An Interview with Susanna Kearsley

Hi, this is Nicola, and today it is my very great pleasure to welcome Susanna Kearsley to the Word Wenches.  For those who have not already come across Susanna’s wonderfully evocative books, she writes “old-style romantic suspense” with a historical mystery running parallel to the contemporary story.

Nicola: Susanna, welcome to the Word Wenches! Please tell us a little about yourself.

Susanna: This is the part where I always wish I had a Fascinating Biography to share… No such luck, though. I’m simply a Canadian writer whose first novel, Undertow, was published in 1993. Since then I’ve written 8 more books, including one – Every Secret

Thing – written under the name Emma Cole. That one, a thriller, was shortlisted for the Crime Writers of Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel, and might be the start of a series. I’m also the stay-at-home mother of two young children, who keep me very busy and well-grounded.

Thanks so much, by the way, for inviting me here to the Word Wenches blog!

N: I’m thrilled you could join us! Now, your most recent book, The Winter Sea, was short-listed for both the UK Romantic Novelists’ Association Romantic Book of the Year Award and the Romance Writers of America RITA Award in 2009. It’s a terrific read, evocative and romantic. I always love to hear what the inspiration was that gave birth to particular books. Where did the initial germ of the idea for The Winter Sea come from and what was it about the idea that made it demand to be written?

S: I’m so glad you liked the book. The first idea for it started forming twenty years ago, when by pure chance I found a little book called Playing the Scottish Card, by historian John S. Gibson, detailing “The Franco-Jacobite Invasion of 1708”. I’m always intrigued by episodes of history that I’ve never heard of, and this one began with an irresistible quote from Lord Dacre: “History is not merely what happened: it is what happened in the context of what might have happened.”

 

How could I resist? And having read Gibson’s history of the invasion attempt, I was driven to search out the original sources he’d used, like the memoirs of Nathaniel Hooke pictured here – to read the letters for myself and find out more about the people who engineered this nearly-successful attempt to restore James Stewart to his throne, and once I did that I was hooked.

Reading the actual words of the people and “hearing” their voices, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to rest till I’d written their story.

 

N: Your award-winning book Mariana was reissued earlier this year in the UK and there is a new edition of The Shadowy Horses out this month. Are there plans to reissue your other books as well?

S: I’ve been very fortunate with Allison & Busby buying up my backlist and giving my earlier novels a new lease  of life. Along with Mariana and The Shadowy Horses they’ve bought Season of Storms, which was never released in the UK, and they’ll be bringing that one out in February 2010 (I’ve just been shown the cover, and it’s beautiful). If those reissues do well for Allison & Busby, they may pick up the remaining two: Named of the Dragon and The Splendour Falls.

And in the States I’ve just signed on with Sourcebooks, who’ll be bringing out The Winter Sea next autumn, and they’re also looking through my backlist with an eye to maybe doing some re-issues. We shall see. For now, I’m just happy to see my books being brought out with such care and in lovely editions, and getting a second chance.

 

N: The covers are stunning! Do you have a favourite amongst your books?

S: If you’d asked me this two years ago, I would have answered “no”, although Mariana has always had (and always will have) a special place in my heart – not only because it was such a lovely story to write but because it was my first “big” book; the one that opened all the doors for me. But really, I had no clear favourite book among the ones I’d written…till I wrote The Winter Sea. I think that maybe, craft-wise, it’s the best and most mature work that I’ve ever done, and I just loved the characters and how they came to life for me and how the story shaped itself. I’m still so pleased with how that book turned out, and I’ll admit that for the moment it’s my favourite.

N: One interview I read described your books as a wonderful mixture of romance, mystery, history, suspense and emotion. How would you describe your books?

S: If anyone asks me, I say I write old-school romantic suspense with contemporary characters who have to deal with mysteries that are rooted in the past. My husband tells his friends my books are sort of like old Hitchcock movies, in that there’s a mystery but not always a dead body or detective; there’s a romance but it’s not the only focus of the story, and there’s often something spooky going on. In short, they’re a nightmare for the marketing department of any publishing house, since they don’t fit neatly into any category.

N: One of the reasons I enjoy your books so much is that mix of history and suspense and romance! The past and its bearing on the present is a fascinating and recurring theme in your books. Can you tell us where your interest in history and memory springs from and how it has influenced your writing?

