Welcome to New Faces, where we are happy to introduce debut romance authors. This week we welcome Sandra Lee, whose witty medieval Love At First Sight is now available at your favorite bookstore. Let's meet her.

Tell us about yourself.

Sounds absurd, but I truly believe I was destined to be a romance writer. I was born in Tampa, Florida. A wonderful small city, Tampa possesses an old world, turn-of-the-century Hispanic charm. A tropical, Latin pulse can be felt, seen and heard everywhere. Ybor is to Tampa like the French Quarter is to New Orleans. There's Gasparilla, an annual celebration where pirates invade Town Hall and take hostages. Even the elementary school I attended was built on the site where Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders once camped before departing for Cuba in the Spanish-American War.

Not that anyone should misunderstand what all this means to me. I can't claim an ounce of Latin blood. I'm a typical Scot in every sense of the word, except when it comes to being frugal. As an adult, I learned that Jose Gaspar, for which the Gasparilla is named, was the invention of a real estate entreprenuer in the 1920s. There was no such pirate. Meanwhile, the political challenge involving Spain and the United States . . . won't go into that, except to say that I think it was a tragedy.

But eight year-old girls don't know about all that. They only consider heroes and villains, and in the end, that was my influence. Those exciting pirates with patches over their eyes, those adventurous Rough Riders, one of whom became our President. Ahh.

Are you coming to romance writing from another job?

I have a B.A. in elementary education. Why? Because my mom made me get one. Not that she cared what I received as a degree. Rather, my grandfather was a wildcat oil-driller. He died when my mother was a teen. Thereafter, my grandmother sustained the family as a writer. As a result, my mother was well aware of the vagaries of the publishing industry. The "feast or famine" thing. Though she encouraged my writing, she insisted on a back-up, and scared me enough to take her advice.

What led you to write romance?

I'm middle-aged. It's not that I haven't read the classics. Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Kafka, Herman Wouk, the list is endless. Yes, those authors deserve every bit of praise that is given them, and more. They wrote from the heart, just as all authors do today. And they were ground-breakers, feeding new ideas and thoughts to the public.

But for me, at this stage of life, with television, computers, advanced technology, I don't have time to wade through an entire chapter of description. Something will interrupt. My oldest daughter will crash her car, my youngest will need a chaperone for a school play. It's a sad commentary, because the aforementioned authors were masters of the craft. And now I'm getting too esoteric, so I'll shut up on the subject, except to say that I thought I could write a better romance than any other author. Wrong! The women/men who write romance have earned my undying respect.

How rocky was your road to publication?

"On The Road To Publication." I feel like Bob Hope, the geek who never got the girl in all those "Road To" movies. Though it was always a dream, courtesy of Grandma and all those pirates, I didn't begin to actively pursue a career in writing until my youngest daughter was born. October, 1981. So now it's 1999, and my first book is just coming out. Gee. How to be an overnight success in 17 years.

Actually, that's not true. Anyone who reads the dedication in LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT will note the name "Prudnuts", aka Prudy Taylor Board. A multi-published author, it was my incrdible good luck to have her for a teacher/mentor. Within 18 months of beginning her "Writing For Publication" class, I sold my first non-fiction article. Sold well over a hundred articles before I finished freelancing. It was more my good fortune to have met my critique partner while attending Prudy's class, the incomparable Juice, aka Joyce Henderson. Between the two of them, it was publish or perish, literally. Forget those 20 rejections you've received. Keep submitting. Perseverance is the only thing that will get you pubbed.

Tell us about researching Love At First Sight.

Taylor Caldwell. A fave of mine when I was growing up. I once read that she never did any research. Much of the material she used in her books came from a sixth sense, something she believed she'd experienced in a previous life. I should be so lucky. It's hard enough to read through hundreds of historical accounts and testimonies. Worse when the experts disagree, which is is more common than not. Without question, early medieval man suffered greatly from lice, fleas, and ticks. Icky. Is that a guy any woman would want to sleep with? On the other hand, women were infested with such lovely creatures as well. Major huz. But what about tattoos? There are accounts which offer proof that men were tattooed so that if they were hacked up in battle to the point where they were unrecognizable, their tattoos would identify them. A point which other scholars would deny. Inconclusive evidence, since no bodies are around to prove such.

