I always want to answer this question with some
wonderful scene, like: ‘sitting on my deck on the lake, watching the sun rise
over the Canadian Shield, while a cup of tea slowly steams away at my elbow.’
Unfortunately, the only true thing about that is the tea. I do drink a lot of
tea. My partner is British, and the kettle goes on the stove at the smallest
provocation. (Bad day? Have a cuppa. Getting a cold? Have a cuppa. Axe stuck in
your head, got laid off and the house is on fire? Sit down, have a cuppa,
you’ll feel better.)
I do most of my writing at home. I tend to split
between curling up with my laptop on one corner of my couch, or heading
upstairs to the corner of the bedroom that I stole for my office. The desktop
computer up there has limited internet and no email program on it, so it’s my
distraction-free zone for those mind-wandering days. Our living room does have
a large picture window that looks out over the back garden, with trees that
arch overhead. I love sitting there on summer afternoons, when the sun shines
through the leaves. It feels like I’m hanging out and writing filthy smut in
Lothlorien.
Who
is your perfect hero/heroine and why?
I don’t think such a creature exists, and that’s
the paradox. My favorite heroes and heroines are the imperfect ones! There’s a
wonderful sense of escapism in stories about people who have their acts
together and the confidence to go for what they want. Maybe it’s a failing in
my own self-esteem, but I have a hard time seeing anything of myself in there.
I’m in my thirties and I’m still waiting for someone to pass on the adult-ing
manual that I seem to have misplaced!
For me, the most interesting heroes and heroines,
the ones who make me root for them with all of my heart and all my soul, are
the ones who are a little dented and dinged by life. They’re self-centered or
distracted, they’ve got skeletons in their closets or serious emotional
constipation to work out…
And they do. They work at it and chip away at their
walls, and make stupid mistakes, but they never give up trying. Because that
other person? They’re probably going to be worth it.
So to quote Lilo and Stitch, I like my heroes
“broken, but still good. Ya. Still good.”
What
authors have caught your interest lately and why?
Oh man; I’ve been reading so many different things
lately that it’s hard to choose. There’s a debut author-- Lillian Marek -- who just had her first historical romance
out, and I absolutely adore her style. She’s got a wonderful hand with humor,
and her sense of her time period is fantastic. I’m waiting eagerly for the
sequel.
Sara Humphreys is great fun as well. I’ve read her
paranormal series, and it’s got a great sense of humor to go along with the
romance. They’re not comedies, but they are highly entertaining. I have to pick
up some of her other books at some point and see if they’re at a similar level.
I love reading books where the research has been
done well, but isn’t obvious. There’s a tendency to want to do a big information
dump of your world-building right off the top, sort of a ‘see how well I
researched and planned this.’ Hugely popular mainstream authors are just as
guilty as the rest of us, as far as that goes. What I love seeing are the books
where the research comes out subtly, in touches that bring the place and time
to vivid life around you. It takes skill and confidence in your chosen period
to do that. Marek’s not perfect, but she’s definitely someone to watch.
What
type of book have you always wanted to write?
I’m having a great time with romance right now, but
there are some specific genre conventions that tie you down to certain things:
happily ever after endings, love story at the core, of course. I’m a huge fan
of historical with or without romances in them, and I have a handful of stories
there that I’m longing to tell.
There is one partial manuscript in my
works-in-progress file that I’ve shelved for the moment, but want to get back
to. It’s a political historical, set in the 13th century in the remnants
of the Lombard League – the area that’s now northern Italy. There are some love
stories in it, but it’s not a classic romance. It’s more of a knights in armor,
clashing armies, and warrior clergy sort of thing. I’m always a fan of medieval
warfare.
Top
3 things on your bucket list?
- We geocache
in our spare time; that’s a hobby that involves using a GPS to locate
hidden objects and logbooks in various places around the world. There’s a
geocache in Texas that I have to get to before I kick off. It’s the Necropolis of Britannia Manor
cache, built by a video game designer. He put together a multiple-stage
game involving clues to decode, a cemetery, some bushwhacking, a mausoleum
with a secret entrance, and animatronic zombies along the way. It’s supposed
to take a few hours to work your way through, and I’m seriously
considering planning a vacation to Austin just so we can do this run.
(There’s actually a
geocache on the International Space Station, but that’s one we’re definitely
not going to be able to log in this lifetime.)
- Number two is
a pilgrimage. I took an art history class during my undergrad, and we had
to buy this massive, weighty textbook. One of the illustrations in this
tome, full-color and all, was a map of the old pilgrimage roads that
cris-crossed Europe in the middle ages and renaissance. Each of these
roads was dotted with shrines and small churches, filled with art and
relics, stained glass, and history.
