New York Times Best-Selling author, Jayne Ann Krentz, writing as Jayne Castle steps back into the futuristic, colonized world of Harmony with her latest book, Enter the Nightmare. In a strange world of deception and danger, protagonist Alice Radstone is caught in a cat and mouse game of survival after a false allegation of murder. As she battles to escape threats on her life, an attractive man enters the picture. But is he her savior or assassin?
Judith Erwin: Enter the Nightmare takes readers back to Harmony. What made you decide to write this book?
Jayne Ann Krentz: The main motivation is I had just come out of one world, and I was ready for another one. It’s been one of the biggest issues of my career to have three names, but it’s also been one of the saving graces for me as a writer, because I never get bored. Every time I have spent months in one world, I’m feeling ready to jump into something else. That business of jumping from world to world has really been invigorating for me as a writer. I’d just finished a Krentz book, so now I’m writing a Castle book. The Harmony series is an interesting example of a slow burn. With the modern readers more open about the settings, they’re thriving on romantasy. They grew up on Harry Potter and are fine with futuristic stuff. My biggest branding issue is I often get labeled paranormal romance. Technically speaking, yes, it is paranormal in the broad interpretation of the word. But those of us who actually read in that kind of fiction know that for us paranormal has come to mean the supernaturalโvampires, werewolves, magic. I don’t do that. I do the psychic thing. And that’s not supernatural. It’s just one step beyond intuition.
JE: But you do have dust bunnies. I love Sebastian.
JAK: Those dust bunnies have taken over my Castle world. I don’t think I could do a book without them now. I would be lambasted online. No dust bunny, forget this. Be warned, if once you start putting a cute animal into the books. You’re stuck. You will be doing animal books for the rest of your natural life.
JE: How do you keep Harmony feeling fresh while maintaining the continuity for your readers?
JAK: It’s been a bit tricky. One of the things I’ve got going for me in Harmony is that it’s a planet that has plenty of places left to be discovered. So, I can open up a town that we haven’t mentioned before. And because it’s Harmony, there are a lot of quirks with these paranormal locations. For example, Illusion Town, which is my version of Las Vegas on Harmony, only more weird. I got to keep the core story of slot machines, casinos, and mobsโall the stuff we associate with a Las Vegas vibe. But I got to give it a twist. One of the things I accidentally stumbled into early on in the series, when I invented Harmony, was I needed a power source. When you start building a world from scratch, where does the energy come from? In our world, it’s been traditionally fossil fuels. And now we’re looking at others, but that power source determines a lot of civilization. It determines what happens in history. It’s fundamental to the evolution of the civilization. So, I picked the power source that had a psychic vibe with the amber. Those of us who went through grade school remember that amber has an electrical charge. I just took it a few steps farther on Harmony. But once I had nailed the fuel source, it kept opening options for meโnew storylines. It’s always going to be the thing everybody’s fighting over controlling.
JE: What, if any, new elements are there in this book?
JAK: Enter the Nightmare features the Harmony version of an escape-the-room game, which is very popular right now. I took that concept and cranked it up a few notches on Harmony. If you look at the core of all my books, the foundation for me is always the Gothic. And by the Gothic, I mean it contains the three elements that I think of as core gothic elements. One is the isolation factor. You can’t just pick up the phone and call the cops. You are on your own to solveโto escape. Two is the risk of trust. You don’t know who you can trust. And the third element is that question of madness. Am I going mad? Am I really seeing this? And I think those three elements define for me what is needed at the core of the Gothic novel.
JE: What challenges did you find with writing Enter the Nightmare?
JAK: I always start out knowing very little about my characters, I have maybe one fact about each of them that is a problem. It is something in their background they’re recovering from, or reinventing themselves from, or moving forward from. Those elements are expanded on, and I learn more about them as they start talking on the page. I’m a very dialogue-driven writer. I hear the stories. I don’t see them. Once my characters start talking to each other or somebody else on the page, that’s when I learn the really good stuff about them.
JE: How do you balance romance with suspense?
JAK: I think the romantic suspense novel is its own thing. It is a โyou know it when you see it.โ And it requires that every move in the plot, in the action, affects the relationship. And every move in the relationship will affect the action. The plot and the relationship are in lockstep.
JE: Will readers find any familiar characters in this book?
JAK: They’re all new. I always do a new couple.
JE: What do you hope long-term Harmony fans will feel when they finish reading Enter the Nightmare?
JAK: I just want them to have a good time. I write positive, optimistic endings. And I want people to feel good.
JE: Is there any mountain left on your list that you want to climb?
JAK: Every book is a new mountain. Every book is a new climb. I have been fortunate because within the romantic suspense genres. I have been able to do anything I want. It’s allowed me to play with a lot of different ideas, and a lot of different plots, and a lot of different characters over the years. And I think it’s because it always allows me to have the elements that make up my core story. One is the risk of trust. I am always playing with that. The other is reinvention. My characters are always in the process of having to reinvent themselves. I see those elements in the books from the very start of my career, and they’re still in the books now.
Thank you!!!
Judith Erwin is a retired attorney, journalist, and award-winning author of romantic suspense and crime fiction, including the series Shepherd & Associates. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Florida Writers Association, and the FBI Citizens Academy Alumni Association.
