Press

Everything you need to know about Sara Ramsey (recent online appearances, bios, headshots, Q&A, book covers, etc.) is below. If you are a blogger or journalist and need any additional information, please contact Sara at dearsara@sararamsey.com.

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Videos

  • My former manager interviewed me for an Authors@Google talk/Q&A – I discussed my writing process, self-publishing, the romance industry, and fielded the ubiquitous question about “50 Shades of Grey.”


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Recent Online Appearances

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About Sara

To view and copy/download Sara’s bios in different lengths, see below:

Short bio (169 words) – click here
Medium bio (325 words) – click here
Long bio (511 words) – click here
Full bio (904 words) – click here
Printable PDF bio with author photo, book covers – click here

Sara’s long bio is reproduced below. For shorter/longer versions, click any of the links above.

“I tried to hide my Anglophilia in an effort to fit in,” award-winning Regency romance novelist Sara Ramsey says of her growing up years in rural Iowa. “But I drank a lot of hot black tea with sugar when everyone around me was drinking Mountain Dew, and I liked to dress up.” Having first obsessed over Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, set in England at the turn-of -the-century, Sara succumbed completely upon reading Johanna Lindsey’s Regency historical novels.  Now, not only had she fallen for England, she’d discovered a time period with history, manners, fashion and mores she couldn’t get enough of.  Sara Ramsey was home. She was thirteen.

It’s not surprising that when Sara decided to write, she followed her heart back in time to Regency England. It may have been unexpected, however, when this Google marketing alumna with a degree from Stanford University in Symbolic Systems left her Silicon Valley job to do so.

Sara’s first complete manuscript earned her the prestigious Golden Heart Award in the Regency category from the Romance Writers of America.  The award promotes excellence in the genre by recognizing outstanding and as yet unpublished romance novels, and receives approximately 1200 submissions per year in twelve categories.  Just two years later, her second novel was one of five finalists for that same award.

Now with new titles, they are HEIRESS WITHOUT A CAUSE and SCOTSMEN PREFER BLONDES, the first of four Muses of Mayfair novels Sara is publishing as e-book originals.

“I feel as if I’m in a good position to experiment with self-publishing and see if it will work for me,” says Sara.  “It’s certainly better than letting my books languish. And I would rather publish my books with passion than be a small, unnoticed debut title from a large house.” Sara is currently at work on her third Muses of Mayfair novel, THE MARQUESS WHO LOVED ME.

Sara continues to be intrigued by England.  “Every time period in English history holds some interest for me, whether it’s the drama of the Tudor court, the grit and noise of the Industrial Revolution, or the fierce resistance of wartime Britain,” she says. Coincidentally, her family has a connection to the nation’s history.  She had an ancestor at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, William de Warenne, the first Earl of Surrey, who fought alongside William the Conqueror.

Sara and her family left Iowa to live in Bila Tserkva, Ukraine for a year when she was a child. Her father had a job with an agricultural nonprofit. Her move to California came upon her acceptance to Stanford.  Following graduation, she worked at Google in communications and advertising for seven years before electing to write full time.

Now, with two books written and one in progress, award recognition, and terrific response from early reads, Sara hopes she’s about to achieve her goal—“getting my books in the hands of the most readers at a compensation level that can fund my shoe budget.”

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Author Photos (click to save full-size file)

Sara Ramsey Headshot

 

Sara Ramsey headshot #2

 

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Q&A / Interview

To download a printable PDF of this Q&A, including Sara’s headshot and the covers for HEIRESS WITHOUT A CAUSE and SCOTSMEN PREFER BLONDES, click here.

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SARA RAMSEY TALKS ABOUT HER DEBUT NOVEL, HEIRESS WITHOUT A CAUSE, AND WHAT TO EXPECT NEXT FROM THE MUSES OF MAYFAIR…

Welcome, Sara!  And congratulations on the release of your first book!!

