Jenna’s Confessional:

I've never been really great at keeping secrets.

Wait...no, strike that. I can keep other people's secrets just fine. If it's not my tale to tell, I don't tell it. But I've never been good at keeping my own.

When something good happens, I want to share it. What's the fun in selling a new book or coming into a windfall or winning a prize if you keep it to yourself?

When something bad happens, I want to whine and solicit support from the people I care about. I guess I've always just figured that things are best handled when they are out in the open. Secrets only have power when they live in the dark.

Which is why I'd never be a very good romance heroine. Aside from not having the body, or the hair, I couldn't keep my mouth shut about my secret baby. If I were Clark Kent, I'd just rip my glasses off and say, “Look, Lois!! You're supposed to be an investigative journalist, for heaven's sake!” And if I loved someone, I'd probably be more likely to just tell them, rather than pine after him for years or scheme to buy him at an auction or trick him into marrying me so he could inherit his mother's estate where the truth about his father lies.

Those things just aren't my style. Which is good, because in real life they're a little creepy.

But just because I can't keep my own secrets doesn't mean I can't write them. I guess I live my secrets through my characters. In my October release, SEDUCTION IS FOREVER, my heroine, Emily, has a lot of secrets. I mean, first off she's a spy, which isn't exactly common amongst women of her station and economic background during Regency England. If the truth came out about her job, not only would she be socially shunned, but she could be killed.

Then she gets assigned to follow around her hero, Grant, who has quite a few secrets of his own. Like that he's also following her because he's a spy, too. Now throw in two very painful secrets from their pasts and...oh yeah, the secret identity of Lady M and this was a book fraught with things left unsaid and truths left untold.

All of which made it so much fun to write. I mean, I got to throw all kinds of obstacles in the characters' way, things that could force them to reveal the things they were trying to hide. And each time, I had to decide...is this the moment where the truth comes out? And if not, how to get around that?

You'll have to read the book to find out when I revealed all and how. But now I wonder...do you keep secrets? What's the best secret you ever wished you could tell, but didn't?

Jenna Petersen