First Alexandra, can I say how great it
is to interview another romance author, especially one that writes sheikh romances!
Great to meet you, Katheryn! And thank you for having me on your blog. As Jane Austen says, "If the heroine of
one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect
protection and regard?" For
"heroine" read "sheikh romance novelist"!
First, I believe you have been writing
for quite a few years, including writing romance novels for Harlequin.
Yes, my first book was published in 1980, by Dell.
And my second was then commissioned by Harlequin, and after a few more books I
went to Silhouette, which was then a Simon & Schuster imprint. Harlequin
had to buy the whole imprint, I like to think, to get me back…
Can I ask you what it was like when you
first got ‘the call’ when Harlequin said that they wanted to publish your work?
There is nothing in the world like it, is there? It
was Vivien Stephens who called me. She
was the editor at Dell then. She moved to Harlequin later, too.
Was your first book a sheikh romance?
Not quite. THE INDIFFERENT HEART (dreadful title!)
was set in Morocco, but my hero was French.
I was utterly entranced by the magic of that world. I can still remember
seeing a donkey eating an orange, and the colours! The image burned into my
retina forever.
You have published many romances, how
many are sheikh novels?
I think about seventeen of forty are sheikh
romances.
What first got you interested in sheikh
romances?
I've been
focused on the Islamic world for a long time now, with great love and
admiration. I read stories from THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS at the age of 9 or
10, and I think that laid out the road for me. Then in my twenties I came upon
THE SUFIS by Idries Shah, which was another body blow to my narrow western
worldview. Subsequently I read many more of his eye-opening books. That
got me so interested that finally I took a degree in Persian and Religious
Studies at the University of London, graduating in 1992. I didn't do any of
this with the idea of writing sheikh romances, but one day my editor suggested
that I should put all that background to good use.
What inspires your books?
I'm glad you asked that question. Love.
Have you visited the Middle East? What
did you think and did you meet any handsome sheikhs?
Yes, many times, if we include the Near East and
Central Asia in the definition of Middle East—I've been to Egypt, Israel, Iran,
Turkey,Yemen and Morocco. I love all those countries and of course the men can be breathtakingly handsome! Also with a
wonderful proud posture and an inner strength and authority that is very
attractive.
In your sheikh romances, how much is
fantasy and how much is based on reality?
Well, if you are asking about the background, of
course the souks and palaces and mosques are real, up to a point. This is the
premise of my Sons of the Desert world: neither Genghis Khan's horrifically
destructive invasion, nor the equally ugly Crusades, nor the later western
conquest of the Arab nations, ever happened—or at least, did not affect the
countries where my stories are set. That
vitally important world that existed up to the 13th century: the
Golden Age of Islam which inspired our own Age of Reason; the great seats of
Arab learning in Baghdad and Damascus and elsewhere; the unmatched and
unmatchable art; the breathtakingly beautiful palaces and mosques; the magical
souks; the power, the authority…that world still exists in my books. I take
ruins—for example, the Sheikh Lotfallah mosque in Isfahan, that even today is
so soaringly, tenderly beautiful that the only possible response is tears—and
carry them alive into the here and now.
In my world, the nations of the Middle East were allowed to progress and
develop in their own organic way, neither trampled under by Mongol hordes and
Crusaders nor hot-house forced by the power greed of the British Empire nor the
later, broader western world greed for oil and dominion.
If on the other hand you mean emotional reality—of
course. Love is real. It inspires, it transforms, it solves every problem, if
we let it.
Sheikh romances have been very popular
ever since E. M. Hull published The Sheik in 1919. Why do you think this
particular genre has had such a long-lasting appeal?
I don't think it's always been as popular as it is
today, by any means. I think there was a decades-long gap when not much was
happening in sheikh romance. When I wrote my first sheikh novel in 1997—BRIDE
OF THE SHEIKH—there really weren't all that many sheikh romances being
published. Now of course there are at least half a dozen sheikh romances
published every month across various lines. Why? Well, partly I think it's a
cosmic forces, collective unconscious thing—the world needs balance. There is
so much Islamophobia and so much hatred of the Middle East and Arabs going on
that our psyches are in danger of being taken over by that hatred, whether we
consciously share it or not. And so
nature finds a way to redress the balance with love.
In a more ordinary way, I think it's because,
contrary to popular notions amongst so many hidebound and 'brand conscious' romance
editors at the moment, women like to
read about the mysterious and powerful masculine. And that role is easier for an Arab prince
than for most other men.
What are you working on at the moment?
Several things—first, I'm re-issuing some back
titles in eBook. CAPTIVE OF DESIRE and FIRE IN THE WIND are available now, and
I've just finished the revisions on SEASON OF STORM—one of my favourite
stories, with a Canadian Indian hero—and that will be released as soon as it's
ebook formatted.
I've also now got POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL'S SHEIKH
ready to go, another story in my SONS OF THE DESERT series, and it looks as
though I'll be self-publishing that, too. The current formula across the board
is so very, very restrictive that it becomes impossible to maintain the
integrity of character and story within the demands of 'line branding'. One of
the worst of the new demands is the hostility to narrative. Narrative slows the
reader down, apparently, it might make her savour the story, or even pause to
think about it. And that would mean the reader spending too much time with one
book when she could be buying another to get the next hit of 'zippy
dialogue'. I don't know how readers
stand it. I know as a writer I can't.
And thirdly, I'm working on a psychological thriller
that's been gnawing at me for years. I hope to finish that next.
Where can readers find out more about
you?
Stay in touch by joining Alexandra's mailing list:
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Thank you very much Alexandra and good luck everyone!
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