S: I’ve just always liked history. I remember when I was ten years old and our family was heading to Britain on holiday for the first time I “prepared” for the trip by reading an old book called A Shorter History of Scotland (it’s still on my shelves) and learning all I could about Mary, Queen of Scots, so even then I was obsessive with my research…

I suppose, though, it goes back to my parents’ love of genealogy and the fact that, from a very early age, I’ve been very aware of my own family history – my ancestors, their lives and where they came from, and the historical events they were part of. I had several ancestors on the Mayflower, another who captained a ship for the East India Company, and still others who were silk-weavers and miners in the north of England during the Industrial revolution, so studying all those things at school became more interesting and personal for me. (As a bit of trivia on the side, I’m also a direct descendent of Elizabeth Winthrop, immortalized by Anya Seton as The Winthrop Woman). The picture is of Thomas Peter Marter, one of my favourite ancestors, who was at the battle of Waterloo

Walking where my ancestors lived and walked themselves, seeing their houses or reading their letters or meeting their eyes in a portrait, I feel a connection that’s hard to explain, but it makes me feel part of a much larger entity; one tiny link in a chain that’s been forged over centuries, and maybe that’s what shows up in my writing.

N: You have travelled extensively to do research for your novels and have some lovely photographs on your website to show for it. What was the most fascinating trip you have taken?

S: I’d have to say the trip I made to Chinon, in France’s Loire valley, back in 1993 when I was doing research for The Splendour Falls. I’d written Mariana by that time, but it hadn’t been published – it was still sitting in the pile of manuscripts being judged for the Catherine Cookson Fiction Prize – but I’d recently sold my first novel to Avalon Books in the States and for the first time I felt brave enough to call myself a writer.

When I’d travelled for research before I’d never thought of telling anyone that I was writing a book, but in Chinon when my hotel owner asked me what had brought me there, I took a deep breath said I was a writer. And the doors just opened. Suddenly I was being shown round the back corridors and private places, and my hotel owner was digging out documents about the German occupation of Chinon in the Second World War, and I picked up all these fascinating details I would never have found otherwise. So all through the rest of that trip when I introduced myself I started with, “I’m a writer, and…” What an epiphany. I climbed down an old holy well in a troglodyte chapel, a freedom not granted to ordinary tourists. Transplanted American artist Paul Rhoads kindly showed me around his adopted French home, introduced me to friends who invited me into their homes, and allowed me to watch him at work, since one of my characters was, like Paul, a painter. I went home with piles of notes, rolls of photos, and most of all, memories. All of my research trips, really, are wonderful, but Chinon was the first time I felt like a writer, and that made it special.

N: You often choose wild places such as the Scottish Borders as settings for your books. Is there something about that wildness that appeals to you?

S: May I go all poetic for a moment? Because Byron said it best:

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture in the lonely shore,

There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar:

I love not man the less, but Nature more,

From these our interviews, in which I steal

From all I may be, or have been before,

To mingle with the Universe, and feel

What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

 

So, yes. What he said. But then again, most of my settings are dictated by where the history took place, and a lot of the history that interests me happened in places that were, by design, far removed from the eyes and the ears of the court. It was easier for the Jacobites to intrigue for the king’s return from Slains – the castle on the northeast coast of Scotland where The Winter Sea is set – than from the crowded streets of Edinburgh where every move and meeting would be noticed by the agents of Queen Anne. But you’re right, Nicola, it was probably easier for me to write about Slains than Edinburgh, since by nature I’m drawn to those more remote, wilder settings.

N: One of the hallmarks of your books is that you establish background and setting so vividly that they are almost another character in the story. How do you set about achieving that?

S: First, thank you for the compliment. It’s something I do more by instinct than design, but I learned at the feet of the master, I suppose, by reading Mary Stewart’s novels, because all of her settings are beautifully rendered. I’m very visual; I’m deeply affected by my surroundings and can sit for ages on my own just watching the play of clouds at sunrise or the seagulls at a harbour or the shadows chasing down a windblown field.

 Like my characters, I’m most often a stranger coming into a new setting, so I try to focus on what little details are specific to that place – what tells me I’m in southwest Wales and not in northeast Scotland – then I try to work those details in, to use my readers’ senses to create a picture in their minds that’s close to what I see, myself.

Interestingly enough, speaking of Wales, the one time I had an editor tell me he couldn’t “see” the setting of a story I was writing was when I turned in the manuscript for Named of the Dragon, the book I set in Pembrokeshire. The problem was, I was actually living there at the time, and without meaning to I’d lost what I refer to as “the stranger’s eye” – I’d grown so used to everything around me I’d stopped seeing it. I had to stay away awhile, then go back down to Pembrokeshire as though I were arriving for a holiday, and then I saw the little things I’d missed, and I could put them in the novel.

N: That’s fascinating! Do you think that your “previous life” as a museum curator influenced your writing in any way?

