Lily McLemore

RomanceContemporary Romance

Emily March

Interview by Lily McLemore

Emily March's charming story of second chance love, Reunion Pass, is our Romance Top Pick for April. We asked the New York Times bestselling author about the Colorado Rockies and her ideal desert-island hero—and even wheedled out a cherished recipe.

Describe your latest novel in one sentence.
Reunion Pass is the romance that Eternity Springs readers have been asking for since the first book in the series, and it explores whether or not young love can truly stand the tests of time—when aided by dogs, family, friends and maybe an angel.

What inspired you to set your Eternity Springs series in the Colorado Rockies?
My family has Colorado roots, and I spent every summer in the Colorado Rockies when I was growing up. It's such a beautiful place, and when I decided to create a world that may or may not be populated by an angel, I couldn't think of a more heavenly and appropriate spot. 

What’s your favorite thing about the series (and town!) Eternity Springs?
My favorite thing about Eternity Springs is that I regularly get emails from readers who say they want to live in Eternity Springs. That’s how I know I’ve done a good job.

If you had to be trapped on a desert island with one fictional character, who would it be?
Initially, I thought of Roarke [from J.D. Robb’s In Death series], but he is so happily married that choosing him doesn’t seem right.  So, I’m going with Harry Dresden [from The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher].

What’s your guilty pleasure?
Long, hot, candlelit, scented baths with a glass or two of nice red wine and a historical romance novel.

Last year you went on a cruise to Lisbon, Portugal, with fellow romance author Christina Dodd! What was your favorite moment from the trip?
Had to have been the night we joined the captain for dinner and plotted murder at sea with fellow diners—a hostage negotiator, a British magazine publisher with strong opinions about “puerile” fiction, an American ex-pat paper artist and a South African lawyer. Guess who I wanted to push overboard.

Your author site mentions a legendary jalapeño relish . . . Dare we ask for the recipe?
Well . . . since you asked nicely:

Emily March’s Jalapeño Relish for Tailgate Fame 

Ingredients:

6 jalapeno peppers, coarsely chopped
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/3 cups apple cider vinegar
4 small yellow onions, chopped
1/4 cup of carrots, chopped
1 teaspoon dill seed
1 teaspoon mustard seed

Cooking Instructions:

In a saucepan, add apple cider vinegar and sugar over low heat. Mix until sugar is dissolved.
Add jalapeño peppers, onion, and carrots.
Bring the mixture to a boil.
Add mustard and dill.
Reduce heat and simmer about 20 minutes.
Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Great with brats or hamburgers or brisket. Mix it into cream cheese for a wonderful dip. Is it football season yet?

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Author photo by Kelly Williams Photography.

 
Emily March's charming story of second chance love, Reunion Pass, is our Romance Top Pick for April. We asked March a few questions about the Colorado Rockies, the ideal hero on a desert isle and even wheedle out a cherished recipe.
RomanceHistorical Romance

Mary Balogh

Interview by Lily McLemore

The final book in Mary Balogh's New York Times bestselling Survivors' Club series, Only Beloved, is our May Top Pick in Romance. The series follows seven wounded veterans of the Napoleonic Wars who have returned to England to heal at the home of George, the Duke of Stanbrook. Only Beloved gives the generous and kind George the happy ending he so deserves. We asked the Welsh-born Balogh about bringing her touching and popular series to an end.

Describe your latest novel in one sentence.
After years of grief and loneliness as a widower, the Duke of Stanbrook decides to seek happiness with an unmarried music teacher he met briefly a year ago.

Most romance novels feature young lovers in their 20s and early 30s. For the final book in the series, what made you decide to write a love story between an older couple?
I really forced it upon myself. When I invented the Survivors' Club, I needed a character who opened his home as a hospital for officers. It somehow made sense to make him an older man rather than a young man who should perhaps have been away fighting himself, and so the Duke of Stanbrook was born. He is a very central character to the series, though, and was always going to have to have his own story. I would not pair him up with a young woman, so there had to be an older female character worthy of him. And then there is also the fact that I think there should be more love stories for older couples. Many avid readers, after all, are older people, and love and romance are not exclusive reserves of the very young. I am an older person!

What’s the biggest difference between writing a romance about an older couple and writing about a younger one?
It's the level of maturity. The Duke of Stanbrook is 48 in his book; Dora Debbins is 39. They have done a lot of living. They have gone through a lot, suffered a great deal, dealt with their sufferings, settled into productive and dignified lives. I wouldn't say they no longer feel passion (they do!), but they show it in a more considered, realistic way than is often the case with younger characters. There are fewer fireworks and ups and downs of emotion, but a slow burn can be just as hot.

What’s your favorite thing about George, the Duke of Stanbrook?
He is a man who lives love. He is the one who opened his home as a hospital for the Survivors and others, and he was utterly devoted to their care and wellbeing. Even after the three years are over, he is still totally supportive of his friends and absolutely unselfish. Yet he has deep wounds of his own. His only son died in the wars, and his wife committed suicide a few months later. Some of his neighbors believe he killed her. He never talks about his past. He listens, but he keeps his secrets and his pain locked up. My favorite thing? All through the series he is a hero just waiting to happen! I could hardly wait to get to his book.

Only Beloved is the seventh and final book in your Survivors’ Club series. What will you miss most about this series?
The seven characters, six men and one woman, who comprise the club, are a very close-knit group. And they are strong people, having been variously and severely wounded during the Napoleonic Wars before spending three years together recuperating and fighting their way back to physical and emotional health. I loved taking them one by one and pairing them up with suitable heroines and hero so that they could settle back into happy lives and love again. Characters like these become real people to me, and it is sad to say goodbye. However, there is a certain satisfaction in having completed a body of work and being able to turn to a new challenge.  There are numerous other characters and stories out there just waiting to be discovered, after all.

Has your childhood in Wales influenced your writing at all? And if it has, how so?
I have written a few books and novellas set in Wales (Longing and The Escape, for example), and my love of the country, the landscape, the language, the music, the spirituality carried me onward through those stories. I was perfectly at home writing those books because I knew my subject. I think a Welsh love of music and language shows itself in all my books, though. And the Welsh are a passionate people. My books are character-driven and passion-driven. That does not necessarily mean they are driven by sex. The passion of love includes sex but encompasses so much more.

To come at the question from another angle: I grew up in post-World War II Wales, in a city that had been almost flattened by bombing. We had very little, and our outdoor playground was the bombed buildings. Food, clothing, almost everything was severely rationed. We had few belongings, few toys. But did we feel deprived? Did I? In no way! I firmly believe that it was my childhood that ignited my imagination. With my few toys, I created rich imaginary worlds. I played in those worlds, and I wrote long stories about them as soon as I could read and write.