One day, I want to do a
pilgrimage walk – not for religious reasons; I’m not Christian – but to have
the chance to walk the roads that these believers walked so long ago, to see
the remaining churches and shrines as they would have been seen on the original
approach. I want to taste the air, touch the church walls, feel the dirt under
my feet, and make those histories feel real.
- Along with
that, one of the major things on my list is a trip to Israel. There’s that
love of history again! But also for the archaeology (and the party towns
like Tel Aviv). I read a fantastic book called The Source when I was a teen, which jumped back and forth in
time between an archaeological team working on a tel – a multiple-layered
dig site – and the people who had lived there throughout the various eras
of human occupation. Canada’s a young country in some ways; maybe that
feeds my fascination with the ancient.
How did you get the idea for this particular novel?
I was doing some research for my Masters degree a
few years back, and I stumbled across a book that completely changed my
interests and shattered all of my Heyer-and-Austen fueled notions of Georgian
England. It was called Mother Clap’s
Molly House, written by British historian Dr. Rictor Norton, and it laid
out, in very intimate detail, the lives, loves, habits and deaths of the gay community
in Georgian London.
(I say ‘gay’ rather than ‘LBGT’ because he only
really covers the male side of things. The crime for which men were prosecuted
was buggery (sodomy), and women generally didn’t find themselves accused of
that.)
So I devoured this book and realized that there was
so much more to the era than I had ever really considered before. I had to put
it aside for a little while, in order to finish my degree, but once I had a
little more time, I started to dig into the 18th and 19th
century LBGT communities in England in earnest. There’s this whole set of
subcultures that existed just below the official radar, and we get these
tantalizing hints of what was accepted (or not) in court records, diaries, and
sometimes even love letters back and forth between couples. It’s an incredible
puzzle to put together.
Stephen and Evander were born from those musings
and character sketches; Joshua came along a little bit later.
And there I go, off on a tangent again!
But seriously;
Mother Clap’s led me to read
about events like the Vere Street raids and the various arrests, and that got
me thinking about what it does to your mindset about love and relationships
when you live under that kind of sword of Damocles. I’m incredibly lucky to
live in a country where equal marriage has been enshrined by law for more than
a decade, and orientation is a protected category, but there are so many in the
LBGTQ community who are still living with persecution and violence on a daily
basis. Maybe it’s foolish to think that a single romance novel with a happy
ending can be of any use, but I like to think that anything that can shine hope
makes a small positive difference to the universe.
That was awfully long-winded. The short version of
the answer is ‘a combination of inspiration from Dr. Norton’s research, and a
deep appreciation for beautiful artistic men.’
What
is your favorite scene in your new release?
There are a couple that I’m very fond of, but I
think my absolute favorite is early on, when my heroes first meet. Stephen and
Joshua run into each other in a portrait gallery in the country house they’re
both staying in as guests. Joshua has been in lust with Stephen from afar for
quite some time, but Stephen doesn’t know him at all.
There’s a lot of tension in that first encounter as
they try and figure each other out, as it was terribly dangerous to reveal your
sexuality to the wrong person. They talk a little, and maybe flirt a little,
and it sets up the whole tone for their early relationship. I think I wrote
about four different drafts of that scene until it finally just clicked,
because it is such a pivotal moment for both men.
(Can I get away with giving an excerpt here? I’ll
do it anyway.)
A
handful of portraits in a newer fashion looked like more recent additions. The
paintings themselves fit the mold of the others—delicate brushwork, the sitter
looking off to the side or down in modesty or up to glory, depending on nature,
sex and inclination. All but one. The palette was still muted, but the straightforward
pose and the natural life in the expression of the sitter stopped Stephen in
his tracks.
The
man in the portrait was not classically handsome. His mouth was too full and
his hair too red for that, his jawline perhaps a little too soft. But his eyes
crinkled at the corners with secret mirth, as though sharing a very private and
personal joke with the viewer, and those lush and generous lips curled up at
one corner. He sat in a smock and his shirtsleeves, a palette on the table
behind him. His head tilted very slightly to the side, like he was listening to
some secret, lively song. His eyes caught and held Stephen, gray as storm
clouds over the cliffs, a hint of blue that was the clear sky breaking through,
and a knowing look that struck some chord deep within that Stephen could not
immediately name.
He
wanted—
Well,
he wanted a great many things. But never before had a portrait been responsible for a curl of longing or desire twisting
its way up from the center of his being, some vague and wistful sense of
thwarted desire focused on that arresting stare.
I wonder if
he would look at me that way in life.
I wonder who
he is.
