Jack The Ripper – Vanessa Kelly, Author

Woot! Sally is in the house! That would be USA Today bestselling author Sally MacKenzie. She writes funny, hot, Regency-set books for Kensington Zebra. Her Naked Nobility series concluded (at least for the time being) with The Naked King, which was named one of ALA Booklist’s top ten romances for 2011. Sally also happens to be one of my favorite historical romance authors.

Let’s ask Sally some questions about her new series, shall we?

Your latest book is the second in your new Duchess of Love series. What’s the idea for the series, and what inspired you to come up with it?

The idea is pretty simple: The Duchess of Greycliffe was a matchmaker even back in the boring village of Little Huffington before she married her duke. Now she’s the premier matchmaker for the ton, but the only matches she can’t make or mend are those of her three sons.

As to how I came up with the idea…that’s a little more convoluted. Unlike some authors, I’m not bristling with story ideas. And I’m what romance writers like to call a “pantser”–I write by the seat of my pants, making stuff up as I go along rather than following a detailed outline. (I prefer to think of it as letting my characters lead me, but whatever.)

So, my publisher wanted a synopsis for the new series–a narrative outline of what’s going to happen over the three books. O-kay. Synopses make me break out in a cold sweat, but they’re a necessary evil, I guess–and I think (I hope) my editor realizes mine rarely bear a lot of resemblance to the finished project. So I brainstormed with my agent and pieces of a plan fell into place. I had an elaborate back story, part of which had Venus, the duchess, a widow. She was going to develop her own love interest over the course of the series.

And then we had the idea to write the novella telling the story of how the duchess met her duke. But…I couldn’t kill off the duke after getting to know him! (No Downton Abbey downers for me!) So the plan changed, but long after the synopsis was done.

I realized a few weeks ago that I needed to update things when I got a payment for delivering the first few chapters of Ash’s story, and the check stub said it was for Loving the Duke. Oops. Ash was indeed the duke when I wrote the synopsis, but he can’t be now because I didn’t kill off his dad! Historicals are like that. So we changed the title to Loving Lord Ash. Glad I caught that before anyone worked on the cover!

One aspect of the series has a little basis in reality: Each chapter starts with a quote from “Venus’s Love Notes,” a leaflet of marital advice that the duchess shares with the female members of the ton. This publication mortifies her sons–they’d rather poke their eyes out than read one word of it…much as my romance novels cause my sons to flinch and run for cover.

Surprising Lord Jack–I love the title! What’s your new book about?

It’s about Jack, the duchess’s youngest son, and it begins in the ballroom around the time Ned’s book is ending.

In writing Ned, I discovered Jack knew how to fight dirty, which told me he knew his way around the seedier sections of London. (Jack, unlike his brothers, lives in Town.) His family also considers him a bit irresponsible, a devil-may-care sort of fellow, which of course meant he was nothing of the kind. So…I decided he had a secret life. He had charities connected with the stews which he didn’t want the ton to know about; thus he pretended to be a rake as a cover for his true interests. And when someone starts slashing the lightskirts’ throats à la Jack the Ripper, Jack feels it’s his job to get to the bottom of it, since most of the ton don’t care about what they consider the dregs of society.

Miss Frances Hadley is a completely new character–she doesn’t appear in Ned. She’s extremely independent and strong willed, and she’s been running her family’s estate since she was fourteen. Her mother died when Frances was young, her father took off even before she was born, and her twin brother left as soon as he could. Now her aunt is trying to trick her into marriage. Frances is not about to stand for that, so she cuts her hair, puts on some of her brother’s castoffs, and sets off in disguise for London to demand the money she feels is hers from her family’s man of business.

Unfortunately bad roads–a result of the blizzard that occurs in Ned–force her to take refuge in an inn. The innkeeper’s wife pities the “boy” and gives Frances the only open room, the one usually saved for Jack and his brothers. But then Jack shows up. Not wanting to roust the sleeping boy and send him down to the common room, Jack decides to share the bed. It’s large enough, and the lad seems to be a quiet sleeper.

When Jack finally discovers Frances’s true gender, he is not happy, but he’s resigned to do the right thing and offer marriage. Frances, however, is having no part of that–she came to London to avoid that exact fate. It takes a while–and some help from the Duchess of Love–for these two strong, independent and somewhat stubborn people to fall in love, but they do! (Are you surprised?)

Oh, and there’s a dog. Did I mention Shakespeare? He’s full of tricks and a hero in his own right.

Everyone has different reasons for loving the Regency period. What are some of yours?

I came to the Regency via Georgette Heyer. I think I was around middle school age when I first read her books. They were so funny and witty and romantic, though I confess I was young enough to think her thirty-year-old heroes really old.

And if I can be rather shallow, I’ll admit I like the ballrooms and the lavish estates and even the whole nobility thing, which seems very un-American. Of course my nobles aren’t stuffy and condescending.

What’s next in Sally’s writing life?

I’ve finished the first draft of the last book in the trilogy–Loving Lord Ash–and now I’m deep into revising and polishing. It’s scheduled to come out in Spring 2014. Once I send it off to my editor, it’s time to go back to the idea patch and pick a few good ones for a new series.

