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Welcome to our New Faces column, where we are delighted to introduce debut romance authors to our readers. This time we're visiting with Donna MacMeans, whose first historical romance is The Education of Mrs. Brimley, from Berkley Sensation. Let's meet her. Donna, welcome to TRR! Tell us about yourself. I'm the middle child of five and spent my early years in Baltimore, Maryland. I was the kid that wrote the long thank you notes and patronized the bookmobile whenever it came around. We moved to Ohio when I was in sixth grade and have lived in various Ohio cities ever since. I'm an alumnus of Ohio State University with a major in accounting (it's a long story). I've worked as an auditor for an international accounting firm, as well as a business executive for a local business. For the last twenty years I've been a self-employed CPA with a tax practice. I've been married to the love of my life for thirty-five years (yes, I was a child bride) and have two children - both adults now. Are you coming to romance writing from another job? Well, I still have my tax practice. I keep telling my clients that they should find someone else as I plan to write my way out of my practice, but they keep coming back! Actually, after having been with them for so many years, many are my friends - and I just can't say no when they ask me if I can do their return. What led you to write romance? I've always been an avid reader, but not necessarily in romance. About thirteen years ago, I read Diana Gabaldon's Outlander and absolutely loved it! The first couple of pages of the paperback had all sorts of quotes from romance magazines. I thought, if this is a romance then I've been such a fool not reading every romance I can find. And so I did and never looked back. Tell us about your road to publication. It was a long, long, twisted road, let me tell you. I mentioned I loved Outlander, right? Well, my next excursion into romance was another book with a Scottish laird and an Englishwoman - though not a time-travel. I hated it. The solution to the problem was so obvious in the first chapter that I thought for sure this wouldn't be how they resolved the conflict. Sure enough, it was. I figured I could do better - so I tried. My first book was a contemporary romantic suspense heavily influenced by Outlander. To oversimplify the plot - a married woman goes to San Francisco, gets hit on the head, has amnesia, and has to chose between her nice husband and the to-die-for police detective who thinks her amnesia is a cover-up for a connection to the tong. Okay, stop laughing. Actually, it wasn't bad. It finaled in the 1998 Golden Heart contest, which isn't bad for a brand new author. However, my success in that contest somewhat blinded me to the lack of marketability of that book. It took me longer than it should have to start the next book. But when I did, I wrote another romantic suspense. My second book built on the lessons learned writing the first book. It did well in the contests I entered, but I didn't enter many. About the time I finished that book, I learned of a contest sponsored by Lori Foster that got me thinking. The contest required a three page scene that showed strong sensual tension. I had an idea for a sexy scene, a striptease with a twist, but realized it would work better as an historical rather than the contemporaries I was comfortable writing. So I started thinking about motivations, characters, situations …. and realized this wasn't just a scene, this was a whole book! I never did enter that contest, but the result of all that plotting ended up as The Education of Mrs. Brimley - my first historical. It did very well in contests, but was collecting rejections from every publishing house in existence. Even my current editor rejected the story initially. Agents - they sent rejection letters that said, "love the story, too bad it's historical." The last rejection I received in 2006 actually brought me to tears because I was convinced they would want the story. At that time, Mrs. Brimley was a finalist in the Golden Heart contest. I went to the Romance Writers of America convention believing that there was no way my book would ever be anything more than a finalist. I was convinced Anna Campbell with her story that had just sold at auction to Avon (Claiming the Courtesan) would win. So I started plotting out an idea for another historical, this one with paranormal elements. I didn't prepare an acceptance speech for the Golden Heart, I didn't buy a new dress, I didn't even bother with spandex. I figured I'd be comfortable at the ceremony watching Anna collect the award. When they called my name as the winner, I think I went into shock. I'm not sure how I got to the podium or if I made a coherent speech. I know there were many, many, many people who had helped along the way from that first manuscript. I couldn't have named them all even if I had adequately prepared. Shortly after I returned from Atlanta, I received an offer of representation from an agent. My story sold at auction to Berkley a week later. What kind of research was involved for your first book? I've always loved historicals, but I was always intimidated by the research. Wasn't it Eleanor Roosevelt who said you must do what you most fear? Well, Eleanor would be proud. I chose the late Victorian period primarily for the clothes - they wore so many of them! That was important for my striptease concept. As was that puritanical obsession they had about social mores. As it turns out, I absolutely love the late Victorian period. But as I knew nothing, I had to research everything - especially the clothes with all the layering. I researched homes, furniture, world events, transportation, etiquette, sexual attitudes, education, Women's rights, Victorian artists, Victorian poets, the Royal Academy, the language of flowers, you name it - I probably looked it up somewhere. I now have a pretty extensive library of reference texts and an impressive running tab at my local library. Tell us about your debut book. The Education of Mrs. Brimley is a fun and sexy story. I had such a great time writing it and I think some of that fun comes through in the story. My heroine, Emma Brimley, makes one small fib in her application to the Pettibone School for Young Ladies: she claims to be a widow. But when she arrives in Yorkshire, she is dismayed to learn that she's expected to prepare her students for the intimacies of marriage - of which she knows nothing! Her only hope of maintaining her place lies with the alluring Lord Nicholas Chambers, a neighboring artist whose behavior is scarcely consistent with that of a gentleman. True to his reputation, "Lord Bedchambers" offers Emma a scandalous bargain: he will answer her questions about anatomy and bedroom etiquette, if she will pose for him…in the Grecian fashion. Though keenly aware of the dangers of such a scenario, Emma determines to best this noble roué - never thinking she may be risking her heart as well. The tagline is truly appropriate: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing… Tell us about plans for future books. Remember when I mentioned that I started a second Victorian historical with paranormal elements when I was convinced The Education of Mrs. Brimley wouldn't sell? Well, that book is coming out it June 2008 under the title The Trouble with Moonlight. I really, really love this book. I hope you will too. My heroine turns invisible in moonlight. She can't help it. It just happens. And it's just her skin and not her clothes. Did I mention she's a bit of a thief? If your husband is so foolish to gamble away your jewels, you go to my heroine to get them back for you. Of course, she'll only do it during a full moon, and when she's completely naked. Here's the official blurb: British spy James Locke has seen some odd events. But nothing quite as fantastical as when, in the midst of a moonlit safe-cracking mission, he witnesses a ruby necklace spirited away as if by conjurer's trick. Following the jewels leads him to Lusinda Havershaw, who's inherited the talent of turning invisible in the moonlight-at least, the parts of her that are unclothed. To support her sisters, Lusinda slips naked at night through the Victorian streets of London to recover lost or stolen items. After enlisting her reluctant services for the crown, Locke trains Lusinda in espionage-though her close proximity is bewitchingly distracting. And as their mission to track Russian spies grows treacherous, they'll find that the heart behaves even more mysteriously than Lusinda in the moonlight... I'm currently working on the sequel to Mrs. Brimley which will be a marriage of convenience story involving Nicholas's older brother, William. He was not the most sympathetic character in Mrs. Brimley and did a rather rotten thing to Nicholas and Emma. Accordingly, I'm making William suffer at the hands of his reluctant bride. It should be another witty and seductive story. How can readers get in touch with you? I always respond to email. You can find me through my website, www.DonnaMacMeans.com. Or you can generally find me on the 23rd of each month blogging with the Romance Bandits at http://romancebandits.blogspot.com I'd love to hear from you! Donna, thanks for joining us, and best of luck! Readers, we have a review of The Education of Mrs. Brimley here at TRR.
February 23, 2008 |