What’s next for you?
I am working on a new eight-part series, the Westcott family series. It is based on the premise of an earl dying without a will. His son automatically inherits the title and properties and fortune, but his widow and two daughters are well provided for, too—until, that is, a 25-year-old will surfaces, leaving everything except the title to the wife and daughter no one knew anything about. And that first wife died four months after his second marriage, rendering that union bigamous and the three children of the marriage illegitimate. His only legitimate daughter grew up in an orphanage unaware of her true identity. The first book, Someone to Love, is her story—Anna Snow, who is in reality Lady Anastasia Westcott. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins are also involved in the turmoil—one cousin inherits the title. The series will tell the stories of the various Westcotts and how they reshape their concept of their family as they deal with its new realities.

Author photo by Sharon Pelletier

We asked Mary Balogh a few questions about writing the last book in the Survivor's Club series, Only Beloved.
RomanceRomantic SuspenseParanormal Romance

Paige Tyler

Interview by Lily McLemore

Paige Tyler's action-packed paranormal love story To Love a Wolf, part of the SWAT series, is our June Top Pick in Romance. Tyler, who lives in Florida with her husband and dog, is a New York Times bestselling author of more than 50 novels. In this 7 Questions interview, Tyler talks about zombies, her surprising cure for writer's block and more. 

Describe your latest novel in one sentence.
Snarky alpha werewolf from the Dallas SWAT team meets the beautiful artist of his dreams only to discover that her entire family is composed of men who hate werewolves and would die before they let the hero and heroine be together—think Romeo and Juliet with fur.

What initially inspired you to write about werewolves?
I’d like to say that my inspiration for this book—and the whole SWAT Series—represents a bright, shiny example of catching magic in a bottle. But in reality, I sort of stumbled on the idea. My hubby (who is my writing partner) and I had been working on an idea for an erotic series based on good, old-fashioned, alpha-male cops. The notion was a believable cop drama with a lot of hot sex. Should be easy enough, right?

But as we started writing the outlines for the various stories, we kept running into the same problems. Either the story ended up too procedural (i.e., boring) or too erotic (i.e., completely unbelievable in any realistic police setting). If you’re in the middle of a serious crime storyline, it can get really sticky trying to find appropriate places for the hero and heroine to have sex. They can’t exactly have a quickie in the middle of a blood-splattered crime scene or stop by the lab to drop off trace evidence on their way to the local BDSM shop.

Hubby and I kept working on story ideas anyway, trying to find the right mix of serious cop drama and steamy sex, but nothing was working, and we were both getting frustrated. Over breakfast one morning, we were still trying to figure out where to go with the concept and were close to dropping the whole idea—nothing was popping into our heads, and we were starting to get snarky with each other. After he went to work, I emailed him to make sure he wasn’t still spinning from our latest unproductive attempt at brainstorming. He replied back to me, and I to him, etc. That’s when something amazing happened. When you’re emailing back and forth, you’re forced to clearly put the thoughts in your head on the page, and the other person can’t cut you off halfway through what you’re saying. We still hadn’t come up with a good idea, but at least we were actually making more sense via email than face to face.

Then hubby made a joke about adding a zombie to the story (in his mind, every book can be improved with the addition of a few zombies!). I vetoed that idea immediately (I retain final executive authority on story content. If not, there’d be zombies, ninjas and exploding chickens all over the place.) and said that if we were going to put anything paranormal in the story, it should be a werewolf. Hubby said, “You know, that might just work,” and the SWAT series was born. We moved away from the erotic angle, focusing on the Dallas Police Department SWAT team, which is made up completely of werewolves. The series follows each of their efforts to find The One woman who can accept them for what they are.

The rest, as they say, is history. But it all started with a lame comment about a zombie.

Say you’re in the midst of writing your latest book, and you hit a wall. What’s your cure for writer’s block?
P.F. Chang’s spicy chicken. Seriously. Hubby and I do all of our best thinking and brainstorming while overdosing on spicy chicken. We’ll sit in a booth at our local P.F. Chang’s for hours bouncing ideas back and forth over a big plate of the stuff. The people there know us and tend to leave us alone to work. Luckily, they don’t get alarmed if they walk by and hear us plotting the best way to kill someone or comparing the various pros and cons of using claws versus fangs.

By the way, I’ve been angling for an endorsement deal with P.F. Chang’s for years now, but so far no luck.

You write in a variety of genres, from Western romances to paranormal. Which genre do you find the most challenging to write?
Since our basic brand—alpha hero, feisty kick-butt heroines and plot lines focused on steamy romance, pulse-pounding action and suspense—stays the same whether we’re writing about cowboys, cops, shifters or covert agents, romantic suspense is easy. It’s when we stray outside romantic suspense and write pure, basic contemporary romance that it gets a little harder, because that kind of story is romance stripped down to its core, meaning boy meets girl, without the added drama of cops, cowboys or guys with claws. Generating conflict and maintaining interest in a story of how two regular, everyday people end up together can be tricky.

I also have to admit, I’m primarily into blue-collar heroes. If you look on my Pinterest Boards, you’ll see hundreds of pics of cops, soldiers, firefighters, cowboys, etc. But you won’t see a single guy in a suit and tie. It’s just not my thing, which probably explains why I avoid straight contemporary.

When did you first start reading romance? Do you remember what book it was?
I first started reading romance when I was a teenager, thanks to two wonderful aunts who loved it and shared their books with me. The book that really got me hooked on romance was Gambler’s Prize by Valentina Luellen. It’s about a riverboat gambler who falls for a Southern belle. I read that book so many times, I’m surprised the words didn’t fall off the pages!

You’ve written over 50 books and hundreds of characters. Do you ever get stumped on what to name your next character? Where do you get your character’s names?
I get stumped sometimes. In my head, I have a very firm idea of what constitutes a “hero” name versus a “secondary” character name. I’ve been known to rename characters as a story goes along in those cases where a guy who was supposed to be a background character ends up in a more prominent role and will become the hero of his own book later. We maintain series and story bibles to keep track of all the names so that we don’t re-use them too often, but we still end up doing it anyway. I’m not sure how it happened, but we have heroes named “Trevor” in both our X-OPS and SWAT series. Luckily, one is a werewolf and the other is a coyote shifter, so they’re completely different. Don’t tell my editor anyway, though.

As far as where I look for names, that’s easy. I go to the social security website. You can look at popular names going back decades. I can spend hours collecting names that I might use later.

You’ve written about lots of heroes, including werewolves, cowboys and Navy SEALs. Who would make the best date?
Probably werewolves. I like big, cuddly animals, so a werewolf fits right in with that. They’re also good at keeping the bed warm, which would be a big plus, since I’m always freezing.

