Olivia Lorenz recently moved to New Zealand from the county of Yorkshire in the north of England, and she is also a former resident of Edinburgh, Scotland.

She enjoys ogling Cantonese actors in Hong Kong films and she loves baking and is attempting to become a domestic goddess a la Nigella Lawson.

Now please join me in chatting with Olivia.

HRC: Olivia, welcome to HRC! You have a diverse bookshelf, so let’s get right into talking about your books. Let’s start with your short story, an historical, The Lady & the Highwayman where we meet Georgina, who seems to be in dire straits with her mystery man. Would you give us a little background about them and their story?

Olivia Lorenz: “Hello! Thanks for inviting me here. It’s a pleasure to chat with you.

“About The Lady & the Highwayman, a friend challenged me to write a short erotic story in a day. I love reading Regency romances but wanted a more adventurous type of heroine, so Georgina became a highwaywoman. She’s high-spirited and fearless, so when she takes on the highwayman, sparks fly. There’s also a little twist to the tale!”

HRC: What made you decide to become an author, let alone decide to write romance?

Olivia Lorenz: “I’ve always enjoyed creative things. I started off as an artist, drawing comic strips for my friends when I was in school. At some point it became easier to write the story than draw it, so slowly the writing edged out my drawing! I still draw the occasional piece but the need to do so isn’t anything like the need to write.

“I love reading romances, especially Mills & Boon. I went to a high-powered ‘academic elite’ girls’ school where we were constantly told to be brilliant at everything all the time. You can imagine, romances were considered beneath our intelligence. I read them anyway, and I still do. I have three degrees and if I tell people I read romances, they look at me like I’m an alien. Surely women, regardless of their education, can read whatever they want? It’s not a political thing but an emotional choice. It’s the same with writing romance. You write because you want to experience the highs and lows of falling in love – with the book, with the characters. While my level of education may well inform the plot and background of a story, it has little to do with the dynamics of a relationship. I think everyone can relate to romance. It’s just that they don’t want to admit it!”

HRC: What did you do before you decided to begin writing? Do you have an interesting or humorous story you would like to share with us from any of your prior occupations?

Olivia Lorenz: “I trained as a classical archaeologist and taught at university. I organized a lot of academic conferences, which was always interesting. One was about cranial trepanation (when doctors drill holes in your head to ease the pressure on the brain) throughout medical history. We had a number of fascinating but gruesome talks, including one from a titled lady who in the 1960s performed a DIY trepanation so she could ‘find herself.’ The movie was pretty psychedelic with a pet dove fluttering, the lady in her blood-splattered debutante gown, spacey music – you really couldn’t make this up. Later, I got into the lift and met the lady and her terribly distinguished husband, who’d also been trepanned. It was hard to know what to say in conversation, so eventually I said, “Your dove was really beautiful!” I ended up sitting with them at dinner. They were fantastic people. Absolutely batty, like many of the English upper classes, but great fun.”

HRC: How difficult would you say it was to have your work first published?

Olivia Lorenz: “It wasn’t difficult at all, I’m glad to say. I’d had short stories published in fanzines and ezines, which was helpful. I sent off The Lady & the Highwayman and had a contract that same day. Others took longer, of course! The worst bit is waiting for a response.”

HRC: Trail of Feathers sounds like a lot of fun and adventure Indiana Jones style. Would you give us a look at Richard and Amy and how their story came about?

Olivia Lorenz: “This one took me something like three years to finish. It started off as a story for a friend – I usually write stories for someone -- it gives me more of a reason to finish them – and I kept putting it aside then picking it up again. The original hero wasn’t quite working out for me or for the heroine, Amy, so I decided to be creative – he’s a red-herring hero. The real hero, Richard, was much more fun to write, so I knew my decision had been a good one. Trail of Feathers isn’t meant to be taken particularly seriously – it’s a fun romp, although I did do a lot of research when creating my fictional Amazonian tribe.”

HRC: Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?

Olivia Lorenz: “I think if you have solid, believable characters who can evoke empathy or dislike from a reader, you’re more than halfway there. There are plenty of books available with thin or well-trodden plots, particularly in the romance genre, but readers will forgive a lot if they care about the characters.

“Being a historical writer gives one an instant advantage, in a way – there’s so much scope and variety. But for this genre more than any other, it’s important to get the facts right. Your book might inspire a reader to learn more about the time period you wrote about – or your reader could be an expert. If you’ve got something wrong, you lose your credibility. Readers may forgive old plots, but they’re not so forgiving on factual errors.

