Interview with Donna Thorland

 From now until the end of the month, enter the March Mayhem contest sponsored by Joanne Renaud, Kat Laurange, Donna Thorland, Lynne Connelly and Kat Parrish. Details and entry form here.

Author Donna Thorland earned an MFA in film production from the USC School of Cinematic Arts, has been a Disney/ABC Television Writing Fellow and a WGA Writer's Access Project Honoree, and has written for the TV shows Cupid and Tron: Uprising. The director of several award-winning short films, her most recent project aired on WNET Channel 13. Her fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. Her Revolutionary War novels are published by Penguin NAL and she writers urban fantasy for Pocket under the name D.L. McDermott. Donna is married with two cats and splits her time between Salem and Los Angeles.

Her latest novel, the Dutch Girl, is available here and in bookstores natiowide. It is part of her "Renegades of the American Revolution" series of historical fiction.

You have a degree in classics and art history. Why the American Revolutionary period rather than ancient Greece or Rome?

I wanted to write swashbucklers and it seemed to me that the American Revolution was crying out for stories like that, particularly with a female protagonist.

If you could live during any era in any place, where would it be, and what is it about that time/place that attracts you?

Enter and Win!! Five Authors, Fifteen Days, Lots of Prizes

March Mayhem: Five Writers, Fifteen Days, A Whole Lot of Prizes!!!

Enter to win our swag basket including some incredible and unique prizes from five amazing authors, including Donna Thorland, Lynne Connolly, Kat Parrish (aka Katherine Tomlinson), Joanne Renaud and Kat Laurange!

From AAR-nominated author Donna Thorland, we bring you two (2) autographed trade paperbacks of The Dutch Girl and Mistress Firebrand, the latest books in her acclaimed Renegades of the Revolution series!

From bestselling author Lynne Connolly, we bring you one (1) ebook copy of her latest Georgian historical romance, Dilemma in Yellow Silk, and the one-of-a-kind chance to be a character in her next contemporary romance.

Interview with author/artist Joanne Renaud

From now until the end of the month, enter the March Mayhem contest sponsored by Joanne Renaud, Kat Laurange, Donna Thorland, Lynne Connelly and Kat Parrish. Details and entry form here.

And now, on to the interview with Joanne Renaud!

Let’s talk about Doors, your latest novel, a time-travel romance.

Do you listen to music as you write and if so, what was in your playlist for this book?

Why yes, I listened to a great deal of music—Doors is partially about people bonding through music, even if they don’t always listen to the same thing. Orne, the hero of Doors, is an ex-raver who loves electronica, both classic and current (including seminal acts like Phuture and Orbital), and Jackie is an ex-punk who loves Rage Against the Machine.  You can listen to the playlist here—there are many songs that I referred to throughout the book, including Wall of Voodoo’s “Mexican Radio,” and Phuture’s “Acid Trax.”

Did you watch any television shows or movies to transport you to the period? Any other resources you used?

Well, Doors isn’t really a time travel book where people travel to another period of history—it’s more about how parallel timelines form as a result of time travel.  It’s more along the lines of Sliding Doors or Lathe of Heaven. (Lathe and Ursula LeGuin was a HUGE influence on this book.) It’s very much in the multiverse theory of time travel. It’s set in the present day. (Well, 2010.)

Your first book, A Question of Time, was also a time-travel romance, but Doors is not a direct sequel. Will there be a third time-travel book to “round out” the series?

Yup! There’s going to be a third book, set in 1966—it’s called Out of Time.  It gets into the origin event of what causes the ‘time bubble’ phenomenon in the first place, plus Cold War spying shenanigans and mod culture and music and lots of awesome swinging ‘60s stuff. It’s set in New York, again, but it’s such a fascinating city to me.