Jackie: I have always adored love stories. When I read These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder (and Laura and Almanzo were on the cover HOLDING HANDS!!), I remember sitting in the corner of the library scandalously reading it. 😉 I was obsessed with the Avon True Romances and also the Christy and Todd series by Robin Jones Gunn. I was consistently shipping Nancy Drew and Ned Nickerson, too. In terms of “adult” romances, my first was when I was 16. My mom gave me Harlequin for my birthday. It was The Desert Prince’s Proposal by Nicola Marsh. We started getting into reading romances together, actually, around that time. I think it was the first time in her life when she actually had a moment to sit down and even consider reading for pleasure! We read through all of Nora Roberts and then would have book club with each other. My Mom is still a huge romance reader and we are always talking about books. She is a huge historical romance fan. I used to be only interested in contemporary romance, but now there’s just something about historicals that make me swoon.
As time went on, I got more and more into the genre. I set aside reading for fun during college since I read so much for school as an English major! Ebooks made a huge difference for me. They were more affordable, and I didn’t have a lot of room for books in my studio apartment, so when I did read, it was usually on my Kindle. I discovered so many great authors: Tessa Bailey, Maya Banks, Bella Andre. These women (and so many more!) really changed everything for me and I realized how much I love the genre.
Bree: I think as romance readers we find authors we love. We have our favorite tropes. At what point did it become very real for you, that you wanted to write a story of your own?
Jackie: I have always loved to write stories and I realized that, even as a kid, the stories I wrote always had some sort of romance plot. When I was in middle school, I wrote a novel about a teen romance. My “book boyfriend” inspiration was a cute model that I ripped out of a JC Penney catalog! In college, all my friends knew that I wanted to write romance someday. It was just a matter of finding time! For a creative writing class in college, I wrote a short story (that I thought was very Kate Morton-esque) that had a romance in it. I was so nervous to share it with the class, but glad that I did. Anyway, time went on and I got busy with starting my career as a librarian. I spent long nights working my way up in the library world instead of writing. Oops!
Bree: Did the idea of wanting to write your own romance hit you first, or did the story itself come to you, or one of the characters?
Jackie: I was on the way to a librarian conference with a friend and we were talking about different story ideas that I should write. We were driving through Amish land and the idea suddenly hit me: a naughty Amish romance is needed in the world! It’s a big deal in libraries in Wisconsin (and I am sure elsewhere) to stock tons of Amish romances. These are gentle, tame, closed door romances that are between two Amish characters. They are very sweet and very popular with the elderly crowd, amongst others. I think people are really intrigued by the culture, especially since we are near so many Amish communities. It’s a very real fascination! I am finding that it may be location-specific, because I talked to a friend from the Nashville area and she was utterly confused at the obsession with the Amish, LOL.
Anyway, I really thought it would be fun to write an Amish romance but make it dirty, since the Amish romances that are on the market are so tame. Of course, having an actual Amish character who is unmarried and gets naughty would be unlikely, hence why Jakob is a former Amish. I wanted to be sure that I was not offending the culture–I would never forgive myself if I did! I think there is something so captivating about people who have grown up in such a traditional world who are trying to make it in contemporary civilization. What would it be like to date someone like that? I wanted to explore it further!
Bree: It’s very apparent early on in this story, that Jakob King, our hero, is totally smitten with Melissa, our heroine but Melissa has kissed some frogs, dated some creeps and has her guard up for a while. When writing her, what did you want your readers to finish your book and think about her?
Jackie: I wanted Melissa to be an entirely realistic character. I think sometimes in romances, the characters are living in a fantasy world where online dating and creepy dudes don’t exist. I wanted people to be able to completely relate to her and what she went through! One reader told me that she liked Melissa so much that she got the sense that she wanted to be friends with her–that’s exactly what I was going for. I don’t want my characters to be perfect or to be in a fantasy world where real problems don’t exist. I want my readers to be able to say, “that could be me!”