Thanks very much for taking the time to answer our questions, ones which will let readers know more about you and the delightfully compelling historical stories you have created.

ST: First of all, tell us about yourself. What inspired you to become an author and when did you start writing?

MD:  I’ve been writing since I was quite young.  I’m very fortunate that my parents always encouraged me, even to the peril of their electronics.  One of my earliest memories is sitting at my dad’s old WANG word processor – this was back in the days of green font against a black screen, big floppy disks (memories that I’m certain will make my kids think I’m on par with the dinosaurs) – typing out with two fingers a new and improved version of Cinderella. I’d just watched the Disney film, and being a bloodthirsty child, felt profoundly unsatisfied by the stepsisters’ fates.  In my retelling, they ended up in prison, where they lost all their hair.

ST: Please enlighten us as to the premise of your May 2010 release, WICKED BECOMES YOU.

MD: Gwen Maudsley is the nicest girl in London — but push a nice girl one too many times, and she may just snap. When a dramatic public demonstration proves to Gwen that nice is no longer working, she decides, from sheer desperation, to try a different approach: she’ll be wicked instead.

Problem is, Gwen has spent her entire life trying to please others; she has no idea how to cut loose and live for herself. This is where our hero steps in. Alex Ramsey lives by his own rules. He has a bad reputation and nurses a total indifference to what society thinks of him. To Gwen, he seems like the perfect tutor for an experiment in independent living.

But to her surprise, Alex doesn’t prove as cooperative as she expected. Little does she know that she’s now enacting Alex’s worst nightmare. For years he has tried to avoid Gwen and his reluctant attraction to her.

Now she’s out to disown everything – rules, manners, mores, her own virtue – that he counted on to keep them apart. If she’d only stay safely in London, he could comfortably continue to ignore her. But when she sets off in search of adventure, she becomes his problem – one that he can no longer ignore.

ST: Your historical stories are written with an inventive approach as scenarios are cleverly portrayed with imaginative developments, like those taking place in WICKED BECOMES YOU. What gave you the inspiration to take your stories in this direction?

MD:  When I’m in the middle of a project and I run out of steam to write, I’ve got three strategies for invigorating the muse.  First, when I’m working on a book set in the nineteenth century, I turn to the wealth of primary sources available about the period.  I love research, and I can get incredibly excited over some small detail that I want to incorporate in the story – like, for instance, an advertisement for a “Pretty Housemaid” corset, or travelogues that discuss the elephant in the garden at the Moulin Rouge.  Secondly, I turn to good books.  Reading a brilliant novel is the greatest inspiration the world provides.  Finally, I listen to a tried-and-tested playlist full of dolorous rock music – a playlist which one of my friends has described as being full of “Emo boys whining about getting the wrong order at Starbucks.”  I do not win any cool points for my taste in music. 

ST: While we are discussing books, every reader wants to know: How do you get the original ideas for your books, especially all the quick-witted banter and unusual situations which the characters must face? Also, your stories describe any setting with much visual detail, so do you spend a lot of time doing research?

MD:  Yep, as I mentioned above, I absolutely adore doing research about the details of everyday life in other times.  I find it interesting in its own sake, and also extremely useful for generating inspiration about scenes and situations.

In regard to the “quick-witted banter” (thanks for that compliment, by the way!), I’m not sure how I come up with that.  I’ve read interviews in which certain writers say that they basically take dictation at the keyboard – in their heads, the characters talk, or the story commences, and they, the writers, simply record what they’re hearing or seeing.  This sounds like a wonderful way to write; I wish that were my process!  But my writing feels a bit more conscious than that.  Certainly I’m paying attention to the rhythms of the sentences as I commit them to paper (or the screen, as it were).  Occasionally entire passages of dialogue do simply surface in my brain, but this only happens at a very inconvenient hours –just as I’ve started to drift off to sleep, generally.

ST: Describe your stories in just a couple of words.

MD: Complex, luscious, and emotionally intense.

ST: Are the main characters created from your imagination or do they possess traits belonging to real people? And how do you decide what attributes will be given to your charming, sexy heroes and lively heroines?

MD:  One of the great pleasures of writing a novel lies in discovering the complexities of the main characters as they change and evolve.  To write about people I already know would cut into the fun!

My only guideline, when starting to write about the hero and heroine, is to know what frightens each of them the most, and to make sure that the other person somehow touches on or evokes that fear.  This lends the couple instant chemistry, and it guarantees that their romance will raise difficult issues that must be overcome to guarantee a happy-ever-after.  All the other bits – where they’re from, what they want, what they need – develop organically out of an understanding of why they – pardon my language – scare the hell out of each other.

ST: Was there any one person or event in your life that actually inspired you to sit down and write your first book?

