Scandalous Miss Brightwell series
Author Interview
- At what point did you decide to be an author and what was your path to publication?
Hi and thank you for inviting me here. Well, I made this momentous decision when I was seven and writing my “School for Witches” series which I’d read to my sisters when we were on holiday at our beach cottage in South Australia.
- Describe your writing process. Do you outline, plot and plan, or is your writing more organic?
I usually start with a story set-up or ‘what if?’ and write until half way. Then I decide which plot threads to follow through with in order to get to the end – as well as how to get there.
- Have you been able to incorporate your previous experience in [jobs/education] in your writing?
I’ve had an exciting life, living in twelve countries from Lesotho, Namibia and Botswana, to Canada, Norway, Australia, Solomon Islands and Japan. Of course, my stories are historicals, but I think the sense of adventure is conveyed to the plot and character.
- Do you identify with your main character or did you create a character that is your opposite?
This is a fun psychological question, isn’t it? I was always the good girl at school, and I think my stories reflect my enjoyment in having a very bad girl as the antiheroine. Maybe this stems also from a repressed urge to be like the ‘popular’ girls at school. 🙂 In my Daughters of Sin series I had enormous fun writing about the ‘bad’ sister, Araminta, who plots serious evil to bring about the ruin of her illegitimate half sisters but in this series – the Scandalous Miss Brightwells – the ‘bad’ sister, Antoinette, is really rather charming. Her ‘badness’ is that she’s addicted to men and is quite happy to enjoy a marriage of convenience with the effete Lord Quamby so she can indulge in her many lovers in between cunning plans to ensure happiness for those she likes.
- Describe the [book/series] in 10 words or less for people who are just learning about it.
Two match-making sisters who’ve made rags-to-riches marriages turn their talents to finding ‘Happy-ever-afters’ for those who deserve them.
- What has been the toughest criticism you have received as an author? What has been the best compliment?
Well, I was a little hurt by one Amazon reviewer who wrote the following one-liner: “Bunkum…my budgie can write better than this!” But then I thought: “Good on this reviewer for having invested so much time and love in training her budgie to be the best budgie he can possibly be – and, maybe, if I really apply myself and put in the necessary hard work, I, too, can one day write as well as her budgie.” 🙂
As for the best compliment, I love the many comments that say my books are “well written” and filled with surprising plot twists. I also thought that this line from another Amazon reviewer was nice for readers who are contemplating staring the Scandalous Miss Brightwell series with the (free) series-starter, Rake’s Honour (which, I must warn readers, is steaming and sizzling compared with Devil’s Run). This reviewer writes: “A fast paced story, filled with humour, sexual attraction, love, and desperation.”
- What is your take on book boyfriends? Do they actually exist? Or do they set the bar for “real life men” impossibly high?
My book boyfriend is my own gorgeous husband who was a sexy Norwegian bush pilot flying guests into the luxury lodges in Botswana’s Okavango Delta when I met him 25 years ago. He is the truly honourable gentleman of Regency maiden’s dreams which is why I tend to write alpha heroes, rather than rakish alpha heroes who have to do the wrong thing, really, before they’re tamed by the heroine. My husband doesn’t even believe in white lies. 🙂
Thank you so much for inviting me here, today. 🙂
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