ISSUE 7: FEBRUARY 2018
Lezli Robyn & Tina Smith, Editors
Shahid Mahmud, Publisher
Published by Arc Manor/Heart’s Nest Press
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Rockville, MD 20849-0339
Heart’s Kiss is published in February, April, June, August, October and December.
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CONTENTS
EDITOR’S NOTE by Tina Smith
HEART’S KISS INTERVIEWS JAYNE ANN KRENTZ by Lezli Robyn
Excerpt from PROMISE NOT TO TELL by Jayne Ann Krentz
BEFORE I GO by L. Penelope
YOU GOTTA KISS A LOTTA FROGS by Melinda Curtis
QUEBEC ROMEO VICTOR by Petronella Glover
IN SEARCH OF A PEACEFUL LIFE by Meghan Ewald
HOUSE OF DREAMS by Andrea Dale
HOT CHOCOLATE by Alia Mahmud
YOU READ THAT? COVER STORY (non-fiction) by Julie Pitzel
PUTTING SEXY IN CONSENT (non-fiction) by Alice Faris
IN SEARCH OF THE SASSENACH CONNECTION (non-fiction) by Lezli Robyn
RECOMMENDED BOOKS by C.S. DeAvilla
WARDEN OF MAGIC (part 1, serialization) by Anna J. Stewart
EDITOR’S CLOSING by Lezli Robyn
EDITOR’S NOTE
by Tina Smith
Things are a bit different around here. Lezli Robyn and I sort of took over this magazine. Maybe not sort of—we actually did! Denise Little did an amazing job bringing in her years of insight and expertise to get this venture off the ground in its first year. She is sadly moving on and Lezli and I have big shoes to fill.
With change comes opportunity. And through our brainstorming we decided to go BIG. We talked about the kind of romance fiction we’d like to see. We wanted to skirt the edges of the genre and syphon out the essence of the best part of it. We wanted to explore the boundaries of relationships and delve deep into what it means to get that first tingle of interest to falling into lust and love.
We wanted to see risk in the genre. The same kinds of risks indie writers are taking with their romance. The publishing industry once believed that there was a dead zone of writing about students in college. They wanted to see those heroines out and about in the working world—but then the New Adult movement came along and proved that old belief had shifted. Right now there are no-man’s lands of romance; character set ups we don’t normally see. Older couples? We wanted that (and we have a perfect story for you in this very issue by Andrea Dale!). I remember the first time I read a romance novel focusing on a couple older than me. It was a Jennifer Crusie book and there was a passing comment that the main characters were in their forties or fifties. I double checked it. Every book I read up until then—literally every one—had made a point of having the characters in their twenties or thirties. I really loved the change.
I’d been talking to a friend about our ideas to expand the magazine to be as inclusive as possible, yet still appeal to fans of the genre, and she said “So, not like your grandma’s romance?” and I couldn’t quite agree. Because what if grandma is a kick ass, cool lady and she had a blackbelt and grandpa drove a motorcycle and they both fought off a drug cartel, and in the process they of course fall (or re-fall) madly in love. Or maybe grandpa is not her love interest. Maybe it’s another grandma?
Our beloved genre has been a leader in reinventing love—over and over. Times are changing, and fans want the next amazing love story. Sure, we want familiar, but we want familiar (falling in love) mixed with something exciting, new, and fresh.
My interests are eclectic, and I read in every sub-genre of romance. I’m ecstatic the selection in romance is broadening as well as deepening—more explorations of where relationships can go and the ever-changing conflicts in today’s world. Our magazine hopes to change with it and look forward.
We fell in love with each story in this issue for their own unique reasons. (Of course you’ll love them all. How dare you not!) Our hope is that readers will find new ideas and corners of romance they didn’t expect. We want to discuss topics that are timely in our genre. Romance is beaten down every day by those who’ve never picked up a proper romance. But as fans know, our genre offers the very best. And we’ve found just a sliver of examples of what’s out there.
From fabulous fan favorites and seasoned authors like Jayne Anne Krantz, to new undiscovered talents—we believe we’ve curated a great selection. We have a wonderful dark historical with romantic elements taking place just after World War One from newcomer Meghan Ewald, a fun paranormal from bestseller Leslye Penelope and the first part of yet another paranormal, our serialization, from award winning and bestselling author Anna J. Stewart. You’ll also find a fun sweet contemporary retelling of The Princess Frog from Melinda Curtis (also a bestselling writer) and our first same-sex story by Petronella Glover. Romance flash (stories written in less than a thousand words) is a particular challenge, but our in-house writer Alia Mahmud has seemed to master the skill with a very sweet gender-bending meet-cute.
Along with our fiction selections we have articles on timely topics. Julie Pitzel is starting a re-occurring column called You Read That?. The Column will overview various concepts and tropes in romance in a fun, insightful way; this issue she will discuss covers. Also a wonderful interview with Jayne Anne Krantz about her newest release, an opinion piece on the #MeToo movement and how consent is sexy in romance, a romantic tour of Outlander filming locations, and recommended reads.
You provide the cozy blanket and hot tea, we provide the entertainment. We hope you come for the stories and stay for the romance.
The author of a string of New York Times bestsellers, Jayne Ann Krentz uses three different pen names for each of her three “worlds”. As Jayne Ann Krentz (her married name) she writes contemporary romantic-suspense. She uses Amanda Quick for her novels of historical romantic-suspense. Jayne Castle (her birth name) is reserved these days for her stories of futuristic/paranormal romantic-suspense. In addition to her fiction writing, she is the editor of, and a contributor to, a non-fiction essay collection, Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. She earned a B.A. in History from the University of California at Santa Cruz and went on to obtain a Masters degree in Library Science from San Jose State University in California. Before she began writing full time she worked as
a librarian in both academic and corporate libraries. She is married and lives with her husband, Frank, in Seattle, Washington.
HEART’S KISS INTERVIEWS
JAYNE ANN KRENTZ
by Lezli Robyn
It was my absolute pleasure to conduct a phone interview with the delightful Jayne, just prior to Christmas. She was warm and welcoming and shone an insightful light onto the wonderful genre that is romance, while also giving her readers a window into her personal experience as a writer.
Lezli Robyn: Hello, Jayne! Is that you?
Jayne Ann Krentz: This is me! Hi, Lezli!
LR: Nice to meet you!
JAK: Nice to meet you!
LR: Can you understand my Australian accent? We should get that out of the way first!
JAK: I just came back from Australia! I’m good with that! *laughs*
LR: I saw that on your website. It’s like you were practicing to talk to me!
JAK: Yeah! *laughs* I guess it was all in the stars. It was fabulous and Australia was definitely one of the big highlights.
LR: Ohhh, that’s lovely! I will always love my country. I have a bittersweet reaction about leaving it.
JAK: Well, do you know what I felt over there? Granted, I was there on a tour where I only stopped in four different cities, but at each of those cities I was meeting up with local readers and writers—so it felt like I was meeting like-minded people. And I had the time to talk; it was more than just a casual visit. Everybody was so warm and so welcoming and there was a kind of cheerful optimism about everything. I don’t know if it was the crowd I was with or just the nature of the country, but it was very refreshing.
LR: We are usually an optimistic people....
Thank you for letting us call you today. I really appreciate it. I read your Except from Promise Not To Tell and it is a great teaser.
JAK: Thank you!
LR: You have written a lot of books over the years. When did you realize “Oh, I am a writer!”? Were you writing for years before you sold, or did you make a career choice change?
JAK: Well, this was so long ago that it was before you could actually self publish. It just was not an option. In those days there was really only one track to getting published and that was New York. And at the time Harlequin was based in Toronto, so it took me six years to sell my first book. Once that happened things opened up for me fast, but these days an aspiring author can start building their audience online first.
LR: How did you decide you wanted to write?
JAK: What happened was I was a lifelong reader. Somewhere in my twenties—I was out of college, I was working—I entered that phase of life where I had more time to read again; I got drawn back to fiction. I discovered romance, which hadn’t really existed in the form we would recognize today. It was just starting to burst into the big time, in terms of publishing in New York. I was enjoying reading the books, and it wasn’t that I thought I could do them better, but there came a time when I wanted to tell the story my way.
LR: Yes. I understand that urge.
JAK: If that hits, you are a writer. If it’s doesn’t hit, you are a reader. *laughs* You’re kind of stuck, because if you are rewriting the story, or retelling the dialog in your head, at some point you just need to write it down on paper, or get it into a computer. I think if that urge does not happen, you lucked out—more power to you. But if it does hit it almost becomes a compulsion until you have written your own fiction.
LR: So, then the next question begs to be asked... Why romance?
JAK: I attribute that to the fact that I grew up on Nancy drew, Robert A. Heinlein—early Heinlein—and Andre Norton. Somehow those three jelled into my first book that I wrote and could not sell, which is what we call now a futuristic romance. There was absolutely no market for it back then but I realized if I pulled out the futuristic elements, there was the main market.
LR: Contemporary romance.
JAK: Yes, exactly. So, I attribute my formative reading to the fact that I wound up—there was no escaping it—a romantic suspense author.
LR: Andre Norton was one of the authors I read as a child, so I see what you mean. I was forever imagining new scenarios in my head and daydreaming while listening to music at night.
