N. N. Light’s Book Heaven is celebrating its tenth anniversary. Isn’t that wonderful?
I’d like to introduce prolific author Regina Jeffers.
Question 1: Where were you ten years ago in relation to your author/writer career? If you weren’t writing, what were you doing?
I was writing for Ulysses Press in 2009. After 40 years, I had retired from teaching in 2008 and could write for them full time. I continued to do so through 2013, when they made the business decision no longer to publish fiction. As I had had my fill of research style writing through college and my teaching years, I did not want to pursue those opportunities, so we parted ways. I wrote 8 novels for them in those 4 years, along with contributing to two anthologies. Ulysses was an excellent company with which to align in necessary book promotions (various state book festivals and even a program at the Smithsonian, as well as entering my books in multiple contests, where they placed and won a number of awards).
Later, I joined Black Opal Press, but their business model could not be sustained once the original owners sold it.
In between, those years, I did a lot of self-publishing, especially my Jane Austen-inspired titles. You see, the reason Ulysses and Sourcebooks and several other publishers came looking for Austen-style writers is a movie called Twilight, which is Pride and Prejudice retold. [In case you are now wondering what I meant by this statement, Twilight takes its inspiration from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice; New Moon has its roots in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet; Eclipse was influenced by Charlotte Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, and Breaking Dawn is a mixture of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Did you not hear Shylock in the last movie? I did.] Many of us were commissioned to write vampiric versions of Pride and Prejudice in those early “Twilight” years. You should have heard of the fuss I made when they called to say I was to write a vampire story.
Nowadays, in addition to self publishing some titles, I write for Dreamstone Publishing in Australia, and I have recently signed a contract for a 5-books’ historical romance/mystery series arriving soon from Dragonblade Publishers. Each book is a mystery/romantic suspense, with an overlying mystery incasing the series. The first book Lyon in the Way is to arrive June 18, 2025, with the others coming in quick succession in three months’ intervals. Those of you familiar with Dragonblade’s Lyon’s Den World books will be excited for a few more. Those of you not familiar should take a look.
Question 2: Looking back on the past ten years, how has your writing grown?
I am quite consumed by my writing of late. For one thing, I am significantly older and not so adventurous as I once was, meaning I live alone and write. I do not wish for that to sound of a “pity party.” As crazy as the world is these days, it is quite wonderful to visit with old friends and make new ones, in the form of my stories.
My production has grown significantly in the last ten years. I can often be found writing more than one book at a time. My plots are more complex, meaning I have learned to add more layers to my stories. I am also so much more knowledgeable regarding the historical period in which I write. I have made it my business to learn as much as I could of the Regency era. What I know about inheritance laws would amaze many. Even so, you should have seen me scrambling recently when it dawned on me that I had written an Italian count for book 2 of the Dragonblade series. I thought myself so savvy, after all, in my lifetime, I have married two different Italians. Only after I had written the Italian count did I recall there was no Italy, as we consider it, during the Regency era. The Italian Peninsula was divided up into more than a dozen duchies, Kingdoms and Papal lands, not counting the Austrian holdings. There was no Italian language. A man from Milan would not be able to understand someone from Naples. Those are the type of details which consume many of my days, though I am not complaining. I love writing and slipping into another world and time.
Question 3: What are you doing now? How many books have you published?
I am very rarely not writing, though I had three cancer surgeries between late October and mid December 2024, which, quite literally, took the steam out of me for several months. I am just now returning to a bit of normalcy, though I do not think my days are “normal” in any sense of the word, but they are how I have outlined this cycle of my life.
I customarily only write Regency era based books.To date, I have written and published 64 Regency-based novels (31 are Austen pastiche novels and 33 are pure Regency), 2 short stories (one of each) and two contemporary novels (one of each). I have completed (and are waiting for publication) two Regencies and one Austen based book, as well as three of the five books for Dragonblade. That means 72 works completed. I seriously require a life! I had only written 25 novels by 2015.
Giveaway -
In celebration of our 10th anniversary, the authors have each donated a prize (sixty in total) and they range from free books to swag to gift cards.
Open internationally but some prizes are only open to US residents
Runs March 1 - 31, 2025
Winner will be drawn on April 1, 2025
Author Biography:
Regina Jeffers, an award-winning author of historical cozy mysteries, Austenesque sequels and retellings, as well as Regency era romances, has worn many hats over her lifetime: daughter, student, military brat, wife, mother, grandmother, teacher, tax preparer, journalist, choreographer, Broadway dancer, theatre director, history buff, grant writer, media literacy consultant, and author. Living outside of Charlotte, NC, Jeffers writes novels that take the ordinary and adds a bit of mayhem, while mastering tension in her own life with a bit of gardening and the exuberance of her “grand joys.”
Where can readers follow you:
Every Woman Dreams (Blog) https://reginajeffers.wordpress.com
Always Austen (Group Blog) https://alwaysausten.com/
Amazon Author Page https://www.amazon.com/Regina-Jeffers/e/B008G0UI0I/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1479079637&sr=8-1
Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/jeffers0306/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/darcy4ever/
You Tube Interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzgjdUigkkU