We are happy to have author Jessica Scott with us today to talk about her latest release, Until There Was You.

Who is Jessica Scott? Give us the low down.

Um, a generally crazy person who should not be allowed near sharp objects let alone leading America’s finest? Kidding. I’m just your average tom boy/geek girl all grown up trying to find a place in the world. I have a hard time fitting in and I treasure the few people I consider real friends. I’m more comfortable in a book store than at a party and I love finding people to talk books!

Your latest release, Until There Was You features Captain Evan Loehr who does everything by the book. So when he meets Captain Claire Montoya, and his emotions pushes him to do something a little crazy, it scares him. (and provides many sexy times for the readers!) Did anything surprise you with Evan and Claire? Evan is so tortured – admit it – it must have been a little fun making him squirm and sweat whenever he came in contact with Claire.

Evan was actually a really hard character for me to write. To be honest, the whole book was. Claire kept taking over and not giving Evan any time on the page. I had to find a way to make this just as much Evan’s story as it was Claire’s. In the original drafts of the story, Claire and Evan were much crueler to each other and there was significantly more Old Skool romance of I hate you Let’s have sex type emotion. I had to really work hard to get the balance right between them and Evan needed to be as strong if not stronger than Claire.

It seems like military romances are really popular right now. Why
is that? Is it the heroes are the epitome of an alpha male? The
brotherly camaraderie they often have? They are really good in bed?
(oh wait, that is every romance hero. But I still say the military
guys have that something special!)

I love a man in uniform. I first started writing military heroes because I looked around me at some of these seriously hard core alpha males I work with who come out of the combat arms environment and then I’d see them with their wives and daughters they were just puddles of mush. It was a really great dichotomy and one I wanted to explore further.

You say in this video interview  that real romance is still loving the same person after years and years of marriage. Your next book features  a married couple (Trent and Laura, supporting characters in Because of  You) struggling with military life. Are you finding their love story  more difficult to tell or a different dynamic than a couple just meeting each other?

I love Trent & Laura’s story because while a married couple isn’t usually the subject of romance novels for me as a military spouse and a soldier, it’s an incredibly personal story for me. Every marriage I know has been tested by the war. I wanted to write a story that shows how bad it can get and then find that love again because I really do believe that happily ever afters are waking up with the same person fifteen, twenty, forty years in and still loving that person. And for so many of my brothers and sisters in uniform, the war was the breaking point for an already strained marriage. I wanted to give Trent & Laura a chance to make it work.

Trent & Laura’s story is much harder for me to write as a romance than it would be if it were a general fiction story but I really do believe that true love means walking through the fires with that person and if Laura & Trent can make it through Trent’s court martial, they can make it through anything.

Did you have fun plans for release day?

I worked on release day so I was up at 5 am heading in to Fort Hood traffic and doing PT, then went to the motorpool to supervise maintenance on my trucks. Ah the glamorous life of a romance writer, huh?

After Trent and Laura’s book (Back to You out next spring), will we be seeing more military romance from you?

Unless these next two books completely suck, I certainly hope so, lol! I’m working on Reza’s story from UNTIL THERE WAS YOU. He’s incredibly tortured and I just love the idea of writing his book. One of my buddies joked that I wrote a book with a hero who has body hair issues (Reza is Italian and Iranian). I cannot get that out of my head but I think Reza’s story is going to be great.  After that, we’ll see where the wind blows. I’ll be starting grad school next fall so I’m going to have to really manage my schedule pretty closely. So we shall see what else is out there for me.

Thanks Jessica! You can find Jessica at her website and on Twitter.

Until There Was You – Kindle l Nook