Tanzanite's Castle Full of Books

I'm pleased to welcome C.S. Harris to the castle today to talk about herself and her latest book, Where Shadows Dance.  And don't forget about the giveaway going on until March 11th.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself?


I’ve been at this writing business for over fifteen years, which is actually rather sobering when I think about it. Before that I was a history professor. I’ve spent a sizable chunk of my life knocking around the world—I’ve lived in Spain, England, France, Greece, Jordan, and Australia—but for the last ten years I’ve been semi-settled in New Orleans.

How did you come to be a writer?

Like most writers, I spent my childhood reading and spinning stories. I used to lie in bed at night for hours, telling myself stories and pinching myself so I could stay awake and finish them. I started writing them down when I was about eight. But I never really thought about it as a career. That came later—much later.


What do you do in your spare time when you’re not writing?

My family is very important to me. I have a wonderful husband and two college-age daughters who fill much of my time. I love to garden, and go for walks, and I try to practice yoga every day. I’m also in the middle of renovating three houses and restoring a half dozen pieces of antique furniture—skills I acquired thanks to Hurricane Katrina.


Your newest book is the sixth in the Sebastian St. Cyr mystery series. How has the series evolved over the years?

I personally find Sebastian an endlessly fascinating character. I’ve had several people tell me I took a romance hero and put him in a mystery series, and I suppose in some ways, that’s true. He’s dark and handsome and tortured, but he’s also noble and funny and very, very clever. He is not at all your typical Regency lord: he’s edgy and dangerous and not afraid to take things into his own hands. This is after all a man who spent six years at war; he’s a crack shot, he keeps a knife in his boot, and he knows how to use it.

When we first met Sebastian in early 1811, he’d just returned from war and was basically suffering from what we’d now recognize as posttraumatic stress disorder. In many ways, solving mysteries is his therapy, a way for him to deal with his demons. But over the last several books, he’s also had to contend with a devastating series of revelations in his personal life, about his own family and about the woman he loved, that have forced him to reevaluate everything he ever thought he knew about himself. At the same time, he’s found himself in an increasingly complicated relationship with the daughter of his worst enemy.


What was the inspiration for Where Shadows Dance?

A lot of my ideas come to me through water—when I’m walking in the rain, or swimming, or taking a bath. And that’s how this idea came to me. Sebastian has a friend, Paul Gibson, who is a surgeon and dissects cadavers he buys from London’s infamous body snatchers. One day I thought, What if Gibson were to discover that one of his cadavers—a man who was thought to have died of natural causes—had actually been murdered? Gibson can’t go to the authorities and admit he’s been illegally buying bodies, so it presents an unusual challenge as Sebastian sets about trying to solve a murder no one knows has been committed. Of course, then I needed to decide who the victim was and why he’d been murdered. But that clicked well with another idea I’d been working on, which involves the diplomatic maneuverings of the summer of 1812. That summer was a pivotal point in Western history.


Can you tell us what you’re working on now?

I’m just finishing the seventh book in the Sebastian St. Cyr series, called When Maidens Mourn. I frequently practice my yoga to a CD by Loreena McKennitt, and it was her haunting rendition of Tennyson’s “Lady of Shalott” that inspired this story. It’s about a young woman—Gabrielle Tennyson—who is found floating dead in a boat at a real place called Camlet Moat, which lies just to the north of London and which some people believe to be the actual site of Camelot. The mystery is all tangled up with the Arthurian legend and a family curse, and it’s been a lot of fun to write.


My thanks to C.S. for joining us today.  For more information about her books, please visit her website at http://www.csharris.net/, and her blog at http://csharris.blogspot.com/.