Jen Black Tells All
August 20, 2007 | Interviews
ST: Hi, Jen Black, welcome and thank you for visiting with us this week.
JB: Glad to be here! And thanks for asking me.
ST: Tell us about yourself.
JB: Well, here’s the potted version – I worked, married, got my degree as a mature student, worked, divorced and married again.. I live in the north of England, quite close to the border with Scotland, and suspect my Dixon and Wilson ancestors came from the reiver families. My husband’s name is also one of the reiver family names. Another ancestor, about eight generations back, died from a fall from his horse aged 65 in a little village on the Welsh/English border. I’m lucky in that someone on my father’s side of the extended family is into genealogy and kindly sent me the whole shebang: 90 odd pages and still growing. I have distant relatives I’ve never met – and I’m not likely to meet! – all over the globe – Australia, Canada, New Zealand. I can’t remember any in America, but they’re probably there too.
ST: Your latest novel, SHADOWS, looks to be an exciting hot read. Please tell us about it.
JB: It is an exciting read, but you may have to wait sometime to get at it now that Triskelion have closed their doors! All 140 of us authors are waiting to hear that the book rights will revert to us and then we can go and secure new contracts!
ST: How did you come up with the story line?
JB: I spend holidays in France in the Dordogne region. Friends kindly let us stay in their ancient watermill, and in the lazy, dreamy heat of France in summer, I wondered about the mill in days gone by. The mill isn’t spooky, quite the opposite; but it does look as if it has a history and finding out a little about it sparked my imagination. Once I found the mill once belonged to the local monastery I couldn’t get rid of the idea of black robed monks…at least one of them must have fallen in love, and the authorities were not kind when that happened. So I dreamed up a young monk and his ladylove, their story and his quest for justice down the centuries. Mix that up with a modern young couple who’ve just got together, haven’t the least expectation of seeing ghosts and throw in a Frenchman who fancies the modern day heroine and it all started to click together quite nicely!
ST: What a wonderful way to vacation. Where can we buy SHADOWS?
JB: Sadly at the moment you can’t, but I hope that will change very soon. Meanwhile, you could chance your arm on my other titles. The e-versions of both DARK POOL and BANNERS OF ALBA are available at FictionWise and there’s a POD version of BANNERS at Amazon. They’re both set in the eleventh century, one in Scotland and the other in Ireland. They’re adventure stories as well as romances. BANNERS is Finlay mac Ruaidhri’s story and DARK POOL tells how he attempts to rescue Eba from the Vikings.
ST: Here are the gorgeous covers for both books.
JB: Yes, please. I do love them.
ST: Thanks for your time today and hopefully you can join us in the morning.
JB: I’ll be here!
ST: Until then…
Happy Writing!
Sloane
Hi Jen. Good luck getting your rights back. I hope it happens soon. Did you do research for your books in Scotland and Ireland. Both those places are my dream retirement trips. Any advice?
On August 20th, 2007 at 9:55 amYes, I did lots of research for both titles and I;ve blogged about this over on http//Unusualhistoricalsblogspot.com (26th July) so you could read about it there.
On August 22nd, 2007 at 3:49 amI’d certainly recommend Dublin for a holiday, but I don’t know the rest of Ireland. However, I’ve visited most of Scotland over the years and I love the north west and the Hebrides. I’m due another fix myself in the next few months!