Interview with Collette Cameron

Thank you so much for hosting me today!

Tell us about your current series.

With Heartbreak and Honor’s release, I am half way through my six-book Highland Heather Romancing a Scot Series.

The series is a spin-off of my Castle Brides series.

I had so many readers asking for me to write stories for the secondary characters in those three books, I couldn’t refuse them. Besides, I wanted to know what happened to those characters too!

What inspired your latest book?

Heartbreak and Honor is the Duke of Harcourt’s story. I introduced him in my very first book, Highlander’s Hope, and he just kept popping up. I wanted Lucan to have an unconventional wife and, to keep with the series theme of romancing a Scot, she had to be Scottish since he’s English.

I introduced a Highland gypsy in the second book in the series (Virtue and Valor) and I knew she was the perfect heroine for him, especially after she punched Lucan in the eye!

By-the-way, Scottish gypsies are called Black Tinkers or Scottish Highland Travellers, and they aren’t Roma like most gypsies in Europe.

What is your favorite dessert/food?

My favorite food is pasta, especially fettucine Alfredo or spinach tortellini, also dripping with Alfredo sauce.

And dessert? Just one?

I have the most scrumptious recipe for pumpkin dream pie! Yummy!

Do you have a view in your writing space? What does your space look like?

I commandeered my youngest son’s bedroom when he went off to college, not only because I wanted my own writing space, but the view is amazing. It’s an upper-story bedroom that look out onto my ¼ acre back yard, which is also a wildlife habitat.

I have songbirds twelve months out of the year, and because I’m also an avid gardener, I have a spectacular view of my flower beds.

My writing space is a very girly, shabby chic room. Everything in it, except my computer, are finds I repurposed and painted.

I included a picture!

Tell us about your hero. Give us one of his strengths and one of his weaknesses.

Rochester Lucan-Ashford the Duke of Harcourt (Yes, he has a hyphenated first name.) is cocky, confident, has a fabulous sense of humor, and, though he tries to hide it, is a marshmallow inside. He adores his mother and sister, and he has a fear of small spaces.

Tell us about your heroine. Give us one of her strengths and one of her weaknesses.

Ah, Tasara Faas. She’s an enigma.

Raised as a Highland Traveller, she thinks she’s a Scottish gypsy, but later learns she’s a missing heiress, Alexandra Atterberry. The girl knows how to wield a dagger, but is terrified of becoming a duchess. She doesn’t want to learn or abide by society’s rules.

Do you prefer to read in the same genres you write in or do you avoid reading that genre? Why?

I’ve always been a huge fan of historical romances, and they continue to be my genre of choice, though I do venture out occasionally and read other genres too.

When I first started writing, I avoided Regencies for fear other authors’ voice would seep into mine. I don’t worry about that anymore.

My reading time is limited, and therefore highly coveted. I only read books to the end that truly engage and captivate me.

Tell us a little about yourself and your latest book.

In February 2016, I’ll have been writing for five years. It took me 2 ½ years from the time I sat down to write the first word of Highlander’s Hope to have it published. I was still teaching then.

Now I only substitute once in a while, just to force myself out of my writing cave. I could easily become a recluse!

Heartbreak and Honor was a very fun book to write with its Christmastide sub-plot. I loved researching the holiday during the Regency era and was astounded to learn the Scots didn’t celebrate Christmas then.

Do you write under a pen name? Why or why not?

I do write under a pen name, although Collette is my real middle name (to rhyme with my sisters’ Georgette and Minette-Awful, huh?) and Cameron was my maternal grandparents’ surname.

I didn’t think my real name was catchy enough, and as I was still teaching elementary students when I started writing. I didn’t want to worry about parents getting their knickers in a twist if they found out I wrote romance.

I live in a very small community and the word is out now, but I still like the sound of Collette Cameron. I think it’s the alliteration!

Bio:

Bestselling, award-winning Historical Romance Author, Collette Cameron, pens Scottish and Regency Romances featuring rogues, rapscallions, rakes, and the intrepid damsels who reform them. Mother to three and self-proclaimed Cadbury chocoholic, she’s crazy about dachshunds, cobalt blue, and makes her home in Oregon with her husband and five mini-dachshunds. You’ll always find animals, quirky—sometimes naughty—humor, and a dash of inspiration in her novels.

