AOTW- Margo Maguire

Margo Maguire

About the Author:

Throughout her years of nursing practice, Margo Maguire started thousands of intravenous lines and drew enough blood to keep the hungriest vampire satisfied. She wrote a sufficiant number of nurse's notes to carpet an entire football field, and read so many EKGs her eyes came close to being permanently crossed. As a nice, sane break from the drama and fast pace of the intensive care units, Margo went back to college to study history, and fell in love. Writing about the historical characters she encountered in her classes was a good way to unwind from a crazy day in the unit. She soon started making up her own fictional characters and putting them into historical settings.

Since leaving nursing, Margo has published seventeen historical romance novels. Her books have been published in twelve different languages, and even in Japan as manga-animated books.

She is the mother of three grown children and lives with her scientist husband in southern Michigan.

Margo participates in RWA's yearly Literacy Signing, and does local book signings with every new release. She has given talks on writing and research techniques, and is a featured author at The Sisterhood of the Jaunty Quills, a blog for romance authors. She is a regular contributor to the Avon Romance forums and sends out bulletins with Romance Designs and Eye on Romance.

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Question and Answer with Margo Maguire!!

Thank you for inviting me to FullMoonBites, Holly! It's a pleasure to be here.

HP: Can you tell us a little about you book 'The Bride Hunt'? From the description Lady Isabel Louvet and the knight, Anvrai d'Arques, sound like an intriguing pair.
 

Margo: The Bride Hunt was my first release from Avon Books, one of two that are set during the time of William the conqueror. The year is 1072, when the Saxons were getting shoved around pretty badly by the newcomers - the Normans. The Bride Hunt is a Beauty and the Beast story, with Anvrai d'Arques - a battle-scarred knight - going to the rescue of Isabel, who is stolen from her home (along with her handsome would-be fiance, Roger) by marauding Scots. Anvrai gets Isabel and Roger out of several tight spots and Isabel eventually realizes who the Real Man is, in spite of his scars...
 

HP: Can you tell us how you came up with the idea in 'Temptation of the Warrior' to send Merrick Mac Lochlainn forward in time? What was this writing/planing process for this book like?
 

Margo: I'm not sure what made me think of it - it's sort of a "Harry Potter Meets the Lord of the Rings" thing. The two books in this series - A Warrior's Taking and Temptation of the Warrior - are about two sorcer-warrior brothers. Their father - the chieftain of the clan - is killed by an evil sorceress. Brogan (in the first book) and Merrick (in the second) have to zing out into space and time to find two powerful stones - hidden eons before - that will help them defeat the sorceress. When they each arrive to search during the 19th century, they connect with women who help them on their quest.

I had to come up with a world that fit these two heros. My first few ideas for them had to do with early Celtic times and Celtic lore, so that's why I made them the MacLochlainns. Then I thought it would be cool if their race - the sorcerer-warriors - were the ones who had taught the ancient Druids everything they knew. So my characters' race became the Druzai - the precursors to Druids. Except that the Druzai perform real magic. And there are actual mystical creatures they have to deal with. My vision was that their race lives in an enchanted realm that is hidden to ordinary humans.

HP: 'The Bride of Windemere', published in 1999 is your earliest book published. Is this the first book you wrote or just the first you had published?

Margo: The Bride of Windermere was the first book I ever wrote, which I did during the early morning hours after work - I was a critical care nurse and didn't get home until after midnight every night. I started writing in order to unwind after a night of tension in the unit. But my writing didn't just come out of the blue. My mom was an English teacher, and I was always an avid reader, so I had plenty of experience (and instinct) on what made a book readable. But it was a surprise that my first submission sold so quickly. I didn't have an agent, and I had minimal (well, actually zero) knowledge of the publishing industry. 

HP: Your first three books 'The Bride of Windemere', 'Dryden's Bride' and 'Celtic Bride' are all stand alone novels. Was this your first idea for the three books, or did it start out to be a series?

Margo: I had no idea what I was doing - in terms of a writing career - when I first started writing. I'd wanted to write a western for my second book, even though my editor really wanted me to write another Medieval. She liked my Medieval "voice" and wanted me to take the most horribly wounded knight from The Bride of Windermere, and give him his own book. I did that, and it turned into Dryden's Bride. When I started my third book, Celtic Bride, I'd already introduced that hero in Dryden's Bride and come up with a totally different kind of heroine.

Well, maybe not totally different. My second heroine was Welsh, the fictional sister of Owen Tudor (the original Tudor), and my third was an Irish princess. I truly loved writing about the male-female dynamic of Medieval times. It was so different to our modern sensibilities, and yet - some things never change, lol!

HP: You just released 'Seducing the Governess' March of this year. And are said to be releasing the second, 'Brazen', November this year. Can you tell us a little about the two sisters who are the Heroines of the two books?

Margo: I've switched to Regency-era books, but they're still very sensual and have lots of adventure in each. Seducing the Governess is my eighth book for Avon (my eighteenth altogether) and it started as an idea for a series with two sisters who were abandoned by their duke grandfather when they were toddlers. The backstory is that he disowned their mother when she married against his wishes. Now that his son and heir is dead, he is all alone. He wants to reconnect with his granddaughters, so he hires Captain Gavin Briggs to scour England in search of them - and promises Briggs a huge reward to bring them back to him.

In writing the two stories, I wanted the two sisters to have been brought up separately, and in completely different circumstances. The first one - Mercy Franklin in Seducing the Governess - was raised by a strict vicar and his wife. When her parents die, she learns she is not really their daughter, but she also finds herself in need of employment. She becomes governess to the niece of the new Earl of Ashby, a wounded veteran of Waterloo. The estate is a rundown mess and the earl needs to marry money in order to make a go of it, so falling for Mercy is not an option.

The second book is Brazen and will be out at the end of November. This sister is Christina, who was brought up by the Earl of Sunderland and his wife. She is now the widow of a viscount, and is being blackmailed by some nasty character. When Captain Briggs finds her, she blackmails him into helping her find and deal with her blackmailer before she'll go to her supposed grandfather so that he can collect his reward. It's a race to get to London on time and ... let's just say it's a pretty interesting trip for Christina and Captain Briggs.

Margo,

I want to thank you again for being here it is a pleasure to host you on my blog especially since you have offered readers such an awesome giveaway!! 

Details at the bottom!

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Books by Margo Maguire:

Bride of Windermere

Deyden's Bride
Celtic Bride
His Lady Fair
Bride of the Isle
Scoundrel's Daughter
The Virtuous Knight
Not Quite a Lady
Norwyck's Lady
Saxon Lady
The Bride Hunt
The Perfect Seduction
Temptation of the Warrior
A Warrios Taking
Wild
Taken by the Laird
The Rouge Prince
Seducing the Governess
Some of Margo's books are connected indicated my the groupings above.
All books by Margo Maguire can be found at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com

Anthologies
The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance (Mammoth Romances)
Available at Barnes & Noble.com

Coming Soon
Brazen-- Expected publication: December 1st 2011 by Avon

Also find Margo at:
Goodreads
Her Website
Amazon.com
Harpers Bazaar
Sisterhood of the Juanty Quills