“Always get a beta-reader to check over your writing – and ask them to be ruthless. I’m a big fan of Mrs. Giggles – her reviews might be snarky, but she’s always right about what works and doesn’t work. I buy a lot of stuff based on her recommendations. She’s never reviewed anything of mine, but I’m sure I’m not the only writer who wishes they had Mrs. Giggles as their editor!”

HRC: What is the creative process for you behind writing a romance novel?

Olivia Lorenz: “I used to be a ‘pantster’ writer, so I’d have a couple of characters and an idea and I’d jump straight in without plotting anything out beforehand. 99% of the time it would work and I wouldn’t need to change anything. These days, especially as I have so many big projects going on at the same time, I write down a rough outline. I always write the final line before I finish the first chapter! So, I know where I’m going, but I don’t always know which way I’ll take to get there. I’m lucky in that I often dream my plots. Or, especially with historicals, moments of great serendipity often occur and I can link swathes of plot together. That’s always the most exciting bit – stumbling across a piece of research that enables you to make plot connections across the whole book.”

HRC: Of all the books you have written thus far, which is your favorite?

Olivia Lorenz: “Ghosts. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, it’s one of the strongest stories I’ve ever written. It’s not a typical romance and doesn’t have a HEA. I knew it would be a risk to put it out there, but to my astonishment I’ve had extremely good reviews, even from reviewers who said they usually insist on HEAs.”

HRC: Your novelette Ghosts takes place in the time of Chinese warlords and we’re introduced to Hua Mu Yun and Leng Ruo Fei who are both looking for that missing something in their lives. Can you give us a look into how their story developed and tell us about them, please?

Olivia Lorenz: “I actually wrote it for a friend’s birthday. She loves gangsters – hence Mu Yun was created. I have a weakness for male cross-dressing actors, particularly in Beijing Opera and its provincial offshoots. I spent some time in China and watched a lot of the opera channel, then saw a performance in Shanghai. I love the color and ritual of Chinese opera. The singing can take some getting used to, though! I also owe a debt to Chen Kaige’s film Farewell My Concubine. Ruo Fei does nod to Leslie Cheung’s portrayal of a dan. The story of Ghosts really wrote itself. Two people, one flagrantly gay and the other nominally straight but scarred by war, both lonely and searching for meaning in their lives. There’s no way there could be a believably HEA to such a relationship in that time and place, so it’s really one of those stories that should make you weep for the sometimes butterfly nature of romance and life.”

HRC: Is there a particular character which holds a special place in your heart? If so, why?

Olivia Lorenz: “I don’t tend to look back on characters once I’ve finished telling their story, so I can’t really answer for any of my published works. However, I do have an adorable character in a story I’m writing now. He’s a Japanese daruma – a wish-doll – who can take human shape. Daruma are little wobbly things: if you knock one down, it jumps back up again, so they’re a symbol of optimism in Japan. Daisuke has been through some difficult times but he bounces back, eternally optimistic. It’s a trait I lack, so it’s fun to write a character who’s the opposite of me.”

HRC: Your characters seem so real and complex. How do you 'find' or create these endearing heroes and heroines?

Olivia Lorenz: “Honestly, they create themselves. Probably most writers play the ‘if this was a movie, I’d have Brad Pitt to play X and Joaquin Phoenix to play Y’ game to cast their characters, but this is just a physical placeholder and (for me, anyway) doesn’t inform the personalities. Characters grow from dialogue, something I love writing, and from interaction with others.”

HRC: What era in history intrigues you most?

Olivia Lorenz: “Difficult to say. I love the time periods I studied for my degrees (which ranged from 3000 BC to 500 AD), so anything Egyptian, Greek, or Roman is of interest still. Since visiting China, I’ve developed a fascination with its vast and incredible history, although I prefer the Tang through to the Ming dynasties. I find most historical time periods interesting. I’m currently researching the Heian era of Japan, and it’s fascinating to see how much they assimilated from China and how – and why – these external ideas changed in the Japanese court.”

HRC: Son of Heaven sounds very intriguing. Charlotte is a western woman and she becomes involved with Song Chao Ming, a dominant Chinese man. Please tell our readers about this couple and where the idea for their story came from.

Olivia Lorenz: “Son of Heaven is based partly on my own experiences in China and partly on a conversation with a friend, who bemoaned the fact that so many D/s stories (mainly written by non-scene authors) concentrated on kink and forgot how incredibly romantic such a lifestyle can be. Let’s just say that this was a deeply personal story for me to write and it took a lot of thought before I sent it to a publisher. There was an added frisson, too, of writing about a time when racial tension between colonial Europeans and the Chinese was reaching a peak.”

