RERUN: Trailblazer Loretta Chase

Summary

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Fated Mates RERUN: Trailblazer Loretta Chase (June 1, 2026)

Episode Overview

In this Trailblazer episode, hosts Sarah MacLean and Jennifer Prokop sit down with celebrated historical romance author Loretta Chase for a deep, engaging conversation about her career, craft, and contributions to the romance genre. Chase discusses her unconventional entry into romance writing, her research-obsessive process, the creation and legacy of her iconic novel Lord of Scoundrels, and her experiences with inspiration, writer’s block, and community within romance publishing. The episode is rich with craft insights and is both a love letter to historical romance and a candid reflection on the writer’s life.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Loretta Chase’s Path to Romance (04:44–08:26)

• Nontraditional Entry: Loretta was not initially a romance reader nor writer, influenced by academic disdain for the genre. “My mind was poisoned by my English professors, so I thought very scornfully of romance.” (05:00)
• Turning Point: A conversation with her husband prompted her to rethink her writing and seek the structure offered by genre fiction.
  • “I realized all I needed was structure…genre fiction does that.” (05:53)
  • Romance’s classic message— “Love conquers all”—appealed as a righting of wrongs found in classic literature, especially the negative fates for women who pursue desire.
• Desire to Rewrite Classic Narratives: Inspired by characters like Lady Dedlock in Bleak House and Anna Karenina, Loretta wanted to create stories where women “who had a child out of wedlock... [could] have a happy ending.” (07:37)

2. Research and Developing Her Voice (08:26–10:53)

• Academic Approach: Loretta approached her genre “the way I would have approached a project in an English class,” reading hundreds of romances to find her fit. (08:26)
• Discovering Traditional Regency: Drawn to witty banter, manageable book lengths, and the Regency period, she began writing traditional/regency romances, first with Walker and Company targeting libraries, then Avon for single title historicals. (09:48–10:20)

3. Editorial Relationships and The 1990s Historical Boom (10:53–17:46)

• Editor Ellen Edwards: Loretta describes Ellen as “amazing...so perceptive...a fabulous editor” who nudged her towards historicals, recommending authors like Laura Kinsale. (11:15–12:04)
• The 1990s Shift: The early 1990s saw a sea change in historical romance, with longer books, more sex, and stronger heroines. Amanda Quick (Jayne Ann Krentz) is credited for influencing a more contemporary romance sensibility in historicals.
• New Heroines, New Rules: Quick's books “were more clearly feminist and more clearly aware of differences in communication between women and men.” (17:09)

4. Creation and Legacy of Lord of Scoundrels (21:33–30:47)

• A Magical Process: Loretta describes the writing of Lord of Scoundrels as mystical:
  • “It was in me. I did not have to find it…It just wrote itself. It was like a movie, and all I had to do was write it.” (21:33, 22:21–22:44)
• On Writing Trauma: The depth of hero Dain’s trauma came from empathy and lived observation, not formal trauma research.
  • • “It’s an empathetic thing…trying to imagine what kind of torturous childhood would make a person just shut everything off.”* (24:40)
• Slow Burn to Classic: Despite its now-iconic status, Lord of Scoundrels did not initially break out—
  • “That book took, like, 12 years to earn out its advance.” (27:36)
  • Its success was largely word of mouth and the cumulative “keeper shelf” effect.
• On Jessica Trent: The heroine is praised for her enduring modernity and relevance.
  • “If Jessica walked off the page…she remains as relevant, as amazing, as aspirational as any heroine ever.” —Sarah (30:29)

5. Research and Worldbuilding (31:34–36:22)

• Obsessive Research: “We really have to understand it. We have to be able to visualize, we have to feel like we’re there in order to make the reader feel as though she's there.” (33:32)
• Inspiration from Unexpected Places:
  • “The Mummy absolutely inspired [Mr. Impossible].” (32:20)
  • Loretta owns some 50+ books on Egypt for a single novel.
• Research Process Evolves: She increasingly prefers to immerse herself in primary materials (like historical newspapers) before writing, but much research happens in parallel with drafting.

6. Writer’s Block, Career Ebbs, and Intuitive Writing (36:31–43:34)

• Personal Loss and Block: Following her father’s death, grief led to severe writer’s block; she walked away from novels for years.
  • Later, breast cancer also interrupted her career. Life’s upheavals, she notes, have marked her creative output and business decisions.
• Intuitive Process:
  • “Just start doing the work… sometimes I’ve been able to write a nice long outline…and other times I just have to do it by the seat of my pants because that’s the way the book wants to be written.” (39:49–40:02, 40:50)
• Character-First Storytelling: The plot arises from who the characters are, not the reverse.

7. Reader Impact and the Value of Escapism (44:07–46:10)

• Romance as Sanctuary:
  • “When we write romances, we’re giving [readers] a place to be where…things are okay. You know it’s going to come out right in the end…escapism, and I feel like they should be.” (44:31–46:03)
• Reader Letters: Particularly during Covid, readers shared how Loretta’s books helped them through illness, grief, and difficult times:
  • “I’ve had messages that just made me cry.” (45:42)

8. The Romance Tribe: Community and Changes in Publishing (46:39–56:29)

• Tribal Connection: Loretta found profound camaraderie with other romance authors, especially with Susan Holloway Scott—a “tribe” bonded by feminism, shared struggles, and creative passion.
• Loss of Community: She misses in-person conferences post-pandemic and acknowledges the void left by the breakdown of organizations like RWA.
• Diversity and Genre Evolution:
  • “Now we have books that have different cultural slants, and we have books that are dealing with different kinds of sexuality…those things are great that we have evolved to that point.” (55:04)

9. Loretta Chase's Hallmarks & the Future of Historical Romance (57:01–56:33)

• Hallmarks of her Books:
  • “My heroines were going to be strong. They were not going to be victims. I was never going to write down to my readers...and try to create a historical world as close to accurate as I can, but…without violating the trust my readers have that I’m going to keep them in a safe place.” (51:09)
• Historical Romance Endures:
  • Despite perennial claims that “historical romance is dead,” Loretta believes the desire for “time travel” and escape into the past will persist.

10. Writing Through Difficulty: Advice on Writer’s Block (58:46–63:46)

• On Her Latest Book: She’s struggled with a persistent block in recent years, compounded by “a political situation… and then…comes COVID.” (58:35)
• Advice for Blocked Writers:
  • “Just keep writing. Because I’m a writer. Even if it’s crap, it’s something, and you never know what’s going to come out of it.” (63:46)
  • The process of trial and patience has helped her slowly “emerge from the writer’s block.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Her Inspiration for Lord of Scoundrels:
  • “The main thing about that book was that it was in me. I did not have to find it. It was there and it was demanding to be written.” —Loretta Chase (01:17, repeated at 21:33)
• On the Value of Escapism:
  • “The more difficult the world around you is, the more important it is to have this place. And I’m all for escapism, and I’m never going to hesitate to say that my books are escapist, because they are, and I feel like they should be.” —Loretta Chase (45:42)
• On Research:
  • “We really have to understand it…to make the reader feel as though she's there.” —Loretta Chase (33:32)
• On Heroines:
  • “The one thing that was very, very clear in my mind was that my heroines were going to be strong. They were not going to be victims.” —Loretta Chase (51:09)
• On Not Writing Down to Readers:
  • “I was never going to write down to my readers. I was always going to assume everyone was smarter than I was.” —Loretta Chase (51:14)
• On the Enduring Appeal of Historical Romance:
  • “People have always read historical books for hundreds of years. They don’t always read books that are set in their own time period. So I think that’s a continuing interest…” —Loretta Chase (54:15)
• On Overcoming Writer’s Block:
  • “Just keep writing. Because I’m a writer. Even if it’s crap, it’s something, and you never know what’s going to come out of it.” —Loretta Chase (63:46)
• On The Mummy’s Influence:
  • “The Mummy absolutely inspired that book.” —Loretta Chase on Mr. Impossible (32:20)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 04:44 — How Loretta came to romance writing
• 08:26 — Researching romance as a genre and her early novels
• 10:53 — Relationship with editor Ellen Edwards
• 13:26 — The historical romance “sea change” of the early 1990s and Amanda Quick’s impact
• 21:33 — The creation and writing process of Lord of Scoundrels
• 27:36 — The slow build of Lord of Scoundrels’ reputation and success
• 31:34 — Researching historicals: from ballrooms to Egypt in Mr. Impossible
• 36:31 — Dealing with writer’s block and editorial shifts
• 39:49 — On intuitive vs. planned writing processes
• 44:07 — Messages from readers and the power of escapism
• 46:39 — Community, writer friendships, and the loss of in-person networking
• 51:09 — The hallmarks of a Loretta Chase novel
• 54:15 — The lasting appeal and evolution of historical romance
• 57:01 — On the books readers love most and her own favorites
• 58:46 — The challenges of finishing new work in difficult times and advice on overcoming block

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Summary & Takeaways

This episode is a masterclass in the craft, history, and emotional resonance of romance writing. Loretta Chase’s journey is marked by a deep commitment to characterization, historical authenticity, and uplifting, intelligent heroines. She offers an unflinchingly honest look at the challenges of the writing life—grief, block, and shifting markets—and a celebration of the genre’s power to console, connect, and transform. The enduring legacy of Lord of Scoundrels is explored both as a product of creative magic and as a testament to the slow, steady force of reader love.

