Q&A with Jenna Jaxon Historical Romance Author of The Widow’s Club and More

In the summer, our preferences lighten up when it comes to food, clothing and even what we like to read. With the world going through so much turmoil, fairy tale stories, twists and turns and happy endings are particularly appealing.

This summer, I’ve been introduced to the best-selling author, Jenna Jaxon, who specializes in historical romance. What a perfect occasion to leave complicated and stressful 2020 behind, at least temporarily, for romance and passion in another time period!

The Widow’s Club Book Series

Jenna Jaxon’s five book series, The Widows’ Club, focuses on a group of friends, beautiful young women, who were widowed after the Battle of Waterloo. The series begins with To Woo A Wicked Widow, and the newest novel, Book 5, is The Widow’s Christmas Surprise that will be introduced soon. Each book focuses on one young widow as she returns to society and falls sway to a new romance, usually with obstacles in the way.

Although the women in each novel are connected, it is not necessary to read them all or even to read them in order. Each book stands on its own. But once you read one, I’m guessing you’ll want to read them all. For instance, I’m reading Book 2, the passionate Wedding the Widow, and among other delights, I like how it teases the reader with tidbits about the other women who are part of the group and makes you want to read about them next.

About Jenna Jaxon

“Jenna Jaxon is a best-selling author of historical romance, writing in a variety of time periods because she believes that passion is timeless. She has been reading and writing historical romance since she was a teenager. A romantic herself, Jenna has always loved a dark side to the genre, a twist, suspense, a surprise. She tries to incorporate all of these elements into her own stories.

When not reading or writing, she indulges her passion for the theatre, working at a private university as a professor/director. She often feels she is directing her characters on their own private stage.

Jenna equates her writing to an addiction to chocolate because once she starts she just can’t stop.”

Interview with Jenna Jaxon

As part of Jenna Jaxon’s Virtual Book Tour this summer ahead of the launch of her two newest books, The Widow’s Christmas Surprise and Only Scandal Will Do, I had a chance to have her answer some questions that will give you some insight into her historical romance novels and her process for writing them. I found it fascinating to find out about how she works and how she creates her stories and characters. I hope you will too! Lastly, since prior to this opportunity I wasn’t a reader of romance novels, I added a question about why readers love romance novels. After reading Jenna Jaxon’s explanation (as well as one of her books), now I totally get it!

• What inspired you to write the Wicked Widow series?

The original inspiration was the song, “It’s Raining Men,” by The Weathergirls. I was driving to work and the song came on, which I love. I started thinking, if only women in the Regency could have had unlimited access to men, or a club perhaps where they could meet eligible men, that would have been wonderful. So I started thinking, how and where could women meet men without it being scandalous? Certainly not debutantes—they couldn’t be alone with men at all. But widows had more freedom after their period of mourning. But how would you have a lot of women who were widows? Of course, the year after Waterloo there were many widows coming out of mourning. What if a set of friends got together, helped each other through their grief, then began to look for husbands once more and continued to support one another through that process? And what better place to meet with these men than a house party in a secluded country house? And that’s how The Widow’s club series was born.

• Are any of the characters in the series inspired by real life people?

No, actually all of my characters in this series have sprung from my imagination only, although some of their names are taken from real-life people. The hero of To Woo A Wicked Widow, Nash, is named for a dear friend’s son. And the villain’s last name is a family name. But most of the names are simply popular ones from the period.

• What kind of research did you do for the series?

I research pretty much as I go along, so I do a lot of internet searches, especially to get descriptions of the settings and furnishings of the period correct. When possible, I go to the actual sites and take pictures and absorb the vibe of the place. I also use primary and secondary sources, such as diaries, letters, recipes from the period as well as history books and social histories to give an authentic feel to the works. When I was writing To Woo A Wicked Widow, I found a video walking tour of the village of Wrotham, where part of the books is set, which gave me great insight into the area and allowed me to be very detailed in my descriptions of the area. Last summer I actually went to Wrotham, a village in Kent, and got to see most of the places I’d described in person. That was absolutely magical!

• Did you learn anything surprising doing the research for the book?

I am always amazed at the things I learn as I research/write. I have found out about obscure marriage laws for To Woo A Wicked Widow, about sea bathing for What A Widow Wants, about Christmas customs in the Regency for Wedding the Widow, and how to sailing and stop a ship for Much Ado About a Widow, in addition to many more surprising tidbits. And I love weaving all those curious facts into my books.

• How did you become a romance writer?

It’s a rather strange story and a roundabout way to begin a writing career. In 2008 I directed a production of Macbeth that was so stressful it triggered a gluten allergy in me I’d never had before. So I had to go on a gluten-free diet that I am on to this day. After about six months of being gluten-free I experienced a huge burst of energy and creativity. When I asked my doctor, he said my body was so happy to not have to process the gluten, it freed up a lot of the energy it had taken before. This burst of energy occurred just after Christmas, at which point I was reading Kathleen Woodiwiss’s final book, Everlasting. I loved her early work, but hadn’t read romance in a while. And I loved this book so much, because it was set in the medieval period—a fave of mine—and I just loved her writing. So I finished the book, looked at it and said aloud, “I could write something like that.” I then sat down and began writing the book that would turn into my medieval series, Time Enough to Love. And that is how my writing career began.

• What are you working on now?

I’ve got several projects I’m working on at the moment. I’m editing an early book, Only Scandal Will Do, that I just got the rights back to and finishing writing that last book in that series, Only Pleasure Will Do. And I’m about to begin writing the final Widow’s Club book, with the working title, The Widow Wore Plaid.

