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Welcome to It's Raining Books. Why do you write in your genre? What draws you to it?
br> Well, for starters, I love history. I always have. I think I cut my teeth on The Little House on the Prairie series before graduating to Gone With the Wind. And never looked back. I then became a history major with a fondness for the Renaissance and Shakespeare—the master storyteller—before moving on to Austen, the Brontes, and Richardson. I’ve just always been fascinated by how people lived before all our modern conveniences and had all those rules about what you could and couldn’t do, or say, or eat, or entertain oneself. And it’s so much fun to recreate that world!
What research is required?
A crap ton of it! But fortunately, I adore doing research. It’s so much fun to run down how a Regency bedroom or dining room or ballroom looked. Trying to discover what the latest ballgown or walking dress or tea gown looked like in 1892 excites me to no end. And I try to get it right down to the type and color of the lace, who the dressmakers of the time in London or Richmond were in 1892, what the city looked like so my characters can see that world and my readers can see it through their eyes. I’m building the world of the past which I think is harder than building a world from scratch because readers can go back and check your facts if they want to, so historical authors have to be on their toes!
Name one thing you learned from your hero/heroine.
From my hero, Rafe, I learned perseverance. He had the most patience with his heroine of any hero I think I’ve written. And I learned to be patient with my writing. I needed time and perspective to see that the book I wrote in 2012 was not the best, when I was too young a writer to see it. And so I think that’s why it took me so long to bring this book to the public. Rafe was whispering in my ear that I needed to grow as a writer before I could make his and Amantha’s story what it truly was destined to be.
Do you have any odd or interesting writing quirks, habits or superstitions?
I do have several quirks when I’m writing.
1) I need quiet in order to write. No music, no talking, no phones, no nothing but me and the computer or notebook.
2) I have to write a detailed outline (usually about 10 pages chapter by chapter) that I then consult religiously as I’m fleshing out each chapter.
3) I write ten-page chapters, so about 3,000 word chapters, and pretty consistently I can turn out a chapter a day. I don’t feel finished until I reach that goal.
4) I really like to write my first draft in longhand. My dear mentor, Judi McCoy’s, best piece of advice to me was “You can fix crap, you can’t fix nothing.” So when I’m writing longhand, I instinctively know that I’ve got to rewrite it as I type it into the computer, so I feel free to write whatever comes into my head because I know if it’s crap I can fix it easily.
Are you a plotter or pantser?
If you can’t tell from the answer above, I’m a plotter through and through. I can’t write anything without an outline. I have to know where I’m going and how I’m getting there before I can start to think about the details of the trip. This doesn’t mean I don’t take side trips or meander off down green leafy trails to see where it takes me, but eventually I’m back on the true road and speeding along toward that happy ever after.
Look to your right – what’s sitting there?
An air mattress. I’ve been living with my daughter since I broke my shoulder and she just moved into a new townhouse so everything’s in disarray. And I can’t climb the stairs to the bedrooms, so I got an air mattress and that’s to the right of my makeshift writing desk at the moment.
Anything new coming up from you? What?
Now that As Long As You’re Mine is out there, I’m working on the next book in the Welwyn Marriage Wager series for Dragonblade Publishing. It’s book five, called Gem of My Heart.
The premise is that six cousins have a wager put to them by their grandfather the duke. He wants to see all of his grandsons married before he dies so he wagers they all can’t get married within a year. If they do he’ll give each of them an estate, a carriage and equipage, and 10,000 pounds. But if even one of them doesn’t marry, they all get nothing.
We’re getting toward the end of the wager now, and in book five the next cousin looking at getting married has a big problem. The woman he loves, who he wants to marry, won’t marry him because she’s his mistress and very much afraid she’ll force him to break with his family if he marries her. (It would be quite a scandal.)
A scandalous mistake…or a wicked way to happiness?
Hoping to compromise herself, Lady Amantha Easton sneaks into the bedroom of her would-be suitor only to find a total stranger there—a totally handsome, charming stranger to be sure—but not at all the man she plans to marry. She leaves his room with her reputation intact—barely—only to fall victim to the gentleman’s charms in a public place. Now Amantha must face the fate she’s tried to avoid—marriage to a man who will never love her.
All Rafael Beauregard wanted was a warm bed and a good night’s sleep…but what he got was an unexpected romp with a beautiful vixen and a fiery kiss that left him wanting more. An excellent trade, except now he’s got to marry Lady Amantha, one of the most willful women he’s ever met. So Rafe’s challenge is to persuade her that marriage to him might be the best thing for them both…once he convinces himself.
Read an Excerpt
“Oh, Raif!” She could scarcely breathe now. “That…feels…so good.”
“I thought it might. You’re awful sweet.” His low, sleepy voice sounded odd under the covers. On the verge of asking if he was well, she lost the thought when he lifted his head from her breast and crushed his lips to hers.
All else forgotten, she wouldn’t have cared if the house burned down around them. His lips were hot, insistent. Then he plied the seam with his tongue, softly urged it to part for him. She had no desire to resist and soon he had buried his tongue deep in her mouth. A tentative stroke of her own brought a growl of encouragement, and she abandoned herself to explore his willing mouth. She did things she’d never dreamed she’d do, with Raif or anyone else. And she only wanted more. “Oh, Raif. I never thought it could be like this.”
He chuckled. “How soon you forget, Jenny.”
“Jenny?” Amantha froze, her blood turning to ice in her veins. “Who’s Jenny?” Sudden anger lit a fire in her, and she pushed him away. “How many women were you expecting in your bed tonight, Raif?”
“What?” The sleepiness had flown from his voice. “You’re not Jenny?”
“You expected me to be?” This was a nightmare. They weren’t even married and Raif was being unfaithful to her.
“I didn’t expect anyone in my bed.” He threw off the covers and fumbled at the bedside table.
“What do you mean you didn’t expect me? We had planned this, Raif.” What the devil was the man playing at?
“We?” A match flared as he lit the lamp, the sudden light after the darkness almost blinding her. She put her hand up to shield her eyes.
“What do you mean, we?” He sat up in the bed, rubbing his eyes. “Who are you, sweetheart?”
The voice, now unmuffled, certainly did not have the superior tone of Raiford Tolbert. Slowly Amantha lowered her hand to find a man with dark hair she’d never seen before peering at her.
Dear God, what had she done?
About the Author
Jenna Jaxon is a best-selling author of historical romance, writing in a variety of time periods because she believes that passion is timeless. She has been reading and writing historical romance since she was a teenager. A romantic herself, Jenna has always loved a dark side to the genre, a twist, suspense, a surprise. She tries to incorporate all these elements into her own stories.
She lives in Virginia with her family and a small menagerie of pets--including Olive, an almost silent cat, Earl Grey, a very curious bunny, and a Shar-pei mix dog named Frenchie.
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