Thanks so much for being with us today, girlfriend! Readers, Sally is graciously giving away a copy of The Naked King. Let’s talk some more about historical romance–what are some of your favorite historicals, old school or new? One person who comments will win a copy of Sally’s book.

I’m so pleased to have romance writer extraordinaire Robyn DeHart on the blog today. Robyn writes sexy historical romance, with lots of adventure and intrigue. Her books have finaled in bunches of contests and she’s won a number of them, too. Let’s ask Robyn to tell us about her latest book.

A Little Bit Wicked, your first book in the Forbidden Love Series for Entangled Publishing, is now available. How did you come up with the idea for this series? We’ve probably had at least one forbidden love in our lives – what’s the attraction?

Thanks for having me today, Vanessa! Yes, forbidden love is such an attraction. I think it’s the taboo of it that draws me in. The series actually rolled right out of this first book, A Little Bit Wicked. I knew I wanted to create a series and well, one of the main elements to Vivian and Marcus’s story is that she’s older than him (and also a ruined lady). I knew a relationship between them would be forbidden. So I grabbed onto that element as a hook for the entire series and it everything fell into place. A Little Bit Sinful is next and well, those who have read A Little Bit Wicked know that Marcus’s younger sister, Clarissa is embroiled in a scandal…we get her story in that book. And the third…well, readers will just have to wait and see.

Can you tell us something about A Little Bit Wicked? I love the idea of a heroine known as The Paragon!

Thank you. It was funny how that idea came to me. Part of my process when I’m creating stories is that I spend a lot of time thinking about the relationship between the hero and heroine. I get an idea for one of them and then I think about who is the perfect person for them to fall in love with and what are the reasons that make them the worst person to fall in love with and I go from there. I knew what type of person Vivian was, I knew she was prim and proper and that that was of upmost importance to her and I knew why, I knew she had this secret past that she was working quite hard to hide. That one secret sort of snowballed into her being the secret keeper and thus the Paragon was born. I liked the idea of a “cleaner” of sorts in Victorian society – we all know how many scandals were flying around back then. Surely there was someone who could help smooth out the edges of nasty gossip. She was a fun character to write! And creating her match in Marcus was even more fun. He was so intent on ruffling her feathers, on breaking through that prim and proper exterior to find the passionate woman beneath…the chemistry lit up my computer.

You also have a new series coming out from NAL. What can you tell us about it? How does this series differ from your Forbidden Love Series?

Oh yes, I’m so excited about the NAL series! I’ve wanted to sell that first book, The Secrets of Mia Danvers, for a while and I believe I found a great home for it with NAL (thanks to my amazing agent, Kevan Lyon). I’m never great at describing a book, but I can share the back cover blurb because it’s already up for pre-order on Amazon.

A lone witness finds her protector…

Since losing her sight in a childhood accident, Mia Danvers has resided in a small cottage on the vast Carrington estate. Thought to be dead, Mia lives a life of virtual seclusion—until one night, while walking home, she happens upon a horrendous crime.

Alex Foster, Eighth Duke of Carrington, lives according to society’s expectations for him. He’s never met the woman who lives in the cottage at the edge of his property. But when she arrives at his door in the pouring rain terrified and claiming she has witnessed a murder, she seizes his attention.

Mia is determined to help the authorities track down the culprit, even though the only person willing to accept her aid is the handsome, arrogant duke. Working closely together proves difficult as Mia’s beauty and independence tempts Alex to ignore convention and follow his desire. But what neither of them know is that this murderer has struck before in Whitechapel, taunting the British press only to vanish—a ruthless killer who knows that Mia is the only living witness to his crime…

Writing a blind character was a challenge, to be sure, but also really exciting. So far everyone who has read the book loves her and so I feel like I did my job. The series will deal with what happens after the Whitechapel murders, asking the question, what if Jack the Ripper kept on killing. So how this series differs from my Forbidden Love series is that the NAL series is for one, much longer books, and secondly where the Forbidden Love series focuses on the hero and heroine and them falling in love while the NAL series focuses on that same thing, but those people falling in love amidst the backdrop of a terrifying murder investigation. The NAL series is darker and more gritty, everything you would except from a book featuring the notorious Jack the Ripper.

Now for what I call my survivor question – if you were stranded on a deserted island with the love of your life, what two luxury items would you bring with you?

Okay this is probably cheating, but I’m going to say a magic toiletry bag that refills itself as needed, filled with toothbrushes and toothpaste and shampoo and soap. So that’s one item and then the other would have to be my fully loaded kindle so I would never run out of wonderful romance novels to read.

Cheating is definitely allowed on my island, Robyn! For my readers today, Robyn is giving away a copy of her new book. Let’s talk about secrets–are you good at keeping them or bad? Did you ever have a secret you simply had to keep, but found it almost impossible to do so? One person who comments will win a copy of A Little Bit Wicked.

And don’t forget: today is the last day to participate in the Holiday Gifts of Love Blog Hop.

Click on this link to get to my original post and start hopping. Since there are over 200 authors and bloggers giving away prizes, you’ll be glad you did!