I’m so excited to have New York Times Best Selling
Author Annette Blair joining us on
Happily Ever After Thoughts. She is giving away
a copy of PROPER SCOUNDREL to THREE lucky
commenters!
Lexi: Hi Annette, thank you for chatting with us on
HEAT. You have written so many subgenres of romance. Which is your favorite subgenre to write in
and your absolute favorite book you have written?
Annette: Not fair. That’s like Sophie’s choice. I
find that falling in love with my characters and their story is paramount for me
to write a good book, and with 40 books out there, it’s impossible to make a
choice. I will say that I am so in love with my story and characters when I’m
finishing a book, that it takes weeks to let them go. But I am most excited and
falling in love, in that wistful delightfully distracted way, when I’m
beginning a new story.
I do enjoy writing my contemporary bewitching
romantic comedies. But I also love a
good Regency rogue or scoundrel sweeping his lady fair around the ballroom in a
titillating waltz, where hearts are racing and hands where they should rarely
be. And then there are the mysteries and
all my friends, ghosts and all, in Mystic, Connecticut.
Lexi: I can understand why it is so hard to choose. I
noticed that both HOLY SCOUNDREL and SISTERS OF SPIRIT were just released. Can
you tell us which was easier to write and which gave you, hmmm, headaches?
Annette: I wrote SISTERS OF SPIRIT with three very
good friends—sometimes all of us sitting around the same kitchen table . . . sometimes
writing the opposite halves of the same phone call for instance. We put a lot
of ourselves in those novellas and I must say that mine, Moving Pictures,
flowed from my fingertips and sometimes surprised me. I’m finding it difficult
to let go of Max Peabody and Anastasia Jones. This quarter book/novella was
easy for me to write.
As for HOLY SCOUNDREL, I plotted that Regency
Historical in 2001 and before I sold it, I sold my contemporary witches to
Penguin Random House, so I left my historicals and former publisher behind
around that time. Fast forward eleven years to the age of indie publishing, and
seven of my backlist historicals have been rewritten and given a new life:
UNDENIABLE ROGUE, UNFORGETTABLE ROGUE, UNMISTAKABLE ROGUE & UNTAMABLE
ROGUE. Then there’s SEA SCOUNDREL, CAPTIVE SCOUNDREL, PROPER SCOUNDREL and,
oops . . . HOLY SCOUNDREL. I had to dust it off, and finish. I was shocked it
was only half there. I thought I had finished it and just needed to polish.
Not! I had forgotten the rules of Regency etiquette, titles, wording, etc. I
did struggle with HOLY SCOUNDREL because I jumped an eleven-year bridge between
genres. I knew what came next, sort of, but trying to figure out what I had in
my brain back then was not easy. I was in labor, but it became a labor of love.
And I did fall for Lacey, Gabriel, and little Bridget.
Lexi: Oh wow. I can’t imagine picking up a half
finished manuscript and trying to remember where I was headed with it. You obviously have
a very good memory :-)
With so many stories running around in your head, how do you choose what to
write next?
Annette: Oh, that is difficult. I have at least four
new series that I could begin this minute, though I have narrowed it down to
one that I’m feeling the itch to write. Readers write to me daily for more
witches, dragons, angels, mysteries, rogues . . . you name it.
Lexi: And I don’t blame them! What was the strangest
fan comment you have ever received?
Annette: The
strangest was in a fan letter, hand written, where the reader said I taught her
that God would forgive anything. That made my hands shake, because I realized
then how much power words can have. It’s scary. I write because I want to take
my readers away from the difficulties of life, give them joy and hope for new
beginnings, so they know better things can come, but that note just threw me.
Lexi: Oh, that is unsettling. But you already knew you had thousands of adoring fans because you made the NY Times Best Sellers List.
I just have to ask. How did you find out you made the NYT Best Sellers
List and what did you do to celebrate?
Annette: My
editor called me while I was at lunch with a bunch of my writer friends, so
what do I do? Turn off the ringer and listen to the message alone later.
