I am so thrilled to have Janis Flores here today at Gothicked. She is an author of classic gothic romances, and she's going to talk a bit about her work and the genre as well as her new novel.
First: thank you, Lisa, for
giving me this opportunity to write about one of my favorite genres.
The first book I wrote was a
Gothic romantic suspense called HAWKSHEAD. I wrote it because I was
really into Gothics at the time and thought: I could do this! So I
started writing and couldn’t stop. HAWKSHEAD was the result.
Gothics—those set in the
late 1880s—are still my favorites. I love that time
period—beautiful women in long dresses (although I wouldn’t want
to live then—just the thought of tight corsets and
all those petticoats, not to mention the dozens of buttons on both
dresses and shoes—makes me shudder), with the men in top
hats and dinner jackets, or jodhpurs and polished boots. Oh, so
romantic!
I also love the idea of
fancy carriages and high-stepping, matched horses. And the manners!
No matter what was going on inside or underneath, people were so
polite to each other. (Well, the “upper crust” was; those
who had to work for a living didn’t have the time or energy to
watch their manners).
No matter in which genre I
write, my heroes are always tall and handsome, with lean bodies and
strong jaws, and of course those smoldering eyes hiding dark
secrets—including how they got that facial scar that makes them
even more mysterious! They’re always the brooding type, so
well-dressed, with those impeccable manners.
And my heroines are always
“feisty” (although I dislike that particular word and prefer
“fiery”), their tempers matching their long auburn hair and their
green eyes flashing when they’re angry—until the hero tips her
head up to kiss her.
Another reason I like that
time period is that heroes and heroines waited for intimacy. I
believe that a stolen kiss, a touch, a whispered word heightens the
anticipation for both them and the reader. And when the time
comes—usually off stage, or even beyond the end of the book, they
don’t have sex, they make love.
I haven’t written Gothics
for a while. I left that genre for historical romance, then family
saga, and finally for contemporary mainstream, which I write now. The
pace of the contemporary story is faster because our real lives are
faster. At some point maybe I’ll go back to writing Gothics—at
least one or two. Like the characters and the time period, I can slow
down a little and luxuriate in writing a story that has clouds
covering the moon, and dark shapes that whisper in the night, and a
heroine—always a heroine—roaming the shadowed castle while
carrying a candle whose light blows out just when the villain is
about to be revealed. What fun!
I can’t leave without
mentioning my newest book—an ebook called Sweeter Than Wine,
published by Musa Publishing, Sweeter Than Wine
It’s not a
Gothic, although Jake is the brooding type, haunted by a past
he can’t forget as he throws himself into dangerous search and
rescues with his gallant search dog, Mano. And Terra is
feisty, haunted by a past she can’t remember as she tries to rescue
her family’s nearly 100-year-old winery from bankruptcy. The two
come together when it becomes clear that someone doesn’t want her
to succeed. Someone with… murder in mind.
Meanwhile, I wish you good
reading whatever type of book you choose.
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