Final Thoughts:
If you love deeper conversations about story, process, and the power of books to change lives, this episode is essential listening (or, thanks to this summary, reading). Loretta Chase’s humility, humor, and wisdom shine as brightly as her heroines.

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Transcript

[Loretta Chase]

Hi, this is Eric. I produce the show.

[Jennifer Prokop]

This week, like last week, we will be re releasing one of our Trailblazer episodes from the archives to call attention to the historical Trailblazers Kickstarter that we

[Loretta Chase]

are working on with Adriana Herrera and

[Jennifer Prokop]

Ali Hazelwood to bring you really stunning editions of romances by Beverly Jenkins, Jeannie Lynn, K.J. charles, Lisa Claypas and Loretta Chase. The Kickstarter has six days to go. It ends on June 2nd. You really ought to take a look over at the Kickstarter page to see the wide range of things that are available here. The different books, the audiobooks, which are very impressive. Go over, take a look, see if you're interested in buying one of these gorgeous things that gives these brilliant books the love and attention they deserve in the year 2026. That's it from me. Stay tuned for the Trailblazer episode.

[Loretta Chase]

The main thing about that book was that it was in me. I did not have to find it. It was there and it was demanding to be written. The characters were in my mind very clearly from the beginning and that never happens. I'm always struggling, I'm always fumbling. It takes me a while to get to know who they are and what do they want and what's the goal, et cetera, et cetera. In this case, it was all very clear to me. I saw this. The main thing I saw in the beginning was this child who had had this horrible, horrible childhood, badly traumatized that turned him into this person who's sort of monstrous. And I thought, how do you, what do you do for this person? Or what, what's needed here for some kind of a balance? And the heroine was there instantly. It was like, okay, she's someone who just gets it. She gets the thinking, she gets the guy thinking. She gets whatever it is. And how is. Why is she that way? Because she grew up with boys all the time and she's just smart and paying attention. So I needed someone who could see through him. And it, she, Jessica, just came to my mind, as you know, so. So they really formed in themselves on the stage. And the rest of it, the rest of that book, I know it sounds mystical and it's like writers shouldn't wait for this to happen because it doesn't usually, but it just wrote itself. It was like a movie and all I had to do was write it.

[Sarah Maclean]

That was the voice of Loretta Chase, author of Regency Romances, Single Title Historical Romances. And as everyone knows, Lord of Scoundrels. This is Fate of Mates. I'm Sarah Maclean. I read romance novels, and I write them.

[Jennifer Prokop]

And I'm Jennifer Prokop, a romance reader and editor. You are about to hear our trailblazer episode with Loretta, where she talks about her how she came to writing romance, her research process, and why she believes in historical research and folding it so well into her books and her life and romance and how it is that

[Sarah Maclean]

Lord of Scoundrels came to be. Without further ado, let's get into it.

[Jennifer Prokop]

I am here we are with Loretta Chase.

[Sarah Maclean]

I don't.

[Loretta Chase]

I'm just gonna make words now.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Just.

[Sarah Maclean]

They're gonna flow out of me, like,

[Jennifer Prokop]

in a rush because I'm so overwh.

[Sarah Maclean]

Loretta, we are so thrilled to have you.

[Loretta Chase]

Oh, thank you for having me.

[Sarah Maclean]

It's a delight. I don't know that you know this, but we are avowed Loretta Chase fans

[Jennifer Prokop]

here at the podcast.

[Sarah Maclean]

We reference your characters all the time.

[Loretta Chase]

Oh, thank you.

[Sarah Maclean]

And, of course, we've talked a lot about Lord of Scoundrels, so I'm sure we'll get into that as well. But in general, I'm just so thrilled to have you here.

[Loretta Chase]

Thank you. I feel honored to be here because I know about your podcast, and I think it's just very cool.

[Sarah Maclean]

Thank you. So we start all of these conversations the same way, and that is to say, how did you come to this genre?

[Loretta Chase]

I came in a very weird way because I was never a romance writer, a romance reader. My mind was poisoned by my English professors, so I thought very scornfully of romance. And the way I came to it was after I had been writing professionally, and, you know, my husband said to me, do you want to write video scripts for the rest of your life? What do you really want to do? And eventually, after much weeping, I admitted that I wanted to write a novel, but I had never been able to. I would write and write and write, and it just went on forever. And it didn't have a story, and it didn't make any sense. And I realized just in that conversation, I made the connection with what I was doing in video and what could be done in a novel. And I realized all I needed was structure. So when you're writing scripts for video, you have a specific structure. You have a message that you want to get across. And I would always ask, ask the clients, what's the message? Can you tell me in one sentence what you want the audience to come away with? And I realized the genre fiction does that.

[Jennifer Prokop]

It sure does.

[Sarah Maclean]

Bless.

[Loretta Chase]

Yes. So I'm looking at mystery. I'm looking at Science fiction. I'm looking at various genres, and I realized. But it was like, oh, wait a minute, love stories. That's the part of the books that I really like, and maybe that's where I should be working. And, yeah, love conquers all. Yes, please. Because it doesn't. In so many of the classic novels, the women are victimized. They die if they have sex. And so I thought, oh, well, this is a great way to correct that. And. And I have a structure. I have a structure. I have something unlike, which is a love story. And that gave me my start, and it worked nicely.

[Sarah Maclean]

When you talk about the books that are the parts of the books that you always loved, the love story, what were you reading before romance or before you came to the genre?

[Loretta Chase]

Well, a good. A good example would be, like, Charles Dickens, Plecos. All right, so there's Lady Deadlock, and she's had an illegitimate child, and there's, like, no forgiveness for her, right? She has to. She has to die. Anna Karenina, you know, she has an affair, she has to die. They. Women who follow their sexual inclinations or fall in love outside of the norms of the time, they're punished. And I wanted to rewrite those stories. So I actually, I did that with one of mine, not quite a lady. I took Lady Deadlock story and as a starting point and said, okay, here's a person who had a child out of wedlock. It was kept a big secret, but her, she's going to have a happy ending.

[Jennifer Prokop]

So at some point, did you kind of read romance as, like, research, or did you just like, okay, so I mean, once you decided, wait, I might want to write this, did that happen concurrently, or did you stop and think, okay, I'm going to give myself permission to read these books now?

[Loretta Chase]

It was. I approached it the way I would have approached a project in an English class. I started doing the research, do the reading.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Loretta.

[Loretta Chase]

Yes, exactly. So I read maybe hundreds of romances because I was also looking to find where would my. Where would I sit? So I. At that time, you know, there was, like, Kathleen Woodworth and Joanna Lindsay, and they wrote those big sprawling romances. And I didn't think that was me. And then I encountered their traditional regencies, and I thought, oh, this is perfect. This is a time period I'm very interested in. I love the witty banter. And it was like, sort of there were smaller books, so I felt like I could handle that for my first thing. So that was how I ended up there. But there was a lot of research before I actually started trying to write a book.

[Sarah Maclean]

Your first books are traditional regencies, and they're category regencies.

[Loretta Chase]

Right, right. I wrote for Walker and Company.

[Sarah Maclean]

Now, wait, that's a name? We haven't. I know.

[Jennifer Prokop]

I don't think we've ever talked about that.

[Sarah Maclean]

What is that?

[Loretta Chase]

Wow. It was when I was started writing. There were so many places that were publishing regencies. There were so many lines. I made a big list, and I went with Walker because they published hardcover, and I thought that was cool, but I was not expecting to be accepted. I just. That was my thing, and they accepted the book.

