since you
began your career?
J.B. The
addition of sensuality with graphic love scenes would be the foremost change,
of course. When I sold my first book (THE SECRET OF MIRROR HOUSE, a
mystery-suspense published in 1970) the bedroom door was firmly closed. Now
it’s wide open with all the sex toys on display.
Both
historical and contemporary romances decreased in length from their 120,000 –
150, 000 word maximums. This cut resulted in less meaty stories with lighter
character development and generally less intense emotional involvement.
Historical
romances were once accurate depictions of their time periods. Some still are,
but the current trend is toward stories with characters in long skirts and
tailcoats written by authors who either can’t be bothered to research or else
ignore past social constraints for the sake of “feisty” heroines and erotic
scenes.
Contemporary
romances have gone from every heroine being kind and beautiful to every heroine
being angst-ridden and less than ideal to look at. Oddly enough, the heroes are
still OMG handsome.
I
could go on and on.
P.B. In
regard to the writing profession, what would you say has changed the most since
you were first published? Stayed the same?
J.B. The
explosion of the romance genre from a few titles sold each month on drugstore
and supermarket racks to a multi-billion dollar industry has taken place on my
watch. The opportunity it has provided for female authors to earn a living with
their writing is beyond price. But the greatest change has been the advent of
e-readers and upsurge in e-books, with the resulting obliteration of the
self-publication stigma. This phenomenon is restructuring the publishing
industry, and no one knows where it will end.
The
thing that has stayed the same is the power of a good story well told.
P.B. You
have a few older titles being re-issued from the Sourcebooks Casablanca line
but I noticed that your newest Italian Billionaires series is available through
the Steel Magnolia Press. Could you tell us a little bit about both ventures?
J.B. For
Sourcebooks: I was approached at a writer’s conference with a query about
reissuing some of my backlist books through Sourcebooks. At the time, I had 37
titles for which the rights had reverted from their original publishers. These
books were all with E-Reads, Inc. where they had been available as e-books and
POD (print on demand) copies since 1999 - 2000. Agreement was reached with
E-Reads, and four books were chosen for the Sourcebooks program: ROYAL
SEDUCTION, MIDNIGHT WALTZ, SILVER-TONGUED DEVIL, and FIERCE EDEN. The great
team at Sourcebooks brought these books out with gorgeous new covers. Though
the first title was a mass market paperback, the others were placed in the
Casablanca Classics line of trade size editions. It was great fun being
associated with Domonique Raccah and Deb Werksman. I’ll never forget my visit
with them at their amazing office in Chicago.
For
Steel Magnolia Press: I’ve been fascinated by the possibilities in e-books from
the beginning, as witness my participation in Richard Curtis’s E-Reads pilot
program over 13 years ago. In 2011, I connected with a niece who had
independently published a book on Amazon as Phoenix Sullivan and was deeply
involved in mapping the data and algorithms used to increase sales in that
venue. At the time, I was sitting on reverted rights to several novellas that
I’d written over the years, plus I had another niece who had published online
and two daughters who were interested in writing romance. Following intense
discussion, Phoenix and I established a family-oriented online publishing
imprint that she named Steel Magnolia Press after a label given to me years
ago. My novellas were formatted for Amazon with fresh new covers and posted as
e-books in the fall of 2011. The results from this experiment were amazing.
Then
two important events took place in 2012. The first was an attempt by my
traditional publisher to make a major cut in my advances. As a result, I
refused a new contract and withdrew the 3-book proposal I’d created for them.
The second was discovering that the contract covering a large portion of my
backlist books with E-Reads had lapsed. The result was a perfect storm-type
opportunity to publish both my backlist and ongoing original work under the
Steel Magnolia Press imprint.
SMP
created fresh and vastly improved covers for my e-books, covers that were then applied to their new
audio versions from Audible.com. Box sets were created for titles that shared
locations or had related characters. The titles began to go up in mid-2012, at
a rate of three or four per month. At present nearly 50 of my titles are
available from SMP, as well as titles from my daughter and two of my nieces.
Included in these, as you noted, is my new and original Italian Billionaires
series with two books out so far, THE TUSCAN’S REVENGE WEDDING and THE
VENETIAN’S DARING SEDUCTION. More recently, SMP has expanded to include two
other bestselling authors, Christina Skye and Lynette Vinet, as “Steel Magnolias.”
Two titles each were posted for these authors in June 2013. Two more per month
will be released through early 2014.
SMP
has been an intense learning experience, one I never would have undertaken
without the expertise of our director Phoenix Sullivan. But it has also been
the most fun I’ve had in publishing in years!
P.B. On
a more personal note, how do you like to spend your time when you aren’t
writing?
J.B. I
love to travel and seldom miss an opportunity. My last major trip was a
European cruise with my two daughters and eight of my 11 grandchildren, and my
next will be a cruise around the world in 2014. Beyond that, I enjoy knitting,
crocheting, quilting, beading and painting with watercolors. But the thing I
enjoy most is spending time with family.
P.B. Where
can we find current information about new releases and upcoming books?
J.B. The
Steel Magnolia Press web site has all my titles with clickable links to Amazon
for purchase. To learn about special sales and new releases, please sign up for
our monthly SMP newsletter there. My Jennifer Blake web site has my bio, book
list and a bazillion other bits of information under the Q&A link. Beyond
this, I have an Amazon Author page with book links. Finally, I’m on the major
social media sites, and enjoy connecting with people there. FMI:
Jennifer
has been kind enough to leave us with an excerpt from her latest release from
Steel Magnolia Press. Thank you, Jennifer!