My hubby is retired Army and I flat-out worried my butt off the whole time he was in, so the Navy SEAL thing is out. My heart recognizes the fantasy of being with a SEAL, but my head knows what it’s like to worry about a man when he’s off doing something dangerous in some war-torn part of the world.

Cowboys are out, too. As much as I love animals, I don’t think I could be with a man who spends more time with his horse than he does with me. 

(Author photo by Pure 7 Studios)

Paige Tyler, author of our June Romance Top Pick To Love a Wolf, answers seven questions.
RomanceParanormal Romance

Christine Feehan

Interview by Lily McLemore

In this month's 7 Questions interview, we talk to Christine Feehan, author of Shadow Rider, the first book in her new paranormal romance series about a family with a magical ability to secretly travel through the shadows. Feehan, a number one New York Times bestselling author of more than 40 novels, lives in Northern California with her husband. 

Describe your latest novel in one sentence.
A man from a powerful family who moves within the shadows to exact justice finds a woman with a secret of her own.

What inspired this new series?
My mind plays around with mafia-like stories, and I read a lot of true crime. I wanted to come up with a story that would give me a powerful family and a small community. Over the last three years, the characters evolved into the Shadow Riders series.

Did you do any special research for this book?
Yes, I had to spend a lot of time researching Italy. I tried to get a feel for their shops, language, etc. to build my own community here in the United States that reflects those roots. I spent time researching longtime family feuds in Italy and researching Little Italy in Chicago, and I had to research mafia families both here and in Italy.

What’s your favorite trait of Stefano Ferraro?
The way he loves his family.

What do you think the biggest misconception about romance is?
I think it’s that many believe they’re not heavily researched, well-crafted stories that have everything from mystery and thrills to comedy and drama. The difference is there is always an HEA. [Editor’s Note: HEA means “happily ever after” in romance parlance!]

Do you think you’ll ever publish anything outside of the paranormal romance genre?
I never say never. Shadow Rider is the closest to this point.

What’s next for you?
I am looking forward to my next Sea Haven series after my last Bound book. I will be writing a motorcycle series set in the town of Sea Haven, which readers know from my Drake Sisters series and my Sisters of the Heart series.

(Author photo by Samantha Goodacre)

In this month's 7 Questions interview, we talk to Christine Feehan, author of Shadow Rider, the first book in her new paranormal romance series. Feehan, a #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than 40 novels, lives in Northern California with her husband.
RomanceHistorical Romance

Anna Bradley

Interview by Lily McLemore

Our Romance Top Pick for August is Anna Bradley's Regency romp A Season of Ruin, part of the Sutherland Scandals series. We asked Bradley a few questions about her new novel, her favorite romance and her work at the Chawton House Library, a rare books library straight out of a Regency tale.

Describe your latest novel in one sentence.
What begins as a notorious London scandal flames into fiery passion between a prim, proper young lady and an infamous rake.

Before becoming an author, you worked at Chawton House Library, a beautiful rare books library located in an English manor house that once belonged to Jane Austen’s brother and now houses works by British women writers from the 1600s through the Regency period. What was the most interesting book or fact that you discovered while working at Chawton House Library?
I learned so much while I was at Chawton, but the one piece in the collection that never failed to give me shivers was a small stack of closely written scraps of paper of different sizes, housed in an unobtrusive hardcover box—the manuscript of Jane Austen’s play, Sir Charles Grandison.

To actually have the opportunity to read lines in Austen’s own hand—to see where she blotted out words or crossed out lines—well, that never ceased to be an incredible thrill for me. I used to look at those lines and wonder what Austen would think if she knew her writing was at the heart of a literary tradition that still thrives today. Do you think she’d prefer Colin Firth or Matthew McFayden for Mr. Darcy? Would she be a historical romance reader?

Chawton has posted some photographs of the Sir Charles Grandison manuscript online, which you can see here. Chawton has, I believe, since released a facsimile copy of the play.

How has your time at the Chawton House influenced your novels?
Working at Chawton made the historical aspect of the writing easier for me. I was already a 19th-century British novels addict before I started working there, but at Chawton I had access to dozens of books and authors I never would have otherwise, and reading that deeply into a period really gives you a sense of it. I’ve had readers ask if it’s difficult to be historically accurate with my novels. It isn’t, because that historical piece feels natural to me—so much so that I catch myself thinking and dreaming in “Regency-speak”!

I also find myself coming back to classic plotlines and characters, and I’m sure that’s a holdover from the novels I read while I was working at Chawton. When I first started writing historical romance, I didn’t even realize how heavily those works influenced me, because they are so much a part of who I am as a writer, but now that I have a little more writing experience, I can see how they played a significant role in the way I look at both historical romance and historical fiction.

What do you think is so alluring about the ever-popular Regency era?
For me, the allure has always been that it’s an era of such extreme contradictions. There’s the glittering aristocracy, with their debauchery and excess, and I think we’re fascinated with the titles and the manners, the gowns and the balls and the extravagance of the age. But the aristocracy and landed gentry during the Regency was a comparably tiny section of the population. Common people struggled with poverty, disease and, in London in particular, violent crime. When you juxtapose those two realities and throw the rise of industrialization into it, it presents a compelling picture of an era of a society at odds with itself, and to me, that’s a fascinating mix.

What was your favorite part of writing Lily and Robyn’s love story?
Well, I admit I had a terrible crush on Robyn from the outset, so I had a lot of fun writing his character, particularly his dialogue, but I think my favorite part of this story is the way Robyn and Lily fit together like two puzzle pieces. They appear to be so utterly wrong for each other, and yet each turns out to be the one person the other needs the most. I love that it is only Robyn who can free Lily from her fears, and only Lily’s love that can transform Robyn from a hopeless rake into a hero. I also loved writing the final scenes in this book. I won’t give it away, but the book ends with a bang, and those sections were so much fun to write!

If you had to bring one romance novel to the proverbial desert island, which would it be and why?
Just one? Oh, no—tough question! I hate the idea of leaving my Lorraine Heath and Lisa Kleypas favorites behind, but I’m going to have to go with Julie Anne Long’s The Perils of Pleasure, because I fell madly in love with her hero, Colin Eversea (he’s still one of my favorite book boyfriends!) and because it’s the first novel in the Pennyroyal Green series, which is the series that inspired me to become a historical romance writer.

What’s next for you?
More historical romance! I hope to bring readers the rest of the Sutherland Scandals, and I also have a new historical series I’m working on. I’m supposed to be on a little writing vacation for the next week or so, but I’m so excited about this new series, I keep sneaking off to write little bits and pieces of it in secret. No titles yet, but think spinsters, rakes and hussies, with a hoyden or two thrown in for good measure, and that will give you an idea of what I have planned!

