So glad to see you here at Duck Chat once again!

Today we have a special treat for you – Laura Kinsale is here and she’s going to be talking a bit about her latest book, Lessons in French, and some other tidbits.

Be sure to leave a comment or question for Laura today. Sourcebooks is giving away two copies of Lessons in French to two lucky comments, but, sorry, for U.S. and Canada only.

Now let’s chat!

DUCK CHAT: Welcome, Laura!  I’ve heard writers often say their stories take them in surprising directions, or dialogue flows from some unknown place. Is it the same with you? Do your characters surprise you sometimes?

LAURA KINSALE: Definitely!  I have to write them to find out about them.  It wouldn’t be any fun if they didn’t surprise me.  The hero, Trev, in Lessons in French, was originally supposed to be much more cynical and selfish than he turned out to be.  Instead, he is very much a “guy” in that he really wants to do the right thing, but just finds himself in trouble.

DC: If you could retire any question and never, ever have it asked again, what would it be? Feel free to answer it.

LK: “Tell us a little about yourself.”

DC: Do you ever argue with your characters while you’re writing? Who usually wins?

LK: No, I never argue with them; it doesn’t feel like that.  It might feel that I’m trying to push the story in a direction that it just won’t go, as if I’m shoving at a blank wall.  Sometimes when I back up and take a fresh tack, it works.

DC: Now let’s talk about Trev and Callie in Lessons in French. Would you give us a look into their relationship and story in this book?

LK: If you love those stories where the shy, plain girl gets the hot dashing guy in the end, Lessons in French will be your kind of book. Lady Callista ought to be quite a catch—she’s the daughter of an earl and wealthy to boot–but she’s been left standing at the altar by three different men. She’s long ago resigned herself to spinsterhood, and her greatest desire is to win the silver cup at the agricultural fair with her prize bull, Hubert. That’s until Trev d’Augustin waltzes back into her quiet life. The son of French émigrés, he was run out of town by Callie’s father years ago for stealing a bit more than a kiss from her. Callie and Trev share quite a past, in fact, full of secret adventures and harebrained antics that no one else knows about, not even Trev’s very shrewd mother. On his return, Callie is instantly drawn willy-nilly into scandal and deception–the sort of deception that involves trying to hide a huge bull under the bedsheets. She goes from having no suitors to having more than she wanted. And in the midst of these escapades, she finds herself falling in love again with the worst possible man for her.

DC: What’s the one thing you’d like readers to come away with after reading Lessons in French?

LK: I want them to smile.  I hope readers find that it’s like a great romantic movie that makes you laugh, and shed a few tears, and come out feeling good about the world.

DC: What is sure to distract you from sitting down and working/writing?

LK: Don’t let me turn on a video game!

DC: What advice would you give to your younger self?

LK: Don’t spend so much time at the computer!

DC: Growing up in Texas, one would think you might have chosen to write westerns. Was that ever a consideration throughout your career?

LK: I didn’t actually grow up in Texas, though I visited my grandmother there every summer.  I’m not sure why westerns don’t really ring a bell for me–I seem to be more of an Anglophile in my stories.  In real life, I love the American west.

DC: If you were a book, what would your blurb be?

LK: A romance novel can be more.  More fascinating characters than you ever anticipated.  More unexpected depth.  Emotion to engage your heart and your mind.  Stories that keep you awake and words you will remember long after you close the book.

DC: Your first book was published in 1985. Is there any one of your stories that really stands out twenty-five years later, it flowed so easily, it was the most difficult to write, the most emotional, or anything along those lines?

LK: For me, the character of Allegreto stands out the most, in both of the books he appeared in, For My Lady’s Heart and Shadowheart. He started out as a minor character, just a servant really, but he became more real than real, to me and to many readers.  I could never predict or control him; he was always an active entity operating by his own rules.

DC: If you had never become an author, what do you think you would be doing right now?

LK: Riding/owning/training horses in some capacity.

Lightning Round:

– dark or milk chocolate?      – dark

– smooth or chunky peanut butter?     – chunky

– heels or flats?     – flats

– coffee or tea?      – tea

– mountains or beach?     – mountains

– flowers or candy?    – both

– pockets or purse?     – pockets

Be sure to come back later today to read an excerpt of Lessons in French!