I am so pleased to be here – it’s great to visit with like-minded people who love to read romance!

Through the vagaries of international publishing, I am in the exciting position of having two books out this month – the UK edition of To Catch a Husband hits the shelves under the Mills & Boon banner and my brand new book, The Dangerous Lord Darrington, is published by Harlequin in North America.

Writers are good a multi-tasking, we are often writing one book, revising a second and publicising a third all at the same time, but having to think of how to describe two books at once is something new to me!

Inevitably, people ask me, which book do I prefer?  In truth, they are both favourites, but for different reasons.  Yes, both books are historical romance, yes they are both set  at the end of the 18th century, but their characters are very different.

Kitty Wythenshawe is an impoverished Yorkshire lass of gentle birth who needs to marry well to save her mother and aunt from spending their old age in poverty. She is quite unashamed when she says (and this is the opening line of the book), ‘I am off to London to seek my fortune.’

Marriage was a necessity in an age when most forms of employment were impossible for a gently-bred young lady and for a girl like Kitty, young, pretty and brought up to think of herself as her mother’s “Last Hope” , it was natural that she should want to marry well.

But then she meets Daniel Blackwood.  Here I have moved away from the usual rich and rakish aristocrat (he is however, wonderfully dark and brooding – a real dish!).  Daniel is an industrialist, one of a new breed of adventurers, making their mark in the world during the Industrial Revolution.  He is a self-made man, proud of what he has achieved and impatient of what he sees as the privileged class.  He sees Kitty as a fortune-hunter – which, in some ways she is – but as they get to know each other they realise that they have a great many ideas in common.

I live in an area of Yorkshire that was at one time heavily industrial-  there are still mills in the valleys, although nowhere near as many as there used to be.  They are an important part of our history, and I have long wanted to include a mill-owner amongst my heroes.  I could not do this however without making reference to the hardships endured by the early workers, including the young children employed in the mills.  It was a harsh time, but there were some employers who wanted to look after their workers, and I have modelled Daniel on these forward-thinking industrialists, like the Greg family who owned Quarry Bank mill near Manchester, and Robert Owen who built the New Lanark Mill in Scotland.

Kitty and Daniel’s story was one that very definitely grew out of where I live, whereas The Dangerous Lord Darrington was inspired by a visit to the other end of the country. The house in the picture is Michelham Priory in Sussex.  It is a beautiful old house, part of the old priory that was sold off in the 16th century, following the dissolution of the monasteries. We entered via the undercroft and immediately my imagination went into overdrive and by the time I came away I had the beginnings of a story that involved the hero arriving on a dark wet evening at a gloomy house, where floorboards creak and strange noises are heard in the night.  This is the home of my heroine, a widow called Beth Forrester and soon Guy Wylder (Dangerous Lord Darrington) finds himself caught up in her efforts to protect her family.

Guy Wylder is very much the rakish hero. He has a reputation as a dangerous flirt, is (of course) wildly attractive but when it matters Beth finds he can also be a true friend.

One of the beauties of being a writer is that we create our own world, so I moved my priory to the north of England, but soon my characters are off on a romantic adventure that takes them the length of the country, to Portsmouth, in fact, as they uncover a story of murder and treacherous intrigue.

So, perhaps you can see my dilemma.  I can’t really compare these books, but maybe you would like to tell me which one you prefer?

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USA Today best-selling author Kate Hewitt chats to CataRomance about her latest Harlequin Presents novel, The Matchmaker Bride, a modern-day version of Jane Austen’s beloved classic Emma

When my editor asked me if I’d like to write a modern, Presents-style version of Jane Austen’s classic Emma, I leapt at the chance. I love trying new things and taking on a challenge–and this was definitely a challenge! The first thing I did was reread Emma, which I hadn’t looked at since high school. And while the story is wonderful and engaging, I found myself wondering just how I could translate a gently bred lady managing the social affairs of a small English village into something more modern and relevant.

