📖 Author in the Spotlight ~ Rachel Brimble

 

Today on the blog I am delighted to welcome author

Rachel Brimble

 Welcome to Jaffareadstoo, Rachel. Tell us a little about yourself and how you got started as an author.

Hi Jo! Thanks so much for having me here today 😊

I got started as an author after years of having a passion to be published one day but doing very little about it! Once my youngest daughter started school full-time, I had a ‘now or never’ moment and started writing short stories before finishing my first novel a year or so later. That novel was published by The Wild Rose Press in 2007 and since then I have had at least one novel published each year. The trick to success in my view is tenacity and sticking to a daily word count – 500 words a day will soon add up to an 80,000 word novel!

When I’m not writing (which isn’t often!), I love to read, knit, watch far too much TV and go on long dog walks with family or friends – hopefully stopping off at a country pub for lunch ...

Tell us three tantalising things about your latest novel.

My latest novel is Victoria & Violet – an historical romance set in the court of a young Queen Victoria. Three tantalising things about the book are:

1) A romance between a servant and a member of the aristocracy

2) Set in beautiful Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace

3) Filled with high drama, intrigue and intense romance

Where do you get your inspiration for your novels, and, as one book ends, do you already have the idea in place for a new story?

A lot of my inspiration for my historical novels comes from buildings/places I’ve visited and fell in love with – setting tends to come first, followed by a nugget of a plot idea and then the characters tell me the rest!

Yes, as soon as I finish one book, I am onto the next – I have a whole file full of ideas as well as the ones in my head that keep pushing and prodding to be told.

Do you write the type of books you like to read and which authors influence you?

I read across the genres (except for sci-fi and horror), but romance is definitely my favourite, closely followed by crime. For contemporary romance, I love Nora Roberts whose writing and work ethic are a huge inspiration for me. For historical romance, I love Julia London and Julia Quinn – I am in awe of their work.

Tell us about your writing day - are you disciplined, strictly 9 till 5, or are you more of a have a cup of coffee and think about it sort of writer?

I am ultra-disciplined! I feel so blessed that I am lucky enough to be able to write full-time that I honour that by working 8.30am-5.30pm during the week (with a lunch break in between) as well as a couple of hours on Saturday or Sunday.

Are you your worst critic and why?

I’m actually not too hard on myself, because writing is a compulsion for me now and as I know I will never stop, there is no point in beating myself up over a piece of work. I finish it to the best of my ability and then send it out into the world with the hope it gives lots of people hours of happy escapism.

Have you another novel planned and if so what can you tell us about it?

I am working on two books at the moment, which is very unusual for me, but it is the way things have worked out with publishers this year – one is a contemporary romance, the other an historical, but both books I hope will be the firsts in ongoing series. Watch this space!

And finally for fun! 😊

At which event in history would you like to be a fly on the wall and why?

I would love to have seen the early courtship between Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII play out…

If you could invite three people from history to your dinner table, who would you choose and why?

Anne Boleyn (see above!)

Emmeline Pankhurst

Anyone who survived the Titanic sinking

Rachel, where can we follow you on social media?

Instagram

Facebook

Twitter  @RachelBrimble

More about Rachel

Rachel lives in a small town near Bath, England. She is the author of 29 novels including the Ladies of Carson Street trilogy, the Shop Girl series (Aria Fiction) and the Templeton Cove Stories (Harlequin). Her latest novel, Victoria & Violet was released 17th October 2022.

Rachel is a member of the Romantic Novelists Association as well as the Society of Authors and has thousands of social media followers all over the world.

To sign up for her newsletter (a guaranteed giveaway every month!), click here

Huge thanks to Rachel Brimble for being my guest today