[Jennifer Prokop]

So this is Isabella.

[Loretta Chase]

Yes, yes. And. And then I later discovered it's. It was primarily they were publishing for libraries.

[Sarah Maclean]

Ah.

[Loretta Chase]

And. And that worked out fine because my agent ended up selling the paperback rights to Avon. And it was through Avon that I met my editor, Ellen Edwards. And she was the person who got me to write historical romance longer books.

[Sarah Maclean]

So you did a few. How many books did you do with Walker?

[Loretta Chase]

Six.

[Sarah Maclean]

Okay. Walker was publishing the hardcovers, and Avon

[Loretta Chase]

was publishing the paperbacks, mostly, except for one book. I think Fawcett published one book. The rest of them were Avon.

[Sarah Maclean]

And Ellen was always your editor at Avon.

[Loretta Chase]

Yes. Yes.

[Sarah Maclean]

And now talk. So obviously, Ellen Edwards is a name that we have talked about before and heard many people talk about. Can you give us a sense of. Of what that experience, what that editorial relationship was like with Ellen? Because it does feel like she had a really special eye.

[Loretta Chase]

Oh, my gosh. She was amazing. I just. I loved her so much. She would write, like, a little note, like, three words in the margins, and a whole idea would open up for me and. Or I would see how I had gone astray. But she wouldn't say, you've gone astray. She would just ask a little question. Yeah. And she was so perceptive. She was. When she invited me to write Historical Romance, I said, I don't think I can do that. I don't think I can write those big books. And she said, it's just like what you're doing, only bigger. And then she said, read Laura Kinsale.

[Sarah Maclean]

Oh, sure. Perfect. A perfect beginning for you. Yeah.

[Loretta Chase]

Yes. So she knew that I would connect with what Laura Kinsale was writing. And she was absolutely right. She was just so insightful. I can't say enough about her. I think she was a fabulous editor.

[Sarah Maclean]

So you're reading. So you move from Walker over to Avon for single titles, and that's about. That's the early 90s.

[Loretta Chase]

Yes.

[Sarah Maclean]

Yeah. And that's Sort of what we always clock here as the heyday of. There was a really. Or maybe not the heyday, but there was a really remarkable sea change in historical right then in the early 90s. And it was led largely by, it seems like, Ellen there. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what was going on during that time period. Did it feel like readers were just, you know, drawn to historicals? And now we look back and we say, okay, well, Ellen had, you know, she'd acquired you, and, you know, you put out Lord of Scoundrels, which we'll get to. And then, you know, she acquired Beverly Jenkins, who was, you know, doing what Bev does over there, and Lisa Klepus, you know, books from the early 90s really were changing the game. And was there something. Was there something in the water?

[Loretta Chase]

I'm not sure, but, you know, there was something else. I mean, Avon wasn't the only place. This is the interesting thing. A lot of the friends that I made early on were writing regencies for Signet. Yeah. And then Signet started doing what they were calling super regencies. So it was like the traditional Regency, but a bigger story, more sex. And that's a lot similar to what was going on at Avon, although Avons weren't quite so much in that Regency, not precisely in that Regency mode. So there was definitely something going on in other places. It was just across the board. Yes. Yes. And that Regency sensibility, I think, was, for some reason, you know, it ebbs and flows. I've been around for so long because I'm so ancient, that I see, you know, these ebbs and flows. Flows of what people are reading and what they're not reading. So I really can't account for it. It's hard to account for what happens with tastes. Yeah. And I'm not that analytical to begin with. I just. I write what I write and cross my fingers.

[Jennifer Prokop]

It's okay if you had six books before it. Oh, my God, I've already spaced on the name of that walker.

[Loretta Chase]

Yes.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Does that mean Lord of Scoundrels was the first Avon book? I'm sort of looking at, like, fiction, DB but it.

[Sarah Maclean]

No, it was the Lion's Daughter.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Right.

[Loretta Chase]

The Lion's Daughter and then Captives of the Night, and then. Okay, I. And I've. I've always forgotten to tell this story about that transition. But right around the time, I think, when I had written Captives of the Night, Jane Ann Krentz started writing as Amanda Quick. Yep.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Yep.

[Loretta Chase]

And I think she sort of triggered a Sea change in the way we were approaching historical romances, because she came with that contemporary romance sensibility and she was writing romantic suspense. And when she turned to writing these kind. These historical, sort of Regency Victorian set, they had that feel to them, and they weren't quite the sprawling books that we were working on at that time. And I'm sure that fed into my thinking when I was writing Lord of Scoundrels, because it's quite a different book from Captives of the Night and the Lion's Daughter. And I think that's part of it, was that influence of, wow, this is another way to do this. And they're things that you absorb by osmosis. And it was only. I mean, actually, really, the other day when I was thinking about that, that I remembered about Janie Krentz and that Amanda Quick thing and how that seemed to have changed things.

[Jennifer Prokop]

I vividly remember as a reader reading Amanda Quick and feeling like this was different. I could tell it was different. Right.

[Loretta Chase]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Prokop]

And I just was so drawn to those books. And it's not that I didn't love. I, of course, loved. Loved it. All right. But I vividly remember really feeling like everything about those books was different. And so it doesn't surprise me to know that, like, that was apparent to the authors at the time as well. New rules, almost. Right.

[Loretta Chase]

For what could be done. Yes.

[Sarah Maclean]

It felt like heroines, especially, were shifting at the time. Like, Amanda Quick brought a very different kind of heroine to the Regency.

[Loretta Chase]

Yes, absolutely. And it was more clearly feminist and more clearly aware of differences in communication between women and men and addressed some really interesting aspects of male. Female relationships that I did not feel as though we had, or I was dealing with anyway, in my earlier books, necessarily. And then I. I started reading some other things. One of the books that was very influential was, you Just don't Understand.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Oh, yeah, I remember that.

[Loretta Chase]

Sure.

[Sarah Maclean]

I don't. I don't remember that.

[Jennifer Prokop]

This was a. It was like a pop culture kind

[Sarah Maclean]

of psychology, women and men and women

[Jennifer Prokop]

about women and men in conversation. And it was like the first time I was ever. And this was when I was in college, like. Right. Like I was in College from 1991 to 1995. And it was like this take I remember about, like. Like topping people. Like, Right. Like when you're talking and someone comes along and just talks over you, which I feel like I'm kind of doing now. Sorry, everybody. And it was really like a. And like a real take at, like, this is how people communicate differently based on how essentially they were raised in their, in their gender identity.

[Loretta Chase]

So that was, that was very enlightening. And then that also led to my having conversations with my husband about that, about communication styles. So I think that also influenced the way I dealt with the relationships in my stories.

[Jennifer Prokop]

This week's episode of Fated Mates is sponsored by Desiree Nicoli, author of the Haven Cove duology, Called to the Deep, Book one and the Song of Lorelei, Book two.

[Sarah Maclean]

Jen, did you know that in many circles it is not in fact the month of May, it's the month of Mermay.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Amazing. I feel better for knowing this.

[Sarah Maclean]

Listen, if you're out there and you're enjoying all the drawings of mermaids that are being posted on social media and all the talk about mermaids that's happening, and you're just cannot wait for this new live action Disney movie, we have the series for you. This one is pretty delicious. And I use that word intentionally because it features Killian Quinn, the captain of an offshore fishing boat that receives a description that receives a distress call from a sailing ship in a terrible storm early in the book. In the duology, he and his crew head out, they make a big save. They save the crew and a woman who does not know who she is and has no knowledge of how she got on the boat. Turns out this is Lorelai Roth, who is not just a normal woman, she is actually a mermaid. And in the world building of this series, mermaids eat people.

[Jennifer Prokop]

I'm not even mad about it.

[Sarah Maclean]

Listen, at one point in the blurb it says the handsome captain begins to look like a tasty snack in more ways than one.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Perfect.

[Loretta Chase]

No notes.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Are they going to get together?

[Sarah Maclean]

What happens when he finds out she's a flesh eating mermaid? Does she eat him? And like not. I mean, I'm sure, sure we all

[Jennifer Prokop]

know what you're about to say. Here's the thing, everybody in. In celebration of Mermay, you can get both books in the Haven cove duology between May 15 and May 22 for only 99 cents wherever you buy your ebooks. It's also available in print. Thanks to Desiree for sponsoring this week's episode.

