Romance writer Landis lets her Kat out of the bag

By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Books Editor

•	Book-signing Jill Marie Landis with Kristin Hannah (author of "The Things We Do for Love") 10 a.m., July 10: Aloha Chapter, Romance Writers of America, writer's workshop. See rwaaloha.org for details. 2 p.m., July 10: Borders, Ward Centre Noon, July 11: Borders, Lihu'e

Vargas settles in Long Beach, Calif. (which just happens to be the site of Landis' other home), sets herself up as a private investigator, and then, against her better judgment, lets a client go with her to a stakeout and ends up gunshot and temporarily out of a job.

The rest is ... well, the rest is the novel — the middle book in a trilogy set in fictional Twilight Cove, Calif., that began with Landis' first contemporary romance, "Lover's Lane" and ends in "Heartbreak Hotel," which Landis just finished writing. It is due out from Ballantine next summer.

Landis, who has written more than 17 novels, most of them historical romances, has something of a larger-than-life history herself. She was a school teacher, fond of losing herself in romance novels, when she decided to write one herself. What she didn't know about writing, or the publishing business, was pretty much everything, she admits. But she had talent and determination, and a good idea for her first book, so she managed to get a publisher interested in looking at her work — even when all she had was a few chapters.

Today, she is a force to be reckoned with: winner of the Romance Writers of America Rita Award, the kind of writer who gets a national marketing campaign when a new book is released, a well-known name who can bring her fans with her even when she switches sub-genres (historical to contemporary). She still works hard but now she has two homes to work in — and, she says, "It's definitely a much slower-paced lifestyle for us on the North Shore of Kaua'i. I have time to write and I can see a mountain with a waterfall from the window in my office."

And Landis' fans needn't worry that she'll stop anytime soon. "I plan to write until my fingers fall off. I really think I would go crazy if I didn't write and let all of these people out of my head," she said, with trademark humor.

Landis, who will be on O'ahu for a workshop and book-signing next weekend, had to let Kat Vargas out. She had first envisioned Vargas as the partner of the main character in "Lover's Lane," but, said Landis, "Kat ... had very little time on the page. She needed her own book."

So she sends Kat to Twilight Cove on R&R after the gun incident. "Then, of course, the hero comes knocking at the door in need of a detective and, well, what's a gal to do?"

What Vargas does, in classic romance novel style, is struggle to keep her feelings in check, fail miserably and get herself into even more trouble before the book ends.

Landis says what she likes about Kat Vargas is that "she's everything I'm not. Athletic, in great shape, into martial arts, courageous and, of course, beautiful. I made her an Island girl from Kapa'a, Kaua'i, and that was fun, too."

Romance readers will appreciate many of the same characteristics, as well as the fact that Vargas is complex and sometimes inexplicable. (How can a woman as smart as she is ever have lost her heart to a shallow, publicity-seeking surfer dude?) But, of course, her flaws only make her more believable. Also intriguing are the number of twists and turns the plot takes before the guy gets the gal in this novel. (And it's not giving anything away to reveal that, because in romance fiction the guy always gets the gal in the end, or the other way around — it's a law.)

Landis understands just how the modern romance novel is supposed to be constructed: with a soupcon of sex, a lot of suspense, a realistic setting and a romance right out of your dreams.