Anyway, my husband heard the scream. At the time, my son was about to get
married and I’d decided to be frugal and use my mother of the bride gown as my
mother of the groom gown. When I hit the Times, I remembered a friend who
celebrated each NYT hit with jewelry. Aha! Someone I love had a GEORGEOUS diamond
ring and earrings set with negative memories that she never wore. She was going
to lend it to me for my son’s wedding. But money was a struggle for her at the
time, so I asked her if I could buy the set to celebrate hitting the Times, and
I did. During the reception, she leaned over to touch the ring on my finger and
with tears in her eyes, thanked me for erasing the bad memories and attaching
such wonderful new memories to the set. It
will always be the NY Times ring that I wore to my son’s wedding.
Lexi: I got goosebumps from that story. That is
absolutely wonderful. So what can we expect next from you?
Annette: A
new contemporary romantic comedy series with heart and hope, love and laughter,
and a touch of magic.
Lexi: Sounds perfect! It has been awesome to have you
visit us at Happily Ever After Thoughts. Thank you so much for chatting.
Annette: Lexi, this has been fun. You asked some
thought provoking questions. Thanks for the challenge.
Lexi: My pleasure, Annette. It is so exciting to have you with us!
For a chance to win Annette’s
PROPER SCOUNDREL, be sure to leave a comment for her. Don’t forget to include contact info in your
comment in case you win. There will be three winners!
Annette: Feel
free to ask more questions and I’ll try to answer them.
For more information on Annette’s Romances go to http://www.annetteblair.com/index.html
To find out when a new book is available, sign
up for Annette’s mailing list at: https://www.facebook.com/annetteblairfans
Lexi: Check out this excerpt:
Knave
of Hearts Series, Book 4
HOLY
SCOUNDREL
CHAPTER
ONE
Arundel,
The South Downs, West Sussex
England,
Summer 1830
Lacey Ashton, unnoticed
in the midnight shadows, fixed her hungry gaze upon Gabriel Kendrick, the most
formidable of the ghosts she had come home to face.
Dwarfing his
surroundings, Gabriel bent to keep his head from an intimate encounter with a
raw-oak barn beam while protecting the newborn lamb in his keeping, a smile in
his eyes, if not on his face . . . until he saw her. Gabriel the
indomitable—named for the bright angel when he should have been named for the
dark—stood frozen in vulnerability.
A heartbeat, no more,
and the scoundrel narrowed his eyes, stepped forward, stretched to his full
staggering height, and squared his shoulders to a stunning span. Lucifer, sighting prey, spreading charred wings.
His chiseled features, graven in
shadow, sharpened to unforgiving angles as his dark-fire gaze seared her.
Lacey stepped back. In
that moment, despite her resolve, she wanted nothing more than to turn tail and
run . . . except that she could not seem to move.
Here stood the father
of her child, while between them stood the lie she’d told to deny it—saving him
and tormenting him in one horrific stroke.
A horse snuffled and
shuffled in its stall, freeing the scent of hay musk into the grip of silence,
injecting reality into unreality, replacing the past with the present, and
allowing her finally to draw breath.
As forbidding as her
nemesis appeared in lantern light, dressed entirely in black, the tiny white
lamb tucked into his frock coat humanized him, the contrast bringing his
cleric’s collar into conspicuous and bright relief.
A vicar’s trappings, a
scoundrel’s soul, and no one seemed to know, save her.
He no longer fit the
image of the young man she had carried in her heart. His features, familiar
despite the firmness of his jaw, had been lined and bronzed by time and parish
responsibilities to a mature and patrician air. His leonine mane, still an
overlong tumble of sooty waves, thick and lush, bore strokes of gray at the
temples. No phantasm here, but the bane of her existence in the flesh, more
daunting, more vitally masculine. More a threat to her sanity than ever.
As if he could read
her, Gabriel shifted his stance, on guard, watchful, yet before her eyes, a
hard-won humility replaced his arrogance.
He did not do humble
well, and his attempt jarred her.
He’d always been proud,
even when they were children—he, the indigent son of a vicar who squandered
parish funds; she, the daughter of a duke. But now, their roles had been
reversed, and the duke’s daughter stood, impoverished, disowned, before the boy
who’d adored her, then hated her, with all his heart, face to face for the
first time in five years. “Gabriel,” she said, wishing her voice did not
tremble and her body did not remember.
Annette: I hope you
enjoyed this peek at the first half of the first chapter of HOLY SCOUNDREL.
Lexi: Be sure to leave a question or comment for a chance to win one of three copies of PROPER SCOUNDREL.
