Author Interview with Jennifer Mueller

Not only did I enjoy Jennifer Mueller's books, I also enjoyed interviewing her. She gives interesting answers, just as she writes interesting books. Being a fan of historical stories I can say that Jennifer Mueller definitely knows how to write them. My favorite one is "History Lessons" . But "Till Death Do Us Part" and "Once Upon a Spy" are also highly recommended. I'm looking forward to read more of her work in the future!

- interviewed by Annick

I found History Lessons to be a very special book, where did you get the idea from to write it?
Last year several authors, me included, tried to get together an anthology of Scottish stories, due to time commitments it didn't work out but I already had the 1714 section written. Since it is the same castle as Once Upon a Spy I thought maybe I'd make my own trilogy and do three eras of the castle, but when the 1328 section turned out so much shorter I had the idea of a modern day person finding out about the castle history and Ayda was born. When she was just a person learning about it I never thought it was right and then I realized she had to have her own love to add to the history.

Do you believe in ghosts and would you like to meet one (a nice one of course)?

No not really, but what Scottish castle would be complete without a ghost and a dungeon. Actually in this case, the castle ghost was left over from a story I wrote years ago, but it seemed so dark i had gotten rid of it, when i wrote Once Upon a Spy though. I took the history to give my ghost more than just a sideline role and of course when History Lessons followed the history of the castle and the ghost came along for the ride.

Do you like Scotland or is it just coincidence that the story is situated mostly in a Scottish Castle?

I visited Scotland in 1999 and loved it. There is so much more that I could see still that I missed the first time. I have stories throughout history and I was looking at my list and realized I didn't have something about World War 2. If a spy is going to wash up it wouldn't make sense if they washed up in a heavily populated area, one phone call and it was all over. But the very north of Scotland well there you can have some fun. Ever since then Am Binnean kept giving me flashes of her 800 year history that just begged to be written and History Lessons was the result.

Is there another book coming? And maybe, could you tell me a bit more about it?

There are several actually, you can visit Ancient Greece in The Mountain Top, out with Midnight Showcase, modern day Tahiti with Finest Island in the World, out from Venus Press. Those are both just out.

The Angel from Ballyferriter takes you to modern day Ireland. It just went in for edits at Venus Press. One of my favorite stories is Samburu Hills, I wrote it when I was in Kenya and it pulls in views from my house while I lived there. It will be out with Chippewa Publishing November/December. There's Far from Home that takes place in Byzantium (modern day Istanbul) it will be out from Venus Press but I don't know the date yet. Oh yeah and then next year I have the start of a series with Triskelion. Mine Death starts the story of a woman who inherits a large ranch in Montana after her father dies.

At this moment I am working on a regency called Rose among the Heather about a woman named Rose who gets caught in her brother's deeds while he is fighting Napoleon's forces.

Are there any writers that you like, is there someone that you take or took as an example?
I usually read mysteries and C.L Grace is a favorite, but as for one i have taken as inspiration. Agatha Christie, James Buchan. I read a lot of classics when I was in Kenya and I think they show in the stories I wrote while I was there.

You write historicals. Have you always been interested in the past?
History and Travel always and I think it shows in my books and I carried that through to my website. I like to think about it as one big passport to the world. Visit www.jennifermuellerbooks.com to see where you can travel.

If you could chose a century from the past where you could spent some time, what would you chose?
So many people ask me that and truthfully I can't narrow it down to one. I travel in my head writing a story as much as readers do reading it so I have some 40 times and lands that I've visited on paper. I would love to find out if I got some ancient civilization right.

Thank you for your time Jennifer Mueller!