Rachel Gibson: First let me say Hello to everyone at Fresh Fiction. You all give the best events and parties, and it’s great to chat you again.   Your new book DROP DEAD GORGEOUS involves some body swapping—what appealed to you about that idea? Were you a Freaky Friday fan?  I loved Freaky – “I’m like the Crypt Keeper!” – Friday, but it wasn’t the inspiration for DROP DEAD GORGEOUS. The idea for DDG came from my deep dislike for amnesia plots. I’ve always said that I would never write an amnesia book. However, I am a contrarian which mean that at some point I’m going to twist and bend a plot until it works for me. Every book I’ve written starts with “what if…” What if one woman’s soul jumps into another woman’s body, and she must pretend she has amnesia for the rest of her life?   The thing I like about body swapping or soul swapping stories – depending on how you look at it – is that the characters in the swap often learn more about what makes them unique, and their personality and perspective sometimes evolves. Would you say that’s true of the main characters in DROP…

WHEN BLOOD LIES is the 17th in your Sebastian St. Cyr series. What keeps this character inspiring for you? Sebastian St. Cyr is such a complex, dynamic character: he’s clever and passionate and honorable, although he’s also willing to step over a few lines when necessary. I find that if I’m away from Sebastian and Hero and the others for too long, I miss them and get impatient to start the next book. A part of that is probably because there is an important personal story arc that runs through this series, plus several overarching mysteries that make this series unusual, and I suspect help keep it fresh for me. Before I started the series I had only written standalones. It’s fascinating for me as an author to be given the opportunity to follow a set of characters through years of their lives, exploring the ways they grow and change because of various life events and experiences. And of course, the period is fascinating. We tend to think of the Regency in terms of balls and carriages and duels at dawn, but there was so much more to it than that. This was the age of Napoleon and Goethe, Byron…

How much historical research is involved with your books? It depends on each book. Sometimes the particular subject matter or slice of historical time in which the book is set requires a great deal of research, and sometimes it’s not quite so intensive. And of course, that is on top of the vast amount of background research about all the particulars of the time period and my characters’ backgrounds that I conducted before ever beginning to write the series. Plus, I’m often reading general and social histories during my free time, simply trying to always be increasing my knowledge and search out interesting plot ideas.   In A PERILOUS PERSPECTIVE there is a forgery and a murder. Do you normally have different criminal elements along with murder? Sometimes. Though, not always. I was inspired to explore the art forgery aspect for this book because Lady Darby is a gifted portrait artist, and I hadn’t utilized that trait fully with any of my recent plots. It was an absolutely fascinating subject to research, and then try to figure out how much my heroine could have feasibly known and been able to detect in 1832 versus all the tools we now have…

Your new book THE FORGOTTEN DEAD has two things I love – psychic abilities and a seemingly haunted house. What attracts you as a writer to these themes? I’ve loved spooky stories since I was a kid, even though I was deeply terrified for ghosts for most of my childhood. I still love creepy stories, whether they be something like M.R. James’s “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” or a contemporary action-driven series like J.L. Bryan’s “Ellie Jordan, Ghost-Trapper” books. I think the thing that draws me to ghostly stories is the concept that they tend to center some past injustice, a psychic wound that reaches through time, crying out for resolution. It’s hard to go wrong with a set-up like that!   Can you describe the dynamic between Nigel and Oscar? Do you alternate between perspectives throughout the book? Oscar is a big guy with a big heart. He’s a former college football player turned accountant, who leads a ghost-hunting team on the side. He’s the one who’s always trying to look out for other people, make sure they have what they need, that they’re comfortable. He’s also been seeing ghosts since childhood but is in…

Your book DARK SUN involves the faery world. What is it about the fae that you find compelling as an author? I grew up on folklore, so I draw on that old lore of the faeries. The faeries have a removed world, but they visit ours, and they can be invisible to the eye at their will and whim. Iron is toxic. They offer bargains that seem like a good idea, but they’re always clever in ways we aren’t. Beautiful, dangerous, tempting, and ancient. Yes, please. And, as every tale goes, mortals arrogantly think we can successfully outwit them—in part because the faeries cannot lie. What’s not to love there? So many possibilities!   What would you say is the central conflict in DARK SUN? Would you say there is an equal mix of action and romance? The question of the book is coming to terms with who you are and what you seek in this life. In Katherine and Urian’s case, love changes everything for both of them. Romance? Definitely. Action? Yes. It’s also a story that draws us back toward the original characters. We see where our first WL protagonists are about five years after that series ended….

