Around the Fire with Historical Romance Author Judy Lynn Ichkhanian.

An Author and Book Blog, Around the Fire is thrilled to bring you exciting authors and books to help you find your next favorite read.

Welcome to my fire Judy. I'm so glad you could join me. Can I offer you a beverage?
I’m all about tart since I’m always dieting and trying to avoid sugar. I’m either sipping lemon water or unsweetened iced-tea with lemon. To my secret shame, I am obsessed with cola. I try not to indulge though, as one glass can pack on a hundred pounds overnight, and I’m vain.

I hear you. I have a favorite mixup. I take orange sugar free drink and mix it half and half with AHA pineapple mango seltzer. It's only a bit sweet  and refreshing. I'll make you one and a bring you a lemon water too. While I'm at it, please share with others who you are other than your bio.
As I approach sixty, I’m still trying to find that out. In most ways, I’m pretty normal: I love my husband, son, and dog to distraction – and most of my time is spent organizing their lives and picking up the pieces. I enjoy beautifying the world and exploring alternative history and the supernatural. If reincarnation is real, I was most definitely a Victorian lady in my last life. I used to pull my knee-socks up to my thighs and wrap them in hair ribbons. My mother would yell about the stretched elastic, but I refused to do otherwise because that’s where stockings were supposed to go. I wanted big, poofy dresses (I still do!), and delicate Romance replete with fans, tea, constraints meant to be broken, and sparkling glances across a room. The gentility of the Victorian era has always drawn me, not to mention I’ve always been in love with love. 

I make different types of earrings, sketch a bit, cook over the open fire, what interests besides writing do you enjoy? For instance, what do you read or hobbies you have?
I’m a closet creative who loves to paint, decorate, and play with flowers. I need to beautify the world when not writing or exploring esoteric subjects. Give me a brush and I’m happy. But I can also be found engrossed in books that discuss and expand my knowledge of what our world is really like, and I read just about anything to find out, including: physics, biology, history, archeology, noetic science, and studies on the mind/brain dichotomy. I suppose I’m a closet scholar who likes a pretty environment.
 
You mentioned a husband, son, and pupper, who is your network or support system? This would be any groups/authors/friends/family who contributes to your writing career. 
​My greatest support is my husband, because he allows me the ability to spend my days tapping at the keyboard. However, in terms of understanding the complexities of a writer’s occupation, I have found enormous support with other TWRP writers who encourage me, as well as help with the practical matters. If I name them all here, I’d be afraid to forget someone, so I won’t try. I’ll only say that I’ve found a home at the Wild Rose Press, and my fellow authors each give me a reason to put forth my best work in the hopes I’ll someday match their enormous talents.

The Garden is a wonderful place and I've made many friends there. who share their knowledge and generously support each other. Who or what books or authors are your inspiration?
I think my writing has been most affected by Amanda Quick and Julia Quinn. I’ve read everything they’ve written. What I admire most about both of them is the way they can weave adventure into relationships, and the way they urge the time periods into life. Historical Romance is based on history, yes, but it also pushes the boundaries of what the average person might have done in the time period. Constraints are loosened. Plus, I’m mad about secrets and secret societies!

Do you have any fun or outrageous talent?
I’m really good at arguing. If I find an underdog, I’m rabid (pardon the pun), and though I almost always prefer peace, I can rip an opponent to shreds if I believe I’m protecting someone. I completely lack the ability to argue on my own behalf, however, which makes my talent particularly fun when I’m the victim. As I shrink off into my corner, I’m generally laughing at the irony of my talent.

What is your neighborhood like? Are there any places you frequent? What makes them special?
I live in a lake community of older, smaller houses that the town’s ever-loosening zoning laws have somehow overlooked. Acres of forest back up to my home, but just a half mile from my door lies a major thoroughfare, and a few miles up that road is a hustling college center. It’s the best of all worlds. My favorite spot is in my sunroom, because there are numerous animals who come to watch me while I write, although there’s a black bear who has decided to take up residence in the area. I have nightmares about him crashing through the windows, but the squirrels, deer, rabbits, chipmunks, lizards, groundhogs, owls, vultures, birds, and foxes traipsing through my yard don’t seem the least scared. I love my sunroom because it’s a bit like living in the middle of a zoo, but instead of the animals being caged, it’s me. Since I object to most infringements on freedom, I enjoy the lack of guilt while I study them!

You sound like we live in the same neighborhood! Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book?
Each of my novels can stand on its own, but the world and various characters overlap. I enjoy giving minor characters in one book a chance at their own novels. My main series is named, “Raised All Wrong.” Assyriology, the sobriquet Victorians gave the study of the ancient Middle East, is always central, as are the advantages of being raised slightly outside the norm. For example, in the first in series, “Arabella’s Assistant,” Arabella’s father died when she was a child, so she became rather stubborn and independent under her mother’s lax rule. She’s a twenty-seven-year-old bluestocking, because no one pushed her into an advantageous match at the right age. “Primrose and Promises” is a part of the Wild Rose Press’s, “Jelly Beans and Spring Things” collection, but the characters cross over to the “Raised All Wrong” world. The book also incorporates Assyriology, and the characters have been – you guessed it! – raised outside the norm.

