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My books fall in the wobbly middle between historical fiction and historical romance.

History is my passion. So I write what I love to read. I find that if I combine history with a strong, sensual romance, it is like a one-two punch. The reader doesn't want the history without the romance, and of course the heavier the history, the more it has to be leavened with a sensual, all-consuming love story.

I've had mainstream readers complain that the book is really a romance, and romance readers complain that the book isn't a romance - with the same book! It really depends on the individual reader's expectations going into the story, and that's very hard to predict person to person.

Romance tends to be the whipping boy of genre fiction.

The lovers of romance can go elsewhere for satisfaction but where can the lovers of truth turn if not to history?

I never sat down and said, 'I'm going to write historical fiction with strong romantic elements.' It was just the way the stories went.

Romance novels satisfy a very specific fantasy of romantic love that seems to be a powerful part of the female psyche.

I think sex is a very minor part of most romance novels.