MY BOOK ADDICTION AND MORE PROUDLY PRESENTS:
AWARD- WINNING HISTORICAL ROMANCE AUTHOR: KATHARINE AHSE
Good morning Katharine, and welcome to My Book Addiction and More today!!
Good morning, ladies. Thank you for inviting me to visit today!
MBA&M: Please tell our readers who may not know you a few tidbits about Katharine Ashe?
KATHARINE: I write historical romances featuring daring heroines, dashing heroes, loads of adventure, and stunning sensuality. My new book, HOW TO BE A PROPER LADY (coming out next week!), entangles a man with a mission and a lady who refuses to be controlled in a delectable wager both of them just might win.
MBA&M: What made you want to write historical romances? Why Regency Romance?
KATHARINE: I adore the gloriously epic romances of the past, stories of sweeping love and noble deeds, of devastating sacrifices and spectacular triumphs. It’s all so exciting! Regency-era England offers a particularly delicious palate to work with. I revel in the contrast between the decorous order of high society and the vast, dangerous empire Britain was building at that time across the world. My heroes and heroines steal kisses in the shadowed corners of ballrooms as well as on ship decks, and get locked in embraces beneath fragrant rose trellises as well as wind-swept palm trees. The opportunities for dalliance — both deliciously familiar and delectably exotic — are endless!
MBA&M: Of all your books which character do you most identify with and why?
KATHARINE: All and none. Naturally there is a bit of me in each of my characters, and often the particular challenges they face come straight from my life experience. But none of them are me. More than anything, when I write a book I fall in love with the couple. Their thrilling journey together toward happiness drives my pen, and I become completely swept up in their relationship.
MBA&M: If you could change places with any character in one of your stories, which character and why?
KATHARINE: Oh, this is an easy one: Viola Carlyle, the heroine of HOW TO BE A PROPER LADY. I adore the sea, but I also adore fine living. Viola is both a scruffy sailor living on a ship and a lovely lady living on a lord’s estate, so she has the opportunity for both. Also, her hero, Captain Jin Seton, is the most devastatingly mouthwatering… But I won’t go there! Like I said, it’s the couple for me. Viola wouldn’t be who she is without Jin, and he couldn’t be the perfect hero without her. I love them both together.
MBA&M: Have you always wanted to be a writer? If not writing what would you be doing? By the way thank you for your wonderful stories!
KATHARINE: From the earliest I can remember I have written stories, especially love stories. My first was what we call “fan fiction” now, a rewriting of the children’s book Pretzel, the Longest Dachshund in the World with a much nicer heroine for poor Pretzel. And I actually do have another job; I’m a professor of medieval history. But even when I was in graduate school working hard on my PhD, I couldn’t stop writing romances. I simply adore telling love stories.
And you’re quite welcome! It is a great pleasure and an honor to be able to share my stories with others.
MBA&M: What is your life’s passion beside writing?
KATHARINE: My family—my husband, son and dogs.
MBA&M: How many books do you believe should be in a series? How do you know when to end a series?
KATHARINE: Each series has its own unique shape and size, I think. I like three-book series, but sometimes that’s just not enough, and certainly as a reader when it comes to characters that I love I crave more more more! As a writer too. I’ve brought back a number of characters from my Rogues of the Sea trilogy for my Falcon Club series because they were so much fun, but also because they asked for their own stories. (Seriously. I’m one of those writers whose characters talk to her.) Currently I’m working on my five-book Falcon Club series as well as a new three-book series that will debut in 2013.
MBA&M: If you can please tell our readers a few tidbits about your next project(s)?
KATHARINE: HOW A LADY WEDS A ROGUE, book #3 of my Falcon Club series, will be out on September 25. Road trip stories are my favorites, and this one throws a country miss and a hardened spy into a scandalously intimate adventure. I spent some time traveling through Wales while researching this book. Emerald hills, stormy skies, ancient castles… it was heaven, and the perfect place to get a winsome heroine and determined hero thoroughly lost… and to throw them completely in love.
MBA&M: Katharine, please tell our readers where to find you and where your books are available?
KATHARINE: I love chatting with readers about books and romance, and I always write back. My website is the best place to start: http://www.KatharineAshe.com . It includes links to purchase my books in both paperback and e-book format, my email contact, a place to sign up for my short monthly newsletter where I announce contests and book news, as well as links to me on Facebook and twitter.
Katharine, do you have anything you would like to add today?
A big thank you to your readers for visiting with me today!
And I’d love to ask everybody a question. I’ll send a signed copy of my award-winning CAPTURED BY A ROGUE LORD to one randomly chosen commenter who answers!
Here’s the question:
In HOW TO BE A PROPER LADY, Viola suffers through many lessons on how to comport herself in high society, with varying degrees of success. What’s one of the rules you learned about how to behave properly, and do you still follow that rule?
