Hello Loves! I am so excited to share this post with you. At Book Lover’s Con, I had the absolute honor and privilege of interviewing Tessa Dare. She is a forever favorite of mine.

Tomorrow, Friday, my interview with her goes live on my YouTube channel. Until then, enjoy some quotes from my interview with Tessa Dare.

When discussing the first book in the Spindle Cove series, “Well, it is kind of like romance isn’t it? This is our space for the most part. We have some men within our ranks and we love them. But for the most part it is a female space. It is not as if there is ‘no boys allowed,’ but they have to respect what is going on here. You can’t come in here and try and masculinize romance…The reason that most of us love romance is because it honors, at least romance that has romance in it, of course we have a lot of gay male romance, which obviously doesn’t have women in it, but a lot of the romance that features women, it honors what our feelings are, and what our values and priorities are. Not that they are the same for every woman, but that is why there is not the same romance for every woman. We have our choice within the genre and a lot of voices, and that’s a great thing. Spindle Cove is a little bit like that I think.”

“This is the Angela.”

“I am a pepper. In that I drink a lot of Dr. Pepper.”

“I really feel like Minerva and Colin from A Week to be Wicked, were as a couple my favorite possibly to write together.”

Pointing to A Week to be Wicked book, “This is also one of my favorite dedications that I’ve written in a book because it is dedicated to all the girls who walk and read at the same time, which I do and have done all my life.”  

“I identify with Emma as a heroine in a lot of ways.”  

“If you don’t put Mansfield Park at the bottom, I’m not sure we can be friends.”

“One letter? Really?”

“You can’t just Google somebody. Is he really the Duke of such and such? (fakes typing into Google) Oh, my gosh, it is the man who blackmailed my cousin. I hate that guy. Why is he trying to trick me into believing that he is a wealthy American spy and also a Duke?”

“You imprint like a little baby chick. You imprint on the first Darcy that you watch.”

“I have Jane tattooed on my wrist in her handwriting like a teenager who got her arm signed at a concert and had it tattooed on.”

“She is my sort of mad scientist/inventor/baker. She also bakes biscuits and cookies all the time. She’s obviously the ideal woman for any hero. Why is she still on the market?”

“There has always been brilliant women.”

“Women have always had some challenges and they have always risen to them.” 

“It wasn’t until I started writing heroines who were kind of awkward and insecure in some ways that I really kind of hit my stride.”

“If the book gets out, you did it the right way. That’s what I think. It is like childbirth. Did the baby come out? Then, you did it the right way. Forget about all these birthing plans. You just have to roll with what life gives you and what your baby’s plans are because they have their own birthing plan that might not jive with yours. If it comes out, you did it right.”  

“If you can’t laugh at yourself, I don’t trust you.”

“My idea of true love is two people sitting in a room and not talking to each other, but loving each other’s company.”

“Writers spend a lot of time thinking so, like, there all those thinky thoughts up there.”

“I think if you write a small town it needs to be weird AF.”   

(After I said I appreciate her quirky characters)

“That is for me one of the most rewarding things about writing romance is that I get to put (like) my quirky, weird, insecure self, geeky interests, all these things, into my books and people like them.”

Be sure to watch Tessa’s entire interview with me over on my YouTube channel to hear the quotes from the amazing woman herself.

Thank you for reading + a HUGE thank you to Tessa!