SPECIAL INTERVIEW WITH SHANA GALEN
Shana Galen is a nationally acclaimed, best-selling author of historical romance. She specializes in rakish heroes and feisty heroines set in the Regency era. I am a big fan of her exciting Lord and Lady series. It features daring spies, exhilarating danger and spirited romance.
But she also writes another series about the illustrious Derring Family that is equally addictive. And her latest book, I Kissed a Rogue, is coming out in March 2016!
I had to ask her what else she has planned for her fans.
1) I understand that you have always had the writing bug. What was the first book you wrote about? Was it a romance?!
Shana Galen: Oh, I’ve definitely always had the urge (or should I say compulsion?) to write. I’ve been writing stories since I learned how to read. The first book I wrote was When Dashing Met Danger, which was also the first book I sold for publication. It was absolutely a romance and an historical romance, which though I’ve tried other genres, has always been my first love.
2) Were there any authors that inspired your writing?
Shana Galen: So many of them! When I first sat down to write a romance it was because I’d run out of Julie Garwood historicals to read. I figured if I didn’t have any of those to entertain me, I’d just have to write my own romance. Marsha Canham wrote dozens of really adventurous, exciting historical romances, and she was also a big influence. Jane Austen’s books have always resonated with me. Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice were two books that made me want to write books set in the Regency era.
3) What do you like best about Regency Era? What makes writing about this era so special to you?
Shana Galen: I love the Regency Era because it was prior to the Industrial Revolution. The Victorians had many of the same rules about conduct and etiquette those in the Regency held, but they also had photos and trains and gas lighting. The Regency was also a time of great upheaval in the world and in London. King George III was ill and his profligate son was ruling in his stead. Napoleon was doing a pretty good job of taking over Europe. Everything was changing. It was exciting and cary and makes the perfect setting for a romance novel.
4) I love you Lord and Lady series! It is so fun and exciting to read! Can you tell us how you conceived this series?
Shana Galen: I was watching Mr. and Mrs. Smith one evening when I didn’t have a book contract and I needed to think of a new idea to propose to my editor. I had lots of ideas but nothing I loved. I’d seen Mr. and Mrs. Smith before, but for some reason (probably because I was desperate) the idea popped in my head that I could take the story premise and set it not in 2005 (or whenever the movie was made) but in the Regency. I’d still have two spies who are married and don’t know the other is a spy. But instead of making them assassins, I made them have to compete for a position in an elite spy agency. Since spying is all they care about, they go all out. But by the end of the book, they learn there is more to life than espionage.
5) Do you have any new books planned for the series? (Please say there are more!)
Shana Galen: At the moment I don’t have any more books planned, but I have had fun writing novellas for some of the secondary characters. Blue got two novellas--The Spy Wore Blue and All I Want for Christmas is Blue—and Moneypence and Q starred in The Spy Beneath the Mistletoe. I could see myself writing another novella for Blue or perhaps a sort of The Incredibles-type story for one of the couples in the series and their family.
6) Your Covent Garden Cubs series features the Derring Family. Can you tell us more about this series? How did you get the idea for the Derring Family?
Shana Galen: I actually asked some of my writing friends to help me think of ideas for a new book series. I gave them some parameters—like the idea has to have adventure and action. I wanted it set primarily in London. I wanted a juxtaposition between the upper classes and the lower classes, and so on. My author friend Margo Maguire suggested I write about thieves in London, sort of a take on Charles Dickens’s Oliver. The Derring family is the aristorcratic family who crosses paths with this group of thieves called the Covent Garden Cubs because the thieves operate in Covent Garden and they’re mostly young boys (cubs). We first meet their leader in Viscount of Vice and then in Earls Just Want to Have Fun Brook, the younger of the two Derring brothers, extricates a female thief from the group because he suspects she is the daughter of a marquess who was kidnapped as a child. He asks his brother to keep an eye on her until he can arrange for her to meet her real parents, and the slum gang and the earl’s family become inextricably entwined.
7) I understand your newest book (yipee!), I Kissed a Rogue, is coming out in March. What makes this book so special?