[Sarah Maclean]

And Happy Mermaid to all who celebrate. So Ellen brings you over to do these kind of single titles for his for Avon. You write two and then you write Lord of Scoundrels. And let's get into it. I mean, because, right, we have to tell us about the writing of it, you know, the conception of it. And then because you say, well, they weren't like these big sprawling books from before But Lord of Scoundrels is a epic story. I mean, it covers a lot of ground. So I wonder if you could talk a little bit about, you know, how you. How it came to be.

[Loretta Chase]

Okay. I had to make myself some notes about this because. Yeah, well, yes. Long time ago. And I write intuitively, so I'm not quite sure what I'm doing most of the time. There were some things that fed into that, but the main thing about that book was that it was in me. I did not have to find it. It was there and it was demanding to be written. The characters were in my mind very clearly from the beginning, and that never happens. I'm always struggling, I'm always fumbling. It takes me a while to get to know who they are and what do they want and what's the goal, etc.

[Sarah Maclean]

Etc.

[Loretta Chase]

In this case, it was all very clear to me. I saw this. The main thing I saw in the beginning was this child who had had this horrible, horrible, horrible childhood, badly traumatized, that turned him into this person who's sort of monstrous. And I thought, how do you. What do you do for this person? Or what. What's needed here for some kind of a balance? And the. The heroine was there instantly. It was like, okay, she's someone who just gets it. She gets the thinking. She gets the guy thinking. She gets whatever it is. And how is. Why is she that way? Because she grew up with boys all the time and she's just smart and paying attention. So I needed someone who could see through him. And it. She. Jessica just came to my mind as so. So they really formed themselves on the stage. And the rest of it, the rest of that book, I know it sounds mystical and it's like, writers shouldn't wait for this to happen because it doesn't usually. But it just wrote itself. It was like a movie, and all I had to do was write it.

[Sarah Maclean]

And that's how it feels. I mean, it feels.

[Jennifer Prokop]

It is how it feels reading.

[Sarah Maclean]

When you read it, you just feel like it. It's just perfection.

[Loretta Chase]

Thank you. But I consider it a gift. I got a gift from the writing gods. What's that book

[Jennifer Prokop]

you were talking about, like, Dane's like, Trauma. Right, right. So what's interesting to me about that is I think a lot of people kind of, I don't know, like, write about trauma without, like, doing a lot of research on trauma. And at one point I was talking. We have a friend who is like an expert on trauma, and she was like, this book does it so perfectly. And so, I mean, was that part also intuitive or was that something where you really did think, like, how can I write about his trauma? I mean, I don't know, like, maybe it all was mystical, but it's hard, I think, to write about traumatized characters without feeling like you're taking advantage of traumatized people. I don't know if that makes sense.

[Loretta Chase]

It's an empathetic thing. And it's also, if you look back at your own own childhood and the way children treat one another, that wasn't so hard for me. I knew quite a bit. I had done quite a bit of research, so I understood about the bullying at Eton. And it wasn't that hard to imagine a child who's been rejected by his family and has dealt with abandonment. I think it was just. I don't know, this is something that writers do. You put yourself, try to put yourself in the other person's shoes, or you think back to your own childhood and maybe your friends, what happened to them, or things you saw in the playground. You're drawing on all of that. So it wasn't like. It wasn't as though I studied trauma. I was just imagining, trying to imagine what kind of torturous childhood would make a person just shut everything off.

[Sarah Maclean]

So obviously this book struck a chord across romance. I mean, it is a book that was talked about then. It is. It continues to be talked about. It is on every list, every, you know, every. It is a book that is held up by so many of us, including us, as the best of it, the best of the genre. And I wonder if you could speak to the reception at the time. And it sounds like it was electric for you in the writing, but what happened after.

[Loretta Chase]

Well, that's so. That's what's so funny. It's like when I wrote it, I felt. And I said this to Ellen, I said, I think this is a pretty strong book.

[Sarah Maclean]

Sure, that sounds exactly right. I mean, writers are always like, I think it's okay.

[Loretta Chase]

Yeah. And the thing about Ellen. Oh, God, I loved her so much. She's. She used to write like 40 page notes on your books, which no one has time to do anymore.

[Sarah Maclean]

Whoa.

[Loretta Chase]

But they were so wonderful. They were so wonderful. Well, she had like two little notes on this book. That was it for Ellen. That was. That never happened. That never happened. So. So I felt like, okay, this book really holds together. So that was. That was great. But, you know, in terms of reception, it got. They sent it out for blurbs and I got really nice blurbs from various Writers. But the book didn't, like, take off or anything. It was just, you know, it did okay. And then it did win an RWA reader. But that book took, like, 12 years to earn out its advance.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Oh, wow.

[Sarah Maclean]

Really?

[Loretta Chase]

Yes.

[Sarah Maclean]

And it just was the little engine that could. Or did something happen that.

[Loretta Chase]

I don't know. It started appearing on that All About Romance list as a top book. And then I think that it might have been really a lot of word of mouth started, so more and more people started reading the book, and then it built up momentum. But initially it was like, it was no big deal.

[Sarah Maclean]

Right. It was just a very good book.

[Loretta Chase]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Just great.

[Loretta Chase]

Right.

[Jennifer Prokop]

I'm not surprised by it because I think one of the fascinating things about romance readers, and we've talked about this before, is there are books I love when I read them, but I never want to revisit them. And then there are books that I. That, like, grow on me over time. Like, I don't. I don't. And I think that maybe there's something special about romance in that way that. And so it doesn't necessarily surprise me because there are books that I, you know, when I first read them, I'm like, it was okay. And then I'm like, wait, why have I read that? Reread that book now seven times. Right. So it's. It. It surprises me the way. The way things have a hold, like, I don't know, like a romance. The keeper shelf is no joke. Right. And I think that, like, the cumulative effect of it being on the keeper shelf for so many people. Right. That word of mouth is really powerful. I mean, when I first started talking to people, like, openly about liking romance, I would say to them, they would ask for recommendations, and I'll be like, I have two for you. And one's historical, one's contemporary. And if you don't like either of them, then you don't like romance. Which. You guys. That seems dramatic. But that's what I would tell people. And it was Lord of Scoundrels and Bet Me by Jenny Cruze.

[Loretta Chase]

Oh, that book. Yes.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Yes.

[Sarah Maclean]

Terrific.

[Jennifer Prokop]

These books are. Are what romance is all about. And if you don't like them, then you don't like romance. And that's okay. More for me.

[Sarah Maclean]

But I also think there's something to Jessica. I mean, not to keep coming back to the heroines, but I feel like Jessica Trent holds up, you know, however many years later. We don't need to count them. Loretta. But I feel like she has. We just. We read Lord of Scoundrels for one of our deep dive episodes a couple of years ago and, you know, did a kind of big episode on it. And Jessica. Continue. If Jessica walked off the page of Lord of Scoundrels right now and walked into a modern historical written this year, she remains as relevant, as amazing, as aspirational as any heroine ever.

[Loretta Chase]

Oh, wow.

[Sarah Maclean]

And I think that is a hallmark of a book that just will forever be one that we hold up. But I'm always. I'm fascinated to hear that it took

[Loretta Chase]

12 years to earn out.

[Sarah Maclean]

Wow.

[Loretta Chase]

Yeah.

[Sarah Maclean]

So, okay, so you've written what is arguably. I mean, not here arguably, but arguably the greatest romance of all time. But we still have to. It hasn't earned out, so you still have to make a living. And I want to talk a little bit here. I think this is a good place to talk about it because one of the things that we have loved or that I have loved about your books over the years forever is how much research goes into them, how. How much love and care you give the worlds that you create. You used to have a blog that I loved very much called Two Nerdy History Girls, which you had with your friend whose name is now escaping me, Susan Holloway Scott.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Yes.

[Sarah Maclean]

And in that blog, you used to tell these great stories about, you know, how. How dark the ballrooms would actually be in romance novels. Or, you know, one of the legendary scene from Lord of Scoundrels is. That is the glove scene with the button hook and that, you know, there, you know, there's so much discussion where the fan. Right.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Or remember the dueling book with the bird pistols?

[Sarah Maclean]

Yeah, the bird pistols.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Right. Which I was like, wait, this is a real thing. This is fascinating.

[Sarah Maclean]

And then, you know, my other favorite, Mr. Impossible, all the Egypt stuff. And I do want to know if that came from the Mummy or not, because that is a discussion that comes.

