Regency romance author Naomi Laeuchli chats with me today about her new novel, The Schoolmaster’s Daughter.
During her virtual book tour, Naomi will be awarding a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice) gift card to a lucky randomly drawn participant. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit her other tour stops and enter there, too!
Bio:
Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Naomi Laeuchli has lived overseas in nine different countries on three different continents where her family was posted with the American Foreign Service. In November 2012 she moved from the Democratic Republic of the Congo back to the states and currently lives in Arizona with five horses. She works as a freelance writer and part time at the local library. She has written several interactive stories for Choice of Games, Tales, and Dorian.
Welcome, Naomi. Please tell us about your current release.
The Schoolmaster’s Daughter is a regency romance novel, about Julius, a fortune hunter who tries to enlist Lydia, an heiress’s friend, into helping him win said heiress’s heart. Lydia decides to punish him by pretending to play along and feeding him misinformation while she sits back and enjoys watching the results. Of course this is a romance novel, so things don’t quite turn out as either of them expected.
What inspired you to write this book?
There are few books that make me feel as happy as those of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer. I wanted to write something that might hopefully make other people happy too.
Then I also love a story about a bad boy who isn’t quite as bad as he’s painted. This led me to the fortune hunting character of Julius.
Excerpt from The Schoolmaster’s Daughter:
He had reached them now and was smiling down at her. “Miss Cray. You look lovely tonight.”
“Thank you.”
She was dimly aware that he was bowing to Clara and greeting her as well. But while he must, in the interests of politeness, have looked away from herself at some point, it didn’t feel like it. It felt as if his eyes never truly left hers. Which made it unmistakable who he was addressing when he asked, “Might I have the pleasure of this dance?”
Later that night she would look back and think it strange that he had asked her to dance before Clara, that he had barely paid Clara more attention than what was demanded by common civility. But now she simply held out her hand to him, beaming at him and nodded, finding words curiously difficult to form.
The music had changed to a waltz as he led her out onto the dance floor. She felt a curious sensation somewhere north of her stomach as his arm wrapped around her waist and he began to lead her.
He truly was graceful, as he smiled down at her and the pair twirled through the steps and the music.
This close, she could see the individual flecks of grey hairs in amongst the dark, which she found strangely endearing. The lines on his face seemed a little deeper under the candlelight and she felt a strange impulse to reach up and run her fingers across them.
His eyes, though, were a clear deep blue, and she suspected they held the exact same youthfulness and brightness that they had had on the day he was born. In some mysterious way, her instincts told her they always would. Those same eyes were smiling down warmly into her own, and she blushed a little but held the gaze steady.
What exciting project are you working on next?
I’m working on a mystery/thriller next. I’ve always enjoyed mysteries about characters trapped somewhere and people start dying…so it’s in that vein.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I think it was when I was upset about something and having trouble processing my feelings over it and my father said I should write it out because ‘you’re a writer’.
And he was right: it did help.
Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your workday like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
No, I don’t write full-time. I do write part-time doing some freelance work: reviewing board games, creating video game content, and writing interactive fiction. However, I also work two days a week at the local library. Working part-time makes it easier to find time for writing.
To ensure that I finished The Schoolmaster’s Daughter, I made sure I always spent an hour everyday on it. Even if I was at a particularly exciting part, that I was enjoying writing, I’d make myself stop when the timer was up. That way I’d come back to it still excited the next day. If I got stuck, I’d jump ahead to a scene I had more clearly envisioned in my head and work on that, until I could jump back again. Usually, the next day I could pick up where I’d originally ran into an issue.
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
With the help of my awesome, amazing editor Jess, it’s a quirk that is hopefully no longer noticeable in the book: but my overuse of commas! So. Many. Commas.
My sister once read a draft of a murder mystery I’d written and announced she thought the commas were the killer.
Wait. Are commas actually interesting? Or is my quirk thinking that they are?
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A ballerina. Until I took ballet classes. Then for about one week when I was 14, after binge watching the second season of ER, I wanted to be a doctor. But a chemistry book quickly took care of that.
Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
Read Georgette Heyer? I desperately want her books to be adapted into movies or mini-series, and the more people we can convert into her fans, the more likely that that happens!
Thank you for featuring Naomi and THE SCHOOLMASTER’S DAUGHTER.
I enjoyed the post. Looks like a good read.
Thank you very much! I appreciate you taking the time to read the post 🙂 Hope you get a chance to enjoy the book.
Thank you so much for hosting me on your blog this morning! I really appreciate it.
Sounds like a great book.
Thank you! I really hope people enjoy it 🙂