Interviews

Heart to Heart Interview with Christina Dodd

Heart to Heart: How did you get the inspiration for Trouble in High Heels, a contemporary romance that's part caper, part suspense and all hot romance? We were reminded a little of Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief and a little of Reese Witherspoon in the Legally Blonde movies.

Christine Dodd: Part To Catch a Thief, part Legally Blonde. That's exactly it! Brilliant! Trouble in High Heels is the first in my new contemporary suspense series, and it was a gift book, the kind of story that started as a clever concept and writes like a dream. A woman just out of law school moves to Chicago to be with her fiancé, discovers he's in Vegas marrying his pregnant girlfriend, and in a fit of righteous fury, goes out to spend a wild night with the best-looking, most romantic stranger she can find -- and afterward discovers he doesn't vanish as easily as she had hoped. From that idea, Trouble in High Heels grew by leaps and bounds into my favorite plot, a plot that revolves around family problems, high society, and the jewel heist of the century.
HtoH: The passion for jewels and the power of retail therapy is very persuasive in this book. Do you collect jewelry yourself? Did you do any interesting research?

CD: Me? Interested in jewelry? Heavens, no. Ignore the fact that the first time I hit The New York Times, I bought myself obnoxiously large diamond earrings. I admit, I enjoyed the research for Trouble in High Heels, which involved the Hope Diamond -- a blue diamond that started out in India at 112 carats, became one of the French crown jewels at 67 carats, disappeared during the French Revolution and turned up in London, was sold to George IV and, when he died, resold again and again until at last, whittled down to a mere 45 carats, it now rests in the Smithsonian. A writer can't make up stories that good, but I did dream up Roberto Bartolini, the Italian count in search of his real family; Brandi Michaels, the brilliant lawyer with the body of a goddess; and the Romanov Blaze, a diamond so blue, so big, and so well guarded it would be impossible to steal …

HtoH: Tell us about the challenges of writing contemporary romances versus your many historical series.

CD: Contemporaries are both easier -- naturally, the language comes much more easily to me -- and harder -- because if I make a mistake about a location or a profession, the readers know and I definitely hear about it.

HtoH: Last, what's coming up next? Heart to Heart fans want to know!

CD: The second book in the series, Tongue in Chic, is a cross between The Thomas Crown Affair and My Big Fat Greek Wedding, with plot twists and turns and the ultimate happy ending.