You’ve set both of your novels, the Golden Heart Award Finalist HEIRESS WITHOUT A CAUSE and the Golden Heart Award Winner SCOTSMEN PREFER BLONDES, in Regency England. Were Regency novels among the first romances you read? 

Yes, though the very first romance I read was a western, Brave the Wild Winds by Johanna Lindsey, which I read at age twelve. My family lived in Ukraine for a year while my father worked for an agricultural nonprofit, and I read anything in English that I could get my hands on. As soon as I returned to the US, I devoured every romance my local library carried. Johanna Lindsey’s Regencies were a natural starting point, and from then on, I was hooked on the period.

You started The Muses of Mayfair series by writing SCOTSMEN PREFER BLONDES and then you wrote HEIRESS WITHOUT A CAUSE, which has just been published.  Time-wise it’s the first book in your The Muses of Mayfair series.  Why did you write them “out of order,” so to speak? And when do we get to read SCOTSMEN PREFER BLONDES?

I originally intended for HEIRESS WITHOUT A CAUSE to be the sequel to SCOTSMEN PREFER BLONDES. However, when SCOTSMEN didn’t get a traditional publishing deal, I put it aside and wrote HEIRESS as the first book in the series. The rationale was that we would try to sell HEIRESS, and then do some rewrites for SCOTSMEN and sell it as part of the same deal.

As it turns out, I love having SCOTSMEN as the second book – Amelia, the heroine in SCOTSMEN, plays a key role in HEIRESS that she wouldn’t have been able to play if she were minding her own business as a newlywed. SCOTSMEN PREFER BLONDES should be out by the end of March 2012.

We meet Madeleine in HEIRESS WITHOUT A CAUSE, in which her muse calls out to her and she (gasp!) ends up performing on the London stage.  Will you tell us a bit about the three friends who are the other Muses of Mayfair?

Madeleine is an actress, but at the start of HEIRESS she’s unhappy because she can’t pursue her passion in private – an actress must have an audience, after all! The other muses are able to conceal their identities, even though there’s always a risk they’ll be caught. Madeleine’s cousin, Lady Amelia Staunton, writes Gothic romances under a pseudonym – and there are times in HEIRESS when Madeleine wishes that Amelia had stayed holed up with her characters rather than trying to rewrite Madeleine’s story. Amelia stars in the next book, SCOTSMEN PREFER BLONDES.

The next muse is Ferguson’s sister Ellie, the widowed marchioness of Folkestone. A painter, her artistic expression has been blocked since her disastrous marriage to her former husband. But his cousin and heir is about to return from a spying mission in India, and Ellie’s encounter with him will unlock everything. They star in THE MARQUESS WHO LOVED ME, which will be out sometime in June.

After that comes the story of Miss Prudence Etchingham, a bluestocking with an interest in history. She has been corresponding with other scholars who think she’s a man, but when she gets caught up in an investigation into an ancient artifact of mysterious origin, she’ll find a passion that goes beyond anything she’s read about in the history books. Her book is still untitled, but it should be out by early fall 2012.

Who were some of the other stars of the theater at the time Madeleine was on stage?  And, in addition to Shakespeare’s work, what other sort of plays were commonly performed? 

Sarah Kemble Siddons was the most acclaimed actress of the age; she retired in 1812, the same year that Madeleine made her debut. She was most famous for playing Lady Macbeth, although she played many of Shakespeare’s other heroines to great acclaim. Her family consisted of a number of great actors and actresses, including her brother John Phillip Kemble, and her niece, Fanny Kemble.

Dorothea Jordan wasn’t the greatest actress of her generation, but she was one of the most famous, if only because of her long-lasting affair with William, Duke of Clarence, who later became King William IV. She had ten children with him while acting on the stage, often playing “breeches roles” in which she wore men’s clothing and played a male part. She couldn’t marry the duke and eventually died in poverty, but her children were given titles and/or married well, and her descendents include David Cameron, the current British Prime Minister.

There were a lot of plays written every year for the stage. Only a few theatres were allowed to stage drama, but many smaller theatres staged comedies, musicals, and pantomimes. It was also possible to attend opera and ballet performances.

