Interview of Ruth Axtell

Thank you so much for being willing to be interviewed!

1. What was your inspiration for this story?  A few years ago, I was writing another regency (A Bride of Honor) and I woke with a dream, which I don’t even remember now. All I remember is that it gave me the basic premise for this story: a lady whose butler is a spy in her household.
2. What are two things that you feel every regency novel should have?  Good dialogue, whether it’s witty, sparring, or flirtatious and filled with underlying meaning, between the hero and heroine; and a sense of the period, whether hinting at the large-scale events of the time (Napoleonic Wars, beginning of the Industrial Revolution, slavery issue, etc.) or smaller but equally significant movements (influence of intellectual women; growth of evangelical Church, power of rising middle-class, rigid class system, manners and habits of the higher class, etc.).
3. In Moonlight Masquerade, the Napoleonic War is in the background. How much research did you have to do? Quite a bit. In a romance, the author doesn’t want to overwhelm the reader with the history of the period, but in order to write casually about it, one must know it pretty well. I have readers who think I put in too much history, others love that best, so you can’t please everyone.
4. You have written a number of novels. Do you have a favorite hero or heroine? Simon & Althea from my first published novel (Winter Is Past) and Caleb and Geneva from my second (Wild Rose,) though I wrote that book first, are among my favorites, but really, to ask an author which are her favorite characters is like asking her which are her favorite children. They are all the most special at the time of writing. Then you send them out into the world and detach yourself emotionally from them.
5. Can you tell us about what you’re working on now?I have just finished the sequel to Moonlight Masquerade and am editing the sequel to my previous book (Her Good Name). My working title is The Lady and the Logger.