Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I love to cook, hate to dust, livs to travel, read and write! I pen #1 Bestselling Regencies known for their spice, historical accuracy and their eloquence! With awards on my shelves for more than 60 romances, I’ve also written for Pocket, St. Martin’s and Kensington. I like wine at 5 p.m. and try desperately to persuade herbs and veggies to grow in my south Texas garden!
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My newest novel, His Tempting Governess, releases June 17th.
I wanted to write about the challenges of falling in love with one’s butler, or maid or governess in disguise! The ton, you see, can be stuffy! I wanted to shake them up with new problems to overcome. So we have a lady who has the hots for her butler, a governess who falls for her Waterloo hero employer and a maid who cleans out the ashes of an old love affair and her former lover’s fireplaces along with finding a murderer!
DELIGHTFUL DOINGS IN DUDLEY CRESCENT is a series of 3 novels (so far!) and a combo of romantic comedy with a hint of mystery. It’s always a challenge for me to blend new sub-genres but this series has the added appeal to me of not focusing totally on dukes and earls and other such aristos. I get to reveal to readers more intricacies of those below stairs who lived a hard life of work.
If I also get to tell tales about the problems women of all classes encountered, I’m tickled.
What are you working on now?
I am delighted to say I am winging off to Paris very soon for 17 days. There, I’m doing research and sending back each day to my FB groups and followers pix, videos and tidbits of my delicious facts. Before I close up my home office, I am hard at work on Book 3 in DELIGHTFUL DOINGS, HIS NAUGHTY MAID! About to write the love scenes too. Always wonderful fun! (Rubbing my hands together in glee!)
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Write for the joy of it. The hard, delicious work of it. Write what you know, what you love.
Do what you can to promote.
Learn the best practices of the business and work, always, with ethical people.
Finally? My biggest bit: Never write to trend. Never.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
The best advice is often that which I hear when I listen to any speaker.
Really? Any speaker? Yes.
In this business since 1981 when I joined Washington Romance Writers, I have heard hundreds of authors speak on every topic from craft to promotion to mental and physical fitness. Whenever I show up, I tell myself I will hear one kernel of truth that I need to hear in that moment in time.
Sure enough, I do. I always take home a fabulous idea. It may not be totally new. It may not be new verbiage, but it can be a truth I forgot or I interpreted in such a way that it didn’t mean as much to me as it once did.
I go home with a solution to a “current” problem and I am always grateful to those who take time and effort to share their experience, strength and hope in this business.
What are you reading now?
I’ve got a few items going, always depending on my mood. I just finished a very good Regency romance by a friend. Now I intersperse THE PARIS VENDETTA (Napoleon in Egypt, you see!) with THE MUELLER REPORT (another mystery about to be solved!).
What’s next for you as a writer?
I’m cooking a series about a family of spies during the Regency, but set in Paris. I like the idea of seeing the challenges of Fouche and Talleyrand up close and personal!
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Might I take my 28 inch iMac with me instead, please? I can amuse myself more with that and besides, I’d get angry that I had to re-read a work. I don’t tend to read anything a second time.
Author Websites and Profiles
Cerise DeLand Website
Cerise DeLand Amazon Profile
Cerise DeLand’s Social Media Links
Goodreads Profile
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Lovely interview!