What attributes do you share with your protagonists—especially Madeleine and Ferguson—in HEIRESS WITHOUT A CAUSE, and Amelia and Malcolm in SCOTSMEN PREFER BLONDES?  Humor? Resilience? Intellect?  Feeling disenfranchised? 

I think all of my books deal with the issue of finding a path that feels true to oneself regardless of society’s expectations. My heroines are all trying to pursue their artistic passions even though they should be thinking of marriage, and my heroes tend to be unconventional and rebellious, too. However, I also feel pretty strongly about honor and loyalty, which makes things interesting for my characters – how can they be true to themselves without betraying those around them?

Beyond that, all of my main characters tend to be some combination of smart and funny. They tend to laugh a lot. I guess I feel that no matter how bad things are, there is always something to laugh about, and I think their humor makes them feel more real than if they were dark and brooding all the time. (Although they do their fair share of brooding too!)

What compels you to write?

I absolutely love to tell stories. I make up stories in my head all the time. I’ll see someone on the street and create a whole back story for them without ever having a conversation. Writing is a better outlet for my storytelling tendencies than making up stories about me.  In an effort to keep my friendships, I put my fictions on the page rather than in my relationships.

I also think writing is a deep act of connection. Writing lets me connect with readers, makes me feel like my voice has been heard, and gives me a way to show myself to others. It’s also cathartic; even though my characters aren’t autobiographical, I learn more about myself through my writing than anything else.

Your writing has been called fun and feisty—is it?

Ha! I hope so! It would probably be more accurate to say that my characters tend to be fun and feisty, and their interactions with each other are meant to be entertaining. But my books aren’t entirely light romps – there’s emotional depth in them, too, as the characters learn more about each other and dig deeper into their own souls.

Will we see Madeleine and Ferguson again?  Are you working on your next book?  Do you have anything else being published this year?

Madeleine and Ferguson play a supporting role in SCOTSMEN PREFER BLONDES, and may make an appearance in Ferguson’s sister Ellie’s story, THE MARQUESS WHO LOVED ME.

SCOTSMEN PREFER BLONDES is in the final editing stages and will come out in March. I’m working on THE MARQUESS WHO LOVED ME and have written the first part already. It should be out later this year. I have a glimmer of an idea for Prudence, the fourth member of the Muses of Mayfair – if she cooperates (uncharacteristically!) her story will come out in fall 2012.

Please recommend a few books to put on my winter reading list.

If you read paranormals, the book at the absolute top of my list if Kresley Cole’s Lothaire, which I’ve been looking forward to for years. I predict that it will be the hot paranormal book of the season.

In the Regency/historical world, I can’t wait for A Rogue by Any Other Name by Sarah MacLean. I’m also looking forward to Anna Randol’s debut novel, A Secret in Her Kiss—it’s set in the Ottoman empire, which is a refreshing change.

www.sararamsey.com

HEIRESS WITHOUT A CAUSE, Muses of Mayfair, Book 1

Sara Ramsey

Spencerhill/Fiction/E-book/Original

January 2012/$3.99/BN ID: 2940013758438

Golden Heart Award Finalist HEIRESS WITHOUT A CAUSE is a Nook First title available exclusively on the Nook until February 24 when it launches on all other major e-book platforms. The buy the Nook book link is http://www.barnesandnoble =1&usri=sara+ramsey.

CONTACT FOR INFORMATION, REVIEW QUERIES AND INTERVIEWS: 

Joan Schulhafer, joan@joanschulhafer.com, 973-338-7428

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Sara’s Books

Muses of Mayfair Series

  • Heiress Without A Cause - January 2012
    ©2012, Spencerhill Associates Ltd
  • Scotsmen Prefer Blondes - April 2012
    ©2012, Spencerhill Associates Ltd
  • The Marquess Who Loved Me - Summer/Fall 2012
    ©2012, Spencerhill Associates Ltd

For covers and book descriptions, click here.