Anne here, with a very special guest, Joanna Bourne.
Joanna burst onto the historical romance scene in 2008, first with THE SPYMASTER'S LADY, followed by MY LORD AND SPYMASTER. Since then her reputation and sales have grown through the best kind of publicity — word of mouth.
Joanna writes big, meaty, page-turning, action-filled, historical romances. She's a wordsmith as well as a storyteller, and her research is excellent. As well as rave reviews, Joanna's books have garnered a swag of awards, including the prestigious RITA for MY LORD and SPYMASTER. The third book in the series, THE FORBIDDEN ROSE , comes out in June, and I, for one, can't wait. Joanna, welcome to the WordWenches.
I'm always interested in how a vague idea crystallizes into a story. My head is always full of story possibilities, but usually there's something — an image, a piece of music, a snatch of conversation, something I've read when I think, Yes! That's a story. Did anything in particular spark a story for you?
Jo: In my next book — Forbidden Rose — the protagonist, Maggie, is a folklorist. They didn't actually use that word yet, but that's what she was. She'd go around the countryside of Normandy, visiting peasant cottages, collecting old folk tales and writing them down, sending them off to scholars around Europe.
It's not a part of the story, but it's part of what she IS.
Maggie thinks in the imagery of folklore and classical myth. So when I was writing her, I thought that way too. I'd be reading along in the history of the city of Paris and I'd 'see' it in . . . I guess you'd say, I'd see Paris in mythic or folkstory terms.
Then one day I came across a little known aspect of Paris and it sent me thinking about the labyrinth of the Minotaur and Orpheus following Eurydice into Hades and . . . well . . . the whole idea of Hades in general. And that gave me one of the central actions of the story.
I'll admit I'm one more writer who's dipped back into the old myths for inspiration.
Anne: Your books are set in Revolutionary and Napoleonic France and Regency England. Traditionally, Revolutionary France has been a no-no setting for romance publishers, reputed to be the kiss of death for books, but you've proven that a myth, and readers have loved the fresh, vivid and exciting world you portray. Why did you choose this setting?
Jo: Y'know, there are times and places where ideas put on the boxing gloves and square off. Just about everything we know and believe about freedom and human rights was being thrashed out in this two or three decades. How exciting is that?
I love the British—French struggle because BOTH sides were right and both sides were wrong. A splendid complexity.
Anne: The characters in your books really spring to life on the page, especially your protagonists, Annique and Grey, Jess and Sebastian. In fact I told an author friend I was interviewing you and she said, "Ask her what Annique and Grey are doing at the moment." Do your characters spring fully formed from the head of Joanna, or do they slowly emerge in the writing?
Jo: The characters are very much an organic growth. I don't know what to expect of them. We're awkward at first. But after a while we're chatting along like great friends. A few month into the work and I begin to 'hear' my people when I'm writing. It's cool for all of us.
You can tell your friend that Annique and Grey went under cover in the south of France for a bit. There was a spot of trouble, but they made it through just fine.
Anne: Your portrayal of spying in Napoleonic times is wonderful, as is your picture of the criminal underworld in My Lord and Spymaster. Could you tell us about some of the research do you do?
Jo: I do love research. There's about a dozen core books in the field. Mayhew's Characters, Thieves' Kitchen or The Regency Underworld by Low, and Sparrow's Secret Service are good. But what I know about spying and the criminal underworld I really learned from the Scarlet Pimpernel and Kim and Oliver Twist.
Anne: I was interested to discover you do a lot of writing in coffee houses (very eighteenth century of you.) What's the appeal of writing in such places for you?
Jo: Home is both too quiet and too noisy for me to work. I keep hearing the floors whispering, "Wash me. Waaaaaassssh me." And the vacuum cleaner rattles in the closet like a piece of angry pepperoni.
So I escape to the coffee shop where the electrical appliances don't have expectations of me and the people provide just enough stimulation that I have to concentrate on the computer, which keeps me focussed.
And yes, I do feel very eighteenth century.
Anne: THE FORBIDDEN ROSE is about Maggie and Doyle, who are secondary characters in the previous two books. It's already garnering some wonderful reviews, including a top pick from Romantic Times. Tell us a little about it.
Jo: The French Revolution. In Paris, secrets, spies and conspiracies are thick on the ground. That's William Doyle's duty — to plunge into the thick of that and bring the secrets back to England. In city and countryside, ordinary people thumb their noses at authority and risk their lives, snatching men and women from the guillotine, smuggling them out of France. That's Maggie's job. That's the group she leads.
With so much at stake, it's not easy to fall in love. Maggie's story is finding love and fighting tooth and nail to keep it. Doyle's story is meeting THE woman and holding onto her. And staying alive. They have to do that too.
Anne: Could we have a short extract please?
She wanted this. It would be so easy, so natural, to take this pleasure. To let her body answer his. There was no one on earth to stop her.
Except herself. Except herself.
She said, “I wish . . .” I wish I could lie with you. I am afraid and alone and I would be comforted by you. She picked one drop out of the sea of what she wished and put it into words. “I wish I were the miller’s daughter and you were the farmer’s son and we could play foolish games in the stable loft. I wish you were someone I could . . .”
“Be foolish with.”
“Yes.” She sighed. “But I am not the miller’s daughter. I have never owned such simplicity. I do not live one minute without calculation.”
“Pretend I’m someone you can kiss.” His lips came down softly over hers. Holding back, brushing lightly. Hinting. The taste, the possibility, was enough to hold her while he retraced the path up her backbone and slipped the calluses and strength of his hand under her wet braid and enclosed the nape of her neck.
He muttered, “We’re both going to stop calculating for a minute.”
(Read another extract here)
Anne: Gorgeous extract, thanks. I can't wait to read the whole book. So, what's next for Jo Bourne? Can we expect Adrian's story or are we still waiting for him or his heroine to grow up?
I'm working on Adrian's story right now. We meet his lady — Justine — in FORBIDDEN ROSE.
Anne: Excellent, I know a lot of people who are eager to read Adrian's story. Joanna, thanks so much for joining us on Word Wenches.
I'm sure our readers have some questions for you as well. And here's Joanna's question for readers. She'll be giving a copy of her new book, FORBIDDEN ROSE, to some lucky commenter.
Joanna says: I always feel as though there's a dynamic between the adventure or suspense elements in a story and the softer, more romantic story of love. And in Historical Romance, there's a sense of history as well. I see these almost as three separate strands woven together.
What do you like to see, as a reader? More concentration on the love story? Something close to Historical Fiction with a love story at the center? Or are you more interested in the drama, danger and suspense that drives the plot onward?