Shana Galen: This is Brook’s story. He’s been waiting for 4 books to get to be a hero. In the other 3 he was always in the background. This is also one of my favorite kinds of stories because it’s a second chance at love trope. Brook fell in love with the heroine seven years before, but she spurned him. Now they’re thrown back together and he has to protect her from the leader of the Covent Garden Cubs.
8) Can you tell us about the main characters?
Shana Galen: Brook is an investigator often hired by the nobility to find missing persons or recover stolen property. He’s something of a hero because he’s found people thought to be lost forever. But when he first knew Lila, the heroine, seven years before, he was nothing but a younger son hopelessly infatuated with the beautiful daughter of a powerful duke. Lila has changed quite a bit since she and Brook last met. She was haughty and arrogant when they first knew each other, but she lost all of that when she nursed her mother through an illness that took her life. Now she’s not exactly humble but a lot less conceited and she’s genuinely sorry for how she treated Brook and everyone all those years before. The question is whether Brook believes she’s really changed.
9) You have also written contemporary romance novels under the name Shane Bolks. Do you plan to write more?! Can you tell us about your contemporary books?
Shana Galen: Right now I don’t plan to write more because I’m enjoying writing historicals so much and because I have so many contracted. I don’t know where I’d find time to write more books. My contemporaries are what used to be called chick lit--Sex and the City/Bridget Jones’s Diary-type books. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Men I’ve Dated is about a woman who was always the nerd in school. She’s obsessed with Star Wars and wants to go to her 15-year high school reunion and show everyone how much she’s changed. Reality TV Bites is about a gorgeous interior designer who gets stuck on a reality TV show, and her life falls apart. She has to find a new identity for herself.
10) What new ideas/books do you have planned for your fans? Can you give us a sneak peek?!
Shana Galen: I’m writing a new series about a group of soldiers who fought together during the war against Napoleon. These men are younger sons of the nobility—the best, the brightest, but most importantly, the expendable—who form a troop and complete daring assignments, risking their lives for their country. After the war, the surviving 12 soldiers return to London and frequently meet at a club known as The Draven Club. The “Draven Dozen”—hellraisers before they left for war, now a group of restless renegades —must settle back into Society and the world they left behind, facing new threats to their lives and their hearts. It’s something new for me, but also something I think my readers will totally adore.
Wow! Your books really make the Regency Era come alive. It has been true pleasure having you on our website. Thank you.
Interviewed by Steph from the Bookaholics Romance Book Club
For additional information about Shana Galen you can check her out at:
http://www.shanagalen.com/
Recent and Upcoming Books by Shana Galen:
I Kissed a Rogue (Covent Garden Cubs) -March 1, 2016
Once she spurned the man...
When the Duke of Lennox hires Sir Brook Derring, England's best investigator, to find his daughter, Brook intends only to rescue the lady and return to his solitary life. He deals with London's roughest criminals every day of the week; surely he should be able to endure seeing his first love again-the perfect girl who broke his heart...
Now her life depends on him
Lady Lillian-Anne Lennox has always done her best to live up to her father's standards of perfection-at the cost of following her heart. When she's kidnapped and her perfect life is shattered, Lila has another chance. Together, Lila and Brook navigate not only the dark and deadly side of London, but the chasm of pride and prejudice that divides them.
A Gentleman For All Seasons -Nov 10, 2015 The Summer of Wine and Scandal by Shana Galen
When viscount’s son and dandy Peregrine Lochley is temporarily exiled from London to the country for his misdeeds, the last thing he expects is to encounter an intriguing woman. But Caroline Martin has a secret to hide, and it just might be too scandalous for even this debauched rogue.
The Spy Beneath the Mistletoe Nov 2, 2015 | Kindle eBook When weapons designer Eliza Qwillen (Q) is sent to the English countryside with Pierce Moneypence, clerk to the mysterious M, she’s worried the memory of their steamy encounter will interfere with the task at hand.
The operatives are intent upon capturing the highwayman styling himself as the New Sheriff of Nottingham. But with the Sheriff in their sights, secret rendezvous, mistaken identities, and cat-and-mouse games challenge these fledgling agents—and Q and Pierce will learn that rediscovering their passion for each other is the most rewarding mission of all.
