Christy English Interview and Giveaway

I would like to welcome Christy English to Royal Reviews!

1. Tell us something about yourself, so that we can get to know you a bit better…

Thank you so much for hosting me. A bit about me… I am an actress as well as a writer…it’s hard to say which came first, because I’ve been acting out stories and telling myself stories for as long as I can remember. It was a revelation when I realized that people get together and perform plays for fun…I discovered this in drama class in the seventh grade, and never looked back. I have always been a writer, and about fourteen years ago I realized that people who noodle alone in their rooms with characters and plot actually write novels and sell them…so that became my new goal.

2. Your romance novel, How to Tame a Willful Wife, is out now—congrats! Could you tell us about it?

Thank you so much… HOW TO TAME A WILLFUL WIFE is about two strong willed people who get married for financial and social reasons and then have to learn to live together as equals. Anthony, my hero, is not much for equality, and Caroline won’t settle for anything less. So they spend a lot of time fighting, and a lot of time making up in bed. Of course, no amount of rolling around in the hay solves anything. It is only once they learn to actually talk to each other that they begin to discover ways to live together in relative harmony.

3. What inspired you to write How to Tame a Willful Wife?

The book is based on Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, but I did not figure that out until about three drafts in. I first discovered this story in a dream…the first chapters came to me in my sleep, and I woke up and wrote down notes, and then went straight to my writers’ group that Sunday morning and started the novel. I finished the first draft in about six weeks, just following where these characters led. But as I went back and learned to put a little distance between myself and what was happening on the page, I saw that I was exploring themes that had always bothered me in Taming of the Shrew…namely why does the woman need to be tamed? Why can’t we tame a hot man instead?

This is an eternal question asked by many of my fellow romance writers…many stories have been born from this one question. J

4. What was it like taking The Taming of the Shrew and transforming it into a Regency romance?

So much fun! I had a ball with these two characters, and with finding ways to bring them deeper in love with each other. I have trouble finding the love in Taming of the Shrew, but Caroline and Anthony showed me where the love is in this novel. They built it, one fight, one step, at a time.

5. How do you find that perfect balance of romance and plot?

My editors! LOL Leah and Aubrey stay on me until I make my characters suffer. I always want them to fall in love with as little pain as possible, but the pain is where the plot is. The pain is what makes the love in the end worthwhile. If Anthony and Caroline didn’t earn their joy, it would mean less.

6. What can readers expect next?

I am currently finishing up the second book in this series, based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream called LOVE ON A MIDSUMMER NIGHT. Raymond Olivier, the cigar smoking, brandy drinking, lady killer best friend of Anthony will find his true love in this book. I am always happy to watch as a rake gets reformed. J

7. Do you have any words of wisdom for aspiring authors?

Stay in the chair. Keep writing, no matter what. Listen to your characters, and to what they have to say. When you hit a wall, ask them for help. They will tell you something more about the story, something that you didn’t know before, that will lead you out of the woods. Or if not out of the woods, at least to a clearer path so that you can find your way out yourself.

Try to remember, as hard as this business is, as hard as it is to sit at the computer and tell the truth, keep at it. No one can write with your voice but you. No one else can tell your story. And we all need your story. Without it, the world is a lesser place.

HOW TO TAME A WILLFUL WIFE:

1. Forbid her from riding astride

2. Hide her dueling sword

3. Burn all her breeches and buy her silk drawers

4. Frisk her for hidden daggers

5. Don’t get distracted while frisking her for hidden daggers…

Anthony Carrington, Earl of Ravensbrook, expects a biddable bride. A man of fiery passion tempted by the rigors of war into steely self-control, he demands obedience from his troops and his future wife. Regardless of how fetching she looks in breeches.

Promised to the Earl of Plump Pockets by her impoverished father, Caroline Montague is no simpering miss. She rides a war stallion named Hercules, fights with a blade, and can best most men with both bow and rifle. She finds Anthony autocratic, domineering, and...ridiculously handsome.

It's a duel of wit and wills in this charming retelling of The Taming of the Shrew. But the question is...who's taming whom? (from the publishers website)

I have 1 copy of How to Tame a Willful Wife to giveaway.

Giveaway is US and Canada only

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Best Wishes & Good luck,

Angela