Sarah's Recipe for Romance

Happy New Year! I’m thrilled to start off 2011 with a guest: the fabulous and talented Delilah Marvelle. Welcome Delilah!

First, please tell us a little about your recent release Prelude to a Scandal.

Prelude to a Scandal is going to poke a few people in the heart as well as in the butt….LOL. People will either love it or hate it because of the subject matter. Every book, I feel, is a mirror that reflects a person’s own thoughts and emotions and draws on those thoughts and emotions. Depending on the person, the subject matter might freak them out. Which is what I love to do. *wink* The premise is about getting as personal with a character as possible, even if those personal things are considered taboo.

Having read your interview in the Romantic Times (cover story!), I understand your hero struggles with a sex addition. What led you to write about a hero with a sex addiction?

After reading a ton of historical memoirs (such as Casanova and My Secret Life), I knew these men had “issues” with sex. In my mind, these issues are the untold stories during a time when addiction wasn’t understood. Even today, very few people understand what sexual addiction really is and what it entails. Mind you, I write romance, so I had to sugar coat it for the reader, but I can assure you, I made sure that the sugar coating was very, VERY thin…

I understand you had a long road to publication. What motivated you to keep writing and submitting?

It took me 11 years, over 200 rejections and over 40 manuscripts before I was published. What kept me writing and motivated? I would say quite a few things. My stubbornness, the support of my family, friends and writing chapter mates and above all, the belief that I had a story to tell even when the world kept telling me I didn’t…

What advice do you have for aspiring authors?

Every writing journey is going to be different. One person will publish after only a year of submitting. For others it will take 17 years, or in my case, 11 years. What a lot of unpublished authors don’t realize is this: you will always be learning the art of the craft and the more time you have to understand and learn the craft, the more prepared you’ll be when you get THE CALL. Although I moaned and complained all 11 of those years about not being published, looking back…I thank GOD I wasn’t published earlier. It took me 11 years to truly understand myself as a writer and what the business expects from me as a writer. So my advice is this. Use the time before your publication to understand what it is you want from the writing business and what it is you want from yourself as a writer before you get that contract.

Do you keep to a schedule when you are on deadline?  Please tell us about an average day in your life as a writer.

I write 7 days a week when I’m under deadline and depending on my deadline, as many as 8-12 hours a day during those 7 days a week. My writing process is freaky. I become a different person and my poor family has to live with it. The truth is, I can’t have anyone in the house when I write. Even if someone were to lock himself or herself in the closet and hold their breath, I still wouldn’t be able to write. It’s hard to explain but I feel like their energy is leaking into my ability to think. I have a hard time transporting myself into a different era when the modern world is breathing on my neck. Once I’m able to get everyone out of the house, I sit at my desk surrounded by piles and piles of research books and write. As I write, I verbalize my words aloud in a British accent. It’s the actress in me. It makes the characters and the setting feel real when I read it aloud as I’m writing.

Prelude to a Scandal is the first book in a trilogy.  What can we expect from the second and third installments?

All three books are linked, not by characters, but by an object. People will quickly figure out what that object is and by the third book will understand why that particular object….
So the second book, Once Upon a Scandal, is a very twisted version of second chance love and Cinderella combined. Only our Cinderella is actually the hero. I wanted to create a hero that believes in all the things that women usually are jabbed at for believing. He’s the greatest romantic ever to have been born. Of course, it blinds him and puts him into a situation that causes him to become a servant of a different sort…

The third book, The Perfect Scandal, is about an aristocratic gentleman who thinks he’s a freak (and I’ll leave you to find out why…). This story is Anastasia-like in feel and delves into my favorite history: A history that hasn’t been touched by any American historical romance writers—meaning, the history of Poland in 1829. Although I love all three books, The Perfect Scandal is by far my favorite because I’m Polish and I always wanted to write a Polish heroine that showcased Polish history. I am thrilled that I was finally able to do it and that HQN let me do it, despite it falling outside “historical romance” norm.

Thanks for stopping by Delilah!

If you would like to win a signed copy of Prelude to Scandal, please leave a comment.  One lucky winner will be drawn at random on Tuesday, January 4th.  And in you live in New York City, stop by Lady Jane’s Salon on Monday January 3rd to hear Delilah read from Prelude to a Scandal.  Madame X from 7pm-9pm.

About Prelude to a Scandal

Having been raised in the jungles of South Africa, assisting her father in the study of mammal copulation, Lady Justine Fedora Palmer sweeps back into London to embark upon her coming out. She quickly discovers animals are far more civilized than the men surrounding her.   When her father’s observations are made public, proving buggery is natural to the animal kingdom, all of London is in a huffing outrage, including His Royal Majesty. Her father is imprisoned and slapped with outrageous penalty fees they simply cannot pay. Lady Justine becomes more than willing to trade her good name and her place in London’s gossip hungry society to secure her father’s release. There is only one person she knows she can trust: her father’s patron, the Duke of Bradford. A dashing libertine, yes, but one she passionately adores for his unwavering kindness, wit, humor, and a willingness to support her father’s studies even as everyone else had laughed her father off. To her astonishment, the Duke of Bradford is not the same man. His newly marred face hides a scandal that is about to test them both…

Coming Soon from Delilah Marvelle