AccessRomance interviews author Kathryn Caskie.

AR: Your newest book, HOW TO ENGAGE AN EARL, will be released next month. Can you tell us what it's about?

Kathryn: How to Engage an Earl is the story of the middle Royle sister, Anne, who slips into an earl's bedchamber during a party to search for evidence that she and her sisters are the secret daughters of the Prince of Wales and his illegal Catholic first wife, Maria Fitzherbert. Except she realizes too late that she isn't alone when the slightly inebriated earl begins kissing her, and within minutes she is standing before half of London society telling the biggest lie of her life--that she is the earl's betrothed.

AR: We'd love to know a bit more about this story. What inspired you to write it?

Kathryn: This is actually the second book in a trilogy that was inspired in part by my grandmother, who has worked for years on my family genealogy, and by taking part in a genetics study by National Geographic. The study revealed some surprising origins of my family tree. I started thinking, what if someone woke up one day to discover that everything she thought she knew about herself and her family was a lie? That little germ of an idea became How to Seduce a Duke, How to Engage an Earl and next spring, How to Propose to a Prince.

AR: This is your second book for Avon, and like your Warner releases, it's part of a series. Do you have any plans to write another series in the future?

Kathryn: Actually, I never planned for the Warner books to be connected, but I after Rules of Engagement, I realized that loved the Featherton sisters so much, I could not let them go. Thankfully my publisher and my readers didn't want to see them go either, so I wrote Lady In Waiting for the second book in my contract. But then I signed another two book contract for Warner, and I still had two Featherton sister stories dying to be told. So a quartet was born with A Lady's Guide to Rakes and Love Is in the Heir. But never planned.

I did plan the Royle sisters trilogy for Avon. Though I am almost finished writing the last book in that trilogy and I know I will have a hard time saying good-bye to the Old Rakes of Marylebone and the Royle sisters.

AR: Dominating your backlist is the Featherton series you wrote for Warner. For readers unfamiliar with your work, what can you tell us about these books and how they're connected?

Kathryn: All of my books are stand alone, meaning you don't have to read them in order to understand them. The Featherton sisters quartet of stories all feature the elderly (rather dotty) Featherton sisters, who know no bounds in their matchmaking. The quartet begins with Rules of Engagement and introduces the Feathertons as two elderly matchmakers who mistake a military strategy text, called Rules of Engagement, for a how-to manual for getting engaged and decide to use the manual to find husbands for their nieces.

The Royle sisters trilogy features a set of triplets who seek to discover if they are the secret daughters of the Prince of Wales, assisted by the aged members of the Old Rakes of Marylebone gentlemen's club who have each sworn to help each sister find her own Prince Charming. Being old rakes, the bad boys of their day, they put the Featherton sisters to shame with their own matchmaking antics.

AR: After readers have enjoyed HOW TO ENGAGE AN EARL, what can they look forward to from you next?

Kathryn: The last story in the trilogy, How to Propose to a Prince (Avon, March 2008) is about the youngest sister, Elizabeth, who sees the future in her dreams. The problem is, she only ever gets the prediction half right. So when she dreams of her future husband, a prince no less, marrying someone else, she doesn't intend to let Fate decide which half of the dream comes true.

And now for some questions posed by our readers of the AR All-A-Blog.

AR: If your life had a theme song, what would it be?

Kathryn: Always Look on the Bright Side of Life by Monty Python

AR: Are there days when you wish had a different profession? If so, what would your "dream job" be?

Kathryn: I know I have the best job in the world.

AR: What is something about you that your readers would be completely surprised to find out?

Kathryn: I am an adrenaline junkie. I have leapt out of an airplane at 13,000 feet, bungee-jumped, and even missed my high school graduation because I went swimming with sharks.

AR: If you could switch place with one of your heroines, who would it be and why?

Kathryn: I do switch places with my heroine--every time I start a book. But after few pages, she takes off and surprises me with her antics.

AR: How do you balance your working/family life with your writing life?

Kathryn: I try to write when the children are at school, or after they've gone to bed. It doesn't always work, but I try.

AR: Thanks for chatting with us! On a final note, is there anything else you'd like to share with AccessRomance readers?

Kathryn: Yes! Wanna be a real lady or laird? During the months of June and July be sure to enter my website contest. In honor of my hero Laird Allan in How to Engage an Earl, I am giving away a tiny plot of land in Scotland, entitling the winner to legally be known as Laird (Lord) or Lady of Glencairn!

Interviews Index > Kathryn Caskie (June 07)