My Jelly Bean story also overlaps but is a standalone so I understand. How long on average does it take you to write a book?
I am a pantser. I have an idea for a character and situation in the beginning, the knowledge I have to get to a Happily-Ever-After for an ending, and no idea what comes between. It makes my writing a bit stop-and-start, which in turn takes a lot of time to arrive at a satisfactory finished product. On average, it will take me a good six months from start to finish per book. The time includes research into historical details and at least ten rounds of edits. I used to believe my words were sacred, but now I know cutting and altering just deepens the plot and allow the story to flow more efficiently. The storyline appears as I write, oftentimes surprising me (almost always surprising me). I have never had writer’s block, but I do get writer’s edit!

Do you have a particular object like a piece of jewelry or a keepsake of some sort? Can you tell us what makes it special to you?
I am a hoarder (according to my husband who will throw out anything I haven’t glued down), so I have quite a few objects. They are memories, and when I touch them, I return to a specific age or place or time. I’m always terrified of a house fire, because my entire past, and those of others I’ve loved, would be torched along with the objects. However, the one piece that informed my life as a writer is a rose-patterned tea cup I was given by my fifth-grade teacher for writing, “Rose China,” a story of a girl who finds a rose-patterned plate and goes back in time to live with John and Abigail Adams. It was my first completed novel. I would wake at 4 a.m. every day and write until I left for school. The tea cup is a reminder of the unfettered joy creativity brings, and sometimes with it, a more tangible reward.

I love that! Now for some quick get to know you questions. Would you rather have unlimited international first-class tickets or never have to pay for food in a restaurant?
Easy. I am terrified of air travel, and I love going out to eat. Never have to pay? I have at least ten restaurants near me I want to try right now!

How do you select the names of your characters?
​They select themselves. In fact, as part of my new works, a name usually pops into my head, and from there a general description suggests itself, and once the character has an outline, the scene comes into focus. Every once in a long while, I’ll have to search for a name of a secondary character to match the description, but it’s rare. In fact, in derivation of my norm, in “Primrose and Promises,” the original names of the characters were Theodore and Jocinda. From the beginning, they didn’t work, and I stalled at the second chapter. I kept writing, because that’s what I do, but it felt like too much effort. I thought, “Okay, I have this story and I have the gist of where it is supposed to go, but why can’t I get there? It can’t be writer’s block, because the story is unfolding in my head, so what’s the problem?” Into my head popped the new names: Sebastian and Phoebe. The story took off.

Who is the most interesting person you’ve met and talked with?
Almost ten years ago, I met my maternal uncle for the first time. He was a fairly famous linguist, a professor, a student of everything, and a true Renaissance man. He worked with actors when I met him, but he could speak nine languages fluently and personally knew some of the authors I adored. Even though I’ve been blessed with a wonderful education, there were holes in my knowledge. Like Socrates, he would suggest books, or make me argue my rationales. He pushed me to know more. I could feel my brain expanding and stretching every time we spoke. It turns out he was an incredible teacher, and there’s no person more interesting than the teacher who helps you learn.

If you could only choose one song to play every time you walked into a room for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Carmina Burana’s, “O Fortuna.” It’s only fair to warn people in advance…
​
LOL! I Googled it. It's quite epic. Judy, thank you for stopping by. It was wonderful getting to know you. Before you head out into the wilds of your neighborhood will you leave us with a bit about your book,  Primrose and Promises and where to get more information?

Primrose and Promises – part of the “Jelly Beans and Spring Things” collection by The Wild Rose Press
Heat rating: I’m never sure – my books usually have 1-3 sex scenes, but they’re usually more poetically pictorial than erotic. I believe passion has a place in a love story, so no closed doors – but the scenes are more emotional than erotic.
+18
About Primrose and Promises: 
When Sebastian Edgars, the newly minted Viscount Trelawney, meets the woman of his dreams, the ground shifts beneath his feet. Unfortunately, she has just buried her father and is required to mourn for a year. Though the rules say he cannot court her, he can’t abide her absence, and so he does the only thing he can think to do: he disguises himself as a servant in her home so they might come to know each other better.
Miss Phoebe Carmichael has decided she will never marry. Wealthy and impatient, when she meets Sebastian everything in her calms. He understands her grief and how spring’s promise will lead her back to life again.
As secret organizations and mad Assyriologists battle, the two fall in love. Will their love prove strong enough to overcome societal norms and those set against their union? 

Grab your copy today
https://books2read.com/u/mgPezK 

What others are saying.
Winner of Second Place, Romance Category, Mid-Atlantic Author Society Writing Contest
From Nina Fiegl, editor and writing consultant: "Historical instalove with a dash of mystery."
From USA Today Bestselling Author, Sofia Aves, Aussie Queen of Romance: “A rustle of romance amongst grieving. " 


Other books by Judy
Arabella’s Assistant https://books2read.com/u/m2eGKd
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Find out more about the author
Website: judylynnichkhanian.com
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100070286490858
Twitter: @ judylynnichkha1 https://twitter.com/judylynnichkha1
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/judy-ichkhanian-a07a919/
Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/author/judylynnich