Our Romance Top Pick for August is Anna Bradley's Regency romp, A Season of Ruin, part of the Sutherland Scandals series. We asked Bradley a few questions about her new novel, her favorite romance and her work at the Chawton House Library, a rare books library straight out of a Regency tale.
Mystery & SuspenseMysteryHistorical Mystery

Jason Overstreet

Interview by Lily McLemore

In Jason Overstreet's debut mystery, The Striver's Row Spy, the FBI's first African-American agent has a secret agenda. Sidney Temple's assignment is to move to Harlem, New York, in order to infiltrate “dangerously radical” Marcus Garvey's inner circle and report any incriminating activity to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. But Sidney is secretly working to thwart the FBI's investigation while aiding black leader W.E.B. Du Bois. As Sidney and his spirited wife, Loretta, rise in Harlem Renaissance society, his mission becomes far more dangerous than he ever imagined. We asked Overstreet a few questions about his new novel.

This is your debut novel, and it’s such a unique view into Harlem Renaissance-era New York, as well as the beginnings of the FBI. What inspired you to write this book?
A film entitled The Lives of Others, which won the Academy Award for best foreign film, inspired me. I wanted my novel to feel like that film felt in terms of pace and suspense. I loved the intimacy of the story and how it presented a spy who had feelings about his subjects. Everything wasn’t simply black and white to him, you know, good guy versus bad. It was complex, and he was conflicted with his assignment, the politics involved. I began trying to imagine a man of color being assigned to spy for a government entity. I looked up who the first African-American FBI agent was and found the name James Wormley Jones. He had been assigned to spy on Marcus Garvey. I imagined a man who might take such a job for a different reason than Jones. I imagined a man who was a W.E.B. Du Bois loyalist, as Garvey and Du Bois were rivals. And that’s when Sidney Temple was born.

I imagine that this novel took a lot of research about topics ranging from 1920s New York to the history of the FBI and its surveillance of Garvey and Du Bois. What was the most surprising thing you discovered in your research?
I was surprised to learn that Marcus Garvey was dead serious about finding a way to return all African Americans to Africa. It wasn’t some pipe dream. I was also surprised to learn how young J. Edgar Hoover was when he was first put in charge of the FBI’s General Intelligence Division. He was only 24.

After spying on Du Bois and Garvey, Hoover used the FBI to monitor Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and groups such as the Black Panther Party. How do you think the monitoring of citizens has continued today?
I really couldn’t say. I’d like to think they’ve evolved, at least past thinking of every black leader as a communist threat.

How do you think Sidney Temple, a—secretly—ardent supporter of W.E.B. Du Bois, would feel about the current climate of race relations in America?
I think he would be so proud that Barack Obama was elected the first African-American President. And I believe he would feel that we’re on the right track and have made tremendous strides. But I think he’d be bothered by the mass incarceration of black men and the seemingly systematic and routine way they are targeted by many police officers. But in terms of voting rights, housing rights and integration as a whole, he’d be ecstatic. He’d be so happy to simply have the right to raise his voice anywhere in the country without the fear of being lynched, as was often the case during the 1920s in the South.

What do you admire most about Sidney Temple?
I admire his idealistic nature, tenacity, love of family and his hopeful spirit.

What was the most difficult aspect of writing this novel?
Doing loads of research and making sure that each character’s voice was not only unique, but was befitting the time period. It was also a fun challenge to write fiction around lots of actual history. The book is full of true events. I also tried to talk about racism without hitting people over the head with it. There is a fine line if you really want to make your point.

Have you always been a fan of espionage or did learning about the history of the Bureau get you interested?
The latter.

Did any authors or musicians from the Harlem Renaissance inspire you while writing this novel?
The African-American poet Claude McKay inspired me. He traveled a lot, spent time in the Soviet Union, London, Morocco. He was willing to do anything to keep his writing dream alive, doing various odd jobs, etcetera, all while encountering extreme racism. He was brave and unwilling to settle for being treated as a second-class citizen. He could seamlessly mingle with upscale whites, and genuinely befriended many prominent ones, all the while trying to prove his worth as a colored writer against insurmountable odds. But no matter how much rejection he encountered, he seemed to hold on to his charismatic and positive personality. He was a true artist.

What’s next for you? Will we be seeing more of Sidney Temple and Loretta?
The sequel to The Strivers’ Row Spy is almost complete.  

Author photo by Wendy D.

Jason Overstreet tells us about his mystery debut set during the Harlem Renaissance, The Striver's Row Spy.
RomanceContemporary Romance

Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Interview by Lily McLemore

There’s a reason Susan Elizabeth Phillips has been crowned the Queen of Romantic Comedy. Since publishing her first romance novel in 1983, Phillips has become known for her signature sense of humor and her relatable, flawed and lovable heroines. Not only that, Phillips created the genre of sports romance, has hit the New York Times bestseller list multiple times and was inducted into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame in 2001.

Phillips’ latest novel, First Star I See Tonight, is the eighth in her popular Chicago Stars series and our September Romance Top Pick. Heroine Piper Dove is trying to get her fledgling detective agency off the ground. Her first assignment is to follow recently retired Chicago Stars quarterback Cooper Graham—and she’s failing miserably. But luckily for Piper, Cooper is in need of someone to keep an eye on the employees at his new nightclub, and he hires the headstrong Piper. The pair grate on each other’s last nerve, but they can’t deny a certain spark when they’re together. Nor can they deny that someone has it out for Cooper, and Piper may be the only one who can protect him.  

“We have these two extremely determined people, both of them highly competitive, going head to head,” Phillips says. With most romances, the attraction between the hero and heroine is instant and all consuming. But Phillips prefers to make things a bit more difficult for her characters. “There is an instant animosity. . . . I like this active dislike and how they work through that, and watching that whole journey—that is just my favorite sort of story to tell.” 

A return to the ever-popular Chicago Stars football team wasn’t initially in her plans. In fact, Phillips thought she had closed the series in 2001 with This Heart of Mine. “I really felt at that point that I couldn’t bring anything fresh to the whole series, to that story of the football player,” she says. But after a few years, she felt the pull of Chicago again, and if she’s thinking about setting a novel in Chicago, the Stars inevitably creep into her thoughts, along with fresh takes on the Stars’ many players, agents and the women who love them. “My husband says the Chicago Stars have had more retired quarterbacks than any team in the NFL.” 

