Today, Austenesque Reviews is very excited and honored to welcome historical romance author Janet Mullany. Janet, it is a pleasure to have answer my questions about your writing, Jane Austen, and your new novel, Jane and the Damned.

Tell us a little about yourself and what inspired you to start writing. Did you always envision yourself becoming an author?

Not really. I wrote stories when I was a kid but I think everyone does. I attribute my writing to menopause, when apparently I searched for another form of reproduction. After having read a lot and very widely and having written a lot of material for various jobs, I thought “I could write fiction,” and I did.

When and where did you discover Jane Austen? Do you have a favorite Jane Austen novel or character?

I more or less avoided Austen during school and college but started reading her when I lived in Bath and discovered I could trace Anne and Wentworth’s steps through the streets. That was really thrilling. I reread the novels fairly often; I find they answer to your mood or situation, and there’s always something new to discover. My favorite Austen character is Henry Tilney—he is so sexy and flirty.

How did you come up with the idea for Jane and the Damned?

My editor at HarperCollins asked me to consider something paranormal with Austen, so, with an advance being dangled in front of me, I became inspired. I visited England and talked it over with my brother who came up with the brilliant titles Blood Bath and Austen Powers, and I took the wildest idea I could and ran with it. I realized that if I was going to write about Jane and vampires she’d have to become one, which initially I found rather scary.

Tell us a little about the “vampire world” in Jane and the Damned. What traditional vampire lore should readers expect to see? What vampire-isms did you create?

Being essentially a lazy person I made most of it up. I wanted vampires that were gorgeous, sexy, and desired, not monsters people were afraid of. I used the trope that being bitten by a vampire gives intensive sexual pleasure. They have great physical powers and can read minds. They can go out in daylight but since they’re busy at night they sleep late. But they’re Georgian vampires. There’s a lot of emphasis on manners, behavior, and correctness and they have special terms, e.g. “dining” for feeding, “Bearleader” for a vampire mentor.

What were some of the pleasures and challenges of writing a novel about Jane Austen and her family?

It scared me half to death! Inevitably my writing is compared to Austen’s, and of course I come up lacking, and I was intimidated by the vast amount of scholarly research that’s been done on her extended family. Yet the more I find out about Austen, the more enigmatic she becomes.

We meet some historical figures in your novels, Prince George and George Brummell. Prince George was a very amusing yet, at times, exasperating character! What motivated you to include him in your novel?

Without giving away too many plot details, I wanted Jane to have a friend who is in the same situation as she is—Damned, but still struggling with the issues of remaining human and knowing that they might take the cure for vampirism and return to being mortal again. She and George have a lot in common, including an interest in music and literature, the pleasure of which is denied them as vampires. He also asks her, when they part, to dedicate a book to him, which Jane eventually did—Emma.

I greatly enjoyed how your characters were well-defined and complex. Some of them resemble characters from Jane Austen’s novels, don’t they? What are some the character parallels that can be found in your novel?

I thought it was interesting in your review that you compared Luke, Jane’s Bearleader, to Knightley, who is a character I really don’t like. I was thinking of Henry Tilney, whereas William, Jane’s Creator with whom she has a very uneasy relationship, is most like Darcy. The entire scene where she is created has elements of the Netherfield assembly, and I think I took mostly scenes rather than characters.

Which character was your favorite to write for? Which character was the most challenging to write for? Which character would you invite over for dinner?

I loved writing George, the Prince of Wales, and Luke, and I had a lot of fun with minor characters like Mr. Thomas the apothecary. Jane herself was problematic for me—I was much more comfortable with Jane the vampire than Jane the writer. I would definitely invite Luke over to dine. I would happily be the main course.

Tell us about your other new release coming out this month, Bespelling Jane Austen. In this anthology you contributed a novella titled Little to Hex Her. What is it about? What was your experience like working on this project?

It was a lot of fun, the first contemporary I’ve written. I really enjoyed finding modern parallels for episodes in the book; for instance, the portrait of Harriet is a picture taken on a cell phone and Jane Fairfax’s mystery gift is a car. And it was so refreshing to have a plot provided for me. The four of us (Mary Balogh, Susan Krinard, who came up with the concept, and Colleen Gleason) are very different writers but we all love Austen and I think that’s what makes this anthology successful.

What is next for you? Will you be writing any more stories about Jane Austen and The Damned in the future?

Yes, I’m writing the second book, set in Chawton in 1810, when Jane is writing seriously.

Thank you for having me. It’s an honor.