• Where do you get your ideas?

My ideas literally come from anything, although I think I get inspiration a lot from songs, movies, and plays. As I said earlier, The Widow’s Club series began with the song “It’s Raining Men.” My medieval series, Time Enough to Love, was inspired by a documentary I watched on The History Channel about the bubonic plague. It talked about how the daughter of King Edward III died of the plague in France on the way to meet her betrothed, Pedro of Spain. I took that fact and created courtiers for the princess and those characters are the subject of the series. My novel, Only A Mistress Will Do, came from an idea I got when reading a Mary Balogh novel. In it the heroine, a lady turned prostitute, mentions how difficult it was to take her first client, but doesn’t elaborate on that scene. I wanted to create that scene, and so I created my heroine, Violet Carlton, also a lady brought low by circumstances, and we see what she has to endure the first time she takes a customer to her bed and how that plays out throughout the novel.

• What is your writing process like, e.g. how many hours a day do you write?

Because I have, until recently, had a full-time job, my writing time has been relegated to stolen moments early in the morning or late at night and writing retreats during summer vacations. Generally, I map out the outline of my novels chapter by chapter, with each chapter roughly slated for 3,000 words each. I try to write a chapter a day, which can take as little as three (if I’m inspired and uninterrupted) usually four hours (or more if I’m called away for some reason).

• Does writing energize or exhaust you?

Both, by turns. When I’m writing and it’s flowing so that time passes without notice, that is exhilarating and energizing. Creating the original outline, plotting out the book, is energizing. When I’m in the trenches and the words are coming a sentence at a time or I can’t connect with the character in my head, that’s exhausting and frustrating. And when I have a deadline and it’s crunch time—I’ve been known to stay up 2-3 days with just short naps, pushing to get the work done on time, which is totally exhausting.

• Do you believe there is a such a thing as Writer’s Block?

I do. And although I say I’ve never had writer’s block it’s because I don’t sit down to the computer to write until I know it’s time for me to write. Because if I try to force the words to come, they will ultimately be the wrong words and I will throw them out anyway and the time that I could be productive on something else, like promotions or housework, will have been completely wasted.

• How long does it take for you to write a book?

This is another good question with a not quite cut and dried answer. I have completely finished a book, with edits, in as little as two months. My first book, however, took me six months to write because I kept pausing to go on reading binges or to re-work the outline. It was also a much longer work (187,000 words), which I eventually cut into a three book series. If I’m motivated and disciplined, I could write a first draft of a book in 30 days (30 chapters at 1 chapter a day), but I rarely have had the time or the lack of distractions (lots of distractions at home) to do that. I did write a novella during a 10 day writing retreat (10 days, 10 chapters). A good rule of thumb for me is trying to get out a passable first draft within two months. This is longer if I’m writing the first draft long hand (my preferred method for a first draft) and then type in the second draft to go to a beta reader or editor.

• What advice would you give an aspiring writer?

I would give any aspiring writer the best advice that was given to me as a new writer by Judi McCoy, my mentor. She said, “You can fix crap; you can’t fix nothing.” You have to finish the book finished (another one of her favorite sayings) before you can go back and edit and polish. So the first draft can be utterly crappy. You can fix that. You can’t fix a blank page.

• What makes romance fiction fans so devoted? What makes them love the genre?

I hadn’t thought seriously about that question until I was asked to give a workshop on the rules of romance at a conference back in September. As I was talking to the people in the seminar, telling them about the things you cannot do as a romance writer (heroes/heroines can’t die, neither can they cheat, heroes & heroines must meet in the first chapter, there must be a happy ever after, etc.) I realized that these unwritten rules are the reason why romances are so very popular. They are like the scary rollercoaster at the amusement park that you ride again and again because you know, even though you are going to be scared out of your mind with the corkscrew twists, the loops, the hairpin turns, you’re going to come through it unscathed and arrive safely in the station at the end of it. When you read a romance, the hero and heroine are going to go through some major conflicts, major disasters, a black moment so dire you know there can’t be a happy ending—but miraculously, there is! The promise the romance writer makes to the reader not to break these rules is the safety net they need. They don’t have to worry that their favorite character is going to be killed off or the heroine is going to marry the wrong guy. So they read romance for the thrill of the journey, secure in the knowledge that there will always be a happy ending at the end of it all.

I hope you’ll click over to Jenna Jaxon’s website and blog where you can get more insights into her novels, her creative process, and more information and sneak peaks about other romance writers and their works. Jenna Jaxon’s books are available in print, in digital form (for Apple and Nook), and as audiobooks on Audible. Check out Jenna Jaxon’s novels on Amazon, Apple and Barnes & Noble.

This Q&A session is part of an effort by the members of Fashion Flash to get the word out about Jenna Jaxon and the launch of her new historical romance novels. Coming soon will be two new giveaways that will be giving away Jenna’s books as part of the prizes, so stay tuned!

Are you a romance reader? Have you read any of Jenna Jaxon’s historical romances? Which ones? If not, do any of them pique your interest? Do tell!

Today's Author

Allison Cohen

Website | + posts

• Real Life in the Makeup Aisle
• Appearex: Biotin 2.5mg Supplement -- Nail Care
• Salma Hayek Nuance Renewed Radiance SPF 30 Moisturizing Day Cream
• Cleo Shower Cream Review