One refrain in First Star I See Tonight is Piper’s struggle with sexism. Overt femininity doesn’t come naturally to Piper. She’s trained in offensive and defensive driving, can take down a man twice her size and is most comfortable in a sweatshirt. Yet she struggles to be taken seriously by men. Phillips doesn’t shy away from tackling the issue of sexism. “I think when you’re writing about women, this is something you have to think about. . . . When you’ve got a heroine in a very masculine world, this is something she’s going to have to deal with.” 

Phillips came of age in the 1960s and ’70s, a time when many things we think of as routine today, like a married woman getting a credit card under her own name, were impossible. It was also a time when women’s issues were making their way onto the national stage. “So many young women today don’t know about [how things were then]. So when I hear women say, oh, I’m not a feminist, I just roll my eyes. I think, Honey, if you’d been there when I was there, you would be.” When I ask Phillips, who was involved in the childbirth movement in the 1970s, if she would call herself a feminist, she doesn’t hesitate. “Absolutely! I think almost every romance writer I know would consider herself a feminist. We write about strong women.” 

However, this wasn’t always the case in the romance novel world. When the genre first burst onto the publishing scene in the 1970s and early ’80s, there was one disturbingly popular trope: rape. As a modern romance reader, this trend from the past has always baffled me. According to Phillips, I’m not alone. “Those books don’t necessarily stand the test of time very well. Younger readers do not get those books.” But Phillips has a fascinating theory as to why such a violent act was portrayed as an act of passion instead of a crime. “We grew up having to be good girls. And that meant no sex out of marriage. So the only way you could have great sex outside of marriage was if it wasn’t your fault. That’s where it all came from. And did any of us who were reading that want to be raped? Absolutely not! It was a total fantasy, and it was a reaction to the way we had been brought up.”

Romance writing has changed a lot since then, and Phillips has been there at every turn. “I pretty much got to see it all,” she says. When Phillips started her career, the publishing industry had been working the same way for 50 years. “Then, through the course of my career, I watched the rise of social media, the complete change in the way readers and writers now interact and, of course, the whole eBook phenomenon.” Phillips, who wrote her first few books on a typewriter, says that watching these changes has been exciting. As for her next move? “You know, I’m just exploring,” she says. “So we’re just gonna see where things go.” Let’s hope that exploration leads to a new novel in the near future.  

Author photo by Peter Irman.

There’s a reason why Susan Elizabeth Phillips has been crowned Queen of Romantic Comedy. Since publishing her first romance novel in 1983, Phillips has made a name for herself with her charming romances written with humor and her relatable, flawed and lovable heroines.
RomanceContemporary Romance

Jennifer Ryan

Interview by Lily McLemore

We sat down with Jennifer Ryan more than two years ago at the 2014 RWA Conference in San Antonio, back when she was looking forward to her print debut, and this month, her latest novel, Her Renegade Rancher, is our Romance Top Pick. In this interview, we talk to Ryan about what's changed in the years since our first chat, why she prefers cowboys and more. 

Describe your latest novel in one sentence.
A sexy Montana rancher rekindles a once-thought forbidden romance and puts his life on the line to be her renegade rancher.

When we met up with you in 2014, you were looking forward to your debut print novel. What’s changed in your romance world since then?
So many wonderful things have happened. Since my debut Saved by the Rancher came out, I’ve become a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author and published The Hunted, McBride and Montana Men series for a total of 17 novels and novellas once His Cowboy Heart comes out in February 2017. I’ve met so many of my goals and written the books that excited and challenged me. I love what I do and wouldn’t want to do anything else. Which is why I’m always dreaming up new ideas for the next series. The success I’ve achieved has proven to me—and been a great example for my kids—that if you work hard, stick with it through the ups and downs and learn all you can about what you want to do, you will achieve what you set your mind to do.

A cowboy, a billionaire businessman and a pirate walk into a bar. Who do you choose?
Hands down, I’ll take the cowboy! Any guy who works hard, plays harder, loves their woman and thinks that home and family is everything is the one for me.

Your series is called Montana Men. Have you ever travelled to Montana?
No. Believe it or not, I live in Northern California where we have a lot of farming and ranching. As a young girl, I got to go to my friend’s small ranch and ride horses. I loved it. A lot of people who hear the word “cowboy” don’t think of California, so I set the series in the one place that I would love to visit. I love the great outdoors, and you can’t beat the Montana landscape. Big Sky country is an amazing backdrop for romance—and a little suspense.

What’s your favorite thing about your heroine, Luna Hill?
Her heart. She’s dedicated to her friends and preserving the legacy she unexpectedly inherits and loves with her whole heart. She’s got an inner strength that shines through and helps her cope when times are tough—two things Colt loves about her.

If you were to write a historical romance novel, what time period would it be set in and why?
I have a serious addiction to reading historical novels. I love getting lost in another time and place. Scottish laird books are my favorite, so if I ever wrote a historical, it would probably be a big, strapping laird—they’re kind of like Scottish cowboys, right?

What’s next for you?
After Her Renegade Rancher, I’ve got the last two Montana Men books. Luna’s sexy lawyer gets an unexpected surprise in Snowbound at Christmas, and Colt’s brother Ford gets a second chance at love when Jamie returns from the military to claim His Cowboy Heart.

 

We talked to Jennifer Ryan over two years ago at the 2014 RWA Conference in San Antonio, back when she was looking forward to her print debut, and this month, her latest novel, Her Renegade Rancher, is our Romance Top Pick.
RomanceHistorical Romance

Katharine Ashe

Interview by Lily McLemore

What happens when a history professor writes romance? You get well-researched, engrossing novels like our November Romance Top Pick, Katharine Ashe's The Earl. We asked Ashe a few questions about her new novel and history's greatest love stories. 

Describe your latest novel in one sentence.
He’s sworn to expose her; she’s determined to bring him down: It must be love.

What’s the most appealing trait of The Earl’s hero, Colin Gray?
His vulnerability. We know that romance heroes are spectacularly handsome, and they’re always successful—through their wealth, status, profession or proficiency as lovers. The heroes I adore the most, though, have really vulnerable inner cores, and of all the heroes I’ve written, Colin is the most vulnerable, so he’s built his walls high for protection. He has a pretty serious reason to feel vulnerable, and to him it’s always been a curse. Ultimately, though, it’s what allows him to surrender his pride to real, honest love. It smashes through all the heroine’s walls too. She’s a strong woman, but guarded, with a goal in life she won’t compromise for anything or anyone. But when his walls come down, and his heart is thoroughly on exhibit for her to accept or discard, she can’t resist. It’s raw emotion, and I love it.

Have you ever considered writing a contemporary novel? Why or why not?
Yes, indeed. I’ve written a contemporary novella in the anthology At the Billionaire’s Wedding, a time-travel novella with a modern heroine in the anthology At the Duke’s Wedding, and I’m writing a contemporary romance series now (albeit in the very rare spare moments between contracted book deadlines) that has big historical tie-ins. Writing in a modern voice is super fun, and experimenting with different types of prose keeps my writing fresh and sharp, whatever the project.

