Welcome to our New Faces column, where we are delighted to introduce debut romance authors to our readers. This time we're visiting with Robyn DeHart, whose first book is Courting Claudia, an Avon release.

Welcome, Robyn! Tell us about yourself.

First of all, thank you for inviting me to be a New Face at The Romance Reader. I was born and raised in central Texas, in between Austin and San Antonio and I lived in that same area up until recently when my husband and I moved to southeast Tennessee. I'm the baby of the family so I'm incredibly charming (mostly just spoiled) which is a constant source of irritation for my older sister. I have a degree in Sociology which makes me qualified to do everything and nothing all at the same time. Ahhh...the joys of a liberal arts degree. I once saw this t-shirt that said in big letters, "I have a Liberal Arts degree!" and then under it in tiny print, "would you like fries with that?" Okay, minor diversion, but I thought it was funny. Yes, so a degree in Sociology which I very much loved, I focused my studies on deviant behavior which is so interesting. Perhaps someday I'll make use of this knowledge and write a romantic suspense. What else....oh, I'm a newlywed; we only just married in March. He's a true joy and so supportive. A real-life hero. We have two spoiled cats and I’m still unpacking – how did we actually fit all of this into a 2 bedroom apartment? But I’m enjoying it here and waiting for the explosion of color promised to me in a real Tennessee fall.

Are you coming to romance writing from another job?

( When we lived in Texas, I worked at my university alma-mater in one of the administration offices. I've done a myriad of jobs, computer training, staffing recruiter, administrative assistant, etc. But now I get to write full-time and I'm loving it.

What led you to write romance?

The easy answer is because it's what I read. The longer answer....well, I've always wanted to be a writer. When I was a little girl, I wrote stories and poems and all kinds of junk (and I do mean junk). I originally thought I wanted to write children's stories, but then in high school, I read Kathleen E. Woodiwiss's "A Rose in Winter" and I just felt so drawn to it. After I'd finished the book, I knew instinctively that romance was where I belonged as a writer. My parents were very supportive and even paid for me to attend some writing camps and conferences. But it wasn't until after I graduated from college though that my real journey began.

I think primarily though it is simply that I’m drawn to the basics of the genre. I love happy endings. And I love watching characters grown and change. That’s a biggie for me. It’s not just the romance, it’s seeing the heroine come into her own and tackle her demons so she can be with her hero, and vice versa. I love that romance novels stand for optimism, not in a hokey way, but in a hard-working sort of way. We all know that real-life romance takes significant work. It’s the same in our books, only they do most of the work before they get married, whereas most of our work happens afterwards. J It’s just a nice reminder to me that love endures and is extremely powerful. And that while people can be incredibly weak, they can climb out of virtually anything and survive and persevere and win. That’s just cool.

Tell us about your road to publication.

It was a long road for me, not as long as some, but longer than a lot. It took me 2 years to write my first book, partly because it really takes a while to make writing a priority once you realize that the process is not nearly as fun as you first anticipated, and partly because I had no idea what I was doing. The first book is the easiest and hardest all at the same time. It's a strange paradox. It's easy because you don't know what you're doing so writing sloppy and breaking the "rules" is foreign to you. But it's hard because of the simple fact that just because you've been a reader all your life doesn't mean that you instinctively know how to put a story together. I'm one of those people who likes to do things the "right" way, so after this mess of a book was finished I went on a lengthy quest to master the craft of writing. This entailed reading as many craft books as I could get my hands on and listening to countless writing workshops on tape. I made notes, I tried worksheets, diagrams, charts, everything. I was determined to make the process as painless as possible and in the end come out with a great book.

Well, I still struggle with some of that. I'm happy to report that I've finally come to terms with my writing process and while it hasn't made the whole thing painless, I'm not constantly searching for the answer or the magic key. It took me 5 books and 7 years to make that first sale and it was worth the wait. I collected quite a few rejections in those years, mostly from agents because that was the route I thought I needed to go with single-titles. But with Courting Claudia, I decided to send it to some editors (one in particular requested a partial at the RWA Conference) and that led to my sale and my getting an agent.

I never really did consistently well in contests. I placed in a few, but for the most part didn’t. It seemed that people either loved my stuff or hated it. My characters tend to be a little different and they just don’t work for some people. On the other hand, the judges who scored me high always commented on the strength of the characters. And so far that has remained true through reviews and fan mail.