LADY ARMSTRONG’S SCANDALOUS AWAKENING is set in the Victorian era. What appeals to you about that time period as a setting? Is that your favorite period to set a story in? The Victorian period was a time of huge change in every way. The Industrial Revolution was really taking hold, railways and telegrams transformed communication and travel, and there was a move away from the countryside to city living. What fascinates me are the contrasts that all this change emphasized – between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots, and in particular, in the position of women, who were being forced by a society which was in many ways liberating men, into a much more domestic and constrained role. Ideals of femininity were disseminated through photography, and image took on a new importance. Women who did not conform had to be real rebels, incredibly strong and radical thinkers, and it’s coming up with this type of woman as a heroine that really appeals to me. As to whether this is my favorite period to write about – I’d say yes, at the moment, because it’s the period I’ve been immersed in for the last couple of years,…

Fresh Fiction: If you could only recommend one of your books to romance readers who are unfamiliar with your work, which would you recommend? And why? Mary Jo Putney: Hmm, tough question!  Maybe LOVING A LOST LORD. It’s the first book in my Lost Lords series, and it sets up the framework for the rest of the series. The heroes of all seven books attended the Westerfield Academy for boys of “good birth and bad behavior.”  The founder, Lady Agnes Westerfield, helps boys who are having trouble fitting into the niches they were born to.  She teaches them how to be themselves without losing their souls. The hero of this first book, Adam Lawford, the Duke of Ashton, is half Hindu and has to deal with resentment and prejudice.  Then a steamboat explosion leaves him half drowned and amnesiac in northern England, where he is found by a desperate young woman who needs a pretend husband for protection…. FF: Scotland is the setting for your regency romance ONCE A LAIRD. What do you like about this setting? And what is so captivating about a hot Scottish hero? MJP: This story was inspired by a wonderful visit to Orkney, one of the island groups north of mainland Scotland.  Both…

In HEART OF A TIGER, a child is in danger. What made you use this element in your story? Was that meant to increase the tension and engage the reader even more? The child in the story is because of the Earl of Soothcoor. He has been a “cast member” in three previous stories. I’ve become quite fond of him. He’s 40ish, never married, plain looking, and secretly heavy into philanthropy. I decided he was in a rut and needed something to push him out of his comfort zone. The child is his heir through his brother and his Indian wife.   I like a mystery series with a couple who solves mysteries together. Was it always the plan to have a mystery series with a married couple? Or did things change as you began writing the first book? Things changed after I wrote the first book, THE WAYLAID HEART. Readers requested I have them in a series. So, I did! I adore them. They are a loving couple, opposites that complement each other.   I love historical romances and historical mysteries, but I always wonder one thing. How much research went into a book like this? Are you a…

For readers who may be new to your Daniel Pitt series, how would you describe Daniel?   I would describe Daniel as coming from a happy childhood, but with a father who succeeded to a degree that obliges Daniel to strive constantly to be not only professionally successful, but to live up to the same moral standards… and incidentally a mother who is brave and individual, which means that Daniel himself can be happy only with a brave and individual kind of woman.   What made you decide to have a barrister as your main character in this series? I wanted him to detect, with urgency, high stakes to win or lose, but not to be another policeman, and I love courtroom scenes.  A barrister gives me the chance to have lots of them, quite legitimately.   How much research goes into your books? Are any of the characters in THREE DEBTS PAID inspired by actual people in history? The amount of research varies from book to book. A lot of it is constant throughout the series. Most of the change comes from being a slightly different time. Different things are happening. No. Real people now, possibly.   The early 1900s is…

In your “Travel P.I.” mystery series, your female protagonist Angel Doyle is described as a “semi-reformed thief and accidental P.I.” What made you decide to create that type of character? In my two previous cozy mystery series, my sleuths are from fairly conventional backgrounds. In the Movie Club Mysteries, Maggie is an ex-cop who moves to Ireland and sets up her own P.I. agency. Dee in the Time-Slip Mysteries is a journalist and amateur sleuth. I wanted Angel’s story arc to be different. She comes from a family of career criminals and wants a fresh start on the right side of the law. Yet there’s no denying that specific skills she’s picked up over the years come in handy for her detective work. At the start of KNIFED IN NICE, Angel is on the cusp of significant life changes, and the story pushes her in another direction. She had no ambition to become a detective, but she’s thrust into a situation where she must figure out what’s going on or risk being killed. She’s also a loner, and the story forces her to work with a partner to solve the mystery. What all my sleuths have in common is a…