You’ve written about pirates, dukes and Highlanders. Which is the most fun to write?
All of them! I know: that’s not an answer. But it’s true. I simply love writing heroes, whoever or whatever they are. Each character is a unique adventure for me, and I enjoy writing really different characters with each book. That said, several of my heroes are sailors, and that’s mostly because I love the research. Britain at the time was a vast empire, a thrilling expanse of many cultures and worlds, controlled through the power of its extraordinary navy and British merchant fleets. I’m totally addicted to reading about that history, and I love the ocean. I also adore writing common-man heroes. Sometimes they’re both: the hero of How To Be a Proper Lady is a former slave and pirate, now a privateer for England, atoning for the violence of his past by going after bad guys on the ocean. With a historical hero like this, there are no limits to the story. With a noble, titled hero I can play with all the delicious power, wealth, estates and social rules of the Regency era. Whichever I choose for a particular novel—commoner or nobleman—it’s win-win.

You’re a professor of European history. How does this inform your writing? Do your studies inspire your romances?
Yes, always. The history I read inspires every novel I write, plots and characters and settings and all. My comfort with archives, historical literature, and travel to historical sites gives me rich material with which to fashion my stories. And I find that teaching history, or simply sitting in a scholarly colloquium or workshop on campus, feeds my imagination—whatever the specific topic. My academic life nourishes me and I think it makes me a better novelist.

What’s the greatest love story in history, in your professorial opinion?
Romeo and Juliet. A tragedy! But it’s not so much the ending as the profound intensity of the love that pummels my heart (in a good way!). I’m also very fond of the incredibly romantic tale of Tristan and Iseult; I used it prominently in my novel I Loved a Rogue and my novella A Lady’s Wish. Now, if you’re asking about the greatest love story in real history—Maria Skłodowska and Pierre Curie. She was a physicist and chemist, studying in France but dreaming of returning to her native Poland to teach. She was so brilliant and he respected that brilliance so much, and was so enamored of her, that he was willing to give up his own successful career in science and settle for teaching French in Poland if she would marry him. Ultimately, the university in Poland wouldn’t allow a woman to teach, so the couple remained in France where she became “Marie” Curie. She was the first woman ever to receive a Nobel Prize. It’s real heroines like her, and the men who loved, respected and supported them—in eras that didn’t typically respect women’s brilliance and accomplishments—that inspired the The Earl.

What’s next for you?
A dark Scottish duke is hiding a scandalous secret in his Highland castle. I’m currently in the process of helping a whip-smart English lady make it very hard for him to hide it for much longer. The Duke is the follow up to The Earl, the next in my Devil’s Duke series. 

What happens when a history professor writes romance? You get well-researched, engrossing novels like our November Romance Top Pick, Katharine Ashe's The Earl. We asked Ashe a few questions about her new novel and history's greatest love stories.
RomanceContemporary Romance

Debbie Macomber

Interview by Lily McLemore

Debbie Macomber is a many-times-over New York Times bestselling author known for her compelling and multifaceted contemporary romances and her annual Christmas novels. Her holiday offering this year, Twelve Days of Christmas, is our Top Pick in Romance for December. We asked Macomber a few questions about the idyllic town in Washington where she lives, her favorite holiday traditions and more. 

Describe your latest novel in one sentence.
Twelve Days of Christmas is a story about a woman’s experiment of killing someone with kindness and learning that she is the one who is affected most. 

How long have you been writing your annual Christmas romances, and what sparked the idea?
I believe I started writing a Christmas story as early as the mid-1990s. In other words, a long time. 

As for what sparked the idea for Twelve Days of Christmas . . . It came about from an incident I had while Christmas shopping. A woman stole my parking spot just as I was about to park. I didn’t exactly have Christian thoughts at the time, and wished I’d handled the situation differently. 

When we meet Cain, he’s quite the rude Scrooge. Were there any challenges to writing such an initially unlikable hero?
My heroine’s dislike of Cain is initially sparked by another incident that happened to me. Wayne and I lived in a condo and someone took our newspaper. Again, the Christian side of me was absent that day. It was interesting to explore why someone might lift another person’s newspaper and why they would be grumpy in the morning, aside from not being a morning person.

Christmas doesn’t mean much to Cain, but to me, it means a great deal. I find it valuable to write characters that aren’t like me because they help me to understand another person’s point of view or motivation.

What turned out to be your favorite trait of Cain’s?
I needed something that would show his tender side, and that became apparent in the way he cared for his grandfather. No one is all good or all bad. There needs to be a balance. 

Tell us about your two businesses in Port Orchard, Washington, a place that has inspired many of your romance novels.
The Grey House Café has recently been renovated with new carpeting, tables and chairs, and a fresh coat of paint inside and out. They also carry my books and many are autographed, plus we’re fortunate to have a Hallmark store within that features gift and tea items. The café still serves the same great menu with a few new items to stimulate the appetite.

My yarn store, A Good Yarn Shop, closed in November after eight wonderful years of friendship and community. I hope to encourage knitters and crocheters to continue with community and a sense of giving by contributing to Knit One, Bless Two or World Vision’s Knit for Kids. 

What’s your favorite holiday tradition?
Oh my, that’s difficult to answer because I enjoy them all. I look forward to baking cookies with the grandkids, shopping with them for other children who are less fortunate, family Bingo. I love our family buffet feast on Christmas Day, lighting the candles on the Advent wreath and hosting Christmas Teas for my author, knitting and swimming friends. Christmas Eve church service is so meaningful to me. All those add up to a beautiful holiday season.

What’s next for you?
My husband and I are taking an extended cruise in which I plan to empty my mind and gather new ideas for more books to come. Publishing wise, my next book is titled If Not For You, which is a story of healing and hope. 

(Author photo by Deborah Feingold.)

Debbie Macomber is a number one bestselling author known for her compelling and multifaceted contemporary romances and her annual Christmas novels. Her holiday offering this year, Twelve Days of Christmas, was chosen as our Top Pick in Romance for December. We asked Macomber a few questions about the idyllic town in Washington where she lives, her favorite holiday traditions and more.
RomanceContemporary Romance

Catherine Anderson

Interview by Lily McLemore

We talk to Catherine Anderson about her new novel, Mulberry Moon, her great love of animals and her [avoidance of] New Year's resolutions.

Describe your latest novel in one sentence. 
Mulberry Moon features people at their best and worst, their triumphs over the hard knocks of life and the beautiful transformation that love can bring about, both between a man and a woman and an estranged mother and daughter.

