Welcome to our New Faces column, where we're pleased to introduce some of the brand-new authors in the romance genre. This time we're visiting with Nita Abrams, whose debut historical, A Question of Honor, is now available from Kensington Zebra.

Nita, welcome to The Romance Reader! Tell us about yourself.

I grew up in Baltimore in a big family of voracious readers. My mom ran second-hand booksales, and our house was crammed with books. I used to visit school friends and look around their nice, neat living rooms thinking: 'where are the bookshelves?' After two BAs (one American, one British), an MA, and a PhD, I ended up in the Twin Cities teaching literature. It's a great town for writers and readers--supposedly we have more bookstores per capita than any town in the US.

Are you coming to romance writing from another job?

My teaching job keeps me pretty busy during the school year. I can only write very late at night. People say, "Oh, but you have the summer off." Most teachers I know--from kindergarten up through college--spend quite a bit of time during the summer preparing for fall term, and some of our work (reports, articles, grants, supervising) goes year round. I think it's more accurate to say that we're not paid over the summer, but I do have more uninterrupted time to write then. And I can go on research trips during breaks!

What led you to write romance?

I have always loved historical fiction. When I was a kid I read every book by Rosemary Sutcliff I could find. Then I graduated to Mary Renault and Kenneth Roberts. I got in trouble in history class a few times offering up as 'facts' things I had read in novels. And I also loved romance--especially period romance like Georgette Heyer. So...one summer day a few years ago, a scene from a historical romance popped into my head. For a lark, I wrote it down. Next thing I knew, I had eight chapters. Then twenty. I was racing up to the computer every night after I had finished my work and put my daughter to bed. I dropped all my hobbies. I wrote dialogue in my head at the gym. It was as though I had been possessed.

Tell us about your road to publication.

Well, at about chapter eight I started wondering whether I could actually publish what I was writing. I sent off a query to the agent of one of my favorite authors. Since I didn't include a stamped self-addressed envelope, I never got a reply. I decided to go back to writing just for fun. But when I had three hundred pages sitting on my desk, I wanted to show it to someone. So I sent it to my sister Rachel, a long-time romance fanatic. And to my astonishment and delight, she called me two days later to tell me that she had been up until 2 a.m. finishing it and why on earth wasn't I trying to get it published? She and my sister Sarah put me in touch with Sarah's neighbor, novelist Casey Claybourne, who gave me all kinds of good advice about querying agents, joining RWA, etcetera. After a few rejections I was lucky enough to meet the head of an agency while on vacation with my family, and he arranged for my manuscript to be read. When he called to say they wanted to represent me, I almost fell off my chair. My agent sent the manuscript to Kate Duffy at Kensington and eventually they bought not only that one, but the sequel.

What kind of research was involved for your first book?

Since I went to school in England for two years, I had some familiarity with the setting for the story. But I did a lot of reading about the history of the Jews in England, and worked extensively with old maps and diaries. (I especially loved the diaries of Major Edward Charles Cocks, an intelligence officer under Wellington. At the end of the book, when the editor described his death in battle, I cried.) I'll confess right now that as I continue to read and visit museums for books three and four I'm finding minor errors in Question of Honor. For example, I didn't really understand how early nineteenth-century pistols worked until I consulted an antique gun dealer here in the Twin Cities. When one of my characters unloads a gun by tapping the bullet down the barrel, he's performing a virtual miracle. At least I knew they were muzzle-loaded!

Who are your influences as a writer?

Among present-day romance authors I think my favorites are Connie Brockway, Laura Kinsale, and Patricia Veryan. But the author I consider my model is Rafael Sabatini. I love melodrama. I love plots which call for Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone in the film version. Sabatini is very dated, and there are sections of certain books which make me wince, but he is so gifted at threading his romances into moments of crisis in European history.

What does your family think of having a romance author in their midst?

They're thrilled, especially my thirteen-year-old. She's read both my books (they're G-rated, I hasten to add) and was genuinely disappointed to discover that there were only five chapters of the third one! Of course, she's getting some nice perks out of my new sideline. She, my mom, and one of my sisters have accompanied me to Vienna and Paris to help me with my research.

Tell us about plans for future books.

I suppose my first book went to my head, because almost immediately I decided it should be part of a four-book series tracing the adventures of an Anglo-Jewish family involved in Wellington's campaigns. The second installment, The Exiles, is coming out in June--so if you're wondering what happened to some of the secondary characters in Question of Honor, you'll have a chance to find out. I'm at work on the third and fourth right now.

How can readers get in touch with you?

A friend helped me put up a bare-bones web site: www.nitaabrams.com. Please visit! I'm planning to set it up properly with lots of historical goodies by the end of next month. Until the web site mail link is installed, readers can find me at nkabrams@nitaabrams.com or at my mailing address: 1730 New Brighton Blvd. #104-313, Minneapolis, MN 55413.

Nita, thanks for joining us, and best of luck! Readers, we have a review of A Question of Honor in our Historical section.

April 4, 2002