New interview with novelist Jeanette Watts

Returning author Jeanette Watts is here to catch us up since her last interview and chat about her new romantic comedy Jane Austen Lied to Me.

During her virtual book tour, Jeanette will be awarding a doll dressed in Regency clothing that she handcrafted to a randomly drawn winner. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit her other tour stops and enter there, too!

Bio:

Jeanette Watts is a restless soul who has been a library assistant, a secretary, a television producer, a dance instructor, and a museum theatre assistant. Through all of it, she has been a writer. But even as a writer, the restlessness continues: she has written 2 historic fiction novels, a textbook on waltzing, several screenplays, and now a modern satire set on a college campus. She's still trying to decide whether her next book is going to be more historic fiction or a children's book about the guardian angel who lives downstairs.

Welcome back to Reviews and Interviews.

Thank you for having me back!

Please tell us about your newest release.

Jane Austen Lied to Me is a modern satire. The time: today. The place: somewhere in America. The heroine: just your average American girl with a huge crush on Mr. Darcy.

What inspired you to write this book?

My husband and I were driving back from the Jane Austen Festival in Louisville. I mentioned that I was stupid in my choice of era for my historic fiction - it's set in the Industrial Revolution, and there aren't any re-enactors playing in that era. I should have done something in the Civil War, or Jane Austen's time, then I would know how to go about finding the people who would want to read my book.

"So, why don't you write one?" my husband asks.

That did seem to be the obvious next course of action, but as we drove and I thought about it, the story that I wanted to tell wasn't set in the past. It's about me as a Jane Austen fan, not about Jane Austen herself.

Excerpt from Jane Austen Lied to Me:

This afternoon I got further confirmation that I’ve been seeing an awful lot of Michael. I was wandering back to the apartment, when Lon hailed me from one of the couches inside the lobby doors.

“I have a message for you from your boyfriend,” he said, kind of stiffly.

I looked at him stupidly for a moment. “My what?”

“Your boyfriend was here. He said his phone was dead, so he couldn’t call or text you to tell you that he can’t stick around for dinner tonight. He has a late meeting with a new client and he had to rush back to the office.”

I was still having trouble with the boyfriend thing. “Wait – do you mean Michael?”

“If that’s the guy you’ve been seeing the last couple of months,” Lon said with a shrug. “The one you’re always having dinner with.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I protested. “He’s an old friend of the family. We grew up together.”

Lon's head was back at his computer screen. “Boyfriend, friend. The guy who kisses you goodnight all the time after he takes you out for dinner. He’s not coming tonight. I’ve delivered my message, that’s all I’ve got.”

Right then Allie walked up. “Hey, Lizzie! Waiting for Michael?”

“No, he’s not coming tonight.” I headed to the elevator with her.

“That’s a shame. I know how much you enjoy having dinner with him, even if he does aggravate you a lot.”

“Yeah. It’s kind of a love-hate relationship,” I agreed.

What’s the next writing project?

As I mentioned in my biography, I'm torn between two stories. I've found a fascinating woman who lived in New York for the first half of the 20th century, and I want to write her story. If there are legal problems with using her real name, I might have to invent a fictional character who coincidentally is a lot like her.

But, my landlord from my days living in Pittsburgh passed away recently. The man was my guardian angel. We lived just upstairs from him in this building that had 2 apartments. It was like living with your favorite uncle. I would come home from work, and not make it upstairs for another hour because he'd be sitting on the front porch. He was wise, and funny, and I always learned something talking to him. He taught me how to negotiate when buying a car. He was also kind; when both of our cars were having problems, he lent me his truck so we could get to work, and gave me the name of a retired mechanic who fixed both our cars for half the price of the mechanics in the area. He swore like a sailor, and shoved the snow for the 80-year-old lady who lived across the street. He loved gardening, and grew basil for me. I would turn it into pesto, and give him jars of pesto.

He was a lovely soul, and he needs a children's book about him. I'll kind of have to leave out the swearing part, of course.

What is your biggest challenge when writing a new book? (or the biggest challenge with this book)

Time. Always time. I'm in the process of relocating from Dayton, Ohio to Charlotte, North Carolina right now. We got my husband an apartment so he could start the new job, and I've spent the past year cleaning out the basement of things we shouldn't have bothered to move INTO the basement 18 years ago. And plastering. And painting. And making sure my dance companies have everything they need to continue without me. And giving away closets full of costumes from my dance companies. And throwing out my scrapbooks from 4th grade. Trying to get this book finished in the midst of all this has been crazy -- or maybe it's the only thing keeping me sane.

If your novels require research – please talk about the process. Do you do the research first and then write, while you’re writing, after the novel is complete and you need to fill in the gaps?