What a pleasure to have you visit with us and our readers today!! Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule and your life to spend time with us and our readers today!!
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**GIVEAWAY ALERT**
*Sponsored by the author*
We are offering 1 lucky commenter a signed copy of “CAPTURED BY A ROGUE LORD” by Katharine Ashe. **YOU MUST ANSWER THE AUTHOR’S QUESTION,FROM ABOVE** in order to be eligble. Giveaway will run from today June 21 until June 28,2012.
GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!!
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HOW TO BE A PROPER LADY
KATHARINE ASHE
- Mass Market Paperback:384 pages
- Publisher:Avon (June 26, 2012)
- Language:English
- ISBN-10:0062031767
- ISBN-13: 978-0062031761
Book Description(from Amazon)
The Rules of Being a Proper Lady 1) Never take steps greater than six inches apart. 2) Never look boldly at a gentleman. 3) And never, ever, kiss a man who is not your fiancÉ.
But beautiful, bold Viola Carlyle doesn’t care about the rules. And she desperately wants to kiss the notoriously tempting Captain Jin Seton, the man who brought her kicking and fighting back to English society. Kidnapped as a child, now she longs to return to that life of freedom where she was able to live—and love—as she wished.
Having hunted Viola for two years, Jin Seton has finally found his good luck—for, by finding Viola, his oldest, deepest debt will at last be paid. And although he has vowed not to let her win his heart, this very improper lady might finally be the one who tames him.
Available at:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Regulator Bookshop
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**COMING SOON**
Please come back and check out our “Thoughts” on “How to Be a Proper Lady” by Katharine Ashe!!
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We hope you have enjoyed your time with us and our guest,Katharine Ashe today! Please spread the word to your social media and friends.
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Thank you for joining us today!!
As always HAPPY READING!!
Thank you for spending time with us today. I so adore your stories.
Thank you for hosting me today, April. I'm so happy to be here and meet your readers. And I'm thrilled you enjoy my books.
Walk like a lady, and yes I try.
I believe you do, Debra. You certainly behave like a lady online.
Thanks Katherine, its hard to be a lady sometimes in this is a mans world. Seems after all this time you would think things would get better.
People are slow to change, society even slower. And so we fight the good fight every day…
Great interview – I admit, I love kick ass heroines, even when they're wearing a crinoline and corset so these are perfect for me. Just keep 'em coming!
Me too, Donna! And when I first saw the cover for HOW TO BE A PROPER LADY I loved it that she's the one doing the "bodice ripping". I hope you enjoy Viola.
LOL!! Good point, she feels like my kinda heroine.
As an only child for wayyyy too many years , I did not know how to share. However, now I am a smidge older, and super good at sharing, and saying please and thank you, and waiting my turn..even if I don't always enjoy having to wait my turn ( hee hee ).
LOL, Rebekah. I'm so happy for your- er- development.
I'm from a family of six children, so I always find myself incredibly anxious when something good like french fries or chocolate cake comes to the table. I'm always, always afraid I won't get any! I tell my only-child son this, but he really doesn't get it. Hopefully someday he'll learn what you have. 
I am from the South, so Yes ma'am and yes sir. Yes I still do this. It's a southern thing. I love all of your books, so I am sure I will love this one. It sounds like a really good book.
Thank you, Mary! I hope you enjoy Jin and Viola's story. I loved writing it.
I'm a Yankee, but I learned "ma'am" and "sir" when I went to college down south, and I never lost it. Up north people look at me a little strangely when I speak to them that way (and without a southern accent), but secretly I think they like it.
If you don't have anything to nice, don't say anything. I didn't really follow that when I was younger…. But now that I am older, I find that not saything unkind is actually the right thing to do. I feel better about it afterwards in the long run.
An excellent rule to live by, May. Kudos to you!
Great interview and congrats on the release! Rules… hmm… I do remember my mother telling me often that I needed to sit properly–back straight, legs closed… I do tend to slump a lot still, and I try to sit up straight. As far as sitting with legs close, YES! lol
Hi, Eliza. Thanks so much!
You know, I took a body language course with brilliant Mary Buckham, and the messages we send simply by the positioning of our legs and arms are really astounding. Apparently presenting one's lower torso (standing with legs braced open, or sitting with one ankle atop the other knee) means you're fully confident and unafraid of displaying your most vulnerable organs to others. In short, it means you're the Alpha. So I suppose we can guess what the "lady like" posture of knees together and hands in lap means! I'm afraid it's a posture my Viola hasn't quite mastered.
I learned to say please and thank you and I still use them too. I also learned if you can't say anything nice then I shouldn't say anything at all. I still go by these things. I love you books and and thank you for the give away.
Very nice, Samantha. In fact, Viola has something to say about "please" and "thank you" in the book (she agrees with you!). And thanks for your kind words about my books.