At any rate, research is as interesting as it is boring and contradictory. What's true today may be disproven tomorrow. What's an author to do?

Who are your influences as a writer?

Hands down, number one is Dr. Seuss. There was a genius who wrote books from the heart. Haven't read ONE FISH TWO FISH in years, but I can still remeber the entire book. And THE GRINCH WHO STOLE CHRISTMAS. A more evil and delightful character I've never read.

As a young adult, I cut my teeth on John D. MacDonald's Travis MacGee series. I also clearly remember reading THE EXORCIST and sleeping with a Bible under my pillow for several weeks thereafter. Both my parents were avid readers of anything that came down the pike. Interesting, my mother's faves were Harlequin Books. Yeah, she'd read everything else, James Michener, Harold Robbins, the aforementioned Taylor Caldwell. But she'd spend weeks reading them. Give her a Harlequin, boom, up 'til three a.m., read it cover to cover.

It was my mother who introduced me to Kathleen Woodiwiss. From there I moved to Rosemary Rogers, Jennifer Blake, and Jude Devereaux, with her infamous BLACK LION. Oo-la-la. Roberta Gellis, with her incredible characters, Jennifer Wilde--I couldn't get enough. Meanwhile, I'm a real nut for spy thrillers, especially by English authors. John Le Carre and Len Deighton. Masters not only of the craft, but of subtlety. Their characterizations are brilliant, and their plots circle you like hungry sharks, just waiting for the right minute to dart in and grab a bite of your guts. And they're so slick and swift, it takes a minute to realize you've been bitten. Then it's too late. You're going down for the count, along with the characters.

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

Ha! Read "About the Author" in the back of the book. From that, anyone could guess the esteem my husband and children reserve for me. My oldest daughter does my final critiques, so she's well aware of my failings and does not hesitate to point them out. My youngest daughter resents the fact that she has to walk the "squirrel-sniffing, cat-chasing dogs from hell" because I'm too busy. Meanwhile, my husband is thrilled to have an author for a wife, so long as it doesn't interfere with his golf after work. None of them care a bit about the flow of Mom's creative juices when they're hungry and there's no dinner, when there's no toilet paper in the bathrooms, when they have no clean clothes to wear because Mom hasn't done the laundry in two months. But when I'm under the deadline gun, those three support me like it was their own necks in the noose. I couldn't ask for better.

How about plans for future books?

I just finished my second book, HEAD OVER HEELS. A "prequel", as in opposition to "sequel", it's the love story between two of the characters mentioned in LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT. Beyond that, I will likely stick to medievals. It's a time period I really love because of its relativity to today's world, or at least my interpretation of today's world. Both are tough, gritty worlds, full of the harshest conditions that life can deal out. Both time periods are filled with life, death, and taxes, the unending attempt to satisfy questions of mortality, sin, fear, the desire to somehow make sense of it all. Yet there's always that mystic quality, something vague and unseen, but there all the same. It's that mystical quality that makes love possible against all odds. It's something we all possess if we are bold enough, strong enough in our convictions, and willing to take chances with our hearts.

But, as Dennis Miller would say, "Hey, I could be wrong."

How can readers contact you?

Now there's the stumper question. I'm working on a Web page, but between booksignings, deadlines, and proposals, I'm not getting on it as fast as I should. Okay, I'm not getting on it at all. I know who's going to help me when I get a minute. Would it suffice to say I will contact the Romance Reader when I'm up and going? Meanwhile, Bantam is always an option, if no one minds snail mail.

Sandra, thanks, and best of luck! Readers, check out our review of Love At First Sight.

January 28, 1999