Do you like to read romance novels? Wouldn’t you like to know more about your favorite authors? Well you came to the right place! Join the writers of Romance Weekly as we go behind the scenes of our books and tell all….. About our writing of course! Every week we’ll answer questions and after you’ve enjoyed the blog on this site we’ll direct you to another. So come back often for a thrilling ride! Tell your friends and feel free to ask us questions in the comment box.

If you’ve arrived from Kate Robbins’ Blog, hi and thanks for clicking!

 This week Jeanne McDonald has asked us to answer some questions about how it feels to be an author.

1. Describe the moment you first felt like a true author, not an aspiring one.

I think it has to be when Fix You was published. About a month before the publication I was interviewed on my local radio station, which was a lot of fun, and then I was interviewed for my local paper. For the first time I was getting messages from people who had read the book and lived it, and was also seeing the book hit the bestseller list on both Amazon and the iBookstore. It was then that I realised there were lots of people out there buying my book and it felt magical!

2. Name 3 authors who inspire you.

Marian Keyes

The first is Marian Keyes. I loved her writing since I first read her book, Watermelon, back in the 90s. Her stories are well written and a lot of fun to read, but they don’t shy away from addressing issues such as addiction, marriage problems and even the loss of loved ones. As a person with a platform, Marian also speaks out in support of those with mental health issues, which she does amazingly well. She suffers from depression and her openness and willingness to share her own experiences has taken away some of the stigma this disease carries.

The second author I’m inspired by is George Eliot. A woman who wrote books at a time when mostly men were published, she nevertheless managed to find a way around this, by using a man’s name as her pseudonym. In an era when women were only supposed to write light-hearted romances, Eliot addressed political and philosophical questions in her fictions, and was described as among the greatest western writers of all time.

Daphne Du Maurier

Daphne Du Maurier is my third choice. The opening pages to Rebecca—where she describes a dream about a long-abandoned Manderley—is one of the most beautifully written passages I have read. Evocative and forbidding, she manages to foreshadow the psychologically disturbing plot of the book with a few carefully chosen words.

Thanks to Jeanne for asking some fun questions. Now let’s hop over to Collette Cameron’s blog and read her answers!