Her award-winning Castle Brides Series, Highland Heather Romancing a Scot Series, and Conundrums of the Misses Culpeppers Series, as well as her other books, are all available on Amazon and other major retailers.

Heartbreak and Honor

Highland Heather Romancing a Scot Series, Book 3

Abducted by a band of renegade Scots, Highland gypsy Tasara Faas blackens her rescuer’s eye when the charming duke attempts to steal a kiss. Afterward, Tasara learns she’s the long-lost heiress Alexandra Atterberry and is expected to take her place among the elite society she’s always disdained.

Lucan, the Duke of Harcourt, promised his gravely ill mother he’d procure a wife by Christmastide, but intrigued by the feisty lass he saved in Scotland, he finds the haut ton ladies lacking. Spying Alexa at a London ball, he impulsively decides to make the knife-wielding gypsy his bride despite her aversion to him and her determination to return to the Highlands.

The adversary responsible for Alexa’s disappearance as a toddler still covets her fortune and joins forces with Harcourt’s arch nemesis. Amidst a series of suspicious misfortunes, Lucan endeavors to win Alexa’s love and expose the conspirators but only succeeds in reaffirming Alexa’s belief that she is inadequate to become his duchess.

Excerpt:

“Miss Atterberry, you’ve drawn the attention of several theater-goers.” Smiling and occasionally waving, the dowager inclined her neatly coiffed silver head toward the other stalls. The turquoise ostrich feather atop her head dipped and bobbed with her exaggerated movements, as did her spectacular diamond earrings.

“Those Hinton windbags are sharing that cow Clutterbuck’s box.” She inclined her head and gave a little finger wave their way. “Yes, I’m talking about you, too, you pernicious chinwags.”

Suppressing a giggle, Alexa set the opera glasses to her eyes and instantly regretted the impulse when she encountered a myriad of attendees pointing their attention in the direction of Lucan’s box.

Mr. Morton waved exuberantly, earning him a glower and the smack of her fan from the lady beside him.

Lucan edged closer to Alexa and lifted her hand. He kissed the back for a lingering moment. Given the surge in whispers nippily following his kiss, several sets of theater glasses likely dipped to focus upon their hands.

“Please, please, marry me, Kitten,” Lucan whispered in her ear.

Alexa swung round to admonish him, but her mouth dropped open at the heat radiating from his granite eyes.

If I were tinder, I’d burst into flames.

The scorching temperature permeating her was hot enough to incinerate. She flipped her fan open. Heaven above, what this man did to her . . .

What she’d like him to do to her.

He lowered his lashes partway, a seductive smile teasing one side of his too-tempting mouth, the blasted dimple in his cheek mesmerizing her. “Smile and nod, then give me a look of besotted adoration. You may flutter your eyelashes and giggle to make your infatuation more believable if you wish.”

“Foolish man, I’ll do no such thing.” Alexa chuckled, the tension easing from her.

“Then say yes to my suit.”

“No.” She released another tense laugh. “Have you always been this obstinate or do you not understand the word?”

Hadn’t she thought the same thing about him when they’d first met? Only now, she found his pigheadedness charming and amusing.

He winked and set her hand upon his sculpted thigh, holding it there by placing his hand atop hers. “My ploy worked, didn’t it? Aren’t you more relaxed now?”

“Uh hum.” She was.

The dowager nudged Alexa with her fan.

“Yes, my lady?”

Alexa tried to ease her hand free, but Lucan firmly pressed her palm into his leg, giving a brief squeeze and another wicked flash of white teeth.

At this rate, she might be the one to ravish him. She clenched her teeth against the desire to trail her fingertips along the muscle.

Surveying the audience, he patted her hand as if he knew perfectly well how he affected her.

Probably did.

The earlier cacophony filling the auditorium filtered to a muted buzz as the lighting dimmed in preparation for the performance.

Dowager Lady Middleton all but bellowed into the stillness, “Tell me, my dear, why on earth did you refuse my nephew’s proposals?”

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