Romance Junkies Cocktail Hour

Jen Black stopped by RJ after hours

Hi Cat, thanks for giving me the opportunity to be here – I really appreciate it. If there’s any red wine around I’ll have a large glass please, and if it’s an Australian shiraz, that’s great. Don’t let me have more than one big glass, though or my typing will suffer.

I live in the North East of England, in the Border county of Northumberland. As well as the rolling green hills, we’ve got Durham Cathedral, long sandy beaches with castles frowning down on them and the Roman Wall. Well, half of it. Cumbria claims the other half of the wall.

The picture shows me trying to look ultra casual and sophisticated (ha!) while looking down from the Peak over Hong Kong. I was there last October. We’d gone on the trip of a lifetime to visit the boys who’ve both gone to live in Australia, and we stopped off in HK on the way back for a couple of nights. I really had a sun tan after six weeks in Oz, as you can see in next picture, and it was gained without trying while we walked for miles and miles around Sydney – Lavender Bay, the opera House, the revolving restaurant and Woolloomoolloo pier. I probably haven’t got enough o’s in that name, but I believe I counted 8 when we were there. Perhaps I’ve just got them in the wrong places. I’ve been to the States, and Canada, and enjoyed skiing in Steamboat and Banff. One day we hope to sail up the Alaskan coast and whale watch.

I’m very happy living a long way from London. Well, I think it’s a long way, but to those of you who live on the big continents 250 miles probably sounds like a doddle. It takes maybe five hours to drive down, and just over three on the train, but the rail prices! I’m only a stone’s throw from Scotland, and we drive and walk in the Borders all the time. There’s loads of quirky history to keep me happy, and give me ideas for stories. I’m driving myself slowly nuts by working on three stories at the moment -Viking, Victorian and Tudor settings. Is there any wonder I never get one finished?

I’ve got two books published, one as an e-book (Dark Pool) and one (Banners of Alba) as POD and ebook. They’re both set in the 11^th century, one in Dublin and one in Alba, which is what Scotland called itself at the time.

.I like to write about places I know, so I’ve spent lots of time on the northwest coast of Scotland, so I dragged my willing husband off to Dublin for four days research there. It was a weird feeling to stay in a hotel on the same street where my heroine lived a thousand years ago.

Now that we’re both retired, we never seem to be at home. Below is a pic of me in a hotel in Zermatt – well, all hotel rooms look the same, don’t they?

How would you know if I didn’t tell you it was Zermatt? – where we love to go skiing. There’s lots of red wine, good food and snow around which made life a pleasure. My husband always makes me look like a squat little dumpy figure when he takes my picture, especially in a ski suit when it’s so cold you don’t want your hands out of your gloves for too long, but really I’m tall and slender. It’s not quite a lie – I was once. I still am, in my imagination. And no, I’m not pigeon-toed, even in ski boots; it’s just that the ground beneath my feet was so icy I was in severe danger of landing on my backside any moment. That would have been a picture.

The indoor shot is of me taking me own photo through the wardrobe mirror so it will be bang up to date. This is what I look like on a daily basis. I only took it last week and the date’s on there to prove it. It’s not a bedroom, it’s my hubby’s study. We each have one all to ourselves. (Remember, the kids have gone so we can spread out a bit) My study, as you can probably guess, is much more elegant and it is where I do all my writing on a laptop. If you drop over to my blog, I’ll try and remember to put up a picture of it in the next few days. If you go to my website you’ll find I’ve just done some housekeeping there today and I’ve put up links to 2 interviews with me, so you can find out what I’m really like!

This picture captures my husband offering you a tremendous view from the Beausite hotel terrace – the Matterhorn. He’ll be happy that he’s in silhouette as he swears he doesn’t want to be on the internet in any shape or form. He’s really shy. Not like me.

Check out Jen on the Net

Website- http://members.lycos.co.uk/jenblack/

Blog - http://jenblackauthor.blogspot.com/

Buy Book

Set in the year after Banners.

Obliged to leave Alba unprotected while he tracks a young ward stolen by raiders, Finlay of Alba is not in the best of tempers when he walks into Lord Sitric’s stronghold of Dublin only to find everyone denies knowledge of the girl. Eba, thinking herself alone in Dublin, facing a forced marriage or the slave market, makes a desperate bid to escape which lands her in dire straits when Sitric’s enemies ravage and burn Dublin. Can Finlay find her before it is too late? Or will Eba spend her life as a Viking's bed-mate?

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