All of the above! I have an idea, it requires some research to get the book started. While writing, things come up. Got to ask some questions, get some answers. After the novel is done and the editing process starts, the people who read the "finished" draft always have questions that require more research.

Funny thing is, I wrote Jane Austen Lied to Me to be sort of a mental vacation from the historic fiction. But it turned out to be just about as much research required. I have been out of college for a long time, and even though I teach at the college level, there were still things I don't know about being 17 in 2017. Fortunately, since I teach at the college level, I had plenty of primary source material when I needed questions answered.

What’s your writing space like? Do you have a particular spot to write where the muse is more active? Please tell us about it.

Actually, I like a variety of spaces. I like to write in pretty places; looking at the ocean, hiding in a cabin in the woods, on the veranda of a winery overlooking the vineyards. Hotel lobbies can be wonderful places to write, if the hotel is unique and has some comfortable seating. I do the majority of my writing at home, sitting at my messy desk. But when I find the emails and phones and distractions of home getting in the way of getting any writing done, I create a writing retreat for myself.

What authors do you enjoy reading within or outside of your genre?

While I write historic fiction, would you believe I don't read it much? I adore biographies. Just read Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton a little while ago. (I still have yet to see the play, although I can sing all the songs!) Writing historic fiction is just an excuse to read biographies. I know the people I write about. My previous book, Brains and Beauty, is a romp through the Who's Who of 1880s Pittsburgh and New York. There are cameos with Clay Frick, Andy Carnegie, his less famous brother Tom, Andy Mellon, H.J. Heinz, George Westinghouse (the most underrated industrial genius America has ever produced, by the way), Alva Vanderbilt, and THE Mrs. Astor. I've read all their biographies. I've read multiple biographies on most of them. I'm a vintage dancer, I have danced at Beechwood in the ballroom of Mrs. Astor's summer cottage at Newport in Rhode Island. You can call that research if you like, but for me it's all for pure joy.

While the topic draws by attention more than the author, I do love Allison Weir and David McCullough and Shelby Foote.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers today?

Actually, I'd appreciate it if the readers would share with ME: if anyone wants to find my Jane Austen Lied to Me Facebook page, and tell me their favorite restaurants in Charlotte, or favorite things to do, I would appreciate some recommendations!

Links:

Website | Facebook author | Facebook book | Twitter

Thank you for coming back to Reviews and Interviews!

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Interview with historical fiction novelist Jeanette Watts

I’m helping Jeanette Watts kick off a virtual book tour today. She’s here to chat with me about her historical fiction work, Brains and Beauty.

During her tour, Jeanette will be giving away a Victorian cameo necklace to a lucky randomly drawn winner. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit her other tour stops and enter there, too.

Bio:

Jeanette Watts only lived in Pittsburgh for four years, but in her heart, she will always be a Pittsburgher.  She missed the city so much after her move to Ohio, she had to write a love story about it.

She has written television commercials, marketing newspapers, stage melodramas, four screenplays, three novels, and a textbook on waltzing.  When she isn’t writing, she teaches social ballroom dances, refinishes various parts of her house, and sews historical costumes and dance costumes for her Cancan troupe.

Welcome, Jeanette. Please share a little bit about your current release.

Brains and Beauty is a book I had no intention of writing! When people growled at me about my ambiguous ending at the end of Wealth and Privilege, I'd say, "Margaret Mitchell never wrote another book after Gone with the Wind..." And I had people give me this LOOK, and say "Margaret Mitchell got hit by a bus..." So, after my life had been threatened a few times, I started thinking what I might write next. And then I realized how I wanted to approach the subject. I got the idea from the Twilight book that was never finished, but now everyone's doing what I did - I covered exactly the same time period, but from my heroine's point of view, instead of the hero's point of view.

Excerpt from Brains and Beauty:

Regina loved her husband, she really did. But more and more often, she didn’t like him very much.

Her relationship with him was everything Tom Carnegie was describing in his relationship with his brother. Henry married her because he admired her unfailing instincts about people. He listened, he even applauded, but his actions spoke louder than words. When she negotiated the deal for the acquisition of Monongahela Glass into their growing glassworks, he took the credit for it. When she investigated a new rolling process for his father’s flour mill, he ignored her until they were nearly driven out of business by more modernized competitors. She said repeatedly that they needed to steer completely clear of any sort of financial involvement with the railroad industry. He insisted that Jay Cooke was a fine fellow, practically a war hero for selling government bonds during the Rebellion. Henry put a significant amount of their money into Jay Cooke and Company. In September, 1873, the company was overextended with bonds in the Northern Pacific Railway, and collapsed.

They were nearly ruined.

Fortunately, Henry’s mother had not followed his advice, and a succession of family loans were keeping the doors open on both the flour mills and the glassworks. The copper mill near Johnstown was Regina’s pet project, and Henry didn’t even know which bank Regina used, and so at least that part of their empire had not been compromised by his poor judgment.