Ben is a big animal lover. Is this a trait you share? 
I love all kinds of animals, large or small. I adore my son’s horses, our dogs, our cats, the deer and elk on our field and my appreciation extends to fowl, wild or domestic. I do prefer to admire bears, cougars and moose from a safe distance though . . . We have a great horned owl on our new land in Montana. He has decided that the peaks of our new home, which are higher than all the trees on our land, are a far better roost than the old snag he always used. And tonight, to my delight, I discovered that he has a mate. I am looking forward to spring and great horned owl babies! So, yes, I am definitely an animal enthusiast, and that comes across in my work.

Sissy has had a difficult life. What do you admire most about her? 
I admire Sissy’s determination and success at being a woman who can stand on her own two feet without needing a male counterpart. Though she may yearn for a relationship with a good man, she is committed to her independence, which, in the end, allows her to fall in love without any actual need, but rather a realization that Ben can enrich her life, and vice versa, in ways she never contemplated. She grows as the book unfolds and comes to understand that loving someone doesn’t mean she is a possession or a person who can’t survive alone. I think this is an empowering message to all women, including me.

Does your 160-acre home in the Central Oregon forest inspire your work? 
Oh, yes. Cinnamon Ridge is incredibly beautiful. But I recently moved to Montana and now enjoy vistas that are equally, if not more, inspiring.  I’m having a huge adventure here and coming to love this awesome state.

What does a romantic evening for you look like? 
For me, a romantic evening isn’t necessarily about the stage props. The setting itself isn’t as important to me as the person I’m with. An evening walk almost anywhere can be romantic. Eating take-out pizza can be romantic with the right man. Meaningful conversation, holding hands and kissing beneath a night sky is enough for me to set the mood.

Do you have any New Year’s resolutions? 
I tend to avoid making resolutions on New Year’s. I’ve learned that doing so sets me up for failure. I prefer to really think about making a challenging change at some other time of the year when I’m focused on the realities that I will face. Then I plan my battle strategy. 

What’s next for you? 
Right now, I’m writing a Christmas love story. The working title is The Christmas Room.

We talk to Catherine Anderson about her new novel, Mulberry Moon, her great love of animals and her [avoidance of] New Year's resolutions.
RomanceHistorical Romance

Meredith Duran

Interview by Lily McLemore

A member of Parliament, Crispin Burke, takes a strange path to love in our Romance Top Pick for March, the captivating and clever Regency love story A Lady’s Code of Misconduct. Meredith Duran, who has always been fascinated by English history, was kind enough to answer a few questions about love, amnesia and more!

Describe your latest novel in one sentence.
When a dark-hearted politician is stripped of all his defenses, he must turn to a sheltered idealist for his salvation—a woman who has every reason to hate him, and with whom he’s about to fall helplessly in love.

Memory loss and head injuries are unusual fare for a romance novel! I have to ask you where you found inspiration for this novel.
You’re right, amnesia is pretty uncommon in recent romance, but I came of age on historical romances in the ’90s, when amnesia was a relatively common trope. There’s so much that can be done with a character who is suddenly rendered a stranger to himself! I always hoped to write a book that served as a tribute to those classics, but I had to wait until I found a story that could exploit the trope to its fullest potential. I think (hope!) that Crispin’s arc qualifies as such.

You’re big fan of British history. Do you have a favorite love-struck couple from English days of yore?
Out of respect for the romance genre’s devotion to happy-ever-afters, I’ll pick Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville. He defied every one of his friends, as well as his Privy Council, in choosing to marry a widow who brought no political advantages or real wealth. However, if you asked me to name a star-crossed romance, I’d pick Anne Boleyn and Henry Percy. I contend that she truly loved him, and had Cromwell not interfered (at the behest of Percy’s father’s petition to Henry VIII—so I believe), she would have lived a long and happy life as the sixth Countess of Northumberland.

Crispin Burke is a pretty complex man. What’s your favorite trait of his?
I find his ambition both fascinating and fearsome. Paired with his perseverance, it makes him just as likely to be a force for evil as for immense and lasting good. Thank goodness he’s got Jane to steer him straight!

What’s your favorite part about being a romance author?
I love the history of everyday life, and historical romance allows me to dwell in and on those mundane details that shaped people’s daily lives: how they talked, shopped, ate, dressed, socialized, fell in love and so on. Politics, battles, economies, monarchies—these were always the structural backdrop for daily experience. Historical romance allows me to foreground the same emotions and rituals and hopes and fears that still govern our modern lives. It draws the past close, and I love that.  

What do you do to unwind after a day of writing?
I read! I’ve always been a voracious and omnivorous reader. The only kind of fiction I tend to avoid is mystery (although I do like a good psychological thriller a la Laura Lippman), largely because I cannot stop myself from flipping to the end to find out who did it—and that makes me feel guilty, like I’ve wronged the author.

What’s next for you?
Later this year, I have a short story coming out in an anthology that features five romance writers who were tasked to pen a short story in a different subgenre than they typically write. The gimmick for the anthology is actually borrowed from a Victorian anthology that kept the authorship of each story a secret for a time. Likewise, with this anthology, we won’t reveal which author wrote each story until a few months have passed.

2018 sees the publication of my next historical romance, which tells the tale of a gentleman whom readers have been asking about since the publication of my debut novel back in 2008. It took me quite a few years to work my way around to his story, but I hope readers will decide that the wait was worth it!

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of A Lady’s Code of Misconduct.

A member of Parliament takes a strange path to love in our Romance Top Pick for March, the captivating and clever Regency love story A Lady’s Code of Misconduct. Duran, who has always been a fascinated by English history, was kind enough to answer a few questions about love, amnesia and more!
NonfictionTrue CrimeHistory

Stephan Talty

Interview by Lily McLemore

Stephan Talty’s book The Black Hand focuses on Joseph Petrosino, the first Italian police detective sergeant in the U.S, and his obsession with bringing down a deadly secret society of Italian criminals—the Black Hand. With his "Italian Squad" of NYPD cops, Petrosino fought back against the society and their ruthless tactics of extortion, black mail and bombings that exacerbated already tense relations between native-born Americans and Italian immigrants. 

Talty, whose parents immigrated from County Clare, Ireland, is the author of five nonfiction books, and the co-author of A Captain’s Duty with Captain Richard Phillips, a book that was later made into a movie starring Tom Hanks. We contacted Talty at his home in New York to ask him a few questions about the fascinating detective, the echoes of Italian immigrants’ plight in today’s society and more.