Find something nice to say to everyone. A compliment and a smile can always make someone's day.
Oh, I do agree with you, Cate. The smallest effort can make such a difference in another person's life. That's a notion, in fact, that inspires the heroine of my book coming out in September, HOW A LADY WEDS A ROGUE, no doubt because I believe it just as you.
If you don't have any thing nice to say, then don't say anything.
(from my mother)
Your mother was very wise, Earlene. Thanks for commenting.
That a young lady should be seen and not heard. My husband swears I have social tourettes.
LOL, Gwen. Thanks for the giggle. Oh, wow, I grew up in a family of women who've never ascribed to that rule. Silly, silly rule…
Elbows off the table, napkin on the lap, don't talk with your mouth full. I don't think much about it until you are with someone who doesn't know those rules & it's very off-putting.
That's so true, Diane. And isn't it lovely to dine with people who do follow those rules?
I haven't read you as yet (how did that happen!) but I want to. Treat those as you want to be treated – and, yep, I still do.
The Golden Rule — still the best, isn't it catslady?
My grandmother once told me that whenever you enter a social situation, you should stay quiet and listen for a while before opening your mouth. This might not fall under behavioral rules, but it has served me well.
What excellent advice, Ally! My heroes are generally fabulous at this, and it is certainly to their advantages.
Treat others as you would like to be treated. Yes, I still do that, even though it is not always easy.
Your book is intriguing. In fact, I'd like to read all your books. I love historicals.
Joan
Hi, Joan. It's not always easy to treat others as well as we'd like to be treated, is it? But it's such an excellent rule to live by. It's gotten easier as I've gotten older, I'll admit, perhaps because I've had more life experiences that help me imagine myself in the other person's shoes.
I do hope you'll give my books a try, and let me know how you like them when you do!
Hi Katharine!
Great to see you here and a great interview!
I'm reading How To Be A Proper Lady right now and loving it!!
<3 Jin and Viola!! And I absolutely can't wait for September when we get Wyn's story!!! A country miss eh? Not sure if that squares with who I think his heroine will be but we shall see 
One of the very first rules I learned was that you sit quietly and politely at the dinner table while you eat your meal. You do not make noise and above all else, you do NOT leave the table to run around like a maniac and disrupt the meal. Very basic table manner, but unfortunately, I've been in restaurants where kids don't seem to have learned that rule yet
That is a rule I still follow to this day. So thank you Mom and Dad, lol.
Forgot to add, no need to enter me in the giveaway! Already have a copy of the fab Captured By a Rogue Lord!
Hi, Lisa. I'm so happy you're enjoying Jin and Viola's book! I love it that you're dying to know who Wyn's heroine is. (And now I want to know if your guess has changed from before!) Soon it shall be revealed, I promise.
Do I hear you about children and table behavior! It's just not safe to allow little ones to be running around a restaurant during dinner. My son struggles so hard when we're out with friends and the other kids jump up and run around the restaurant and he knows he mustn't. I'm especially proud of him on those occasions.
I remember my parents always telling me not talk and eat at the same time when I was small. Even though it isn't a rule for manners, I was told when I got older to never supress a kind thought.
I can't wait for you book next week. I love that you have introduced some of the characters in previous books. It makes me want to reread the books.
Ora, I love that: never suppress a kind thought. It's a perfect rule.
I am absolutely loving writing these books, giving minor characters their own love stories and bringing back earlier heroes and heroines to play supporting roles in the new books. HOW TO BE A PROPER LADY really came about as a sequel of sorts to CAPTURED BY A ROGUE LORD, but the story fit so well with the Falcon Club that now it's all connected. I hope you enjoy it.
My great grandma always wanted us girls to have good posture. She even told us that we could walk around with a book on our heads to help train ourselves. We mostly laughed our way through it, but I have had many people comment on my good posture. So maybe Great Grandma knew a thing or two =)
LOL, Lexi. It sounds like Great Grandma was very wise, indeed. You know I can't help thinking of Marcia Brady walking around with the book on her head, though I don't know what came of that in later episodes.
(Are you of the Brady Bunch generation? For good or ill, it pops up in my memory quite often!)
A rule that was drilled into me was to always say, "thank you," and I still do it.
Wonderful rule, Robin. Gratitude is a way of looking at the world, isn't it?
Hi… Katharine
be good to everyone, give a smile even we sad and angry
Well I'm from the south so Respect your elders, and lots of yes ma'ams and no ma'ams….love the books!!
I'm from the South, so was taught to say m'aam and sir. Yes, I still follow that rule.
Hi Katharine , when I was a kid my parents taught me to hand things or to give things with right hand, I still follow this rule till today
I have a mentor who told me what I think about myself matter, what everybody think about you doesn't.
Be polite to everywhere. I still follow it.