SPECIAL INTERVIEW WITH PATRICIA RICE
Patricia Rice is a New York Times bestselling author known for her wildly popular historical romances. I grew up on her beloved Regency romances and fell in love with her magical paranormal series! Inspiring, heart-felt and sweet her books tug at the heart string and keep readers coming back for more.
But the a has hidden surprises! She has embarked on a new series, called Saturn’s Daughters. A fresh, urban fantasy series written under the pseudonym, Jamie Quaid.
I was excited to ask her about her new books and find out what other gems she has awaiting the publishing world!
1) Thanks you so much for letting me interview you! This is such a pleasure. I have to ask, you have been writing romance for a while, what about romance keeps bringing you back? Do you ever feel ‘tapped out’ when it comes to writing them?
Patricia Rice:
I never really considered myself a “romantic,” but I believe in the power of love. Love is the reason we get up every day, the reason we stand up to bullies, the reason we want more for our families and our communities. I don’t see how it’s possible to write without love being part of the story, so no, I never feel “tapped out” when it comes to romance. I do, however, find other means of expressing this theme than in romantic love when I write the urban fantasies.
2) What is it about the Regency period that specifically attracts you? Do you secretly wish you could go back in time and live in that time period? Or do you enjoy the comforts of today, too much?!
Patricia Rice:
I think of the Regency as a simpler era, one without the complications of industry and technology, where personal relationships overpower all else. The Regency is as close to “pure” romance as it gets, and I love writing it. It’s an elegant, mannered era, one that’s emerging from the crude, often brutal Georgian period. I want my characters to have regular access to baths. <G> But no, I don’t think I want to go back in time. London in that period was noisy and dirty, but the countryside was isolated and lacked libraries, transportation, and good stores. No happy medium!
3) Speaking of which, if you could write yourself as the heroine, what type of heroine do you see yourself as and why? (The hoyden/tomboy, the bluestocking, the ‘old maid,’ the Belle of the Ball or the shy wallflower.) Is there a favorite ‘type’ of heroine you have a fondness writing about?
Patricia Rice:
I’d probably be the bluestocking who would be lucky to find a match at all! I suppose I have a fondness for heroines who think for themselves, which automatically makes their lives very difficult.
4) I discovered that you also wrote a Western series and it has been made available again. Can you tell us more about it?
Patricia Rice:
I started out writing westerns and then began interspersing them with Regencies since my editor headed the Signet Regency line. The Western series that’s currently available is the Texas “Too Hard to Handle” books. I’d done a great deal of research in writing Texas Lily, about a gentle Southern lady left to manage a ranch all on her own in an era when women were meant to be seen and not heard. That book was extremely popular, but it was written in an era before the advent of serial romance. Since I didn’t want to give up on Texas after writing Lily, I finally convinced my editor to let me do a trilogy about a family of orphans who end up in Texas. So the first book is unrelated to the last three books other than by setting. It’s fun what we can do with e-books!
5) When you write a book, how much of the storyline do you have to set up before you start writing? Is it true that characters can take over and almost write themselves?
Patricia Rice:
I am basically what is called a “pantser,” flying by the seat of my pants into the mists. But I’ve run into too many mountains that way, and deadlines don’t allow for rebuilding broken books. So I finally learned to define my characters as closely as possible, setting up their goals and conflicts. After that, I develop plot turning points by brainstorming with some friends whose instincts match mine. And then, yes, the characters wing their way on their own. It’s amazing what those guys will do while I’m not looking!
6) I really enjoy your romances but I have to admit a specific weakness for your historical paranormal books. Do you plan to write more…please!
Patricia Rice:
I love historical paranormals, too, and the Magic series was quite popular—which is why it’s being reissued in trade paperback by Sourcebooks (Much Ado About Magic will be released 11/5). But the print book market has changed and historical paranormals are too small a niche for print publishers these days. I’m currently committed to finishing the Rebellious Sons series, which is straight Regency. And I’m releasing my need for paranormal with the contemporary California Malcolm trilogy. Once those are complete, I’ll see what happens. I’m rather fascinated with the idea of the Malcolm and Ives family in the Regency era. <G>
7) Speaking of which, I have to ask you about your newest venture. An urban fantasy series called Saturn’s Daughters. Your second book in the series, called Damn Him to Hell under a pseudonym, Jamie Quaid was such a departure from your prior books. I’ve really been blown away by how imaginative this series is. What inspired you to write them and how long have you had the idea for this series?
