SquawkRadio

Hi there!  I’m Suzanne Enoch, and I’m a romance author.  Before I begin rambling, thanks to the Squawk gals for inviting me to visit, and for letting me recover from my turkey-dinner induced coma before I had to show up.

Like Christina and Connie and Lisa, I’ve branched out in my writing efforts, moving from strictly Historical Romances to both those and Contemporary Romances.  It kind of happened by accident; working full time and the Historicals pretty much filled up my schedule.  But then, on a wondrous day now known as Freedom Day among my friends and family members, I quit my day job.  And then the next day I remembered that I’d just turned in the final book of my present contract, making me doubly unemployed.

Anyway, FLIRTING WITH DANGER emerged as a lark, a writing effort that was born out of having no deadlines and nowhere to be at eight o’clock in the morning.  As I wrote the story of the meeting and romance of Samantha Jellicoe, high-class cat burglar, and Rick Addison, British billionaire and art collector, I thought their relationship was complex enough that it would stand up for more than one book.  Luckily my publisher agreed after they read FLIRTING, and I followed that one up with DON’T LOOK DOWN, and now BILLIONAIRES PREFER BLONDES.

In BILLIONAIRES, Sam starts out thinking that everything’s coming along well, and that despite her occasional urges to break into places, she’s coping well with Rick and his high-profile lifestyle.  And of course the second you relax is the second that everything goes wrong.  Within 24 hours Rick’s brand new painting goes missing, she spies someone who looks exactly like her dead father (the cat burglar who taught her everything she knows), and she ends up arrested for the theft of the painting.  I can’t tell you anything else without giving things away, except to say that the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art could probably use some fresh paint by the end of the story.

In 2007, Samantha and Rick will make two further appearances on bookshelves.  First up will be a TWICE THE TEMPTATION in August.  It’s actually two complete stories in one book – the first one being a Historical Romance featuring the meeting of two of Rick’s ancestors and a diamond that may or may not be cursed.  The second story occurs as Sam finds this same diamond in the course of providing security for a traveling gemstone exhibit.  Much mayhem follows as she tries to prove to Rick that the diamond is indeed cursed while he tries just as hard to convince her that it’s not.

In September, Sam and Rick return in a full-length story involving Sam trying to track down some thousand-year-old Japanese Samurai swords and armor that went missing from a museum, while Rick goes shopping for something sparkly in a circular setting.  Could it be an engagement ring?  We don’t have a title yet, but at the moment I’m referring to it as HOLY COW, I HOPE I MAKE MY DEADLINE.

In the meantime I’ll be finishing up my Historical series featuring the Griffin family, with Sebastian, the Duke of Melbourne’s story, SINS OF A DUKE, coming out in June.  If my brain hasn’t exploded by the time all of this is finished, I’ll continue in both genres.

So how about you?  Are you willing to follow your favorite historical author into contemporary and even into a series that incorporates both genres?  What’s more important to you as a reader--the author’s voice or the time period in which her story is written?