[Loretta Chase]

No, it did. The Mummy.

[Sarah Maclean]

You heard it here.

[Loretta Chase]

The Mummy. The Mummy absolutely inspired that book. Yes.

[Sarah Maclean]

You just made a lot of people really happy.

[Loretta Chase]

Exactly.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Like this has been speculation for a long time. And now we have confirmation.

[Loretta Chase]

Oh, yeah. I was like, oh, wait, I can do this. And I always wanted to write about Egypt. I have been so fascinated by that, particularly what happened in the early 19th century and the discoveries that were made then. But I mean, there were these intrepid women who were involved in that discovery. So, yeah, I loved doing the research for that. I have way more books than I ever needed to write that book. Something like 50 books on Egypt and no having them in the Library wasn't enough, I had to own them. So, yeah, we support you.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Everyone just buy the books they want.

[Sarah Maclean]

So talk about the reach, the research. Because I do think that that is one thing that often historical romance novelists get. People don't realize quite how much research goes into the books because it does feel so invisible a lot of the time.

[Loretta Chase]

Well, that's the goal, is to make it invisible. I mean, you read books and books and make tons and tons of notes and look at all these images and you're digging into historical newspapers and two lines appear on the page that have to do with that topic. But as Susan and I have often said, we really have to understand it. We have to be able to visualize, we have to feel like we're there in order to make the reader feel as though she's there. So. And I, I love it. I love reading the old newspapers and it's like it. This has been one of the fascinating and positive aspects of technology from the time when I first started writing, when we had no access to anything and trying to find information on the Regency were so dependent on what Georgette Hare wrote and a limited selection of books and memoirs that were not very accurate.

[Jennifer Prokop]

And.

[Loretta Chase]

And now we can get primary resources. And I just love that. I love reading newspaper and finding an event that happens. Say, oh, wait a minute, I'm going to use that in a story. It's like I did that in the last book, 10 Things I Hate about the Duke. I read about this fancy fair that was so crowded with people and every. People were fainting because it was crowded. I said, oh, I have to set a scene there.

[Sarah Maclean]

So tell us about the research process. Do you, as you said, you're an intuitive writer. Are you researching as you go? Do you sort of have a sense of what you're going to tackle in the book? Do you have a file? How does it work?

[Loretta Chase]

Initially, what I was doing, I was taking, I think it was Stephen King's advice and I was research, or maybe it was Lawrence Box, somebody. I was researching what I needed to know for the scene. But now and over the last maybe 20 years, I have. I feel as though I need to get some sense of where I'm going to be with the story, what's the location. And then I sort of build from there and I kind of like that method better. I like being going through the newspapers and looking at what's happening, say in May of 1832 and thinking about what can I do with that? Because there are tons of ideas there for Me. So now it's a little more of. A little bit some of the work in advance, but then most of the work as I'm writing

[Sarah Maclean]

at some point. The Mr. Impossible, that series is not with Avon. That is with Berkeley.

[Loretta Chase]

Right, right.

[Sarah Maclean]

So what happens at some. To. In that. In that world? Like, how does that. How does the shift happen?

[Loretta Chase]

Well, what happened was I finished the Last Hellion, and I had writer's block. My father had died, and I. I didn't realize that that was what was going on. You know, it was grief, and I had very bad writer's block, and I couldn't write, and I had to. I bought back my contract, and I did not think I was going to write another novel. And then. Yeah, and then what I did, I went back to writing video scripts and that sort of thing for a few years. And then things change in our personal circumstances, and it became necessary for me to actually get a real. And I've got myself a new agent. And she put me in with Berkeley. There had been an editor there who had been courting me all during my mental block period because I was still going to conferences. Gail. Oh, I can't remember her name. Anyway, she had been courting me. She said, whatever you write, just can I look at it? And so she ended up being the editor. I. So I was at Berkeley for a few years, but then she left Berkeley. And I'm not. My agent wasn't really thrilled with how the books were being sold. And.

[Sarah Maclean]

Well, when was that? That. That had to have been like, early 2000s.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Yeah, this.

[Loretta Chase]

It was early 2000s when I went to Berkeley. And then I. Let's see, I wrote. So I wrote Miss Miss Wonderful, Mr. Impossible, and Lord Perfect. Oh, and then I had breast cancer.

[Sarah Maclean]

Oh.

[Jennifer Prokop]

It's a small other thing.

[Loretta Chase]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I was finishing that book when I was finishing Lord Perfect when I had breast cancer, and I had to take a little time off from writing. And then when. By that time I was getting ready to go back to work, that was when my agent was saying, you know, I think we can do better at Avon. And Avon, you know, welcomed me back. And the last couple of books in that series were through Avon. So a lot. You know, some of these things, it's like your personal life messes things up for you or makes them better or whatever, but that's what happened.

[Sarah Maclean]

I want to go back to this intuitive writing piece, too, because it feels like, you know, we've known each other for a while.

[Loretta Chase]

Yes.

[Sarah Maclean]

And it feels like one of the magical Things about your books is that you write them and you sort of write until you're done, and then the book. Then the book comes out. Right. It feels like you really do honor the text and the story in a. In a way that many of us, because of the way romance works, don't. Don't do. So I wonder if you. When you start, when you sort of come to a new series or to a new book, are you waiting for inspiration to strike before you start?

[Loretta Chase]

No, I start writing, and this has to do with my training in art, which my art professor always said, do you wait for inspiration?

[Sarah Maclean]

Right.

[Loretta Chase]

You might be waiting forever. Just start doing the work. So I start doing the work, and I find my way in the course of doing the work. So I have been able. Sometimes I've been able to write a nice long outline, and that works beautifully. And that did work beautifully for me for a number of books. And other times I just have to do it by the seat of my pants because that's the way the book wants to be written. So I have to do whatever. It's hard to say. Again, intuitive. It's. I'm doing whatever is working at the time. And lately it seems to be, sit down, start writing, see where it goes. Figure out the things as you go along. And then it's like, go back and make it come together. So it's a construction process. It's not linear at all. And it's. And I don't think my mind really is linear. And I don't think even my earlier books were all that linear. But I was able to work out plots in advance in a way that made my life much easier. But I just can't do that lately. No, I mean, I wish I could. I'm the same way, but I can't, so have to. Yeah,

[Jennifer Prokop]

some.

[Loretta Chase]

You know, you have a vague idea of what you want to do. It was like when I did the Dressmaker series, for instance. Okay. I thought, all right, I'd like to have three sisters. I have some idea of what they're trying to accomplish. I know what they want to do. They want to rule the world. And then it would be a matter of, like, figuring out, okay, who are they? What are the differences between them? And then the plots start coming together, but they arise very much out of the characters. So if I don't know the characters, I can't get a story. I was. I would love to be able to write a plot and have the story go with it. Never.

[Sarah Maclean]

Does that happen for anyone? I don't Believe it.

[Jennifer Prokop]

I think here, I think character is really king in romance. Like I, I, I think that's for me at least as a reader. Right. I feel like when people start with a plot, sometimes I'm like, yeah, but why are these characters here?

[Loretta Chase]

Yeah, right.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Like, wait, that, yeah, that's not enough. I need to really believe that. How they got there.

[Loretta Chase]

Yeah. They're not puppets.

[Sarah Maclean]

This week's episode of Faded Mates is sponsored by Avery Maxwell, author of your last first kiss.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Penny Mulligan is a mess. She has had a disastrous first marriage. She's basically the single mother to three perfect but rowdy boys and an ex husband who is a bunch of trouble. The only thing she has going for her is the perfect eye candy who shows up bringing coffee to her boss every Wednesday. Oh, Dylan Henry. He is just like perfect fantasy material. Handsome, charming, thoughtful, and she. But she's just like not in a place for this.

[Sarah Maclean]

No. She has three yes boys and an ex husband. Nobody has time for new people.

[Jennifer Prokop]

So she, she is just like, I'm gonna have fantasies about Mr. Wednesday. But then Dylan freaking Henry shows up at her doorstep and he's totally into her and he is ready to just like, figure out a way to like take the perfect chaos of her life and turn it into hea.

[Sarah Maclean]

Oh, I love it. This is great for anybody who loves a small town romance. For people who are interested in single moms as heroines, friends to lovers, second chance, found family. If you want to read your last first kiss. What a title. You can find it in print or in ebook or with a monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited. Thanks as always to Avery Maxwell for sponsoring the episode.