You’ve written on a wide variety of historical subjects, from the Dalai Lama to the pirate Captain Henry Morgan. What brought you to Joseph Petrosino and the Black Hand secret society?
I’m drawn to people who achieve things against long odds, often when going up against an entrenched system. For Captain Morgan, it was the Spanish empire. For Petrosino, it was the Black Hand. The fact that my parents were both emigrants (from Ireland) probably played a part, as well. Immigrant stories feel personal to me.

From death threats to social rejection, Petrosino’s life was made incredibly difficult by his position on the police force and his dogged pursuit of the Black Hand. What do you think drove him to go to such lengths in his attempts to bring down the Black Hand?
Petrosino was like many immigrants who came from societies where governance was awful. He fell in love with America; he saw the government and civic life here as a gift. But he knew the number one obstacle to that goal was the American view that Italians were prone to crime. And the Black Hand advertised that in this extraordinarily vivid way. So it wasn’t only the individual murders and acts of extortion that he was fighting against—it was the image of the Italian American as a person who lived outside the law. Petrosino despised that image, and he thought by finishing off the Black Hand, he would be able to show Americans what Italians were truly like. So for him it was a war for the Italian-American soul.

The terror of the Black Hand fed into a deep fear of immigrants in America. Because of the Black Hand’s criminal activity, many people believed that all Italian immigrants were violent. Do you see any parallels between this 20th-century panic and the state of America’s view on immigration today?
I do. There are several patterns that you see again and again in how America sees immigrants. There’s often a belief that the new citizens still hold on to loyalties to foreign entities. With the Irish, it was the Pope. John F. Kennedy had to address this in his presidential campaign. For Italians in the early 1900s, it was secret societies, or what one journalist called the “alta Mafia,” the high Mafia. Some Americans really believed that a criminal mastermind in Naples would snap his fingers and his underlings in the U.S. would leap into action. The same thing is happening with Muslims—many people doubt their loyalty to the country and think that when push comes to shove, faith will trump patriotism. But that’s been proved wrong time and time again.

Petrosino was brilliant—a skilled detective, a master of disguise, a delightful dinner companion, an incorruptible cop and a patriot with a true desire to see justice done. With all these gifts, what do you think his greatest flaw was?
That’s a great question. He had small flaws that cut down on his effectiveness. He found it hard to trust people at first, in part, I think, because of the abuse he’d suffered as one of the few Italians in the largely Irish NYPD. He didn’t understand that other people found it difficult to be as physically brave as he was; he grew so angry at Black Hand victims who refused to testify that it’s a miracle he didn’t have a heart attack at some point in his career. But what hurt him the most was overconfidence at the end—he’d survived so many threats in New York that I think he went to Italy overestimating how untouchable he was.

Sensationalist tabloids helped spread the terror of the Black Hand. Do you see similar events unfolding in the press today?
I do. What’s interesting about that is that so many Americans at the time saw the Black Hand as a “medieval” organization. But really they were thoroughly modern: The Industrial Revolution brought the Italians to America, the modern press and the competition between dailies in New York acted as an advertising agency for the Black Hand, and their structure resembled a modern franchise system. Their success wouldn’t have been possible without modernity. I do think that the similarities with what’s happening today show that some features in human beings change very little over time: our fear of outsiders, our mistrust of the world beyond the Atlantic and Pacific.

While ruthless and brutal, the Blank Hand was undeniably effective and far-reaching, employing many clever tactics from coast to coast and even overseas. What do you think their greatest strength was?
When you look at statistics from that era, Italians committed fewer crimes per capita than many other ethnic groups. But it was the brilliance—you could almost say the theatricality of the crimes—that made them stand out. There was an elaborate process to a Black Hand job: the precise tone of the letters, the offers of help from family “friends” (who were often associates of the Black Hand gang), the psychology that allows the victim to be drained of his last cent. There’s just a sophistication to their methods that no other ethnic group could match. Many Italian Americans resent this association with crime that seems to follow them around generation after generation. And they’re right. But you almost have to admire the audacity and the cunning that went into being a Black Hander.

The majority of the NYPD loathed Petrosino’s Italian Squad. Why do you think they were so hostile toward such a successful unit of hardworking detectives?
Mostly, because they were Italian in a time when the NYPD was practically an Irish guild. Irish cops gave their 8-year-old sons little nightsticks to get them ready for the job. The NYPD was seen as a birthright, something the Irish had earned in full. So the fact that Petrosino and his band of Sicilians were digging out this foothold in the department—and performing brilliantly!—did not go down well. The Irish felt that Manhattan was their promised land, but so did many Italians.

So many Italian immigrants came to America hoping for a better life, only to be met with poverty and hatred. Some turned to the Black Hand society and crime. Do you think that if the reception of Italians in America had been different, the Black Hand would have gained power?
I do think that a great deal of the Black Hand’s power came from Italian culture and history. In the small towns of Southern Italy, the policeman and the government were enemies. It’s hard to shed that attitude in a matter of months. But what they found in America helped the criminals too, because Americans didn’t understand Italian crime and didn’t sympathize with Italian victims. That great line from The Godfather comes to mind: “They’re animals anyway, so let them lose their souls.” That’s often how Americans thought.

Petrosino is an engaging character, from his love of opera to his incredible and varied skills as a detective. What fact about him do you find most interesting or surprising?
He was unique. His memory was nothing short of astonishing. Then there are little flashes of humor to his personality—there are even reports that Petrosino, this hard-edged legend, would do imitations at parties after a few glasses of wine. But what I found the most remarkable thing was that he could even function under the pressure he was under. It’s one thing to be an Eliot Ness and to go after crime organizations with the full backing of your government, your people and your conscience. That’s difficult enough. But to wake up every morning knowing that there were hundreds of the men in the city who wanted to kill you, that genuinely saw you as a kind of Antichrist, and that thousands of your fellow countrymen considered you a sellout, and then to get almost no help from the FBI and the political leaders of the country you’d given up everything for, I just don’t know how he did it. How he carried on. That kind of spiritual toughness is special.

Did you talk to any intriguing sources while researching this book or discover any exciting firsthand material?
Petrosino’s granddaughter, Susan Burke, is still alive and I spoke with her. She actually remembered Petrosino’s wife, Adelina, and gave me these details of how scandalously independent Adelina was in the early 1900s. It was so much fun to talk to someone for whom this is family history.

The film rights to your book have been optioned by Paramount and the movie is set to star Leonardo DiCaprio. Have you been involved in the process of turning the book into a movie so far?
We’re still in the very early stages, so not really. I’d love to help. The clothes, the street scenes, the political atmosphere in the country at the time: you only have one shot to get those things right. I think it’s one of the great American immigrant stories, and it’s important to make it work.

(Author photo by Nathacha Vilceus.)

We talk to Stephan Talty about his new book about a diabolical gang of criminals and the detective determined to take them down, The Black Hand.

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