Interview with romance author Ann Montclair

Today's guest is Ann Monclair. She's on a virtual book tour for her newest romance, Good Things Come in Tall Packages.

And she will be awarding a $25 Amazon GC to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour. All you have to do to be entered to win is to leave an e-mail address with a comment below. And if you'd like more chances to win, you can follow her tour and comment at other stops.

Welcome, Ann. Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

I grew up sneak-reading all my mom's steamy romance novels. She kept them high on a shelf in her closet and warned, "You better not read those..." Of course, I read them. And now I write them! I strive to take readers on a fun, emotionally charged, and highly sensual ride to happily ever after. Available now: TThe Billionaire's Bauble (Soul Mate Publishing 2011), One Wet Summer (Musa Publishing 2012), and Good Things Come in Tall Packages (Musa Publishing 2012). Next up: Lady in Deed, my debut novel in historical romance set in Tudor England (Musa Publishing Winter 2012).

I am a member of the Romance Writers of America (RWA) and a community college English professor. I live in the Finger Lakes region of New York with my sexy hero and our teenage son. Our grown daughter lives in Los Angeles, California--my hometown.

Thanks for learning a little about me. You can contact me at ann@annmontclair.com.

Web site: http://www.annmontclair.com

Blog: http://annmontclair.wordpress.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AnnMontclairFanPage

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/AnnMontclair

Buy link: http://www.musapublishing.com/

Please tell us about your current release.

Good Things Come in Tall Packages is about two people who are complete opposites, but despite those differences find common ground. I wanted to write a story where the ideal isn’t perfect harmony but dissonance. We’ve all seen those couples where you’re scratching your head, thinking, “How did that happen?” But it works. They’re perfect. Perfectly imperfect.

Blurb:

Dr. Joe Connors and socialite lawyer Lucy Alcott come from two different worlds, two very different cultures. But will those differences keep them apart when their attraction is too strong to be denied?

When socialite Savannah attorney Lucy Alcott entered the Hyatt looking for fun, martinis, and hot sex, the last thing she expected to find was Dr. Joe Connors. Joe is Lucy's opposite in every way: he’s dark, she’s pale; he’s tall and reserved, she's tiny and vivacious; he wears his compassion and deep spirituality on his sleeve, she wears designer bags and clothes. That night at the Hyatt Lucy found herself not in the arms of a casual encounter but reaching out to a man who challenged the walls she had built around her heart—and when he gave her his number, Lucy knew Joe deserved a woman as warm and tender as he was. So she threw his number away. When an unexpected meeting six months later brings them together again, will Joe overcome Lucy’s fear of losing her heart, or are their two very different worlds destined to keep them apart forever? 

What inspired you to write this book?

I was born at a time when my Puerto Rican mother and Irish father were considered an interracial couple. My father’s parents refused to meet me for two years. They hoped my mom and me would disappear. But we didn’t. My parents will be married fifty years next year—just a few months before I turn fifty! I’m a love child from a forbidden union. That’s what inspired Joe and Lucy.

Excerpt:

The doors whooshed open, and Joe swept his arm out in front of him, indicating Lucy should precede him into the elevator. She inclined her head to acknowledge his chivalry. Inside the elevator, the quiet assaulted her senses. She leaned against the shiny walnut wall, and a sigh of relief escaped her lungs.

“And the world is still,” Joe murmured. “Let me remove your shoes.”

Lucy lifted her left foot, and Joe knelt before her and took off the pump. She shrunk five inches before raising her other foot, so Joe could squeeze it from the rich, red leather.

“Ah,” she whispered in relief, “that feels a lot better.”

He stayed bent on his knee as if he were about to propose and rubbed the ball of first one tired foot and then the other. Lucy wasn’t wearing stockings, and the firm massaging motion he applied to her foot felt like a little bit of heaven. If she believed in such a place.

Struck by the juxtaposition of her white foot in his black hands, enamored by the lightness of his palms as they stroked the pink soles of her feet, she noted together they created a rainbow—a cascade of color, vibrant and beautiful to her eye.

“Thank you, Joe. You’re hired.”

He laughed in his low, bass voice, and the combination of his masterful administrations on her feet and the melody of his jazzy chuckle, proved to be a potent formula. A quiver ran through her body.

What exciting story are you working on next?

I’m in edits for my Tudor romance, A Lady in Deed. It will be released December 7, 2012. 

Here’s my blurb-in-progress:

Lady Mary Rutherford planned to be a nun until the reformist movement closed her cloister, forcing her to live with her mysterious benefactor and his rakish son. Lord Trenton Stanley returned home from a decade of service to King Henry VIII to find his estate in ruins, his family depleted, and a provocative novitiate under his roof. Can duty and honor be enough to sustain them, or will their ideals be compromised for love?

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I received an MFA in Creative Writing and published lots of poems before I attempted romance novels. I think publishing helps solidify the idea, “I’m a writer,” but the intention and the emotion is born long before anyone ever publishes. Writers write. I always wrote. Most days, my whole life. Publication just made it “official.”

Do you write full-time? If so, what's your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?

I am a full-time professor of English for the State University system of New York. SUNY pays my bills and writing sustains my heart. I write in the evenings and on weekends. Right now, my son and husband are watching the original Rocky movie, and I’m writing on my laptop on the couch. That’s my life. It works.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I can’t stop writing if my characters are in crisis. I have to write to a happy or settled scene, so I can sleep without anxiety or nightmares. My characters are real to me, and I worry about them if I leave them in a bad place. I don’t know how thriller and horror writers do it! I’d be a wreck.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be a writer who lived in a little cabin in the woods. Guess what? That’s what I am. It took 45 years, but when it happened, I believed all that Oprah stuff about putting your intentions out to the Universe then seeing them come true.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?

I write for you, to help you believe in true love, to believe love will come when you least expect it, and when it arrives, hold on tight and work for it every day. Love is the ultimate reward. I believe we all deserve it.

Thanks, Ann. 

Readers, don't forget: Ann will be awarding a $25 Amazon GC to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour. All you have to do to be entered to win is to leave an e-mail address with a comment below. And if you'd like more chances to win, you can follow her tour and comment at other stops.