Guest Author, Margaret Tanner

Today's guest is Margaret Tanner (whose website was designed by the incomparable Rae Monet, like mine), fellow Rose and author of several historical romances. Margaret lives in Australia, so I am posting this the evening before I usually do--because while I'm getting ready to shut down for the night, her day is just beginning. Margaret was voted the 2008 Australian Author of the Year by aussieauthors.com, and the novel we are featuring here today finished in the top 30 in the 2007 Preditors and Editors Poll. She also has a brand new story out now, called The Trouble With Playboys, from The Wild Rose Press. Welcome, Margaret, and enjoy your day.

Q: Who are you?

A: I am an author who loves delving into the pages of history as I carry out research for my historical romance novels. I take pride in being historically correct. No history book is too old or tattered for me to trawl through. I have tramped through cemeteries, spent hours in museums. I visited an old jail once and went into the little stone cell, and although it was a hot day, inside the cell it was bone chillingly cold. I wanted to know what it was like to be incarcerated in such a place, as the heroine in my novel, Devil’s Ridge, was thrown in jail for a crime she did not commit.

I would like to think I have suffered form my craft, but I haven’t, except for a few blisters and sneezing fits.

I am a member of the Romance Writers of Australia, the Melbourne Romance Writers Group (MRWG) and EPIC.

Q: What type of stories do you like to write and why?

A. Historical Romance, as I love delving into the pages of history.

Q: When do you write ?

A. I can write anytime, as long as I am on my own. I hate writing when people are around me, I think because I need silence.

Q: When can you read? Where?

A.. I read anywhere, anytime.

Q: How did you come up with your title and main characters’ names?

A. I am not sure, they just seem to come to me and announce their presence. I do get a lot of my ideas when I am lying in bed at night. The darkness seems to help by creativity. I have always had a good imagination.

Q: How long did you write seriously before your first book was published?

A. Several years of serious writing, joining writing groups, entering competitions. Revising. I guess you could say I have been writing most of my life. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t write, but I started out with short stories and poetry, before progressing to novels.

Q: Why do you write?

A. I write because I love it. It’s a compulsion, just can’t not write. It would be easier to hack off my leg, (only joking about the leg).

Thank you, Margaret, for taking the time to be here today. To sum up, here's a blurb for
DEVIL’S RIDGE from Whiskey Creek Press.

By the time Ross Calvert discovers Harry Martin is in fact Harriet Martin she has fallen in love with him. Realizing she has failed in her final effort to protect her shell-shocked brother, she puts a desperate proposition to Ross. Marry her and she will give him an heir.

Ross accepts. However, he is tormented by the betrayal of his former fiancée Virginia. On his honeymoon he meets her again and is still infatuated. With the army recalling him to the Western Front in 1917, he faces a terrible dilemma, taste Virginia’s passion before he heads to the trenches of France, or keep his marriage vows to Harry.

With the spectre of war hanging over them, there are even bigger obstacles for Ross and Harry. Ross returns to the trenches, and a man seeking wealth at any cost, endangers Harry’s life in a way she had never imagined possible.