Getting to know Lee Rowan

Like a lot of writers, I go blank when faced with “Tell us a little about yourself.”  So I enlisted two of my favorite colleagues to give me the third degree—Alex Beecroft, who writes like Patrick O’Brian might have if he’d been doing gay Age of Sail novels, (Captain’s Surrender, False Colors), and Charlie Cochrane, who’s had plenty of experience questioning suspects via her handsome sleuths in her smash Cambridge Dons series that begins with Lessons in Love.

Okay, ladies, I’m in the hot seat:

ALEX:

How long have you been writing? What made you start?

I wanted to write those books based on TV shows... the original-novel sort, “pro fanfic.”  But I was only in junior high and though my queries were turned down gently... they were turned down.

What was your first book and what was it about?

It was a Man from UNCLE fanfiction, and it was about twenty pages--before I gave up because I was only around 12 or 13 and didn’t know enough about the world.  Frustrating!  My first published book was Ransom, about two young Naval officers who decide love is worth risking death for.

If you could be one of your characters, who would it be and why?

I’m not sure I would want to be one of my characters—not permanently, anyway.   Maybe Lord Robert Scoville... he’s got a lovely man to keep house for him, and he gets to travel the Victorian world in first class accommodations

What are you looking for in a hero?

A person who, when things are really bad, would put himself (or herself) between danger and the one s/he loves.  Someone who knows the easy way out, but does the right thing.  Sounds corny, but that’s what a hero is.

What are you enjoying reading at the moment?

Mysteries by Rex Stout and Georges Simenon—two masters at creating a unique and specific world—New York City for Nero Wolfe, Paris for Inspector Maigret.

What do you do when you're not writing?

Lately, haul my animals back and forth to the vet, or pour water on the garden, or engage in hand-to-hand combat with an apparently endless string of home improvement projects.

What do you like better to write - series or stand alone novels?

Series, apparently.  When I get a set of characters who really work for me, they seem to take up residence in my subconscious and keep tossing out ‘oh, and by the way, did you know what we’re doing now...?’ sort of teasers.

What automatically puts you off a book?

Graphic depictions of physical cruelty, especially to animals.  And if it’s committed by someone who’s supposed to be a ‘good guy,’ that’s it for the book.   In fact, if there is no one character I can even like, I won’t finish the book.  Twenty years ago I would have, but there are enough unpleasant people in the real world—I refuse to spend my time to fictional jerks.

Tell us about the books you have out at the moment?

Home is the Sailor – AT LAST!  The fourth novel in the Royal Navy series.  It’s interesting how the series has worked out—Ransom was mostly about Davy, Winds of Change and Eye of the Storm were more about Will, and Home brings us back to Davy and sets the course for the rest of their lives together.   There may be other books, but if the series ended here, I’d feel I brought them safe to harbor.

CHARLIE:

If you had twenty four words to describe what you write, what would you say?

Ordinary people who find themselves in situations where they also find, within themselves, the ability to ‘give and hazard all’ for the sake of love.

That’s one word over your limit, but I could hardly leave out the love!

Why do you write the genre you do, as opposed to something that people might call more mainstream?

I write the stories I want to read, and there’s not much of it in the mainstream! 

Where would you like to see m/m romance in five years time? What do you think it would take to get it there?

Right on the shelf beside other romances.  It’ll take time.  It always does.

Can you tell us one thing about yourself that would surprise your readers?

I’ve walked on fire.  And no, the next stop was not the hospital!   I was trying to get up the nerve to quit a full-time office job and go half-time to open my massage therapy practice, with the idea that, one day, I could do massage and write in my free time.   It’s very interesting:  once you have put your bare feet on red-hot coals and crossed without being burned, your mind kind of redefines the word “impossible.”

Can you tell me about one book/story that is your style to a T - the sort of 'If you like this you'll love the rest of it' story?

I think Ransom or Gentleman’s Gentleman fit that bill...  one is my writing at its most serious, the other is a little lighter. 

And…. one of these days, I’ve got a few questions of my own!