[Jennifer Prokop]

We talk a lot. I think we explained, you know, I know Sarah experiences at a deep level that romance readers connect with, connect with the books in such a way that, you know, almost everyone we've had on talks about letters they've received from readers or. Right. So what do readers tell you about. How about your books?

[Loretta Chase]

Oh, my gosh. Particularly during COVID but before. I have had so many messages from people telling me the books helped them get through cancer, the books helped them get through grief, the books helped them get through Covid. And I mean, from the time I started writing romance, I really understood the value. But I think it's had much more of an impact in the last few years of what we do when we write romance, what we're doing for other people. When we write romances, we're giving them a place to be where it's where things are okay. You know, it's going to come out right in the end. And the more difficult the world around you is, the more important it is to have this place. Place where you can go. And I'm all for escapism, and I'm never going to hesitate to say that my books are escapist, because they are, and I feel like they should be. So. Yeah, I get. Yeah, I've had. I've had messages that just made me cry. And I think the last couple years have been so hard on people that it makes, in my view, romance more important than ever.

[Sarah Maclean]

Yeah.

[Loretta Chase]

Because we're giving them that safe place to be for the time of reading the book.

[Sarah Maclean]

So you had, you have, you know, people who have inspired you over the years. And, you know, it sounds like you've had a group of other writers who you've connected with and who love research as much as you. And. But I wonder if you could talk about who are the. Who are the people who you have spent who have really kept you going, because I know that this isn't always an easy job.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Right.

[Loretta Chase]

Yeah. Well, you know, Susan Holloway Scott and I have been friends for a million years now, and we talk on the phone a lot. We go to Colonial Williamsburg. We meet up at Colonial Williamsburg almost every year. And, you know, she's really important part. She's just been, well, a really good friend, and we can talk. And that's part of the thing, too, because, like, it was one of the great things I discovered when I started writing romance and I started going to conferences. It's like, oh, wow, I found my tribe. You can talk to. We're talking to other women, mostly, who are writers, and we're living in that same environment and we're having the same struggles. And that's not something I'm going to be finding in my everyday life. I love my husband, I love my sisters, and I can talk to them about stuff, but not the way you can talk to other writers. So Susan's important. There have been a lot of people over the years. When I was first starting out, Mary Jo Putney was very, very encouraging to me. She reached out to me, sent me a letter. You know, early, early in my career, like with my first or second book, there was a little cabal of writers, Signet Regency writers with whom I was friends, and we would get together at conferences and, you know, and then over the years, I've met more people. It's like now I, you know, to chat with Caroline Linden. So it's evolving. But, yeah, the, the. That. That's One of the great things that, the great discoveries for me when I started writing romance, it was like finding all these women and they were feminists like me, and we had similar goals and the same kinds of fights and the same kinds of. People don't understand what I'm doing. Do you feel like that's that sort

[Sarah Maclean]

of thing shifting now, or do you feel like we're still getting the same kind of response?

[Loretta Chase]

I, I'll tell you, I missed the conferences.

[Sarah Maclean]

Yeah, me too.

[Loretta Chase]

I missed the one. It's like, yeah, zoom is nice, but it's not like person to person, sitting in like the bar or outside a, a meeting place and hanging out with your friends and talking or meeting new people that way. The, the, the personal, direct conversations are something I miss very much. And I, I, I mean, my local writers group, it's like they, they haven't been able to have a conference because, well, once covered, sort of simmered down and it was possible. It's like, well, we need volunteers and people don't have time and people are overworked. So that's something I miss. I miss that community, in other words. And, and with this, the, the crash and burn of rwa, that's, that was, yeah, that was bad. And, and romantic times for all the craziness. That was a great way.

[Sarah Maclean]

It really was, wasn't it? Jen never experienced it. It was a whole ride.

[Loretta Chase]

So I only, I only did it once, but it was like, it was such a trip. I was exhausted afterwards. But it was really wonderful fun.

[Sarah Maclean]

So this is one of the hard questions, I think, but what do you think is the mark that your books have left on the genre or are continuing to leave on the genre?

[Loretta Chase]

I don't know.

[Sarah Maclean]

Maybe.

[Loretta Chase]

I don't know. Someone else would have to tell me what mark they're leaving because I am.

[Sarah Maclean]

Well, maybe, maybe we can try it this way. What do you think is the hallmark of a Loretta Chase novel?

[Loretta Chase]

Okay. When I first started writing, the one thing that was very, very clear in my mind was that my heroines were going to be strong. They were not going to be victims. So there was that. The second thing was I was never going to write down to my readers. I was always going to assume everyone was smarter than I was. So that's informed what I've done. And then the other thing is, but the other thing has evolved, which is the research. And I feel as though it's possible for historical romance to get closer to that historical novel kind of approach to research and ground people in the world to that you're writing about and. But that doesn't mean that it has to be. But that's what I need to do. So I think it's that those, the three things is the very strong heroine, the not talking down to people and the world. Trying to create a historical world is close to accurate as I can, but still without violating the trust my readers have that I'm going to keep them in a safe place where things are going to come out right. So I might touch on some ugly aspects of history, but I'm not going to force my readers to, to, to live in that because there things are crappy enough around them for most people. And that's not what they come to my books for the escape I want, I want them to have a lovely escape, feel like they're time traveling and dig the heroin the most. You know,

[Jennifer Prokop]

do you think that we talk? I mean, you know, Sarah and I both been readers. She's been writing. We don't have to count them. However, 20 years, whatever it is. Okay, sorry. We've been reading for a long time. I'm. One of our questions is sort of about like the ebb and flow of the genre. Right? Like, so how do you think you've seen romance change over time? Or do you have thoughts about where you see romance going in the future?

[Loretta Chase]

There has been ebb and flow for sure. Starting out in a world where traditional Regency romances were a big thing and there are dozens and dozens of lines, and then they kind of lose their popularity. And then every few years we hear historical romance is dead. So I've heard that a bunch of times. And in fact, I'm hearing it lately. Me too.

[Sarah Maclean]

But it doesn't die, right?

[Loretta Chase]

Yeah, it doesn't seem to die. And the readers say they like going there, they want to go there, they want to be transported, they want that time travel aspect. They want to be taken farther away from current reality. And that's what historical romance does. I mean, contemporary romance also takes you away from. But there's still that element of, you know, the real world's there and there's some real world things we have to deal with. Whereas, you know, my people are running, going around in their little carriages and they don't know anything about cell phones and, and YouTube or Facebook or Tick Tock or any of those things. So it's like, it feels like it's a, an escape to a quieter time. And I think that I believe that will continue to be something that people like. People have always read historical books for hundreds of years. They don't always read books that are set in their own time period. So I think that's a continuing interest, but I really am not sure what's going to happen. You know, things are in an uproar right now. There's a lot of upheaval in the publishing industry. So it's a little puzzling in terms of other changes that I have seen. Well, there's definitely been one big change for the better, which is when I started out, almost pretty much like 99% of the books were by white authors and they were about white people. And now we have. We have books that have different cultural slants, and we have books that are dealing with different kinds of sexuality. Early in my career, one of my gay friends said to me, are there any gay romances? And I said, I don't know about any. But now that's. But now that's there. So I think those things are great that we have evolved to that point.

[Sarah Maclean]

Yeah.

[Loretta Chase]

So

[Sarah Maclean]

we always like to ask two questions to wrap up. And the first is, which of your books do you hear the most about? Which is the book that readers come to you the most to discuss? And the second is, which is the book that you, as the writer, feel the most connection to, whatever way that means.

[Loretta Chase]

Well, obviously, obviously, the one I hear the most about is Lurk Scoundrels.

[Sarah Maclean]

That was an easy. There's a softball.

[Loretta Chase]

Right, Right. So, like, when I. When I do some kind of. If we do an in person thing and we have a bookstore there and they want to order books, I always have to have large scoundrels there because people want it. So, which is. I mean, that's. That's a gift that someone. People still want to read. My. My book that I wrote a long time ago, particularly in a genre that seems to have such a short shelf life. And in terms of what books I feel the best about or strongest about or love the most or whatever. Okay. Incredibly proud of Lord of Scoundrels. How can I not be? On the other hand, my favorite book is always the latest book, the one I most recently finished, because I like to feel that I'm getting better as a writer. So I felt very proud of the last two books. I especially felt very proud of 10 Things I Hate about the Duke. And I hope I'm gonna feel even better about this next book if I ever get it finished. Yeah. So much.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Would you care to talk about that one at all?