S: In unexpected ways, yes. Being a curator taught me how subjective our portrayal of the past can be – what we choose to preserve and display is invariably influenced by our own sensibilities and politics, and yet it shapes the way we see our history. (If you doubt this, just look at how Native American culture was portrayed in museums during the era of Western expansion). As a writer, I try not to be confined by what historians deem worthy of recording; I try constantly to look for those more commonplace events that the historians have missed, the stories no one’s ever heard about, and start from there.

 

N: I noticed on your website that you name Mary Stewart as one of your favourite authors. You’re in good company! Who are your other favourites/influences?

 

S: Oh, so many. Nevil Shute’s a writer I can always count on, and I love the books of Jan Cox Speas, who wrote wonderfully romantic historicals. I like the imagination of A.A. Milne, the humour of Canadian essayist Gregory Clark, and the dark wit of Kurt Vonnegut. In fact, many of my favourites seem to have a sense of humour, something I know you appreciate as well! And I’m discovering new favourites all the time.

 

N: What would you say is the most challenging aspect of writing a book that combines a historical and a

contemporary story?

S: The challenge is always to find the right balance, so both remain interesting. I don’t want to drag my readers back to the present when they’d rather be in the past, and usually as the book progresses the past story comes more and more to the forefront, because of this. But it’s important that the present story have a sense of purpose, too, and that the reader cares about those characters as well, that they’re not simply a device to frame the history.

 

N: Do you have any plans to write a “straight” historical novel?

 

S: I actually do have a fairly well-developed idea for one, and I’ve been keeping notes and delving into research for it for a few years now, but to do it proper justice it will need a lot of time and likely be a larger book, and that’s not practical for me to tackle now, with both my children still so young. But one day, yes, I’d like to take a crack at it.

 

N: What is the best part about being a writer for you? 

 

S: Taking a blank stack of paper and turning it into a story is rather a magical feeling. Being allowed to do what I love, anywhere, anytime, while drinking coffee and wearing pajamas is also a definite plus. But the best part, for me, is when somebody takes time to write me a letter and tell me their thoughts about one of my books – that’s a wonderful moment.

 

N: Do you have any tips for aspiring authors?

 

S: The best help to me when I was starting out with my first novel was a little book called Guide to Fiction Writing, by the late Phyllis A. Whitney. It’s a slim volume bursting with great advice, and I still turn to it when I have problems with my writing.

 

In her section on work habits, she stresses the importance of self-confidence, especially when it comes to convincing those around you that you need the time to work. “In the beginning,” she writes, “they’ll feel that you have no right to sequester yourself. Who do you think you are – a writer? So you say to yourself, and to others, ‘Yes, I am a writer. I write, and I’m a writer.’”

 

If you follow that one small bit of advice, you will have made a huge step forward on your path to publication.

 

N: Can you give us a preview into your next project?

 

S: I’m just finishing a new novel at the moment. It doesn’t have a title yet, but it’s a time-travel story that follows a woman who comes to the south coast of Cornwall to stay at a house overlooking the sea, and soon finds herself sharing the rooms with a man living there in the 1700s. I hadn’t planned to write a time-travel book, but that’s what the story decided to be, so we’ll see what my publishers think of it when I deliver it later this month.

After that, I have two projects waiting: my half-finished sequel to the thriller that I wrote as Emma Cole, which has been patiently waiting for me to get back to it, and a new book idea that follows The Winter Sea’s characters further through history. But first, I’ll be taking a couple of weeks off between books to read, and I’ve got your Brides of Fortune series waiting for me!

 

N: Thank you very much for joining us today Susanna! It's been a fascinating interview. Susanna's website is at http://www.susannakearsley.com/ and today she is offering three signed copies of her award-winning book Mariana to three people who comment. I can promise you it's a superb read!

Comments

[MJ]

Thanks so much, Nicola, for introducing me to Susanna. I'll definitely look for her books.

And Susanna, thanks for mentioning Jan Cox Speas. If she's one of your favorite writers, then you're going to be one of mine!

I picked up one of Jan's books more than 30 years ago "Bride of the MacHugh" and thoroughly enjoyed it. This was during the era of the real "bodice rippers" and it was marketed like one. However it was so refreshing to read such an engrossing romance and then to find out it had been published in the 1950s! Even though I found one more of her books, I never could find out any information on her.

[Li]

Thank you for the fascinating interview! I love books that have historical and contemporary stories running in parallel, and will definitely be checking out Susanna's books.

[Mary Jo Putney]

Susanna, thanks so much for visiting the Word Wenches! Like so many of us, I cut my teeth, on the wonderfully romantic and evocative stories of Mary Stewart. We need more books like yours that capture that same spirit!

Mary Jo

[jennspiller]

Hi Susanna! (I met Susanna at the Romance Writers of America National Conference this past July and she was lovely).

Great interview. I just finished The Winter Sea and it is a lovely book. The setting really is another character in the story and various pieces have lodged themselves into my psyche where they will remain forever.

I am now very excited to get my hands on your backlist!

Also, I thought I should mention that Susanna has a website with a very interesting *unblog.*

Now, I have a writerly question. How do you do the travel research as a stay-at-home Mom?

[Susanna Kearsley]

MJ, it's so nice to hear from someone else who shares my love of Jan Cox Speas. Like you, I had trouble finding out much about her, but the Fates managed to connect me with her daughter, Cindy, who supplied me with material to make a little tribute page, here: http://www.susannakearsley.com/jan_cox_speas.html

Li, I hope you like the books.

Mary Jo, thank you for having me. I'm so thrilled that you commented -- you've truly made my day :-)

And hi, Jenn! It was great to spend time with you at RWA, too. Hope your dad's doing OK -- my thoughts are with both of you.

How do I manage the travel as a stay-at-home mom? Well, it can be a challenge. Like you, I nursed both my children, so couldn't do more than a weekend away to begin with.

I squeezed in a research trip to Portugal when my daughter was a year old (my husband stayed home to look after her, while my mother came with me to distract me from my guilt with wine!) Luckily the book set in Portugal, the thriller, took the next four years to write, so I didn't have to travel much beyond the occasional conference.

Now I can manage a week and a half at a stretch, with my husband using up his holidays to stay at home and watch the children, and my friends and parents pitching in to help. (Assuming that I haven't dragged my mother on the trip with me...)

Don't worry, you'll get there!

[Susan/DC]

"Every Secret Thing" wasn't available in the US so I ordered it from Amazon.ca, then for some reason let it sit on the shelf, unread for months. Once I began to read, however, I fell in love with the book and with Andrew Deacon. I know there are many fans of the bad boy hero out there, but Andrew is one of the best examples I know of a hero who is good through and through but still heartbreakingly romantic. I eagerly await the sequel.

I was interested to read Ms. Kearsley's interview and her comments about "how subjective our portrayal of the past can be – what we choose to preserve and display is invariably influenced by our own sensibilities and politics, and yet it shapes the way we see our history." My husband and I were in London last week and saw a production of Tom Stoppard's play, "Arcadia". It's a beautiful play which, in part, is about exactly that: how do we know what we know about the past and how do we interpret those facts that we do know? Like a number of Ms. Kearsley's books, it takes place in interlocking contemporary and historical scenes. The interplay of history and the present, the ways in which culture and technology affect who we are and what we can do are fascinating, and I find the same threads woven through Ms. Kearsley's books. I encourage anyone who has the opportunity to see a production of Arcadia to do so, just as I encourage people to read Marianna and The Shadowy Horses and Every Secret Thing.

Sorry for the long post, but one of the reasons I like these books is because they are cracking good entertainment + thought-provoking + romantic to the core. Now if only Ms. Kearsley would give the poor guy who didn't get the girl in Marianna his own story . . .

[Nicola Cornick]

It's lovely to have you with us, Susanna, and thank you for the compliment about the Brides of Fortune series. I remember how thrilled I was when I first discovered Mariana. Books with your particular mix of suspense and romance and history are pretty thin on the ground in the UK which is a great shame as I know loads of readers who love them. Your books sit on my shelves next to James Long and Mary Stewart and Barbara Erskine. I'm looking forward very much to a time travel novel from you. In the meantime I'm taking Every Secret Thing with me on my holidays. I'm even more keen to read it now Susan has whetted my appetite with her comments about the hero!

[Mary Jo Putney]

Susanna--

I hadn't known about your Emma Cole book, but WWII! Portugal!!! I am SO there! I just ordered the book. It's lovely that Sourcebooks is looking at bringing our your backlist so it's more readily available.

Mary Jo, who did a cruise on the Douro River three years ago, looking for Napoleonic era Portugal

[Anne Whitfield]

Thanks for the great interview. I've been a fan of Susanna for years. I have an early hardback copy of Mariana on my keeper shelf!
I look forward to reading Susanna's new book!

[Sherrie Holmes]

Sherrie, here. Lovely interview, Susanna and Nicola!

Susanna, I have to tell you that after I sent out an e-mail blast regarding your interview here at the Word Wenches, I received an e-mail from a fan of yours on one of the Dorothy Dunnett lists. She said she loved your books and has read almost everything you've written. She read The Winter Sea not long ago and loved it, and ended by saying she's hoping you'll be coming out with another novel soon. I'd say that's one devoted fan!

