20 Questions -- Getting to Know Kate Pearce

In our 20 Questions feature various Knight Agency authors answer the same set of questions you see below. Learn their go-to sources for information on writing and publishing, how they like their coffee, what they did when they got "The Call," and much more. Yeah, it's kind of like the email forwards you keep getting from your BFF, but better.

Today, Kate Pearce, contributing author to the LORDS OF PASSION  anthology (Nov 2010) and author of SIMPLY FORBIDDEN (Jan 2010), the sixth House of Pleasure book, is center stage.

1. Where are you at this exact moment?
Sitting at my desk drinking my tea.

2. Are you a “seat of your pants” writer or do map out the story like a meticulous cartographer?
Pantster and proud of it.

3. What one item is a must have or what ritual do you absolutely have to perform in order to get your writing mojo going?

I get a handful of sour jellybellys and eat them in reverse favorite color order starting with yellow and ending with red.

4. If you were stranded on a deserted island with only one book to entertain you, what would you want it to be?
One book? Could that book be my iPad or is that cheating? Okay, I’d take something by Dorothy Dunnett.

5. What is the first thing you did after receiving “The Call” from your agent?

Closed dropped jaw, did a little dance around my chair and squealed and then went to tell my husband.

6. Do you have an old manuscripts gathering dust that you think should still be published, or, in retrospect, did they turn out to just be a practice run?

I have a few-about 5 I think. A couple of them are terrible but a couple have interesting possibilities but would need a lot of work.

7. Are you a member of a critique group?

Yes, we call ourselves the Hot Writer Babes although we are neither hot nor babes.

8. If you were a literary character, who would you be?
Elizabeth Bennett of course :-)

9. Do you prefer reading a physical book or downloading it on your Kindle/Nook/Sony Reader/insert name of any of the other myriad e-readers?
I used to think that I would always want the physical book but since getting an iPad and downloading all the book apps onto it, kindle nook, etc, etc I have seen the light and I’ve started buying the digital versions of books instead.

10. What is your favorite go-to blog or website for writing advice?
Romance Divas is awesome.

11. What is your favorite go-to blog or website for industry happenings?
Probably Dear Author.

12. What’s the strangest place or incident that’s inspired one of your characters or storylines?
Well I remember a discussion on a Regency loop about female fears of being abducted by Barbary pirates and put into harems and I wondered what it would be like if those abducted were men rather than women and what the repercussions of serving in a Turkish brothel might be for two rescued Regency gentlemen. And then I started writing the Simply series.

13. Rollercoaster rides: Let’s get in line or I’d rather keep my feet on the ground while eating a delicious corn dog? (I know, random right?)
Totally adore them and scream like a banshee.

14. What was the hardest lesson that you had to learn about publishing as a newbie?
That it’s like the above, a rollercoaster ride, and that all you can do is get a great team around you and write the best book you can and keep writing.

15. Coffee: keep it simple (black); liven it up a little (at least cream and/or sugar); everything but the kitchen sink (caramel, raspberry, mocha java latte with extra whip and a few of those dark chocolate curls on top...); I’ll pass (yuck, coffee tastes like cigarettes).
You can take a girl out of the UK, but you can’t take away her love/need for 8 cups of tea a day.

16. Animal lover or is keeping a goldfish alive too much to ask?
I have a cat called George and a daft Cavalier King Charles Spaniel called Hunter. I love them immensely.

17. Which one of your characters would you most like to meet in person?

That’s a hard question because I’d like to meet them all, but probably Valentin Sokorvsky from SIMPLY SEXUAL because he still fascinates me.

18. What is your current release about?

I’m in an anthology with two awesome authors. Virginia Henley and Maggie Robinson for Kensington Brava called LORDS OF PASSION. My novella is called “How to Seduce a Wife,” and it concerns a newly married couple who are at odds with each other in the bedroom. My hero, Nicholas, has to find a way to convince his shy wife that he can live up to the heroes in her gothic romance novels. It was fun to write. :-)

19. What projects do you have on the horizon?
BLOOD OF THE ROSE, my second paranormal historical set in Tudor England comes out in February 2011 from Signet Eclipse and, also in Feb, the sixth installment of the House of Pleasure series SIMPLY FORBIDDEN from Kensington Aphrodisia.

20. Where is the best place for readers to find out more about you (insert links to website, blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc.)
http://www.katepearce.com
Twitter- kate4queen
Facebook- http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kate-Pearces-Fan-Page/220636502580