She has chapter one up at her website and as I said, I saw a copy in the bookstore today along with the sequel. Y’all check it out and let me know what you think of it.

Bascially, I wanted to turn the genre upside-down. I was tired of pampered heroines. If I read one more fiesty hoyden, I was afraid I would lose my love of the genre entirely, and perhaps my lunch with it.

As a reader, I really appreciate an author’s desire to subvert some of the more tired aspects of the genre. I don’t really have any expectations regarding how dark or “historically accurate” a Romance can be — in fact, I am always on the look out for grittier Romance novels.

Sometimes the old skool style books work really well for me, and sometimes they don’t, especially if the heroine’s happiness seems to be pulled out of a hat at the end to satisfy the whole HEA thing. Sometimes I really love what an author is doing with a character and sometimes I don’t. For example, reading Thomas Hardy’s Tess was a difficult experience, not because of all the tragedy that gets heaped on Tess, but because after a while I felt that Hardy was basically using her character to make a point about society and was as complicit in Tess’s downfall as Angel was, for example. Jayne’s description of the book reminded me somewhat of Patricia Gaffney’s Lily, NOT in the plot per se, but of that old skool heroine who had to journey to hell and back before she could find her happiness. But poor Lily; after a while, I felt like Gaffney was working off a list of the most melodramtic plot turns in the history of literature, or some such thing. On the other hand, I adored Gaffney’s To Have and To Hold because I felt that while she made Rachel suffer terribly, she also made her final happiness believable to me, which, in the end, is what usually works for me, especially if I feel an author isn’t just trying to manipulate me or pour on the melodrama for effect or see how far she can push things without the writerly tools to bring them back.

Jayne’s review of your book interested me enough that I will likely pick it up. I just wanted to clarify that not all Romance readers want fluffy books, but speaking for myself, that doesn’t necessarily mean that a grittier book fails for me because it’s “too gritty.”

Normally I don’t respond to reviews, because I don’t like to wiegh in as the author and disrupt the discussion. But because you specifically wondered why the author would make certain choices for the characters, I hope you don’t mind that I am directly responding.

Bascially, I wanted to turn the genre upside-down. I was tired of pampered heroines. If I read one more fiesty hoyden, I was afraid I would lose my love of the genre entirely, and perhaps my lunch with it.

The hardships didn’t stop because in real life, often they don’t. I wanted it raw and real. Not some faux-problem for the heroine to overcome, but something enormous. I wanted a hero who was human enough to screw up and pay the price.

I do admit that, as a first novel, it isn’t perfect. There are things in it I’d change if I could, and yet, I’m still proud of it because it is a bold book full of risks. My second book, Veiled Desires, is less dark and very romantic. While it’s still historically accurate, I think I struck more of a balance between writing a book that doesn’t shy away from truth while meeting more readers’ expectations. Perhaps that one will be more to your taste.

Thanks again.
-Tracy MacNish

Before I started the book, I tried to avoid reading the already posted reviews but once I had finished, I checked them out to see how well my grade correlated. Not too well, I must say. My feelings were closest to LLB’s note added to the end of the AAR review.