A
faint scuff of feet behind him was all that gave Stephen warning before someone
spoke, and he managed neither to whip around in surprise, nor jump like a child
caught where he shouldn’t be.
“He’s
not a particularly good-looking fellow to deserve such lengthy scrutiny.”
The
voice was an unfamiliar one, a warm, rich tenor that verged on a deeper range,
a faint Northern accent coloring the tone.
“I
suppose not,” Stephen replied, pausing to allow his heart to slow before he
introduced himself, “if you value men solely based on looks. But there is more
life in his expression than in all the other portraits put together. Either the
sitter was a man of uncommon vivacity or the painter was exceptionally fond of
him.”
He
turned and looked at the man standing behind him.
His
hair was shorter now, and he was dressed for dinner, his cravat impeccably tied
and tucked into a cream waistcoat. The man from the portrait stepped into the
gallery, framed by a shaft of light that fell across the floor from the hall.
His eyes had not been exaggerated. They had been perhaps underplayed, and that
gray-blue gaze regarded Stephen with a peculiar intensity. He was a little
taller than Stephen, his frame of very pleasing proportions, and had a
controlled energy to his walk that suggested strength lying beneath the layers
of wool and linen.
“Or
he was his own painter,” the newcomer said, his lip quirking up in that
selfsame knowing smile, “and both irredeemably prone to vanity and in desperate
need of an honest friend to check him in his fancy.”
“I
should say otherwise,” Stephen replied, the compliment easy to make. “It
appears to be the very copy of life.”
Careful! It was all well and good to flatter and tease when flirting with
the ladies, but this man was still a stranger. “Stephen Ashbrook, at your
service.”
The
other man hesitated, but only for a moment, and bowed in return. “Joshua
Beaufort. A pleasure, sir.” Something about the light in the room suggested an
edge of color rising to Beaufort’s cheeks, a faint flush that vanished a moment
later. “Though, I should confess, your name was already known to me. I saw you
play last summer, at a chamber concert at Vauxhall.”
That
thrill of recognition would never become tiresome! Still, modesty demanded a
different sort of reply. “Then I should have given you another name so that you
would not have made the connection,” he joked, beating back the urge to let his
tongue tie itself in knots. “I promise that I have made some effort to improve
since then.”
Beaufort. His eyes
kept playing over Stephen’s face, his shoulders, his hands—the scrutiny made it
difficult to focus on the conversation. He smiled, and his eyes were warm. “If
your playing has improved, sir, then I hesitate to ask if you have brought your
instrument. I don’t think my nerves could take a performance better than that.”
“You
flatter me.”
There
was a hint of something in Beaufort’s expression, beyond that careful smile.
The way he held himself, carefully poised and controlled, his gaze lingering
perhaps a breath too long on Stephen’s mouth when he spoke, a gleam on his
lower lip when he moistened it.
Perhaps—
What
are you working on now and when can we expect it to be available?
I just finished the first draft of the sequel to Rite of Summer, with the working title She Whom I Love. It follows Sophie, a
minor character from Rite of Summer,
and delves into her life, her secrets, and her romantic entanglements.
The romance here is a triad, two women and a man,
so it’s a very different sort of feeling than Rite of Summer. (Down with love triangles, and up with threesomes!)
Hopefully it’ll be just as much fun to read as it was to write. I don’t have a contract for She yet, but I’ll put the word out once
I know something concrete.
What do you like to do when you are not writing?
I garden in the spring and summer; we grow a lot of
our own vegetables, and I have a couple of berry patches that give us enough
fruit for jams. I picked up a pile of mason jars and things a few years ago and
I’ve been playing with canning recipes. Having a good recipe for green tomato
salsa is vitally important with our short growing season.
Quilting is another hobby I picked up a few years
back; I’m working on a queen size quilt as a wedding present for my brother and
his fiancĂ©e right now. I sound like an old grandmother, but I think I’m just a
bit of a homebody at heart. I love adventures and travel, as long as I can come
back to my quilt-and-homemade-jam-filled hobbit hole at the end.
What else? I do a lot of work with dance companies
as part of my day job, and I go to shows whenever possible. I’m not a dancer
myself, but I’m madly in love with just about all aspects of the art. There’s
something magical about the way simple movement and music can transport the
soul.
What is one interesting fact about you that readers don’t know?
I’m a huge fan of body art and body
modification. I don’t have any tattoos but I do have fifteen piercings, three
of them below the neck.
Come by www.tessbowery.com
on June 2nd, 7 pm Eastern
Time, to join me in the chatroom for the release party! I’ll have giveaways and
prizes as well as interviews and a social hour. I look forward to seeing
everyone!