[Chelsea B.]

That was a fantastic interview! A friend of mine was just telling me the other day how great your books are!

[Karen W.]

Thanks for the great interview! I enjoyed it a lot.

Thanks for the contest too.

[Cara Elliott/Andrea Pickens]

Susanna, how wonderful to "meet" you, and thank you for such a fascinating interview. Your books sound absolutely fascinating! History, romance, mystery, suspense—all my favorites roled into one. I smiled at reading that you love Mary Stewart. As a 12-yr-old I vividly remember my best friend and I being enthralled by The Moonspinners and This Rough Magic. I really think those books, with their descriptive settings, were a big influence on me, and made me think that writers were magical people.

I can't wait to read your books. Thanks again for visiting us.

[Marg]

I discovered Susanna earlier this year when I read the superb The Winter Sea. Now I am on a quest to read through as many of Susanna's earlier books as I can!

[Julie]

Thanks for the interview! Yea! more books to add to my ever-expanding to-read list. Unfortunately, my library doesn't appear to stock them, so I'll have to go searching.

[Cathy Peper]

I definately need to read Susanna's books. I, too, love Mary Stewart's novels and I suspect I will love Susanna's as well.

[catslady]

Mary Stewart was one of the first authors to get me interested in historicals (Kathleen Woodiwiss was the other biggie). I love description and what a better way to learn of things past (sure beats history taught in school). Loved the intereview and am amazed at how many irons you have in the fire at the same time lol. Thanks.

[Susan/DC]

Just a word of warning to Nicola and anyone else who takes my description of Andrew to heart -- everything I said about him is true, but this is not a Romance novel so do not go into it with Romance novel expectations. I don't want someone to be disappointed because "Every Secret Thing" doesn't have the kind of HEA we all love. What it does have is an interesting mystery, great settings, and compelling characters, but you need to enter its world with a different mindset than you do for romances.

[Edith]

Excellent interview! I've loved the Susanna Kearsley books and am glad that you're still writing. Am off to find the Emma Cole books.

[Anne]

I don't know if this is a sign or not, but we are currently in the throes of deciding on a baby name and I just "discovered" the name Mariana, had never heard it before and love it, and then I come here and you have an entire book named Mariana! lol!
Thanks for sharing this interview with us.

[Patricia Barraclough]

I live time travel books. I'll be looking for that one.
Very interesting interview. Will have to reread it tomorrow. Got 2 hours sleep last night and I'm falling asleep at the computer.

[Susanna Kearsley]

Thanks so much to all of you for taking time to comment, I am really overwhelmed by the response.

And Anne, you'll have to let me know what name you end up giving your baby! I took my book's name from the beautiful poem by Tennyson:
http://home.att.net/%7ETennysonPoetry/mar.htm

Thank you again for your kind words and wishes.

And Nicola, thanks for your wonderful questions.

[Teresa W.]

Enjoyed the interview, sounds like my kind of read! tWarner419@aol.com

[Angela Korra'ti]

Hi, I came over from Smart Bitches Trashy Books and wanted to thank you all for having such a great interview with Susanna Kearsley! I love her work and am delighted to hear about the forthcoming reissues. :)

[Diana Holquist]

I am THRILLED to hear that WINTER SEA is coming out in the US. I loved it, and recommend it to everyone I can...but it's hard to get here. I'm also very glad I didn't meet you at RWA...I'd have totally embarrassed myself as a total fangirl :-) Looking forward to what's next.

[Teresa]

Great interview!!! Thanks Nicola, and thanks Susanna :) I've been an SK fan for years, since reading Marianna. Also LOVED Every Secret Thing and looking forward to its sequel - I recommend it at the library where I work!!

Also want to read the TT book - love Cornwall and love TT stories. Yay!

[Virginia C]

Hello! Mariana is one of my all-time favorite books! It truly is a wonderful read! Thank you so much for this great interview!

[Senora Stancliff]

Hello!! I grew up in Kincardine and the local book store recommended Mariana and I was hooked. I am so happy to hear that Mariana is back out again. I lent my copy years ago to someone and never got it back. I now live in the Louisiana and a few years ago for Valentine's Day my husband tracked down a used copy online for me. The delivery cost more then the book but I have Mariana back again! I love your style of writing and I would love to write myself one day. I have 3 children under 4 and work from home 30hrs a week so finding the time is difficult. It's all I can do to get this post to sound right and flow properly!

[Nicola Cornick]

What a awesome Valentine's gift! Best of luck with your writing!
Thanks, everyone, for all your wonderful comments!