MD: As I said, I’ve been writing, and planning and hoping and striving to be a writer, since a very young age.  I put this all on my parents, who started reading to me before I could talk, and who made sure that I always had access to books that whetted my imagination and my appetite for more.  But as for why I’m now a published novelist – that all comes down to my sister, who encouraged me, when I was in a slump, to give the manuscript that became The Duke of Shadows – a manuscript that had been rejected by every agent in town – another look.  Because of her, I had the manuscript on my desktop computer when I ran across mention of a contest hosted by Pocket Books and Gather.com.  The first prize was publication.  I entered, and I won.  I’ve been writing for Pocket ever since.

Had it not been for Shelley’s encouragement, I might have given up on that book.  Her belief in me changed my life.

ST: What do you truly hope readers gain from reading your books?

MD:  I know I’m reading a good book when I’m so swept into the protagonists’ physical and emotional world that putting the book down leaves me feeling — however briefly — disoriented and disappointed by my surroundings.  This is also what I aspire to do as a writer.

ST: Everyone needs a break from time to time, even when doing something they love, so how do you like to spend your time away from writing?

MD:  I’m a huge Hindi film fan.  I like to knit and bake; I’m not very good at either, but it’s not for want of practice or enthusiasm!  I love museums, road trips, board games, and of course reading.  I really do spend a large portion of my free time reading; there are always three or four books on the nightstand.

ST: How has being published changed your life, if at all?  What would you like to accomplish with your writing career?

MD:  There’s an indescribable (and, three years later, I’ll say it’s also long-lasting) sense of contentment that comes from achieving a goal you’ve held since you were very young. But with this contentment comes a renewed focus – a determination to make the most of the opportunity I’ve been given.  I want to continue to grow as a writer, to push my own boundaries in terms of craft, and to continue to produce stories that feel original and fresh and emotionally authentic and engaging.

ST: Do you have a favorite book and/or character from all the books which you have read? Do you remember the first romance novel you ever read?

MD:  The first romance I ever read was Almost Heaven by Judith McNaught.  Someone had left a tattered copy on the table in my high school dorm.  I was a huge fan of Tudor history at the time, and had been reading all the historical fiction I could get my hands on.  But so much of it focused on men, on great dates in history, on battles and cold, formal political maneuverings. Almost Heaven felt like a revelation to me: here, at last, was the sort of history that fascinated me – the everyday social history of the past – and with a female protagonist to boot!  I had no idea it was a romance until I went into the bookstore looking for more of McNaught’s books.  But when the teenage guy working at the counter snickered and steered me toward “that section,” I was beyond caring, because suddenly I realized that it wasn’t only one author writing this sort of book — THERE WERE HUNDREDS to choose from.  I was in heaven.

As far as favorite books – yes, I’ve got a list of my current top ten on my website, but among the favorites that stand out to me on all counts – writing, story, and memorable characters – the titles that leap to mind first are Bliss, by Judith Ivory, and To Have and to Hold, by Patricia Gaffney.  Both feature heroes who, by all rights, should not be heroes – an ether addict and a sadistic viscount.  And yet the authors redeemed them so memorably.

ST: If you could do anything and travel to any place in the world for one day, what and where would it be?

MD:  I’m in India right now, so I’d travel home and have dinner with my family!  When I’m in the States, I tend to dream about visiting Hampton Court outside London, or an evening on the Amalfi Coast in Italy, drinking limoncello and eating amazing food.  But taking into account the opportunity to magically be somewhere for a day, minus all the difficulties of travel, I’d also love to see Samarkand in Uzbekistan.  The history of the Silk Route fascinates me.

ST: What is something that your readers may not already know about you?

MD:  Hmm.  Okay.  I love dogs.  We had a dog when I was growing up; I have a dog now.  I like cats, too, but perhaps as a result of lack of exposure, I don’t really understand how to engage with them at length.  Yet the two best nights of sleep I’ve had in my life – and I’m talking magical nights of sleep, after which I wake up slowly, resplendently rested, nearly euphoric with energetic alertness – have been at my cat-owning friends’ houses.  And both times, upon opening my eyes, I discovered the cat sitting on top of my chest, purring.  (It suddenly occurs to me that in the Middle Ages, this confession might have gotten me burned as a witch.)  Anyway, now I’m convinced that people are devoted cat owners because they know what great sleep aids they are. 

ST: How can readers reach you?

MD:  I love email!  You can reach me through http://www.meredithduran.com/contact.php.

One lucky commenter, from USA only, may win their own copy of WICKED BECOMES YOU by Meredith Duran.  A name will be chosen randomly on April 25th.

Something else you may be interested in...

• Review: GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE GUNS by Toni McGee Causey
• Review: Cherrybrook Rose by Tania Crosse
• Review: Ravished by Deisre by Brenda Jackson
• Review: THE LOST HOURS by Karen White
• Review: Phantom in the Night (BAD: Bureau of American Defense) by Sherrilyn Kenyon and Dianna Love