The Bourne Identity--Joanna Bourne is in the Lair!

by Christine Wells

Please welcome Joanna Bourne to the bandit lair! Joanna writes historical romance for Berkley and her recent release, The Spymaster's Lady, has garnered rave reviews everywhere.

A little about the book: She's braved battlefields. She's stolen dispatches from under the noses of heads of state. She's played the worldly courtesan, the naive virgin, the refined British lady, even a Gypsy boy. But Annique Villiers, the elusive spy known as the Fox Cub, has finally met the one man she can't outwit.

Hi Jo, welcome to the lair! I've heard such great things about this book and I'm champing at the bit to read it but it was sold out in my local romance bookstore, so that's great news for you. Not so good for me, but I have it on order.

Is The Spymaster's Lady the first novel you've had published?

I wrote a standard Regency Romance many years ago. It's long out of print. About the most interesting thing in it is a brief appearance of Adrian Hawkhurst.

In between that little Regency and Spymaster's Lady, I wrote lots of non-fiction for the government. Good practice. Lots of overlap on the skills.

Why do your hero and heroine fall in love and why is it so dangerous for them to do so?

One of the basic challenges in Romance, it seems to me, is that we want a good strong conflict between hero and heroine ... and then at the end, we want everything wrapped up and put away in a neat HappyEverAfter package.

I adore the finicky, step-machine-at-the-gym, afternoon-at-the-spa, city girl who locks horns with the rugged, horse-hockey-kicking, western outdoorsman. I'm wild for the mouthy, idealistic environmental lawyer who confronts the practical, dollars-and-cents building contractor. I love these.

But sometimes, looking back after the happy ending, I ask myself if these folks really have a long-term future together. Their basic outlook on life is sooo different. Love conquers all, of course, but ...

So my folks, my Annique and Grey, even though they're spies for different nations, are very similar in the ways that matter most. They have the same approach to the world. They're fellow professionals in a specialized line of work.

It's like, (jo reaches for a sports metaphor here,) the two quarterbacks in a football game. They may be crashing helmets with verve and elan, but they have more in common with each other than with anybody out there in the stands. Falling in love is almost inevitable, because they have so much in common ... but loving thine enemy is not such a good idea under the circumstance.

I like that idea of people having ideological differences but fundamentally the same outlook on life. In The Spymaster's Lady, you explore the dynamics of power in a relationship. Both your hero and heroine are skilled, intelligent and resourceful. How do you achieve a balance between two powerful people? ie, how do you make one look strong without making the other look weak? ::Christine licks pencil, preparing to take notes::

Basically, I let 'em take turns 'winning'.

Sometimes she gets to tie him up.

Also, I'm trying to look at several types of power here. On the obvious level, Grey has every advantage. He can drag Annique from place to place or lock her up -- at least temporarily. It's brute force power, if you will.

But none of his power is ultimately useful. None of it will get him what he desperately needs. In a lot of ways, he spends the story playing 'catch-up' to powerful decisions Annique has made. It's Annique who holds the secrets to the Albion Plans.

It's Annique who makes the great moral choice of the book. If you look at what's happening at any point, you'll generally find one of Annique's decisions set it off.

I love it when heroines show their heroes that strength comes in many different forms, not just the physical. From reading your blog it's obvious you enjoy analysing and refining your craft. In what way did writing The Spymaster's Lady stretch you or make you a better writer?

It's this 'writing is my life' stuff. We never stop learning. Refining the craft is an ongoing business. I, for instance, hope someday to learn to plot.

And it's plotting I learned, somewhat, with Spymaster's Lady. That was a challenge, trying to get all the loose ends tied up.

Hope I did.

And I will say that taking a whole manuscript from story idea to final draft requires just endless stamina.

Writing European-set historicals for modern American readers can be tricky. How do you tread the line between accuracy and readability?

I come down on the side of readability, of course.

But y'know -- somebody writing a contemporary about Llama farmers in Newark picks and chooses what section of the 'real world' she'll talk about.

I think of historical writing in the same way.

I don't mention that the straw in the floor of a hackney was hopping with fleas and the poor heroine spends the next two days scratching her ankles. I don't point out that maybe one person in twenty had active tb.

Not being inaccurate here. Just selective within the truth.

And our friend with the llama farm probably never uses the word 'income tax' in the whole book. We both pick and choose what parts of our reality we need for the story. I do try not to use Americanisms when I write.
And, of course, the publisher doesn't want me to use certain blatant and puzzling-to-Americans British-isms.

Sometimes this leaves you without any word at all. Always exciting.

Would you like to tell us a bit about the next book in the series?

Next comes My Lord and Spymaster, out in July from Berkley. Sebastian and Jess head up rival international trading firms. It's 1811 and there's endless profit in shipping, smuggling and trade on the fringes of Napoleon's Europe. Then Jess's father is accused of treason ... by Sebastian.

Doyle and Adrian, secondary characters from Spymaster's Lady, appear in My Lord and Spymaster.

Jo is very kindly giving away a signed copy of The Spymaster's Lady to one lucky reader. When I mentioned that we evil banditas make our readers work for their prizes, so we ask them a question, this was Jo's response:

Ask a question of the readers?

Question? Ye gods. What kind of question?
Something like --

If you were in France with Grey and Adrian, would you have run off with Grey? Or Adrian?
orDo you think Doyle and Maggie ended up making love in that big bathtub downstairs and if so did they get all the glass off them before they climbed in, or what?
or
Who would you rather have in bed, Robert or Grey? or
If you had a huge, mixed-breed dog you found out at the port and brought home, would you really name it Tiny? Or would you call it Hrolf? Or Kane the Destroyer? Or Zippy the Wonder Dog?
or
Would you say the whole international spy business in the Napoleonic era basically ran on coffee?Is this a bad thing?

Or were you thinking more along the lines of ...

Do you think Regency-era Historical Romances should give a more balanced view of the English/French conflict?

So, dear readers...answer any or all of these questions and win yourself a fantastic book! Thanks for visiting the lair, Jo.