An Interview with Jennifer Ashley
The Reading Cafe is happy to welcome the fabulous Jennifer Ashley as our guest today.
Jennifer just released Mate Claimed, her newest book in her Shifters Unbound series. We posted our review of Mate Claimed yesterday.
Let’s begin our interview with Jennifer
Jennifer, we at the Reading Café would like to thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. We are always looking forward to learning more about the author behind the book.
Jennifer: It’s great to be here. Thank you!
TRC: We would like to start with some background information. Would you please tell us about yourself?
Jennifer: I love to write. 🙂 I also like to travel and explore new places. I was lucky to grow up living in various places around the world. Then I married an army man, and went to more places around the world. While other wives seemed fearful of venturing off the US posts and bases, I jumped aboard trains to see where they’d take me. I haven’t been everywhere I want to go (I got busy, sadly), but I have been able to see many countries in Europe and Asia just by wandering through them. I strongly advise travelers to venture off the well-trod tourist paths (carefully in some areas, I realize). You see far more and learn much more about real life, history, and people when you wander.
I now live in the beautiful Sonoran desert of the Southwestern US and wouldn’t trade it for the world.
TRC: When and how did you first become interested in writing? What was your first book ever published?
Jennifer: The first book I ever got published was Perils of the Heart, a book I sold to Leisure / Dorchester. It was an obscure midlist book, but it did well enough to let me have another contract, and away we went.
I love Perils, a humorous high-seas adventure about a shy governess who gets caught in an evil pirate’s plans, and the handsome ship’s captain whom she’s sent to distract and seduce. Evangeline has no idea how to seduce a man, but she fears for her brother’s life if she doesn’t. Unfortunately, Captain Blackwell sees through her attempts and slaps her into the brig.
I had a lot of fun writing that book. I decided to stop trying to follow the romance “rules” and just go for it. And lo and behold, I finally got published (after six other romances that got nothing but rejections).
I have written stories all my life, since the tender age of eight, and fortunately was encouraged by my parents, teachers, and friends. Took a lot of hard work and figuring out how to write a “real” book and get it published by a New York publisher, but I finally did it.
TRC: Besides Jennifer Ashley, you also write under the names of Ashley Gardner and Allyson James. As Jennifer Ashley, you write Historical Romances/Paranormal; as Ashley Gardner, you write more Urban Fantasy/Paranormal; and as Allyson James, you have written more erotic series such as Tales of the Shareem and Stormwalker. How do you keep each separate? What are the challenges in doing so?
Jennifer: It’s easy for me to keep each separate, because the characters and situations are unique to each one. When I’m in one world, I’m not thinking about any of the others. I can immerse myself.
The greatest challenge is getting everything done!
This year alone I’ve written four full-length novels, two half-length novels, and one novella, revised and released three backlist books, and I still have two half-length novels to write before the end of the year. And still readers tell me I don’t write fast enough!
TRC: Which genre do you prefer to write and which is the most difficult?
Jennifer: I like all the genres I write (paranormal, historical, mystery, urban fantasy, erotic romance). Each gives me something new and different to explore, and keeps me fresh when I return to the other genres. I have always loved historicals—that’s what I originally set out to write, and those storylines come to me most easily.
Erotic romance is the most difficult to write. The stories need to be emotional, sensual, sexy . . . without becoming tedious, repetitive, or just plain stupid. Love scenes can cross the line from sensual to boring very quickly, and it’s a lot of work to make sure they don’t.
TRC: What is your process in writing? Any specific place you like to write or special times of the day/night?
Jennifer: I like to start the day writing while I’m eating breakfast at a bakery / coffee house. I can get a lot of writing done there for some reason. Then I return home and spend most of the day writing. I sit on my sofa with a laptop—writing at a desk hurts my back. Sometimes I’ll go out to another coffee house if I find myself getting too distracted by stuff going on at home. That’s about it. Butt in chair, fingers on keyboard, cushion at back. 🙂
TRC: Can you please tell us the premise of Shifters Unbound series?
Jennifer: Shifters Unbound is about shapeshifters who have revealed themselves to the world, only to be rounded up and made to live in Shiftertowns, and wear Collars (half Fae magic, half technology) that spike pain into them if they turn violent. Humans believe they have Shifters tamed, but Shifters, who were dying out in the wild, are using their captivity to grow stronger.
Shifters are very family oriented, valuing mates and cubs above all else. The sexy male Shifters will do anything to protect their own.
TRC: Mate Claimed is the latest book in that series, which was released the other day, October 2nd. Can you please tell us a little about the story? How many books do you plan for this series?
Jennifer: Eric Warden knows that half-Shifter wildcat Iona is passing for human, living without a Collar in the human world. He also knows that if she does not acknowledge her Shifter nature and her mating hunger, it could kill her.
Eric has a lot on his plate, though. Another Shiftertown has closed, and those Shifters are being stuffed into Eric’s town. The leader, an alpha Lupine called Graham, makes it clear he wants to take over. Eric needs Iona to help stop him.
Iona finds the mysterious and dangerous Eric, a wildcat and leader of his Shiftertown, haunting her dreams, but she vows never to take the Collar, fearing backlash against her mother and sister for hiding the fact that she’s Shifter. But Eric is a compelling Shifter male, and Iona’s hunger calls to him.
TRC: Highland Pleasures is another one of your successful series. The Duke’s Perfect Wife came out in April, 2012, which we reviewed. January, 2013 is the release date of the next book in the series, The Seduction of Elliot McBride. For those who have not read about your wonderful Mackenzies, can you please tell us about this series? Is there an end in sight?….Hopefully not anytime soon.
Jennifer: The Mackenzie brothers (and son / nephew) are a highly dysfunctional Scottish family in the Victorian age—they are decadent, rich, scandalous, talked about, and they don’t care.