[Loretta Chase]

Yeah, I'm happy to talk about. No, no, it's good. Jen knows Already, people ask.

[Sarah Maclean]

She's been around me long enough. Loretta.

[Jennifer Prokop]

I know.

[Loretta Chase]

I'm like.

[Sarah Maclean]

She knows that these are sticky questions.

[Jennifer Prokop]

I know, exactly. I would never have brought it up if you had not mentioned it first. I just want to thank you.

[Loretta Chase]

I appreciate that. But I. It's. I've had to. I've done a couple of blog posts because I just get so many. When's the third book coming out? Is there a third book? What happened to the Blackwoods? Blah, blah. So I have this block again. And it started. Let's just say there was a political situation going on in the world. Trash that just depressed the daylights out of me and made me crazy, and it was just so incomprehensible. So there was that. And. And then in the middle of that comes Covid, right? And you're thinking, oh, wow, this is such a great opportunity. I'm also isolated. I can't go anywhere.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Seems wrong.

[Loretta Chase]

Write a book. Nothing.

[Sarah Maclean]

Blank.

[Loretta Chase]

So I'm sitting in front of the computer every day, dutifully, because you don't wait for inspiration. You start writing. And I'm writing every single day. And I'm writing complete garbage, Just boring crap, day after day after day after day after day. So, yeah, that's what happened. And, you know, I had to tell my publisher and my agent, I said, I'm sorry, I can't deliver. I. The book's way. It's, like, over a year overdue, and I'm just now starting to make it get together, but it's still a struggle. I feel like I'm emerging from the writer's block, but it's not coming the way it should be. So, you know, it's. It's been hard. This has been a really tough time. It's not any comfort to know I'm not the only one either. That's no comfort.

[Sarah Maclean]

I mean, one of the questions. This is a question we get so often. I mean, we writers. And I'm sure you've gotten it a million times. But this question of writer's block, you know, what do you do? How do you come out from underneath it? And are you. Now. Because you sort of feel like maybe the shroud is being lifted. Is there. Is there some piece of advice that you have for those of us out here who are also feeling weighted down by the world?

[Loretta Chase]

I had. I. I've done a couple of approaches, so the first time I had writer's block, I just walked away and did something completely different, which was writing video scripts. It wasn't all that satisfying. But boy, it pays really well.

[Sarah Maclean]

Sure.

[Loretta Chase]

Good. And, but. But this time I just felt like I had to keep writing because then I felt like if I didn't keep writing, I would succumb to despair. And I didn't want to go there. So I kept writing. A couple of times I. I said, okay, I'm going to just stop for two weeks and see if that refreshes my brain. I'm going to go do this, I'm going to go do that. And we have traveled so, you know, refresh the brain. But this time I've just kept at it. I just keep writing in the hopes that things will start becoming clear. And it's actually working. The hero and the heroine have very gradually and reluctantly started letting me know who they are and what they want. And so that's incredibly encouraging to me. And also it helps if you have someone to talk to that's a trusted professional, and I am very fortunate in my agent and editor. So I can talk to them about things and bounce ideas off them, show the material and have them come back and make. Give me little bits of inspiration here and there. I think we each have to find our own way out of this. I. I know I've. I've heard of people say, well, I just walk away for a couple of days and it comes back days.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Is that writer's block or is that just like a writer's burp?

[Loretta Chase]

I mean, exactly. That's a good, good analogy. Yeah. So I think for me right now, what's been working is to just keep writing. Just keep writing. Because I'm a writer. Even if it's crap, it's something, and you never know what. What's going to come out of it. And that's happened a few times. It was like, I'm writing crap. I'm writing crap. I'm writing. Sure. Okay, I can work with this. So that's been the approach. I would not wish this on anybody. It sucks. But there is going to be a book.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Great.

[Sarah Maclean]

We're ready when you are.

[Loretta Chase]

No, I. I told my agent, I said, I'm going to write this book. I have to write this book. I need to write this book. I want to write this book. It's going to get written one way or another.

[Jennifer Prokop]

I just want to say this was amazing because I tried to keep my cool the entire time. I just want everyone to appreciate that.

[Sarah Maclean]

If you live in New England or feel like coming to New England, Loretta is going to be at the Ashland Public Library in Massachusetts on Saturday, May 20, 2023 for the ROM Con up there. The Ashland Public Library has a great romantic romance novelist event, and it's outdoors and it's a whole day long. And I'll be there, too. And so will Megan Frampton and Caroline Linden, so historical writers. And Sandra Kitt will be there, too, who is also a trailblazer. So you can join us there. We'll put ticket information in, show notes for everyone, but you can get your copies of all your favorite Loretta Chase books signed.

[Loretta Chase]

Yes, I'm looking forward to that. I did it last year, Fall, and it was so.

[Sarah Maclean]

I'm looking forward to it, too.

[Loretta Chase]

So, Sarah, you're going to have a great time. You're going to have a great time.

[Sarah Maclean]

I will hopefully not have Covid this year. That's. I'm going to try my.

[Loretta Chase]

Don't have that again.

[Sarah Maclean]

Loretta, this was amazing. You are always amazing. I love hearing you talk. So.

[Loretta Chase]

No, it's wonderful talking to you both. It really is. You have just, like, such a great sensibility and sensitivity about the genre and about the authors. It's really a pleasure. Thank you.

[Sarah Maclean]

Listen, it was special. It just came to her fully formed, like Athena or like JR Ward.

[Jennifer Prokop]

I'm also fascinated by the dichotomy between the way Lord of Scoundrels came to her. And then I would. She didn't say it, but I would imagine that then struggling with writer's block would be all that more painful if you had that kind of experience. Right?

[Sarah Maclean]

Yeah, presumably. I mean, I'm really. I was really grateful to hear her talk about writer's block, actually. I mean, a lot of this, for those of you listening, you probably got the sense that this was more about the writing, this conversation, than really, I think any of them have been, which was obviously really wonderful for me, you know, and for probably every writer out there who's listening. But listening to somebody talk about how they struggle with writer's block is really interesting because, as I said in the conversation, we get a lot of. We get a lot of questions as writers about writer's block. And the instinct is always to just sort of wave it away and say, oh, I don't believe in writer's block. Writer's block isn't real. Just keep pushing. Like it's not a fun job. You know, you just. It's. It's not that you're blocked. It's just that, you know, you have to sit your ass in the chair. And so it was really good to hear her say, no, it is real. And for those of us who have Gone through serious issues. Serious, like grief, you know, anxiety about the world. It can be debilitating.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Yeah, well. And I was also really fascinated to hear that she's essentially grappled with it twice and that it presented in a different way both times, because I think that's other. What I feel like is sort of a. You know, like, that writer's block is just like its own thing. It's a thing. And it's like, no, just like anything. It can manifest itself in lots of different ways. And so, you know, one time it was. She just kind of put everything down and walked away from it and just did something totally different. And then this time, you know, she's. She really is taking the, like, put your butt in the chair and kind of move through it. And I think that that is also probably really great to hear because how you have to be able to say to yourself, like, this is what I'm struggling with. It's okay that it looks different than someone else's writer's block, for example, or it looks different the last time I struggled with this. And I think that's gotta be really powerful.

[Sarah Maclean]

Think about the kind of bravery it takes to say, I am experiencing this thing. It is related to my.

[Loretta Chase]

In.

[Sarah Maclean]

In the original case, grief. And to solve this problem, I'm going to walk away and buy my contract back. I mean, we haven't talked about that. Nobody has talked to us about that. But that does happen. You know, you can't finish. And so to get out from under it, you. You pay the publisher back.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Yeah.

[Loretta Chase]

Write your advance.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Right.

[Sarah Maclean]

And take the book away. And. But what a. Also just brilliant person she is. I mean, just somebody who thinks, clearly thinks so much about the writing. I was not at all surprised when Ellen Edwards said, go read Kinsale.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Of course, we've all. Many of us have experienced the. The way the genre is sort of shamed. Right. And the way that people allow themselves to sort of say, like, oh, I like this. As I have. I have a friend who's a reader who mostly read fantasy and then sort of had. Like, when she sort of finally said to me, I like romance, too. It came in a very similar way, which was like, I always like those subplots in books, the love story part. So what would it be like to just allow myself to read that part? Right.

