After playing an incredibly important -- and often scantily clad -- role in the four previous Desperate Duchesses books, it is finally time for Jemma to get her own story.
Scandalous Jemma Beaumont and proper polititian Elijah Beaumont were always like oil and water. It came as no surprise to anyone when Jemma left to thrill all of France with her antics shortly after their wedding. But no one expected her return home ready to play the part of “dutiful” wife... least of all her husband.
When I'm not writing novels, I'm a Shakespeare professor. It's rather like having two lives. The other day I bought a delicious pink suit to tape a television segment on romance; I'll never wear that suit to teach in, nor even to give a paper at the Shakespeare Association of America conference. It's like being Superman, with power suits for both lives. Yet the literature professor in me certainly plays into my romances. The Taming of the Duke (April 2006) has obvious Shakespearean resonances, as do many of my other novels. I often weave early modern poetry into my work; the same novel might contain bits of Catullus, Shakespeare, and anonymous bawdy ballads from the 16th century.
When I rip off my power suit, whether it's academic or romantic, underneath is the rather tired, chocolate-stained sweatshirt of a mom. Just as I use Shakespeare in my romances, I almost always employ my experiences as a mother. When I wrote about a miscarriage in Midnight Pleasures, I used my own fears of premature birth; when the little girl in A Wild Pursuit threw up and threw up, I described my own daughter, who had that unsavory habit for well over her first year of life.
So I'm a writer, a professor, a mother—and a wife. My husband Alessandro is Italian, born in Florence. We spend the lazy summer months with his mother and sister in Italy. It always strikes me as a huge irony that as a romance writer I find myself married to a knight, a cavaliere, as you say in Italian.
One more thing…I'm a friend. I have girlfriends who are writers and girlfriends who are Shakespeare professors. And I have girlfriends who are romance readers. In fact, we have something of a community going on my Web site. Please stop by and join the conversation on the Bulletin Board I share with Julia Quinn. We'd love to see you!
