Marketing for Romance Writers Magazine May, 2020 Volume # 3, Issue # 5 | Page 5

ALANA LORENS (Cont.)
INTERVIEW
MFRW:
AL:
Why did you decide to write romance novels?
Not because of any great romance in my own life,
that’s for sure! I guess I grew up reading gothic ro-
mance—Victoria Holt, Jane Aiken Hodge, Dorothy
Eden and the like. I enjoyed the suspense line in
these stories, the danger hanging just overhead.
Most of my books have the same; much more about
having a strong danger/mystery element than just
having a series of sexual encounters.
AL:
MFRW:
AL:
MFRW:
AL:
MFRW:
AL:
How much of your personality and life experiences are in
your writing?
A lot. I’ve always been a little prickly and standoff-
ish because of family history and some trust issues.
My heroines tend to be the same way—to the point
where in first draft a lot of readers say they aren’t
sure if they like these ladies. Not that there’s any-
thing wrong with being a sweet, cuddly, gentle-
tempered woman, mind you. It’s just not my way,
and so it becomes not theirs as well. I’ve been mar-
ried multiple times and had several families, so I
know about motherhood, marriage and divorce. I
also practiced family law for thirty years, so I got
extra lessons in human tragedy. The area I focused
on most was domestic violence situations, working
with local women’s shelters to make sure their cli-
ents had access to free/low cost legal services.
That’s why both Suzanne Taylor in Conviction of
the Heart and Inessa Regan in Second Chances are
family law attorneys who help these victims.
When did you first think about writing and what
prompted you to submit your first ms? What genre is it?
My first piece of writing was in third grade. I wrote
this gory, step by step account of how my cat killed
and ate a rabbit. The principal read it to
the whole school. I wrote my first novel
at fourteen—a horrible, horrible gothic
time travel romance about a woman who
hits her head here and travels back to be
a governess to some colonial family. I
had the nerve to send it off to Doubleday
of all places. I actually got a personal
letter from an editor turning it down, but
very encouraging about my future work.
1970 was a different era—I can’t imagine
getting the same courtesy today.
MFRW: A biography has been written
5
about you. What do
you think the title
would be in six words
or less?
What The ^$%#$
Was She Thinking?
Tell us about the
scariest thing that ever
happened to you.
In the early
1980s, my then-
husband knew a
landowner outside of Florida City, Florida, a tiny
town way down just before the Keys. This man wor-
ried about theft, and my ex was a part-time police
officer, so he rented the place to us and our four
kids.
My ex and his cop friend came out to put up
some security lighting before we officially moved in.
I was there, along with the cop’s wife, just kind of
hanging out, when the gunshots started.
She and I ran into the house, while the guys
yelled and ran around the side of the house, return-
ing fire. Then a couple of shots came through the
windows into the house, and she ran out, screaming
and jumped in her truck and drove off. I slipped out
the door and hid next to a concrete wall as the “pop
pop” of traded shots continued off behind the
house. I had a gun in hand, and I was shaking and
nervous. Then the shots stopped.
I strained to hear what was going on, but there
was nothing. Then suddenly footsteps came run-
ning up to the side of the porch. With great relief, it
was my ex and his friend, and I didn’t shoot them
by mistake.
That wasn’t the last
time we dealt with intrud-
ers, but it was definitely the
scariest.