The Rogue You Know (Covent Garden Cubs) Sept 1, 2015
She's beyond his reach...
Gideon Harrow has spent his life in London's dark underworld-and he wants out. A thief and a con, he plans one last heist to finally win his freedom. But when everything goes wrong, he finds himself at the tender mercies of one of Society's most untouchable women-Lady Susanna Derring.
...and out of her depth.
Susanna has spent her life in London's glittering ton, under the thumb of a domineering mother-and she wants out. When a wickedly charming rogue lands at her feet, she jumps at the chance to experience life before it's too late. But as she descends into London's underworld, she finds that nothing- not even Gideon-is as it seems. As excitement turns to danger, Susanna must decide what price she's willing to pay...for the love of a reformed thief.
Dancing in The Duke's Arms: A Regency Romance Anthology Jun 26, 2015 WAITING FOR A DUKE LIKE YOU by Shana Galen
There’s no such thing as the perfect hero…
Nathan Cauley, tenth Duke of Wyndover, is so handsome ladies swoon—literally swoon. His blond hair and blue eyes certainly draw attention at the Duke of Sedgemere’s house party, but Nathan doesn’t want a fawning young miss for his duchess. He stumbles upon a bedraggled woman sleeping under Sedgemere’s bridge, and his protective instincts stir. When he recognizes her as the princess he fell in love with eight years before, he’s determined to win not only her affections but her heart.
While You Were Spying (Regency Spies Book 0) -Apr 7, 2015
Francesca Dashing would like to forget that Ethan Caxton, the Marquess of Winterbourne, exists. He humiliated her in front of all of London Society—and he doesn’t even remember it! But when Ethan shows up in her sleepy Hampshire town, he’s hard to overlook, and his presence stirs up long-buried feelings. Francesca tries to keep her distance…until her life is threatened and the mysterious and handsome marquess comes to her rescue, in more ways than she ever thought possible.
Winterbourne has traveled to Hampshire on orders from the Foreign Office—he’s investigating an arms smuggling ring and is determined to find its leader. Miss Dashing stumbles into his way—literally—and derails both Ethan’s assignment and his ordered country life. Ethan knows he needs to ignore the distraction, but when Francesca is the victim of a vicious attack, he’s compelled to put aside his mission to protect her. Guarding the viscount’s daughter is work, nothing more, and Ethan has no plans to let down his guard…until Francesca’s chocolate-brown eyes and endless compassion melt the ice in his heart and lay siege to his defenses.
Earls Just Want to Have Fun (Covent Garden Cubs Book 1) -Feb 3, 2015
Marlowe runs with the Covent Garden Cubs, a gang of thieves living in the slums of London's Seven Dials. But there was a time she went by a different name and when a private investigator thinks that she may be the missing daughter of a lord and lady, she is introduced to the spectacle of Society.
Maxwell, Lord Dane, is intrigued when his brother ropes him into his investigation of the fiercely beautiful hellion who is believed to be the lost daughter of the Marquess of Lydon. He teaches her how to navigate the social morass of the ton, but Marlowe will not escape the Cubs so easily. Instead, Max is drawn into her dangerous world, where the student becomes the teacher and love is the greatest risk of all.
Suspenseful and passionate, Earls Just Want to Have Fun is a captivating historical romance. Fans of Julia Quinn, Sabrina Jefferies, and Elizabeth Boyle will love this story that combines action and mystery with enchanting romance.
Viscount of Vice: A Novella (Covent Garden Cubs Book 0) -Jan 6, 2015 Whispers and secrets are no match for love...
Henry Flynn, the new Lord Chesham, still blames himself for the disappearance of his younger brother when they were children. That incident destroyed his family, and now he's on a path of self-destruction that no one can interrupt...
Lady Emma Talbot can't stand watching the man she secretly loves destroy himself little by little. She's determined to show him that no one holds him culpable, before it's too late. But Emma doesn't know what really happened to Flynn on that fateful day long ago, so what chance does she have of saving him from himself?