#1 Comment:

This is my first attempt to reply.  I hope I get it right!

Didn't Maet do a wonderful job with the questions?  As I said, she's the first person ever to ask me about my continual questions about violence, which is often closely linked to passion.  So much of life has a light and a dark side, and in fiction, we can explore these differences.

This is my first comment--I hope I'm getting it right!

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#2  I haven't written a book set in Italy--since many of my books are set during the Napoleonic wars, travel wasn't easy.

But I did do a Christmas novella set in Italy.  It's called "Sunshine for Christmas" and it has a lonely English gentleman who is depressed by rainy England so he decides to go to Naples.  It's raining there at first, too!  But the sun comes out, he meets a lovely lonely lady, and falls in love with Italy.  By the end, it's clear that he will have a villa in Italy as well as his home in England.

This story is now part of my Christmas collection called CHRISTMAS REVELS, but it hasn't yet been translated into Italian.  Tell Modadori they should buy Italian rights.  *g*

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#5

Marianna, I'm glad you found a blond hero of your own!  And I see that you are a cat person.  I have four cats, all rescued.  I didn't realize that some of my books are being published in Italy as mysteries!  I think of them as fantasies because the books have magical elements, but no matter what the label, I think they all sound like my books.

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# 4 

Patty, I hadn't realized that THE RAKE hadn't been published in Italian, but I just checked my file, and sure enough, it hasn't.  I need to tell the rights department at my literary agency to start talking to Mondadori about my books!  I do hope there is an Italian edition soon.  (Maybe there is one on the way?  I get confused!)

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#9

Susa--

 I'm so glad my stories have spoken to you so powerfully.  However, I have no plans to write more books sent in the Middle Ages.  It's a dark and difficult period.  The only reason I set UNCOMMON VOWS there was because the story fit that time so well.  In any other time period, Adrian probably would have been considered a monster!

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#8

Veronica--I definitely like dark and tortured heroes!  I figure the suffering makes them better people and better husbands.  *g* But I ALWAYS have a happy ending.  If I want to be depressed, I just pick up a newpaper.

By the way, one of my best friends is also named Veronica. Such a lovely name.

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# 13

Lisa--I'm lucky that I've never been pressured by an editor to write lighter books.  But there are the pressures of the market in general, and any long term writer is aware of them.  I wrote three contemporary novels, all with strong romance but dark issues, and they didn't sell very well because the market at that time was going to very light novels.  So I didn't write any more contemporaries, though I am grateful that I had the opportunity to do those three.

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Maet, thanks for doing such a lovely job with the interview and the translations!  I'll be back later today for more responses.

Mary Jo Putney