Getting to Know Author H.C. Brown

28 October 2015

Readers often ask me how I manage to write stories in so many genres and with different voices. My answer is usually the same. I have no idea. For me, writing is a wonderful gift. I love having hundreds of stories filling my head and taking me on trips into wondrous, exotic worlds created by my imagination.

Heather Brown

When did this happen?

I have vivid memories of telling my teddy bear stories about witches and spells at about three years old, so for me . . . forever. I still have the teddy bear, he is old and furless now but I've never left him behind when I travel, not ever. I think he is the widest travelled teddy bear in existence.

I grew up in London and was very fortunate to have the opportunity to travel extensively in the UK and Europe. I've visited many wonderful places in my life, but it was the history and the arts that excited me and gave me the background basics I needed to create the many diverse worlds and characters in my stories. But my writing life didn't start then, although I'd won many literature awards during my studies, the career I had dreamt of was put on hold when I found myself on a ship bound for Australia.

Making a life in a new country was difficult without the backlog of friends one usually has from school but I was very lucky and found the man of my dreams within six months of arriving in my new home. I met him and we married three weeks later-now, that is a crazy story I will tell one day.

I have a different approach to writing than most authors. I don't write to a constructed plot, but I do research my books thoroughly before I start the writing process. From then on, my stories create themselves-I never know how they will end. For me, they are like reading someone else's story and hold my interest right to the final page. Can you imagine, creating the perfect ending to a book you have read? Well, that's my process.

I often dream about the places I've visited and this usually sparks a story in my head. The Mackenzie Series came about after a dream about Scotland. I love Georgian history and decided to set my plot in the reign of George II. A time when daughters of the gentry rarely married for love but rather for an upgraded family position or money. I've read many Highlander books and wanted to try something a little different, so I made my hero, a chameleon, a multifaceted character.

Drew Mackenzie is a handsome, stylish Scottish gentleman, and a devilish rake to the London society. In France, he is the notorious smuggler Le Diablo Noir, (the Black Devil) and to his clan, he is Drew Mackenzie, son of the Laird. I like my heroes to be strong and dependable, but I prefer them to have a flaw because perfect is boring.

My heroines are never model types with perfect bodies. I like to portray real women with all their insecurities but Lady Adriana Beechwood is no shrinking violet. In fact, she is feisty and willful. After her father betrays her in an attempt to marry her off to his widowed friend. She decides to throw caution to the wind and pursue her handsome Highlander. However, her father has other plans and sets her aboard a ship bound for France and a marriage to an elderly French baron. Her only chance of escaping a forced marriage is for her handsome Highlander to rescue her . . . but if he does, there are dire consequences.

The Mackenzie Series: Charmed, Betrayed, and Seduced is I hope the first in many stories from the characters portrayed in these books. I particularly want to write more of Lord Rupert's story. He is a likeable character and his story is waiting for me to put it down on paper.

What is next for H C Brown?

I have recently finished a rural, mystery, romance and Trust another story in the Club Depravity series. My next WIP will be a science fiction inter-dimensional suspense story. I've had this story flying around my mind the last two years and it deserves my attention.

I hope you will enjoy The Mackenzie Series and know, I write my stories, especially for you because without my readers I wouldn't be here chatting today.