Updating Emma as a story wasn’t my only concern, however; the character of Emma herself also worried me. Of all of Jane Austen’s heroines, Emma is the most difficult and frankly unlikable. Austen herself wrote of Emma: ‘I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.’ The very first sentence of the book is: ‘Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich.’ And spoiled! How, I wondered, could I make modern day readers like Emma, especially when she does such things as manipulate poor Harriet Smith into refusing a marriage proposal, and speak snidely to endearingly annoying Miss Bateman? If you’re not familiar with the original story, take it from me: Emma Wodehouse is a meddler.

Another character worried me as well, and that was the hero, George Knightley. Now on the surface Knightley is a wonderful hero. He’s Emma’s childhood friend, and he’s secretly loved her for a long time. Played by Jeremy Northam in the 1996 film version with Gwyneth Paltrow in the title role, you can certainly see Knightley’s quiet charms! But after rereading Austen’s original story, I realized the reader doesn’t actually know that much about Knightley. He’s noble and respected by his community, and Emma thinks he might be in love with Harriet Smith, but otherwise…?

Well, you can see at this point I was in a bit of a bind, unsure about my plot or my two main characters. What followed was some painfully awkward writing (about 12,000 words, or a quarter of a book) where I tried to follow the original plot of Emma as closely as I could. My modern day Emily Wood still lived with her father and acted as lady of the manor; my Knightley, Jason Kingsley, is the neighbor who returns to Highfield with the intention to marry and chides Emily about her involvement with a poor young woman who wants to marry a farmer. Does this all sound a bit too familiar? That’s the problem with rewriting a classic, I soon discovered: if you stick too closely to the original source, your story has no life of its own, and at this point mine didn’t either.

So I scrapped what I’d written (with some wailing and gnashing of teeth, I grant you) and started over with a suggestion of my husband’s: why not make Emily the head of Human Resources of a large company? And instead of meddling with the lives of villagers, she arranges the affairs of coworkers! Suddenly it seemed blindingly simple. At least, that part.

Part of the promise to a reader of Presents is an intense emotional conflict, and in order to deliver on that I really had to delve into Emily and Jason’s minds and hearts and figure out why Emily meddled and why Jason was so distracted by her. And most importantly, why both of them insisted they weren’t interested in love. When I finally figured all that out, I had a lot of fun telling their story–there’s a fair amount of back and forth between Emily and Jason which I really enjoyed writing. I hope you enjoy it too!

Thanks for joining us at CataRomance, Kate! The Matchmaker Bride is on sale now. If you want to find out more about Kate and her wonderful books visit her website at www.kate-hewitt.com

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Be warned, I don’t particularly care for many “classic” novels. Which makes me wonder, why are the classics consider classic? The themes in them? Because readers can still relate to them? Or are they classics because a chosen few have said “these are classics, all high school students should read them.”

Which books from the last few years do you think are destined to become classics?

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The Floor is open. What are you reading this month? Come on up to the mic and tell us.

Authors, what project are you working on right now?

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Last year I asked the readers on our Readers’ Loop if they write to authors and let them know what they thought of the author’s book. Responses varied. Since I discussed etiquette last week I thought this was worth mentioning this week.

I’ve met dozens of writers of the years and they all have a few things in common. A passion for writing and they love hearing from their readers. Writing, despite advances like the internet, is a lonely profession. Even when surrounded by other writers, critique partners, and editors, writers can find themselves living in a bubble of their creation. Isolation, if you will.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like getting bills in the mail. Or spam. Or letters written to the people who lived in my house six or more years ago.

I love getting a nice hand written letter. Or a birthday card.

Reader letters are like birthday cards to an author. A ray of sunshine in their inbox. A break from the isolation. Even if you didn’t love, love, love a book, I’m sure if you sent a nice letter to an author they’d be thrilled.

Not only will you brighten an author’s day, you might just give them a reason to keep writing. Let’s face it, some days writing really is like opening a vein. It can be painful, exhausting, and frustrating. I know many authors who keep letters from readers on tap and reread them when they need motivation.

Some author’s might ask you if they can use your letter on their website, and how cool would it be to encourage other readers to pick up that author’s book?

So keep that in mind the next time you pick up a book and make it a goal to contact the author when you’ve closed the cover. Most author’s have contact information on their website. And gone are the days when it will cost you a stamp to brighten someone’s day.

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