Kate Bateman (also writing as K. C. Bateman) is a bestselling author of historical romances, including her RITA®-nominated Renaissance romp, The Devil to Pay, the Ruthless Rivals series A Reckless Match, A Daring Pursuit, and A Wicked Game, the Bow Street Bachelors series This Earl of Mine, To Catch an Earl, and The Princess and the Rogue, along with the novels in the Secrets & Spies series To Steal a Heart, A Raven’s Heart, and A Counterfeit Heart. When not writing novels that feature feisty, intelligent heroines and sexy, snarky heroes you want to both strangle and kiss, Kate works as a fine art appraiser and on-screen antiques expert for several popular TV shows in the UK. She splits her time between Illinois and her native England.

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What’s the strangest thing you searched for on the internet for your novel?
My internet search history is SO weird! I’m currently researching 18th century poisons, like deadly nightshade, for my next project, and almost all of my books have been inspired by real historical details I’ve discovered during my research. To Steal A Heart features a prison break inspired by a real-life Frenchman called Henri Latude (who very handily detailed exactly how he escaped from both the Bastille and the Chateau de Vincennes.) The sub-plot of This Earl Of Mine is based on Regency-era submarines. I’d had no idea that submarines had even been invented and used in warfare in 1816, but I found an intriguing report of an American inventor named Robert Fulton who did just that. I incorporated ideas from that true event into the story – with a little artistic license of course! For other books I’ve looked into Russian fairytales, horrific battle injuries, how to steal paintings and jewels, how to counterfeit money, Welsh coal mining, smuggling, Napoleonic Egyptology, how to dispose of a body, – all kinds of fun stuff!

What book (or author) made you fall in love with the romance genre?

Having studied English literature at University, I’ve been influenced by a lot of books, but the first real romance that sticks in my mind is Ransom by Julie Garwood. I was commuting to London by train at the time and I grabbed a random book at the train station. The cover had a vague country house and gates on it and I didn’t really know it was a historical romance (no Fabio cover, sigh!) but I started to read and after the first chapter I was hooked. WOW! After years of reading depressing 19th century literature where the woman invariably dies (Yes, I’m looking at you, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Anna Karenina, and Madame Bovary!) HERE was a book with the historical settings I loved and all the romantic swooniness and adventureI was craving. It was history with all the good bits! My eyes were opened to an entirely new genre and it’s fair to say I was hooked from that moment on. I quickly devoured all the classics – Kinsale, Woodiwiss, McNaught, Coulter, Lindsay, and years later, when I decided to try my own hand at writing, historical romance was always going to be my true love. Laura Kinsale is definitely one of my absolute favorite authors. I think her writing is beautiful, and she’s taken some amazing risks in her choices of heroes and heroines. Her characters are all wonderfully flawed, complex, and utterly original.

What is your favourite trope? Why?
I’m an enemies-to lovers girl forever. There’s just something so completely delicious about snarky banter, oodles of unresolved sexual tension, and fighting as foreplay that just makes me kick my feet and giggle like a fool. (That’s true whether I’m reading it or writing it, and I think It’s fair to say that almost every book I’ve written has some element of enemies-to-lovers vibe to it.)

It’s the morning after, and a lover is making your main character the perfect breakfast in bed. What is it?
That’s easy! Lucien, the hero of my latest release – Road Trip With A Rogue – is watching Daisy eat a pain au chocolat, or some other kind of flaky pastry like a croissant. It’s a running gag throughout the book that watching her eat, and lick the pastry crumbs from her lips, drives him absolutely mad with lust – although he doesn’t tell HER that for a very long time! Daisy, wicked girl that she is, eventually figures out the effect she has on him and she teases him mercilessly. Of course.

What book are you reading currently?
I’m about to start The Irresistible Urge To Fall For Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley. I can’t wait to get stuck in! (See the aforementioned love for all things enemies-to-lovers)