I have girlfriends who are writers and girlfriends who are Shakespeare professors. It always strikes me as a huge irony that as a romance writer I find myself married to a knight, a cavaliere, as you say in Italian. We spend the lazy summer months with his mother and sister in Italy.

My husband Alessandro is Italian, born in Florence.

So I'm a writer, a professor, a mother - and a wife. When I wrote about a miscarriage in Midnight Pleasures, I used my own fears of premature birth when the little girl in Fool For Love threw up and threw up, I described my own daughter, who had that unsavory habit for well over her first year of life. Just as I use Shakespeare in my romances, I almost always employ my experiences as a mother. When I rip off my power suit, whether it's academic or romantic, underneath is the rather tired, chocolate-stained sweatshirt of a mom. I often weave early modern poetry into my work the same novel might contain bits of Catullus, Shakespeare and anonymous bawdy ballads from the 16th century. The Taming of the Duke (April 2006) has obvious Shakespearean resonances, as do many of my novels. Yet the literature professor in me certainly plays into my romances. It's like being Superman, with power suits for both lives. The other day I bought a delicious pink suit to tape a television segment on romance I'll never wear that suit to teach in, nor even to give a paper at the Shakespeare Association of America conference. When I'm not writing novels, I'm a Shakespeare professor. In her professorial guise, she's written a New York Times op-ed defending romance, as well as articles published everywhere from women's magazines such as More to writers' journals such as the Romance Writers' Report. Her 'double life' is a source of fascination to the media and her readers. Currently she is an associate professor and head of the Creative Writing program at Fordham University in New York City. from Yale and eventually became a Shakespeare professor, publishing an academic book with Oxford University Press. A reviewer from USA Today wrote of Eloisa's very first book that she 'found herself devouring the book like a dieter with a Hershey bar' later People Magazine raved that 'romance writing does not get much better than this.' Her novels have repeatedly received starred reviews from Publishers' Weekly and Library Journal and regularly appear on the best-seller lists.Īfter graduating from Harvard University, Eloisa got an M.Phil. Her novels have been published to great acclaim. New York Times bestselling author Eloisa James writes historical romances for HarperCollins Publishers.

This duchess of mine by eloisa james