HRC: Which romance genre, historical or contemporary, do you like best and why? Do you write both?

Olivia Lorenz: “Overall, I prefer to write historicals. I’ve tried writing contemporaries, but they’ve been mixed in with other elements, such as paranormal or time-travel, so they’re never just ‘straight’ contemporaries. I don’t think I could write a Mills & Boon-style straight contemporary, despite the fact that I love to read them. In fact, I probably read more contemporaries than historicals – so I write the opposite of what I read! I’m sure that makes sense somehow…”

HRC: When you are not immersed in creating your own fantastic worlds, are there romance writers whom you read? Which authors have inspired you in your own writing?

Olivia Lorenz: “With romances, I tend to pick up books based on title, cover and blurb rather than by the author. I’m true to the genre rather than the author – although having said that, I recently read Bought by the Billionaire Prince by Carol Marinelli (Mills & Boon) and I’d look for her books again. The heroine’s backstory was deeply moving and actually reduced me to tears. That doesn’t happen often, so when it does, I want to read more of the author’s works!

“Authors I find inspiring come mainly from more mainstream or literary genres: T.E. Lawrence, Orhan Pamuk, Jane Austen, Barbara Nadel. I admire Jilly Cooper’s ability to juggle huge casts of characters, although I didn’t like her last two books. I’m just starting Fudoki by Kij Johnson. She writes so gloriously, I envy her and adore her at the same time. I love it when you can lose yourself so completely in a story, and her books immerse me.”

HRC: Your paranormal book, Revenant, brings us revenge and vampires. It sounds fascinating. Can you give us a look inside and how the story evolved for you?

Olivia Lorenz: “The initial spark came from a doctoral thesis written by a friend of mine. She was studying the work of a Greek Catholic, Leo Allatius, who wrote about folklore and religion. One enduring creature in Greek folklore even today is the vrykolakas, a vampire or revenant, a truly terrifying creature who survives only for revenge. The island of Santorini (ancient Thera, allegedly the site of Atlantis) is reputed to be swarming with them, so it was a natural setting. Plus, as I’d specialized in Aegean prehistory and had excavated in the region, I was able to add plenty of historical and on-the-ground detail as I built up the plot. I wanted to show readers a different kind of vampire to the Eastern European Dracula type. There are lots of cultures who have vampire lore, and I’d like to see authors explore these more fully rather than fixate on the vamps we know already.”

HRC: When you get that longed-for chance to relax, do you have any favorite hobbies or activities you enjoy?

Olivia Lorenz: “I’ve just moved to New Zealand and am still adjusting to life on the other side of the world, so writing is the only thing that relaxes me at the moment! Otherwise, I enjoy cooking – we have chickens, something we couldn’t do in the UK because of lack of space, so we have fresh eggs every day. Eventually I’ll return to cross-stitch and tapestry work, and soon I’d like to get a dog or a cat. We had dozens of pet hamsters in the UK, but sadly they’re not allowed into New Zealand. I miss having animals around me.”

HRC: You have several anthologies in which your stories are featured. Let’s chat about a couple of them. In Blue Noir, Kit and Sophie are the main couple. Would you tell us a little about them and their story?

Olivia Lorenz: “The Blue Noir anthology contains stories based on film noir and classic Westerns of the same period. My story, ‘Femme Fatale’, is a time-travel piece where Sophie, a modern woman, is sent back in time with her sister, who discovers she’s a murder suspect in a 1940s investigation. Sophie hires Kit as a PI to prove her sister’s innocence, but – naturally, as this is noir – things get shadier by the moment and nothing is ever as it seems…”

HRC: In Outfoxed, your story in the anthology Spellfire Moons 2, we get back to the paranormal and Yin and Pearl are featured. Would you give our readers a look into their story?

Olivia Lorenz: “Spellfire is a fun place to play! It’s a small town in Texas where humans and paranormal creatures live together. The character of Yin Quan, a warrior who died during the Mongolian invasion of China, was created by another Spellfire writer as a walk-on part. I fleshed him out and gave him his own story. Pearl Hu is a fox fairy and a Manchu (from the last ruling class of China), so Yin Quan, who’s pure Han, has reason to dislike her. Racial tension between Chinese peoples is still strong today. It takes a common enemy to bring Quan and Pearl together. It’s a nice little romance that shows love can overcome all barriers.”

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