Spotlight in Six with....Jackie Braun!

This month's spotlight features Jackie Braun, author of Found: Her Long Lost Husband. Let's get right to the questions, shall we????


After writing so many books, where do you find new and fresh ideas?
I’m currently working on books 16 and 17 and, honestly, I have no ideas where my stories come from. It’s one of the great mysteries. Ideas just pop into my head, usually when I don’t have a pen handy or access to a computer. Often, I get the idea for a character first and then find myself fleshing out his/her life and what challenges he/she might face, etc.

Writers often use photos of celebrities as “casting”. Do you do this, and who has inspired some of your characters?

Generally speaking, I don’t do this because then I start thinking of that celebrity’s speech patterns, mannerisms, etc. For my heroes I have been inspired by celebrities’ looks on occasion. I had a character with a Dennis Quaid grin and another with a Brad Pitt jaw, for example. I have loosely -- and I mean very loosely -- based a couple of female characters on celebrities. I started thinking about how people think they “know” these celebrities. What if these people were misunderstood and not at all like what the public perceived? How hard would it be to live down an image under those circumstances? Tempest Herriman, my heroine in the novella “Sex, Lies and a Security Tape” in the book titled EXCLUSIVE! is a Paris Hilton-type, or so she seems. Perception is one of the issues the hero has to overcome for their relationship to work. Likewise, Audra Conlan in A WOMAN WORTH LOVING, the first book in my Conlans of Trillium Island trilogy, is a wannabe actress who had been married to a much older wealthy man who dies and leaves her everything. In the opening scene she’s being strangled nearly to death by her stepson, who is upset about losing his inheritance. Anna Nicole Smith was sued by her late husband’s son rather than nearly killed, but her story (before her tragic death) was a bit of an inspiration for me. Audra was so flawed, so damaged. I wanted to explore how someone like her could rise above her very public past, heal and find redemption.

What are your favourite and least favourite parts of writing a novel? Is there a particular section that you struggle with?

Are you kidding? I struggle with the beginning, the middle and the end of each book! But I absolutely love it when my characters surprise me. When they take off in a direction I didn’t anticipate and I’m forced to scurry after them, those days are wonderful, exhilarating. The worst days are those when I can spend an entire morning at a computer and my characters refuse to come to life. They remain words on paper rather than interesting individuals with conflicts and quirks I want to explore.


When you are not writing, what do you do? How do you pamper yourself?
When I’m not writing fiction, I’m often doing freelance or reviewing children’s books for local newspapers. I’m also a mom. I have a seven-year-old son (and a toddler on the way via international adoption), so I’m busy around the house. I like to putter in my flowerbeds and take bubble baths. I just got some new lavender-scented bath stuff that promises relaxation. Sounds good to me!

Imagine you’re stranded…where are you and who are you with?

Stranded, eh? Hmm, it would have to be with my hubby. He’s the only one I’d wanted to be stranded anywhere with. He’s a pretty smart and resourceful guy. Sexy, too. We spent our honeymoon in Aruba way back when and had a ball lying on the beach and doing next to nothing, so a Caribbean island holds appeal. But can we be stranded in a luxury resort with room service? Now, that’s a fantasy.

Finally, Jackie, please tell us what’s up and coming for you in the months ahead!

Well, I have the last book in the Secrets We Keep trilogy, out in October. It’s titled FOUND: HER LONG-LOST HUSBAND. Liz Fielding wrote the first book, REUNITED: MARRIAGE IN A MILLION, which came out in August. Barbara Hannay’s NEEDED: HER MR. RIGHT was the second book and it came out in September. It was a thrill to work with Liz and Barbara. They are both gifted and generous writers. To recap briefly, our three heroines meet during a charity bike ride through the Himalayas and wind up sharing their secrets, things that have held them back from being happy and fulfilled. In my character’s case, she married young in an attempt to get out from underneath her father’s thumb. The marriage crumbled quickly as a result of secrets and lies, but in addition to feeling guilty about using Ethan Seaver, Claire’s always secretly wondered … what if?

I also have MOONLIGHT AND ROSES coming in January. When wealthy California vintner Zack Holland buys the vineyard Jaye Monroe helped her late father start, she never imagines she’ll also lose her heart to him. EXPECTING A MIRACLE is due out in April. Pregnant and alone, Lauren Seville is looking for peace in the Connecticut countryside. She finds much more than that when she meets Gavin O’Donnell.

