Romance at Heart Magazine Author Interview: Jade Lee

Interview with Jade Lee:

Hi Jade. Thank you for doing this interview. I would like to welcome you to the Romance at Heart Interview and Author Grilling session. *bg* We are interested to find out as much about you as we possibly can, so lets get started...

- Please tell us about your latest book.

Desperate Tigress was actually quite a risk for me. It has all the elements that I’ve incorporated before: explicit sensuality, an interweaving of past and future, and an adventure subplot all impacting on the basic love story. But in this book, I’ve added an extra twist. The heroine has bound feet. Not only are her own feet bound, but she’s done it to her daughter as well. This stays true to the period given that no gently bred woman could marry without tiny, tiny feet, but American women tend to freak when we start discussing feet smaller than 5 inches long. So I take time in the book to show the difficulties of managing on feet that are curled in on themselves and smell terrible when unbound. I allow my hero to see her deformed feet as a strength, not a mutilation. I discuss—briefly—the process of breaking and binding a little 4 yr old’s feet. In fact, the whole issue becomes a symbol of survival and determination within a difficult world. But all in all, I worry that readers will be disgusted by this part of Chinese culture. In truth, the Chinese themselves have difficulty dealing with the issue.

- What can we expect from you in the future?

I’m really excited that I am part of the Crimson City series. My book (#5 in the series) is titled Seduced by Crimson and it comes out in March 2006. I finally, finally get to use my modern, sarcastic mouth! Woo hoo! I tried to make the book very funny within the action plot. Briefly—Demons are invading Los Angeles and my hero and heroine are the only two who are able to close the portal for good. How? By really, really good sex. Honest. Well, not really. I use tantric sensuality in this book just as I have in all my tigress books. It was really exciting (no pun intended) to be able to interweave sex and action and energy weirdness in a fast paced story. I’m praying the reader just rolls with the excitement and doesn’t hang up on the tantric concepts.

- How do we find out about you and your books?

I have a basic, basic website that will give information on my upcoming books. I plan to do more on the pages, but for now, if you need to know about any of my books—past, present or future—feel free to check out Jade Lee Author.Com.

- How may readers contact you?

They can always contact me via e-mail at jade@jadeleeauthor.com

- How much of your personality and life experiences are in your writing?

A huge amount! My heroines are always struggling with something I’m facing at the moment. In Desperate Tigress, my heroine is basically empty nesting. Now that my children are gone, what happens to me? What am I supposed to do? In China, she was supposed to lock herself away and never leave the house. In my case, my two daughters are about to leave for college. So much of my life has been geared to their choices, their activities. What am I supposed to do with my time once they leave? What do I do with my evenings if I’m not supervising homework, going to volleyball games, or driving to flute lessons? I haven’t a clue. But, of course, empty nesting goes a lot deeper than that. It’s a huge shift in life as I look as these wonderful kids that no longer hang on my skirts (or jeans, in my case). Plus, I now need bi-focals, I can’t work out like I used to, and I certainly don’t recover from injuries as fast. There are changes in this old body, and I’m not sure I like them at all!

As for the tantric sex aspect, I have not delved deeply into the physical practices, but I am an energy healer. I’ve taken numerous classes and have practiced it in one form or another for years. So, I feel like I do have some basic for the energy concepts put forth in my books.

- What is your writing routine?

Coffee. E-mail. Gossip. More coffee. More e-mail. Then GUILT. Big guilt. Enormous guilt drowned by more coffee. Until I finally get my sorry tush to work. That takes about 30 seconds before I take one last diversion—whatever my desperate mind can find—until I give up the ghost and work. I’m usually at a café with a writing friend, and we guilt each other into writing for 3-4 hours—give or take a few. Afternoons are reserved for working out, naps, promotional work, naps, housework, or naps.

- What about your family, do they know not to bother you when you are writing - or are there constant interruptions?

Why do you think I fled to a café? It wasn’t my kids or husband. They’re at school and work. No, it was my mother who retired recently. My gawd, doesn’t this woman have something to do other than talk to me? Well, in truth, she’s not that bad. Really, I fled to a café for the coffee. But Mom’s a good excuse too…

- Do you feel humour is important in women's fiction and why?

Yes! If sex can’t be funny, then what’s the world coming to?

- Have you experienced writer's block---> If so, how did you work through it?

Yes. Deadlines motivate me, so I impose them whether they’re real or not. But a few years ago…as I was approaching the big 4-0…I hit a huge life change. I was a pro-racquetball player who blew out her knees, so I couldn’t play at all. My pseudonym Kathy Greyle wasn’t doing as well as I wanted. And my agent kept pressuring me. How? By asking me these question in a zillion different ways: Who are you as a writer? What do you want to say? My answer: I dunno! I had to figure it out. But instead of taking time off to sort through all the issues, I was an idiot. I had to write, every day. Otherwise, I feared I would lose the habit and never sit down at my keyboard again. What happened? Nothing publishable, I can tell you that. I flailed. I sobbed. I screamed. I even went to therapy…thank God. In the end, I worked through it just with time and thinking and talking. It was really, really hard, but I’m a better person and a better writer because of it.

Thank you very much, for taking the time with us and answering our questions, Jade. I really appreciate this interruption to your busy schedule. Good Luck, and we will be looking forward to Desperate Tigress and Seduced By Crimson the next delightful creations from your talented imagination!

Yours in good reading,
Rose!

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