Regina pounded the pavement from bank to bank, begging, taking out loans, laying awake night after night trying to figure out how she was going to keep everything afloat. As Tom had said, times were hard, businesses were failing daily.

Regina’s businesses would not have been among the ones in danger – if only Henry had seen fit to give her the benefit of the doubt. But eight years of marriage and one successful business arrangement after another meant less to him than the chemistry of male bonding.

As with every crisis she had faced thus far in her life, Regina gritted her teeth, and looked for the lesson to be learned. This time, she concluded that no one really listens to what you have to say. Telling people not to do something is pointless. They will do what they want. The people you trust most will let you down. Her parents had. Her husband had.

She wished she could talk more to Tom Carnegie about her problems. She was sure he’d understand. She wondered if he’d be able to help, but he had plenty of his own problems.

When Lucy returned from the ladies’ cloakroom, Regina excused herself and went in. After she deposited her cloak and retrieved her fan, she stared blankly at her reflection in the long mirror.

Her youngest sister Abigail was the cleverest seamstress in the States. Regina wanted to set her up with her own design house in New York, but so far Abi shyly preferred to sew at home in Johnstown. It did mean that her dresses were ridiculously cheap, and at the same time the envy of Society. Having a good dressmaker was a special sort of secret weapon. The more prosperous she looked, the less anyone would suspect how desperately close to ruin the Waring empire was.

She forced herself to smile and lifted her chin a little. “Attitude is everything, my girl,” she told herself. “Go in like a queen, not a pauper. Men will do favors for queens much more eagerly than they will for beggar girls. Abi can make you look like a queen; your job is to act the part.”

What exciting story are you working on next?

I have so many projects tugging at my brain, I'm having trouble knowing where to start! I am working with a publisher on my next release, a modern satire called Jane Austen Lied to Me. Meanwhile, I also want to do a book about a woman named Belle da Costa Greene, a gorgeous, brilliant woman who worked with J. Pierpont Morgan. I also have two books I want to write that are set in England, one in 1603, and one in the 1580-1590s.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I think I'm still getting used to the idea. I've only just now stopped listing myself as a dance instructor on my Facebook page. I teach Vintage ballroom dance, and belly dancing, and I teach people to dance for their weddings. Somewhere along the line, between book signing events and days spending quality time at the computer with my characters, I became a writer first, and a dance teacher second.

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 don't do anything full time... I teach dance part time, I sew historical costumes part time, I run several dance companies part time, I am working on producing a television show about social dancing in America. Oh yes, and I write historic fiction. And satire. I've actually got a children's book I want to write. My guardian angel was my landlord when I lived in Pittsburgh, and he passed away recently. So I want to write a book about him called "The Angel Who Lives Downstairs."

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

When I get stuck, I write while sitting at the sewing machine. I will sew, and think, and when I figure out what I want to say, I stop sewing and write. Then when I get stuck again, I stop writing and sew.

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

A writer. It took me a long time to get there, but I did it. I don't mind being a late bloomer. So was Edith Wharton.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
If you haven't seen Star Wars yet, go see it! It will make your inner 10-year-old squeal with delight.

Links:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Amazon

Thank you for being a guest on my blog!

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Interview with historical fiction author Jeanette Watts

Historical fiction author Jeanette Watts is here today to chat with us about Wealth and Privilege.

Jeanette is doing a virtual book tour with Goddess Fish Promotions. As part of the tour, Jeanette will be awarding a Victorian cameo to a lucky winner. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit her other tour stops and enter there, too!

Bio:

Jeanette Watts only lived in Pittsburgh for four years, but in her heart, she will always be a Pittsburgher. She missed the city so much after her move to Ohio, she had to write a love story about it.

She has written television commercials, marketing newspapers, stage melodramas, four screenplays, three novels, and a textbook on waltzing. When she isn’t writing, she teaches social ballroom dances, refinishes various parts of her house, and sews historical costumes and dance costumes for her Cancan troupe.

Welcome, Jeanette. Please tell us about your current release.
Wealth and Privilege is historic fiction, set in Western Pennsylvania between 1875-1889. It’s an overlooked period in American history. Everyone loves to write about the Civil War, but the Industrial Revolution is an inspiring time. It’s full of very juicy bits of history, and full of colorful individuals whom we all know and love – or hate. Like Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick.

What inspired you to write this book?
I was waiting for a friend, and reading the back covers of her immense stack of romance novels. I couldn’t help but notice that all romance novels seem to be set in the south, or occasionally the west. What’s so unromantic about the north? Or the east? I’m a Yankee girl, I thought I needed to set this right. Atlanta has Gone With the Wind, now Pittsburgh has Wealth and Privilege.

Excerpt from Wealth and Privilege:
It was blessedly quiet in the conservatory. If Thomas listened very hard, he could hear the orchestra playing a lively polka. His head ached mildly and his ears were ringing from the incessant giggling of his various feminine partners. Just once, he thought, he wanted to hear a woman laugh. A deep, hearty, belly laugh. He’d marry a woman if he could stand the way she laughed.

As if on cue, his mother appeared in the doorway of the conservatory. “Thomas? I told you, no running off to hide tonight. You’re the host, for goodness’ sake. What are you doing here?”

“I had to get away for a moment, Mother,” he said, trying not to sound petulant. “My head aches something awful.”

“Don’t talk to me about headaches, boy,” his mother answered sharply. “You’re giving me quite a headache right now.”

Thomas managed a small smile. “I’m sure I am, Mother. Please don’t lecture me about my manners. I had to sneak out. Otherwise, that flock of girls would have wanted to come along to comfort me, and I wouldn’t get any quiet.”

Eugenia saw her opportunity. “Well, if you’d only pick one of the crowd that’s been hovering around you, then you could have one companion to comfort you.”

Thomas groaned. “Mother…”

Eugenia interrupted, “Don’t ‘Mother’ me. Honestly, I do wish you could be just a little more like your brother.”

Benjamin had been six years older than Thomas, and was seventeen when Southern rebels fired on Fort Sumter. Ben impatiently followed the Rebellion for a year, while both parents loudly and frequently forbade his enlistment. But when the call went out seeking men of good character for a volunteer cavalry, it was more than Ben could stand. His parents were horrified, and livid – for a month, until Ben’s unit was called out of drill practice and sent to Antietam. Ben became a hero in the field – and became a hero again when he died someplace in Tennessee called Stone River.

His mother had worshipped her first-born son thoroughly enough while he was alive. He was completely sanctified in the twelve years and two months since his death. So much so, Thomas had trouble separating the facts of the brother he remembered from the fiction his mother created.

“Benjamin never had so many girls following him around as you have - you’ve always been the handsome one - but at least he could talk to them. Somehow, he got all the charm, you got all the looks.”

Thomas had been hearing that particular phrase as long as he could remember. Sometimes he entertained himself wondering what clever answers Ben would have given their mother. “So you’re saying I’m as ugly as an old shoe, eh, Mum? You’ve wounded me!” Ben could - and did - say anything to their mother, and she would only smile. Thomas could say the same things, and usually got a sigh and a frown instead. He wished he could have been blessed with the charm, instead of the looks.

“I’m not Benjamin, mother. And if he were standing here with us, he’d roll his eyes and say ‘Thank goodness for that!’ ”

His mother wasn’t listening. She’d passed on from one of her favorite subjects – comparing him to his brother - to her other favorite subject - complaining about his father. “I told your father that compared to Benjamin you were backward. But he couldn’t seem to find any time to help me raise his children. I had to try to bring you up all by myself.” Thomas wisely held his tongue.

“You’d think I was a widow, for all the help I got with you. Fathers are supposed to teach their sons how to talk to women. All your father can teach you is business.” The combative gleam in her face told Thomas she was coming full circle; he was about to become the recipient of her ire once again. “But you’re not trying, Thomas,” she frowned at him, a puzzled look twisting her face. “Maybe I’ve taught you how to treat girls too well. I don’t fault you for being a gentleman, but maybe you’re being too much of a gentleman.”

What exciting story are you working on next?
I wasn’t planning on writing a sequel to this book, but my readers were rather insistent. So, the sequel will be called Brains and Beauty. And, on a completely different note, I’m also putting the finishing touches on a satire I’m calling Jane Austen Lied to Me.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?
Since I was in about 6^th grade. I used to make up stories in my head, and tell them to my best friend. One day, she dragged me over to another friend, and asked me to repeat one of my stories. As I retold it, I kept missing things. Finally, she asked, “Aren’t you writing these DOWN?” Which, up until then, I hadn’t been. She changed my life the day she asked that question.

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 also a dance instructor. I teach students to waltz, tango, polka, cha-cha, and do any number of other dances. I give private lessons to bridal couples, and group lessons to college kids, senior citizens, and just about anything in between. There is such joy in teaching people to move to the music. I love what I do.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
Since I am also a costumer, I can almost never resist the urge to put in rather detailed descriptions of the clothing. That’s probably why I have to write historic fiction. Once there are no longer bustle dresses, where’s the fun in writing about clothes?

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A writer. See above….

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
For any Gone with the Wind fans out there, while you’re reading the scenes with my heroine, think about Rhett Butler….

Links:

Website | Facebook | Goodreads | Amazon | Kindle | Barnes and Noble

Thanks, Jeanette!

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