Thanks Jackie for being here with us!

Spotlight in Six with Barbara Hannay!

We're thrilled to have with us this month RITA award winner Barbara Hannay, all the way from Down Under! Barbara's current release is the second in the SECRETS WE KEEP trilogy, Needed: Her Mr. Right.

All right then...here we go!

After writing twenty-six books, where do you find new and fresh ideas?
I’ve been a dreamer all my life. As I child I didn’t have just one imaginary friend, I turned my home into an entire boarding school. My bedroom was a dormitory and I did my homework with a host of “friends”. My long-suffering family never realized that there were at least a dozen other girls dining at our table every night.

So with a weird brain like that, I have no problem dreaming up new story lines. I hope to keep them new and fresh by staying in touch with the ever-changing ‘outside’ world.

I read, read, read and I love movies and belong to a cinema group that shows many ‘art house’ and foreign films. I ‘people watch’ and I’m a great listener at parties and social occasions.

And I have a wonderful husband who consumes newspapers and non fiction books and, unlike me, can recall details later and who is happy to brainstorm story ideas with me.

Writers often use photos of celebrities as “casting”. Do you do this, and who has inspired some of your characters?


I can’t say that I do use celebrities, as I fear my knowledge of the actor or the roles he/she has played will intrude into my fictional world. That said, I do remember when I wrote my first book that I had a scene where the hero was testing the depth of a flooded creek on foot before he drove across it and I thought of Mel Gibson in the film Gallipoli. I asked myself how he would have played that scene and immediately I saw him turn back from that rushing flood water and give the heroine a grin and a wink, like a cheeky school boy.

That moment hooked the editor who eventually bought my book.

What I do use for inspiration are collages – collections of pictures of people (mostly anonymous faces from magazines), objects, settings and scraps of text that evoke the mood of my book and help to keep me in the ‘story world’ of my current work.

What are your favourite and least favourite parts of writing a novel? Is there a particular section that you struggle with?

I’m never completely at ease with my story until I get the hero and heroine together. I try, wherever possible, to get them together on the first page, but some stories just don’t lend themselves to that. But I’m always keen to get them together to make sure that the chemistry is working. Once I get a feel for their dynamics, I feel more comfortable about the overall story and I can bear to separate them, if necessary.

I love writing their exchanges of dialogue while they’re getting to know each other, or when they’re meeting again after some time.

And I’m rather cruel. I love to give them plenty of trouble. For me, trouble is story.

I often find the hardest part to write is the ending. Finding ways to make I love you. I love you, too feel new and fresh is a distinct challenge, but I know it’s a very important part of a romance story and I don’t want to cheat the reader out of a good ending. I sometimes think I should write the ending first! In fact, I may yet try that with my next book.

When you are not writing, what do you do? How do you pamper yourself?

My husband and I have a getaway cottage about four hours away, up in the Misty Mountains of North Queensland, where I usually escape. It’s cool and often wet. We light a fire, open a bottle of red wine and listen to music and talk about my next book, or we have friends around and I listen to their stories and tuck ideas away. My life is never completely divorced from my writing.

Imagine you’re stranded…where are you and who are you with?

I think I’ve just described that in my last answer. (grin)

Finally, Barb, please tell us what’s up and coming for you in the months ahead!

This month, of course, there’s Needed: Her Mr. Right, Book #2 in the Secrets We Keep trilogy, which is Simone and Ryan’s story, set in Sydney.
Coming in January 08 is another of my Outback books, The Bridesmaid’s Best Man, in which an Australian cattleman is best man at a wedding in London where he and the bridesmaid have a whirlwind affair that results in pregnancy. The troubled London bridesmaid travels to the depths of the North Queensland Outback to try to sort things out.

Later in July, I have my grandparent book! Yes, I’ve written a romance for grandparents, but they’re only thirty-nine. Their baby was given away for adoption when they were nineteen and now a twist of fate brings them together to care for their tiny grandson.


Thanks Barb for being with us! Needed: Her Mr. Right is OUT NOW at bookshops in NA and the UK and available on the Harlequin and Mills and Boon websites, as well as the amazons!