Patricia Rice:
I adore urban fantasy. I love the idea of ordinary heroines gaining extraordinary powers and learning to use them to rid the world of evil. I love taking commonplace settings and twisting them with creatures of fantasy that mock the real evil in the world. I started playing around with a fantasy idea that just wasn’t gelling. And then, one day, driving through the eternal cornfields of Indiana and Illinois, I had this vision of a woman having a really bad day at work and her cheating boyfriend standing her up. The scene in the first book where Tina damns her boyfriend to hell— and he descends to hell in a fiery explosion— just materialized in my head. After that, the first book practically wrote itself.
8) Can you tell us more about the main character, Tina Clancy, and Saturn’s Daughters in general –or is that too much of a spoiler?!
Patricia Rice:
Tina is a true melting pot character. She was born in the United States. Her mother is a tree-hugging hippie environmental scientist. She doesn’t know her father or her grandparents, although she’s been told her maternal grandparents are Iranian. Turns out she not only has international origins, but possibly interplanetary ones. Or maybe godly. She’s not quite clear on that yet. And if her father is some kind of god, he’s been a busy one, and she has sisters out there she hasn’t met yet. But as I write the third book, I’m thinking Saturn isn’t a god or a being so much as a force, because Saturn’s daughters are born only to other Saturn’s daughters. These girls need a rule book, but they’re too busy staying alive to write it! Tina, being of a lawyerly persuasion, may be the one to do it.
9) How many books do you have planned for the series? Will you write more urban fantasies under your new alias?
See above—I’m a pantser. Even as I write one book, I’m envisioning the next. At the moment, I have a trilogy that will resolve certain things in the third book, but there are so many more fun areas to explore! I really don’t have the time to write any more series under the Jamie Quaid name while I’m still writing historicals and contemporaries. I write reasonably fast, but editing and revising and promotion takes way too much out of my day. So I’ll take my time and see what develops. I really do hope I can continue Tina’s story beyond the third book!
10) This has been such an honor! I only hope you never stop writing! Thank you so much for your generous time J
Patricia Rice:
I’m thrilled to be invited here, and bless you for your kind words!
Interviewed by Steph from the Bookaholics Romance Book Club
For Additional Information about Patricia Rice check her out at:
http://www.patriciarice.com/
and also writing as:
http://jamiequaid.com/
Recent and Upcoming Romances by Patricia Rice
Notorious Atherton (Rebellious Sons) -July 23rd, 2013
The Pirate meets the Princess
Nora Adams is a schoolteacher and a poor seaman’s widow--until the day she inherits a fortune and is sent to London to deliver a mysterious message to a foreign princess—who looks surprisingly like Nora. Once Princess Elena receives Nora’s missive, she steals Nora’s identity and vanishes. Left to fend for herself in ill-fitting royal shoes, Nora determinedly sets out in search of the royal escapee.
Nick Atherton long ago retired from his villainous life of piracy, but he’s dragged out of his role as fashionable fribble to protect the princess—rather, the impostor. Nick would far rather seduce the comely widow, but first he will have to dodge French spies and pursue misbehaving royalty.
For the fate of a nation and a princess, Devil Nick takes to the high seas again, but will his illegal exploits cost him the respectable woman he loves?
Damn Him to Hell (Saturn's Daughter) as Jamie Quaid -June 25, 2013
YOU DON’T NEED A LAW DEGREE TO DISPENSE STREET JUSTICE.
Tina Clancy hardly has a chance to celebrate passing the bar exam when an explosion at Acme Chemical sends a noxious pink and green cloud billowing over Baltimore’s radioactive Zone. It is not as if the place was normal to begin with, but as the poisonous fumes overtake the sky, her neighbors start falling comatose—and Acme is plucking them off the streets faster than Tina and her friends can save them.