On thing I’d add in case there are aspiring authors out there. Know that a journey to publication is as unique and personal as your courtship with your husband. So don’t expect to find the “key” by copying someone else’s path. Embrace your own and enjoy your journey and in the process I bet you’ll come to know yourself in a way you never imagined.

What kind of research was involved for your first book?

When I first started plotting Courting Claudia, I intended the hero to be a stock broker. I started researching the exchange in the nineteenth century in London and was bored out of my mind. So I scrapped that idea and searched for a new career for him and eventually landed on the Illustrated London News which I fictionalized for my book. I actually found a bound set of these papers from 1856 on eBay and bid and won, so I used that a lot in my research. It was great to be able to hold the paper and see what it was like. Granted my copy is almost 10 years after the year in which my book is set, but it still was quite helpful. The rest of the information for the newspaper I found on-line and in books. It’s a pretty well-known newspaper, so information was easy to come across.

A friend of mine discovered my political scandal, which did actually happen, but at a slightly different time. I embellished it a bit, but the crime itself of embezzling from the patent office did occur.

I’d been writing in the Victorian era before this book, so the time period was in my head. I had to do specifics on dress and the like, but I have a library full of research books to help out with those sorts of details.

Tell us about your debut book.

Why is it easier to write a 95,000 word book than a short paragraph describing it? Let’s see, I wanted to write about a heroine who needed to marry, not an unusual concept for historicals, but at the time it was an unusual concept for me as a writer. I also wanted to tackle the issue of body image. All of this collided in Claudia, the heroine for Courting Claudia. She’s a naïve and good-hearted woman who has listened to her father for far too long and is wounded by the way she sees herself. She’s plump and shy while her best friend is beautiful and bold and Claudia is convinced there’s only one man in London who will marry her. Enter sexy-as-hell Derrick Middleton who teaches Claudia that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes, and he does so in some incredibly sensuous ways.

That’s probably not a brilliant description, but you can read an actual excerpt on my webpage, www.robyndehart.com.

Who are your influences as a writer?

My top two are probably Teresa Medeiros and Amanda Quick. These women’s books were instrumental in my reading life which in turn affected my writing life. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to emulate them, quite the contrary, I wanted to write my books the way I would write them, but I wanted my stories to make people feel as I had felt reading their books. I love how TM can do anything. She’s written in practically every time period and has even done paranormals and she can do no wrong. The settings are different, but the feel is very much the same. You know a TM book when you get your hands on one. She’s a master at human emotion and brings her readers through a myriad of those emotions in every book. That’s skill. AQ, on the other hand is so clever. Her books all have the same tone, the same type of plots, and some might complain that it’s too repetitive, but it’s classic to me. I, in particular, love her heroes. They’re unique, funny, intelligent, and sexy, yet I would not classify them as true Alpha males. I love her wit and her characters.

So many others have influenced me, Pamela Morsi, Madeline Hunter, Suzanne Enoch, Lisa Kleypas, Stephanie Bond, Suzanne Brockmann, and the list could go on for days. Suffice it to say that romance writers are the most giving writers in the business and I’ve learned from all of them.

What does your family think of having a published romance author in their midst?

My entire family is incredibly supportive. My parents, my siblings, my in-laws and especially my husband. Everyone is so proud. My dad bought a ton of copies when it first came out and had me sign them all and then he gave them out at his work and mailed them to his cousins out of state. My in-laws have made sure it’s stocked in all the bookstores around them and my sister passed out bookmarks all over her hometown. My husband who is a college professor tells all his classes that he’s married to a romance novelist.

Tell us about plans for future books.

Up next for me is an exciting new series, my Ladies’ Amateur Sleuth Society. It’s about four friends who do their best to solve any crime they can get a whiff of, including an illusive jewel-thief. The first in the series, A Study in Scandal, tells the story of Amelia Watersfield, an adventure-seeking lady who is rather smitten with Sherlock Holmes and in serious danger of losing her heart when her fictional hero enters her life in the form of Inspector Colin Brindley. Look for it in bookstores in March 2006. I’m contracted for two other books in the series, but do not have release dates as of yet.

How can readers get in touch with you?

The best way to is to e-mail me at robyn@robyndehart.com. They can also reach me at my webpage www.robyndehart.com and sign up for my newsletter or enter my contest while there. If they prefer conventional methods of communication, I can be reached by snail mail at: Robyn DeHart, PO Box 4354, Cleveland, TN 37320-4354.

Robyn, thank yo for joining us, and best of luck! Readers, we have a review of CourtincgClaudia on our Historical page.

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