JAK: I think that is the key. You tell the stories first in your head—you tell them to yourself. And to this day I still tell those stories to myself, first. And then I just hope that the readers can get into the fantasy with me.
LR: It also sounds like the most organic, authentic approach too.
JAK: Like I said, I think writers get power from telling stories to themselves. You try to write for another audience, and it’s another weaker form of writing.
LR: Yes, I agree that you have to consider what the market wants, but you also have to be telling your story, as opposed to trying to manufacture something specifically to fit a specific market.
JAK: Which leads me to another point for aspiring writers. It’s not that you have to write intuitively and indefinitely—a lot of writers can—but if you run into trouble in the market, and sooner or later you will run into trouble in the market, it really pays to know your core story. That throws people at times because a lot of people going into writing think, like I did, that the core of the story is the landscape you paint it on. Like a futuristic landscape, paranormal landscape or a historical landscape. And that just is not your core story. Your core story is composed of the themes, the kind of conflict, the kind of emotional interactions, and the kind of relationships that compel you again and again and again. I think it is useful for aspiring writers to know the core of your story does not have to belong to any one landscape. You have options, if the book doesn’t sell in one sub-genre market.
LR: Yes, I focus on the human story I try to tell, and then pick the landscape that best suits the emotional impact I am trying to create, so the landscape is my last consideration. I can see what you mean when you say that it is possible to change the landscape if it is not the focus of the book.
JAK: Yes, and I actually had to do that at one point in my career. I have been around long enough that I have managed to kill a couple of fiction careers—and had to resurrect them. And that is how I found my Amanda Quick career. Early on I had to kill my career because of the futuristic romances. They didn’t sell, so I stepped back and realized that what I was really telling in those futuristic romances was a romantic suspense built around an arranged marriage or a marriage of convenience. That’s a well-known historical romance trope, so that is how I got my Amanda Quick name.
LR: So that beautifully leads me into my next question about multiple pseudonyms. I now know why you created your Amanda Quick name, but you seem to have three main author names, and several more listed on your bibliography page. What led to picking those names?
JAK: Trust me, it was not my career path plan. *laughs* There was no plan. One new name I stumbled into was simply because I got into a contractual bind. Early on it was pretty common, in the old days, to tie the author to the publishing house. So at one point, during the stage of my career when I did not think I needed an agent, I managed to sign my own name away for a few years. I had also killed off another name because there was so much baggage, in regards to futuristic romance novels; no one wanted to touch me because of poor sales. So when I was able to legally use those names again, I had already started using a third.
I’d always said that I would eventually settle with the one name. The plan—such as it was—was I would study which would sell the best. No one was more amazed than me to find out that all of them took off.
LR: Would you say your pseudonyms are separated by genre, then?
JAK: Well, they are separated by genre landscapes. Historicals are under my Amanda Quick name. The Jayne Ann Krentz name is for my contemporaries. And I save Jayne Castle—which happens to be my birth name—for my futuristic romances.
LR: That is a very romantic name.
JAK: Yes. And that is the one that I signed away. *laug
hs* But I have got it back now.
In the past authors worked so alone in terms of the business angle, they believed everything their publisher told them because they had absolutely no way to verify it.
LR: The internet has helped inform the writers of today.
JAK: Yes, and you should also attend one of the Romance Writers of America conventions. You will learn more in four days than I learned in six years.
LR: Do you find one pseudonym easier to write than the others?
JAK: No. I enjoy the different kinds of thought processes for each of my pseudonyms, because coming out of one landscape and going into another is refreshing to me. I do not find one process easier than the others....
Actually, I have never quite thought about this before. When I first moved Amanda Quick into the 1930’s era I spent an extra couple of months to get myself up to speed on the research. So I guess the beginning of a historical series needs more work getting familiar with the world, but that is a one-time research event, then the process kicks into a normal rhythm for future books in the series. I now keep my eye out for 1930’s items or info automatically, as I know I will be writing another book in that series.
LR: Which of your books do you think was the one that “made” your career? Was it because of an award, recognition, or sales?
JAK: The first Amanda quick book. It surprised everybody by doing so well. That was Scandal. It was also my first historical romance to come out and I really landed firmly with both my feet in that sub-genre. I had written a lot of contemporary romance novels by then, too, so I knew what I was doing by then as a writer, but the publisher also gave it a great cover. They didn’t give it a bodice ripper cover. Seriously, it was classy.
LR: I do not think that publishers had thought it all the way through with the bodice ripper generation of covers. It was women reading these books. Why would they want to see other women with their clothes getting torn off in a manner that was clearly for the male gaze? Also, what was the fascination with Fabio?
Issue 7, Febraury 2018: Featuring Jayne Ann Krentz: Heart's Kiss, #7 Page 1