Just because Tina’s a lawyer now doesn’t mean she’s going to miraculously morph into a respectable, law-abiding citizen. She once accidentally damned her own boyfriend to hell, for heaven’s sake. Now that Max is back—in the body of his evil cousin, a U.S. senator with family ties to Acme—she needs him more than ever.
And what does it mean to be one of Saturn’s daughters? Tina knows she’s obligated to use her powers to save the Zone, no matter the cost, but there’s a real possibility that victory will happen over her dead body.
The English Heiress: Regency Nobles (Volume 3) -Oct. 27th, 2012
An Irish rogue and a duke’s daughter should have nothing in common except trouble...
Though enchanted by the selfless beauty of a duke’s granddaughter, Michael—a man of many names but none his own—has wisely kept his distance. But two years after the disastrous fire that brought Lady Blanche Perceval into his life, he is saddled with a lost, lying Irish waif and needs a woman’s understanding aid. To his dismay, the generous lady he remembers now despises him for deserting her when she needed him most.
Blanche has inherited all the wealth and responsibility of a dukedom, even if it is her cousin who wears the title. Forced to rely on her men of business to help her make decisions since she has no experience or knowledge of her own, she is at constant odds with the new duke who wishes to marry her for the sake of the estate.
When the irresistible and unreliable Michael O’Toole materializes in her life to enlist her care for another of the abandoned orphans he’s rescued—as he once did for her—Blanche doesn’t know whether to kill him or kiss him. After terrorists blow up her carriage, it becomes apparent that running away might be the best choice of all—but can they survive the pitfalls of their impossible attraction?
Boyfriend from Hell (The Saturn's Daughters) as Jamie Quaid -Sept. 25th, 2012
They say justice is blind. But Justine isn’t.
Justine (Tina) Clancy is just an ordinary law student with a faulty arrest record, a part-time job in Baltimore’s radioactive Zone, and a family secret so bizarre even she doesn’t believe it. That is, until in a fit of fury she damns her boyfriend to hell—and it’s exactly where he ends up.
Much to her surprise, Tina is apparently one of Saturn’s daughters, with the power to wield vigilante justice. But poor Max didn’t deserve to go up in flames, even if he did almost run her over with her own car. Tina’s convinced someone cut the brakes—and now a relentless nemesis is stalking her through the Zone’s back alleys, where buildings glow, statues move, and chemical waste exposure comes with interesting consequences. Tina’s usually a loner, but now she needs a posse like no other: a shape-shifting kitten, an invisible thief, a biker gang, a snake-charming private detective, a well-meaning cop, and her sleazy, sexy boss. But in between freeing Max from hell, saving her own neck, and solving a mystery that threatens the Zone and her newfound friends, how is she ever going to study for finals?
The Marquess (Regency Nobles) -June 2nd, 2012
Scarred in a duel over a feckless woman, Gavin Lawrence leaves America to take up his new duty as Marquess of Effingham, vowing never to care about others again. But lurking in the secret passages of his crumbling manor house is a courageous and exceedingly annoying young woman in terrible danger.
The self-sufficient daughter of a soldier, Dillian Whitnell guards her injured cousin in isolated Arinmede manor after an attempt on both their lives. Dillian hadn’t expected the new marquess to notice her, but his stubborn refusal to believe she’s a ghost turns into a hide-and-seek game that leads to increasingly close encounters. A game where irritation turns to intrigue, and intrigue to a forbidden passion as the real villain emerges from the past.
The Lure of Song and Magic -Jan. 1st, 2012
Her voice was a curse...
When Dylan "Oz" Oswin's son is kidnapped, the high-powered producer will do anything to get him back. Desperately following an anonymous tip, he seeks help from a former child singing sensation called Syrene, only to find she's vowed never to sing again. Immune to her voice but not her charm, Oz is convinced she holds the key to his son's disappearance—and he'll stop at nothing to make her break her vow.
Only he can make her sing ...
She knows the devastation her talent can bring. There's more than a child's life at stake, but Syrene cannot unleash her dangerous siren's voice upon the world, even for a man who is impossible to deny...