[Sarah Maclean]

Or write that part, in Loretta's case,

[Loretta Chase]

to

[Sarah Maclean]

rewrite those stories and provide them with happily ever afters. Yeah. What a cool. Also. What a cool way of coming to it and thinking, like, I want to Write a novel. But I know my brain requires limitations and scope and strategy, and therefore I'm going to turn to genre.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Cause it's gonna give me that structure.

[Sarah Maclean]

Yeah, I thought that was fascinating. We are releasing this episode much later in time than when we recorded it. But it made me think. About what? There was a sort of silly article that, you know, floated by on social media yesterday about a person who decided they were going to write romance because clearly that's where the money was, right? Spoiler alert. There was no money for this particular person because they weren't very good at the job.

[Jennifer Prokop]

But the. The.

[Sarah Maclean]

But what's fascinating is the difference between those two avenues, right? Like this was Loretta saying, I have creativity in me. I have the chops to write a novel, but I just need guidelines because if I don't, I'll never tell a story. And what a cool way of coming to romance and then dominating it. I mean, also, what was wrong with readers in 1995? The Lord of Scoundrels was amazing.

[Jennifer Prokop]

That also was a year where there were not. I mean, now with the rise of self publishing, right, Literally thousands of books being released a year. More than that, thousands a week. It feels like a month, right? I mean, so I'm fascinated to think too, like, what are the books that are coming out now that it's going to take everybody 10 or 12 years to discover? I mean, that's also like, what I think of as being the best book part about romance is, you know, things. Don't get me wrong. I think we all know that things can be dated, right? Or you can read an older book that feels dated in a way. But there is something magical about picking up a book from 25 years ago, right, in romance and having it be just as sort of powerfully like, moving as it was, what, the year it was published. And I think that can be true of all of genre fiction. You know, people have heard me talk about Jack Reacher when I've been re listening to Jack Reacher when I drive. And the biggest change is about technology, right? And so it's really fascinating to like, sort of think like, well, what are the things that like data book and when it's historical, especially when it's so rooted in historical research that doesn't get triggered the same way often.

[Sarah Maclean]

You're absolutely right. I loved a lot of this conversation. I love that she. She clocked Jane and Krentz's powerful impact on historicals, which we talked a little bit about in the Jane and Krentz trailblazer episode but hearing it from the mouth of Loretta Chase. Right. Jane Ann Krentz became Amanda Quick and gave us all a blueprint for how to write these books differently. You know, just makes me smile. It makes me really happy that it was. It was all interconnected in such a powerful way.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Those first Amanda Quicks were like late 80s, right? 88 or 89, maybe.

[Sarah Maclean]

Sounds right.

[Jennifer Prokop]

And Dangerous Men and adventurous women was 1992.

[Loretta Chase]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Prokop]

It. It was both the book.

[Loretta Chase]

Right.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Both the books and the explicit naming of what romance was trying to achieve.

[Sarah Maclean]

Yes.

[Jennifer Prokop]

And I was also really fascinated to hear her talk about that, like, kind of pop culture book. I can't remember the name of it now, but like talking, right. Like the way people talk to each other. Like, I remember reading that book.

[Loretta Chase]

Book.

[Jennifer Prokop]

I remember it wasn't quite like, men are from Mars, women are from Venus, like that old dumb thing. But it was just. And it was really fascinating, I think also to think too, just about. And we say this all the time, like, romance is so responsive to what is going on in society. And it was really interesting to hear Loretta name some of those things really explicitly.

[Sarah Maclean]

She's remarkable. If you have not read a Loretta Chase book, now is your chance. You should read Lord of Scoundrels and then go back and listen to the Deep Dive episode that we did. We'll put links in, show notes or go off and read Mr. Impossible set in Egypt. And then do yourself a favor, give yourself a treat and watch Brendan Fraser's the Mummy. And know why romance Twitter.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Sarah, can I. Can I confess something?

[Loretta Chase]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Prokop]

I've never seen that movie.

[Sarah Maclean]

Oh, Jennifer.

[Loretta Chase]

What. What year.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Wait, what year did it come out? Could someone.

[Sarah Maclean]

1999.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Okay.

[Sarah Maclean]

And I know you and I have a little thing coming, a little thing that actually might have already been announced, but if it has not already been announced, we have this little thing happening. And maybe a rewatch of the Mummy is a thing that we can do.

[Jennifer Prokop]

A re. Watch for you. A watch watch for me.

[Sarah Maclean]

A watch watch for you. Maybe we should have Bee and her books join us.

[Jennifer Prokop]

I'm. I'm writing this down on my.

[Sarah Maclean]

Look.

[Jennifer Prokop]

I have a little pad of paper, everybody, and it says bad ideas. Oh. And I write things down that are good ideas.

[Sarah Maclean]

Oh, it's ironic.

[Loretta Chase]

It is.

[Jennifer Prokop]

I don't like this. This notepaper does not boss me around. The Mummy. That's a great idea.

[Sarah Maclean]

You will delight in it because it is part of our mutual favorite genre. Beautiful people blowing things up.

[Jennifer Prokop]

I mean.

[Loretta Chase]

Yeah. Hello.

[Jennifer Prokop]

I really love. I love Brendan old. I Mean, I'm sorry, we should be talking about Loretta Chase. But she wouldn't mind. Loretta would understand, I think.

[Sarah Maclean]

I mean, she wrote a whole book based on it, so I think she's okay.

[Jennifer Prokop]

I love, God, I love those Brendan Fraser movies. I love the one where he's like trapped underground with his like, fusty parents because they think nuclear war is coming.

[Sarah Maclean]

And then that one, it's.

[Jennifer Prokop]

And then he pops out onto the surface like in modern times, and he's. It is hilarious. So good.

[Sarah Maclean]

I mean, he was a treat.

[Loretta Chase]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Prokop]

And he's like a great swing dancer, but like.

[Loretta Chase]

Because that's.

[Jennifer Prokop]

You know what I mean? And that was like when swing was really popular. It was. Oh my God, I can't remember the title.

[Sarah Maclean]

It's great the way I wept when he won the Oscar this year and like gave a speech that was just about like being, still being here. Like just still being here along with the guy from everything everywhere all at once. Who was also in Indiana Jones.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Yeah. And Goonies. These are, look our childhood. Yeah. I think I loved listening to Loretta Chase. I especially really like, one of my favorite questions is kind of what is the hallmark of your books? And I loved her answer in particular. Right. Like the answer about I never. I always assume my readers are smarter than me. Right. I always like, I, I pledge to never write down to them. And I think re. Romance readers know. I think we know when that's the case because we are so fine tuned.

[Sarah Maclean]

Right.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Like so calibrated to hear that those discordant notes of when someone is like trying, as you said at the beginning, right. To write, to market. I can make money here. These people I can make money off of versus these people have a similar interest in the same stories as me. And I want to write books for them.

[Sarah Maclean]

Yeah. And it also, when she said that, it made me realize that, I mean, and this is not just a hallmark of historicals, but it is a hallmark of historicals that often historical writer. That is something that happens in historicals where we sort of trust the reader to come along with us on this ride and, and we're going to show you the world and you're going to know the history and you're going to know the, you know what's happening. And if you don't, it's going to be okay.

[Loretta Chase]

Yeah.

[Sarah Maclean]

God, she just made me.

[Loretta Chase]

She.

[Sarah Maclean]

Every time I talk to Loretta, I just feel good about writing historicals.

[Loretta Chase]

Yeah.

[Sarah Maclean]

I feel like it's nice to be sort of even remotely in the room, breathing the air of someone like her.

[Loretta Chase]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Well, it sounds like you guys are going to have a great time.

[Sarah Maclean]

Oh, yeah. So come see us in. Oh, gosh. We have to make sure this goes. This gets out before then.

[Jennifer Prokop]

It's on my bad ideas list. Don't you worry.

[Sarah Maclean]

Oh, all right, good. So this will be out. It will probably be in the next couple of weeks, this event in. In Boston. And we hope that you'll join us.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Thanks for having us, everybody. Thanks for having. Send your ear holes. And thanks to Loretta Chase for just being. That was a really inspiring conversation. I loved it.

[Sarah Maclean]

God, for making me just want to put on a murder dress every day.

[Jennifer Prokop]

Every day. What a gift.

[Sarah Maclean]

All right. Goodbye, my friends.