The family is led by Hart Mackenzie (the duke of Duke’s Perfect Wife), followed by Cameron (a womanizer who owns and trains racehorses), Mac (an artist whose attachment to alcohol made his wife Isabella leave him), and Ian, the youngest, who spent time in an asylum. (Ian has Asperger’s Syndrome, though at the time there was no name for it.)
Then there’s Daniel, Cameron’s son, who’s a teenager during the first four books, but will grow up and have his own book next year. He’s an inventor, loving to tinker with his machines when he’s not seducing beautiful women. Then he meets a lady who turns all his assumptions upside down.
The McBrides (in The Seduction of Elliot McBride), are the brothers of Ainsley, the heroine of Cameron’s book.
Elliot McBride was captured and imprisoned for ten months while living in India, tortured and starved before he escaped. He’s now fighting PTSD (another condition not understood at the time), and has decided that buying his great-uncle’s rundown house in Scotland and marrying the woman he’s loved since childhood is the answer to his madness. Too bad the young lady (Juliana) is about to walk up the aisle to marry another man . . .
Elliot’s story is a spinoff, but I hope everyone likes it.
This Christmas, though, I plan to release a short novel, A Mackenzie Family Christmas, which I’ll be putting out on my own. This will be an Ian / Beth story, but all the Mackenzies will return, as well as some of the spinoff characters.
I’ll do at least another 3-4 full-length books, and 3-4 short novels / novellas.
TRC:
As Allyson James, you have a new Stormwalker book out (Nightwalker). How many books do you plan for this series? Also for Tales of Shareem, any new books coming out in that series?
Jennifer: Nightwalker is finally out, I am pleased to say. I plan several more books for this series, including shorter novels. The Tales of the Shareem will wrap up in one or two more books. I never say it’s over, though. If I have ideas, I’ll do more stories.
TRC: As Ashley Gardner, you have just written your 8th book in the Captain Lacey Regency series, A Disappearance in Drury Lane. Would you like to tell us the premise of this 
series, and how many books do you plan?
Jennifer: These are not lighthearted, frothy Regencies! 🙂 They show both sides of Regency London—the elegant ballrooms and the dirty backstreets.
Gabriel Lacey is a cavalry captain who’s come home from the Peninsular Wars and lives on half pay in London. His father, a landed gentlemen, lost most of his money before he died, so Lacey is poor and has only a rundown house in Norfolk to his name.
While walking through Hanover Square one day, he gets caught in a commotion and discovers a distraught father convinced that one of the respectable gentlemen in the square has abducted his daughter.
Lacey gets involved, and soon becomes entangled in a dark, underworld crime, complete with a crime boss, James Denis. With the help of his friend Lucius Grenville (a wealthy man-about-town) and a street girl (Black Nancy), Lacey solves the crime.
A romance arc develops in the series starting in Book 2. I am working on book 8, and plan at least a dozen. Ideas keep coming to me, darn it.
TRC: What are you working on now? Any new series on the horizon?
Jennifer: Working feverishly on all my series. There will be more of what I’m already doing, but I’d love to start something new. I’m hankering toward contemporary romance or an out-and-out suspense / thriller.
TRC: Who is your Muse?
Jennifer: Anything beautiful. Musicians who can really play. Art. Great writing / storytelling. Miniatures. 🙂
TRC: Your websites showcasing your miniature worlds is amazing. How do you do these beautiful dollhouses? How do you find the time to work on the miniature worlds with all of the book you write?
Jennifer: Thank you! I love minis. I’m nowhere near as good at it as the artisans out there, but I enjoy myself. I collect pieces, build from scratch or from kits, and just play.
How do I find time? Good question! I make the time. I find that working on minis, which means working with my hands, is a good way to take a brain break, work out a plot point, just step away from the keyboard for a while. No computers involved.
TRC: Would you like to add anything else?
Jennifer: Thank you so much for taking time to interview me, and readers for taking time to read my books. You’re awesome!
LIGHTNING ROUND:
FAVORITE FOOD: Cheese.
FAVORITE DESSERT: Butterscotch pudding
MILK OR DARK CHOCOLATE: Dark!
FAVORITE BOOK: Oh. Um. Uh. I don’t know. I love too many!
WHAT BOOK ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING: Two: The Bourne Identity and The Widow of Larkspur Inn (two very different books, I must say!)
FAVORITE FICTIONAL CHARACTER (NOT YOUR OWN): Eleanor Dashwood (from Sense & Sensibility)
FAVORITE MOVIE: Get Shorty (love me some Elmore Leonard)
FAVORITE TV SHOW: Right now: New Tricks (British series about retired cops working cold cases—funny but with depth)
TRC: Thank you, Jennifer for answering our questions. The Reading Café wishes you the best of luck with Mate Claimed. We look forward to talking with you again in the future.
Jennifer: Thank you! I’ll do a giveaway
TRC: See below for Giveaway instructions
If you would like to know more about Jennifer Ashley, or her other pen names, you can find her at the following links:
Website: http://www.jennifersromances.com/
Twitter:
Facebook:
Goodreads:
Allyson James Website: http://www.allysonjames.com/
Ashley James Website: http://www.gardnermysteries.com/
Jennifer has graciously offered to give a member of The Reading Café a chance to win a copy of Mate Claimed or another book of her series.
1. You must be a member at The Reading Cafe. If you are not a member, please register using the Log-In at the top of the page, or by using one of our social log-ins.
2. If you are using a social log-in e.g. Twitter, please leave your email address along with your comment.
3. Please post a comment and say Hi to Jennifer.
4. Giveaway open to U.S. & Canada Only
5. Contest runs from October 5th – October 8th.
