Desire in Deadwood
I’m extremely excited about its release of Desire in Deadwood. Thank you so much for inviting me to discuss it. Secondly, that it began as a few lines that popped into my head following Christmas last year.
I’d had a rejection just before the holidays and I was a bit disheartened. My lovely husband bought me a cover for my Kindle which is designed to look like a Victorian book cover and it has my name inscribed on the spine. On the inside front cover is a message which reads: This is your first book cover of many. You will be published! With support and encouragement like that, I knew I had to keep trying.
The lines kept playing over and over so I had to write them down:
“Take your clothes off.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
Evelyn forced her mouth shut.
“So? What are you waiting for?”
Her eyes met those of the man on the moth eaten chaise longue in front of her. He was serious.
Within days, these evolved into a full plot and Desire in Deadwood was born!
I wrote it in a week (two hours an evening after work – my marking took a bit of a backseat that week) and submitted it to Total-E-Bound.
It was inspired by my childhood fascination with Calamity Jane and the Wild West, the series Deadwood (which I found to be addictive viewing) and the characters who just had to be given the opportunity to have their story told.
The book has been compared to Sue London and Cheryl Holt, so how does that make you feel?
It’s obviously flattering for a debut novelist to be compared to more established authors. It makes you feel that you’re doing something right and that readers will hopefully like what you’re writing.
The book is set in 1878, so please tell us about your research process into it.
I read a lot of blogs and websites about the Wild West and watched a few documentaries. I scoured the internet for photographs of Deadwood (old and new) and re-watched the series Deadwood, as well as a few of my favourite Westerns. I’m fascinated by the thought What if… and that helped me to work through the GMC and the character arcs, whilst keeping a vivid picture of the historical setting.
Please tell us a bit about your early reading, such as The Faraway Tree and The Borrowers.
I have always been an avid reader and I devoured books as a child. Back then, when I was six or seven, we only had four television channels so reading was my favourite pastime. I was fascinated by the magical worlds of books such as The Faraway Tree and The Borrowers and I read them one after the other. My parents were both professional people and my Granny was a teacher and they always encouraged and supported my love of reading and writing.
Who are your favourite reads now?
It’s so difficult to narrow it down so I’ll name a few that I’ve read in the past few months because I have read some fantastic novels recently and I enjoy quite a wide range. Two novels I read over the summer were Emily Purdy’s A Court Affair and Maggie O’Farrell’s After You’d Gone. I adore historical novels (and have read just about everything by Philippa Gregory) and Ms Purdy’s version of Amy Dudley’s life was beautiful and sensitively told. I was quite surprised by how much I liked After You’d Gone though, as it’s not my normal genre of choice. Both novels made me cry my eyes out!
Other favourites which spring to mind are Carole Remy’s erotic novels such as Beauty of the Beast (very sexy BDSM), anything by Rachel Brimble (she has such a sweet and sensual author voice), Barbara Monajem and Ann Lethbridge, Lisa Whitefern’s fantasy menage Wicked Wonderland, S.A.Meade’s M/M romances and I’ve recently started Sierra Cartwright’s Mastered series. Wow! I could continue. J
What is your writing process?
I work full time so I have to snatch writing time when I can. For a while, I’d delay and procrastinate by thinking I couldn’t write in the evening (as I was too tired) or I couldn’t get up at 6am on the weekend (as I needed to catch up on rest) but now I just write whenever I can. It means that I can’t write as quickly as I’d like to and sometimes I have to sacrifice other things but I try to create a balance so that I’m making the most of the time I have. I constantly have plot and character ideas and I always have a notepad or my iPhone ready to ensure that the ideas are recorded. Sometimes it will be a name, a line or a vague thought but it amazes me how whole plots can emerge. Not forgetting the characters who pop up throughout the day and whisper in my ears - I just can’t ignore them!
I don’t have a glamorous writing area either – it’s in bed or on the sofa, laptop balanced on knees, bearded dragon trying to clatter over the keyboard to get my attention.
Why is it important that a reader misses the characters in a book like old friends?
One of the things I love about a good book is when I miss the characters. If I’m engrossed in a novel, I will enjoy the conclusion but feel a sense of sadness when I’ve put it back on the bookshelf or closed my Kindle. Characters are so important and an author should aim to make them as vivid and engaging as possible. You need a good plotline obviously, but you also need to make the reader feel that they absolutely have to see the characters through to the resolution. The words ‘Age cannot wither her nor custom stale her infinite variety…’ - from Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra - often play in my head too. People are interesting and attractive at all ages, and life experiences (especially the difficult ones) enrich us with wisdom and complexity. These qualities are about more than physical appearances and I want my characters to demonstrate this. The description of Cleopatra continues…other women cloy / The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry / Where most she satisfies… and I think that this is what I aim to create in my characters. The hero has to be hungry for the heroine – and vice-versa – and that hunger has to be insatiable throughout the novel and their HEA. Plus, I want my readers to be able to feel this hunger.
Please tell us how you became involved with Total-E-Bound publishing.
I had some contact with them previously regarding a Regency novel I wrote (which I later withdrew following a very honest critique by a dear friend) and they were extremely courteous, approachable and professional. So after I’d finished Desire in Deadwood, I submitted it to Total-E-Bound exclusively. I was lucky to have the loveliest editor who supported and encouraged me through the whole process of getting my debut novella ready for publication. (Thank you, Sue!)
I also love the website, the covers and the way that Total-E-Bound are so welcoming towards authors. My contact with the whole Total-E-Bound team has been 100% positive and I feel totally supported and encouraged. The company has what I can only describe as a professional yet personal touch.
Please give us some insight into your writing background.
I always harboured a dream to be published and I had a short story, some poems and a Guide to Wales published but I thought that getting a novel published was one of those things that happens for other people, not people like me. So, following University, I became a teacher then had two beautiful children. I was so busy being a mother and working that I didn’t have much time to think about being creative. However, to cut a long story short (and it is quite a long story), as my children got older, I felt the urge to write building again and I went through the whole submission / rejection, submission / revise and resubmit process several times before I wrote Desire in Deadwood.
The best decision I made was to stop procrastinating and dreaming and to just get on with it and put my work out there. It wasn’t easy and like many authors I’ve shed a few (thousand) tears along the way but I try to remember what a good friend told me about the whole process: ‘Write for yourself and write what you want to write, otherwise you will not be true to your author voice and you won’t be happy with your writing.’ So I try to write from the heart. I am a firm believer that love and passion do exist in very powerful forms and sometimes in life we have to make difficult choices, but in spite of these choices, we are still entitled to happiness.
What is next for you?
I’m working on revisions of my novel Harlot at the Homestead which is another historical Western. It’s darker than Desire in Deadwood and longer but it explores how outside influences can affect a relationship and alter the desired course of events dramatically. It considers the human inclination towards revenge and retribution and how these can be destructive if they aren’t mastered by the very people battling against them.
I’m also nearing the end of a modern romance I’ve been writing which is set in Cardiff. It centres around the national love of rugby and features a sexy French hero and a delectable Welsh heroine. I can’t say anymore just yet but it is going to be HOT!
You can purchase Desire in Deadwood today from Total-E-Bound Publishing!