ELOISA JAMES: THE SURE THING

Jayne, here, to introduce ELOISA JAMES, New York Times bestselling author of sparkling historical romance to tell us about her new book, WHEN THE DUKE RETURNS. If you like your historicals laced with scandal, humor, great sex and terrific dialogue — yes, she does it all and brilliantly — you're going to love Eloisa James.

As a special bonus, Eloisa will be giving away five copies of books from her The Desperate Duchesses series to five lucky people who post comments to this blog. Winners will be announced Tuesday afternoon, Nov. 25 here at RWQ.

Now, please welcome ELOISA JAMES:

~ THE SURE THING ~

Remember that classic John Cusack movie, The Sure Thing? Gibson is a virgin who sets off across the country hoping for a teenage male’s Holy Grail: an easy blonde in a bikini.

We romance writers deal with Sure Things all the time. In the course of writing seventeen historical romances, I've created an array of female virgins; unlike Gib, my heroines actually do end up with a female version of the Holy Grail— i.e., a muscled duke. Not to be sarcastic, but at this point I could write a virgin’s first sex scene in my sleep. Just choose your preference:

a) Door Number One: Ultra sexy and wouldn't you know it, she feels nothing more than a tiny pinch and follows that up with three loud and enjoyable orgasms?

b) Door Number Two: Ultra shy and prone to saying things like “That will never fit!” while trying to wrap her delicate fingers around something that is apparently bigger than a breadbox. Luckily it all fits and she achieves three quieter orgasms.

c) Door Number Three: Ultra curious but (alas) destined for a not-all-that-much-fun first time. This is the door my heroines generally hide behind, simply because I think it’s a lot more realistic, as well as more interesting.

Sometimes if I'm in a good mood, my heroine gets one orgasm—but I promise she makes up for anything she misses later on (*g*).

The heroine of When the Duke Returns, Isidore, is definitely more curious than shy. Married by proxy as a young teen, she’s now twenty-six and more than ready to lose her pesky virginity, if she could just coax her husband back from the wilderness:

“I'm tired of sleeping alone. If Cosway turns out to be a horrible sort of man with whom I don't want to spend time, well, then I might leave him and return to Italy. But at least I won't have this talismanic virginity any longer. And I might have a child.”

So far so good: her husband, the Duke of Cosway, is about to show up and he’s definitely the male counterpart to a blonde-in-a-bikini. Since Isidore's mother wasn't around to give her “the” talk, I had a lot of fun with her reaction to the (ahem) aftermath of love-making.

But to get back to the classic movie, what about the Gibsons of the virgin world? Male virgins aren't so easy to include in a romance novel. Just check out this picture of Cusack all those years ago. He’s young and naïve. Not sexy. I can certainly see why he needed a Sure Thing.

It’s my firmest belief that a writer – whether of romance or literary fiction – needs to keep challenging herself. I might joke about Doors One, Two and Three, but the day I find myself phoning it in is the day I retire. So how to raise the stakes?

When you have one Sure Thing – why not TWO? Here’s the opening of Chapter One of When the Duke Returns, which just published:

“He’s a virgin.”
“What!”
“He’s a virgin and –“
“Your husband is a virgin?”
“And he won't bed me.”

So how’s that for turning a Sure Thing into double-the-fun?

One of my favorite male-virgin romances is an older book, Katherine Kingsley's No Sweeter Heaven. What do you think the best male virgin romance out there is?

And can you think of the Three Doors for male virgins? What kind of man ends up a virgin – and what can an author do to avoid having a hero with the sex appeal of a very young Cusack?