Excerpt
The Venetian’s Daring Seduction
by
Jennifer Blake
“Hello there, you handsome devil.”
Celina Steadman murmured that greeting
to the Venetian gentlemen before her as she leaned in mere inches from his
face. He really was a bold figure, the very image of most women’s romantic
fantasies.
His features were classic, with a wide
brow, straight nose, square, almost pugnacious jaw, and high, aristocratic
cheekbones. His brows were slashes of black and his lashes thick and curling at
the tips, a perfect screen for his thoughts. One corner of his sensuously
molded lips seemed about to lift in some secret amusement. A wicked gleam lay
in the blackness of his eyes. Their darkness was relieved, however, by golden
rays in the irises that echoed the intricate gold braid on his velvet coat.
The wide shoulders of this gorgeous hunk
of manhood were cloaked in black silk. A mask dangled from his fingers, one
made of gold-painted papier-mâché with a beak-like nose in the style made
famous by the great Casanova. Behind him lay the Grand Canal in all its past
non-motorized glory, reflecting an aqua blue sky, the softly colored façades
and red-tiled roofs of the palazzo which lined it. Conte Lucca di Palladino was
perfection against that exotic backdrop. He stared out from it with confidence
that bordered on arrogance, supremely certain of his place in that rarified
world.
Celina heaved a heartfelt sigh. They
didn’t make men like him anymore, at least not in her experience. Such a pity.
Bracing against the top of the tall
stepladder she was using, she touched the cool, painted canvas of the life-size
portrait. She ran a gently questing fingertip along the conte’s firm jaw line,
caressed the sensual line of his lower lip.
“What a favorite you must have been with
the ladies,” she told the long-dead Venetian nobleman in wry appreciation.
“I’ll bet you gave old Casanova a run for his money.”
“That is a bet you would lose.”
The correction, deep-voiced, faintly
accented and none too friendly, came from directly below her.
Celina startled so violently that the
ancient ladder wobbled beneath her. She stretched a hand toward the portrait
for balance but snatched it back for fear of damaging it. Grabbing at the top
step in front of her instead, she clung to it while her heart lurched back and
forth in her chest.
“Careful!”
The man below reached up to catch her
ankle in a firm grip. A spark like the impact of a Taser surged up her leg. It
flared in her lower body and swept onward to jar her brain with the force of a
lightning strike. She was still an instant before twisting carefully at the
waist to look down.
It was as if the Venetian gentleman in
the portrait had come to life. He stared up with a frown of concern on his
too-handsome face and one strong hand steadying her stepladder while the other
curled firmly around her ankle. Tall, wide of shoulder and with dark brown eyes
lit by golden gleams, he was exactly the same.
This man was not in period dress,
however, but wore a suit of such perfect fit it had undoubtedly been tailored
to his measurements. Paired with it was a shirt so white it seemed to glow
against his olive skin. His tie was a symphony of blues and greens, and his
shoes were of softly gleaming leather of a quality found only in Italy.
His dark gaze met hers for a moment. Then
it drifted leisurely over her, brushing her breasts, waist and hips to linger
on the tanned length of her legs that were exposed by the short denim skirt she
wore.
“The fact is,” he went on as if nothing
had happened, ”the first Conte di Palladino was a devoted husband who married
when he was twenty, gave his contessa nine children in fifteen years, and so
mourned her death that he never married again, never looked at another woman.”
Celina barely heard him. If he chose to
adjust his position beneath her, he might see more of her than she cared to
expose. She jolted into movement, descending from her perch with more speed
than grace.
“Per
l’amor di Dio! He released her ankle, reaching to put a hand on her hip to
halt her progress. “Do you want to break your neck?”
“I’ll be fine, thank you, if you’ll just
step away.” She could feel his every fingertip through her clothing, five
separate spots of branding heat. She was also far more aware than she wanted to
be that she had come to a stop with her backside at the level of his face.
“You are quite certain?” He released
her, but only moved to grip both sides of the ladder so she was enclosed by the
cage of his arms. She could feel the heat of his body surrounding her, catch
the delicious hints of expensive aftershave in combination with clean linen and
warm male. An odd dizziness swept over, one that had little to do with her
uncertain perch.
“Yes, of course. I was—you just startled
me.” She twisted at the waist to look down at him again. He was close, so
close.
“I don’t doubt it, as you seemed about
to make off with one of my ancestors.”
“Yours?”
He inclined his head. “I am Lucca
Palladino.”
Of course he was, and named for his
ancestor, apparently. She might have known. “You’re Signor Palladino’s
grandson, then.”
He frowned, perhaps at this proof that
she had some acquaintance with his grandfather who owned the painting and the
palazzo where it hung. “And who would you be? Other than a woman who holds
conversations with men long dead?”
“The person hired by your grandfather to
appraise his art collection. And I was neither holding a conversation with the
conte nor stealing him. I was only—”
“Showing your approval, I believe. I’m
sure he would have appreciated it.”
Oh, there—there—was the wicked glint of amusement the artist had caught so
well. It was stunning in the flesh, a blatant invitation to share in the
absurdity of life. It was also an unfair distraction when she was trying to
hold on to her annoyance.
“Such a paragon of fidelity? Surely
not.”
“He was faithful, not dead.” He tipped
his head in consideration. “Well, not at the time anyway.”
With
many thanks, again, for your interest,
Jennifer
Blake
