Welcome to our New Faces column, where you can meet some of the latest romance authors on your local bookshelves. This time we're visiting with Melissa James, whose first release is Her Galahad from Silhouette Intimate Moments.

Melissa, welcome to TRR! Tell us about yourself.

I'm from Sydney, Australia, born and bred there, but now live about an hour north of the Bridge, on the beach. I'm a former nurse and am currently (VERY slowly) doing a BA at University, with an emphasis on history. I'm married with 3 kids, two busy teens and a nine year old. We have a part-dingo dog, 3 chickens and 2 frogs my daughter hatched from tadpoles.

Are you coming to romance writing from another job?

I was a nurse, and I loved it; but I'm an old-fashioned girl who stayed at home to rear my kids. I began writing when my teenage daughter was 4.

What led you to write romance?

Yes, I am; but I hadn't thought about writing it until my husband brought home an article in the paper about how much Emma Darcy earned! He said, "You can do that while you're home with our kids." Hmmm...took a bit longer than that, but once I started writing, I was hooked.

Tell us about your road to publication.

It took 9 years all up to get published, but about 3 years of concentrating on romance. I wrote one or two romances, then turned to mainstream for 4 or 5 years, then returned to romance in 1997 when an agent told me it was "the best editing discipline in the world" and that my romantic parts of my book made her "spine tingle". She told me to join RWAustralia. I said "Who?" I joined the next week - and got my first two wonderful critique partners, Kate and then Andrea (Maryanne is my current partner, and hopefully a permanent one. I adore her), and joined the Hunter Valley Romance Writers, my excellent group of friends and critique parters. After entering three contests, I got editorial interest in a book I'd written. That editor continued to help me, and I learned so much. In 2000 I won a contest called The Clendon Award (sort of the Golden Heart for Down Unders/NZ) and Leslie Wainger, final judge, bought my book, Her Galahad.

What kind of research was involved for your first book?

Quite a bit, actually. Her Galahad is a based-on-fact book, gleaned from my Aboriginal History course in 1999. I was away camping with my family, and brought my reader. I read that weekend that the Australian Government had regularly given fake death certificates to members of the Stolen Generation (Aboriginal kids taken from their families) for their parents, so they wouldn't go home and look for their heritage, and blend into white society. Those same kids (the girls) quite often lost their children - told they were dead, and the government adopted them out to white families. And many of those boys ended up in prison, on real or fake charges.

I had to write the story then. I studied up the subject, checked facts, finished my course and wrote the story of Tessa and Jirrah. A few people have condemned the book as implausible and unrealistic, even ridiculed it. But it is fact.

Tell us about Her Galahad.

Briefly, Tessa Earldon discovers she's an unwitting bigamist when the husband she'd been told was dead, Jirrah McLaren, arrives on her doorstep saying her second 'husband', Cameron Beller, just car-bombed him, and he's coming after them both. When Tessa learns just how far her rich, respectable family have gone to make her marry violent but socially-acceptable Cameron - even adopting out her daughter illegally - she goes back with Jirrah to Sydney to sort out the truth from the lies, to find freedom - and their daughter. They have a week at most before politically-hungry barrister Cameron finds their child, and uses her as a weapon to shut their mouths - permanently. But even knowing they can never be together again doesn't stop either of them wanting it - wanting each other.

Who are your influences as a writer?

Romance: Fiona Brand, Ruth Wind, Sharon Sala. I loved Karen Anders' Jennifer's Outlaw and Linda Randall Wisdom's In Memory's Shadow. There's too many to name!

Mainstream: JRR Tolkien, Jane Austen, Diana Gabaldon, Georgette Heyer, Laura Kinsale, Sharon Penman.

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

Roll their eyes at my constant distracted state of mind! But they're proud, too, and show my book to people regularly.

Tell us about plans for future books.

My next book, Who Do You Trust?, will be out in February 2003 - it's the first in a series of five called the Nighthawks, about a group of elite pilot/spies in the South Pacific. My third book is with the senior editor now, and a Silhouette Romance is also with the senior of that line. I've also just begun a sequel for Her Galahad, when readers asked me for it. At present I'm using my history knowledge and hunger to use in a mainstream novel set in Israel, 1000 BC, a partly-based-on-truth story with a tragic love triangle that sees the fate of an entire kingdom rest in the heart of a 17-year-old girl.

How can readers get in touch with you?

My website: www.melissajames.com or the old-fashioned way, through the publisher (until I get a PO Box - sorry!).

Melissa, thanks for joining us, and best of luck!! Readers, we have a review of Her Galahad in our Category section.

November 16, 2002