Rachael Johns is a talented West Australian rural romance author, and she is one of my favourites, so when I heard she was writing something completely different I knew I had to get my hands on it. Hearing that she would be doing a blog tour I was intrigued about the writing of such a different genre and asked if she could tell us a little about it.
How I researched FIRE ME UP
Rachael Johns
When four other author friends and I decided to write a series centered around a biker club, I knew two parts of stuff all about such things, but I’m always up for a challenge.
Luckily Megan Crane – author of the first book MAKE YOU BURN – was already an avid fan of the MC romance genre and also practically knew the script of TV series Sons of Anarchy off by heart. With her encouragement, I downloaded a number of books in the MC romance genre and set to working out what they had in common – hot, alpha heroes with sexy tattoos and powerful rides.
I also started watching Sons of Anarchy and rapidly understood what all the hype was about. Two words – Jax Teller (played by Charlie Humman)! That swagger and the way he wore his biker cut had me melting in a puddle of lust on my couch.
Previously when I thought of biker clubs or gangs, my mind conjured up images of middle aged bearded men with smelly leather jackets stretching over their well-rounded middles. Men who rode and partied hard and had the scars and criminal convictions to show for it, but not men who made my body temperature soar and my ovaries hurt. But Jax, and quite a few of the other men on Sons of Anarchy, made the whole biker thing sexy and appealing and that’s what we hoped to convey in our series, The Deacons Of Bourbon Street.
Although there was a lot of time spent on the couch glomming Sons Of Anarchy – all in the name of hard work and dedication to my readers – it wasn’t the only form of research I embarked on to write this book. I also invested in a number of non-fiction books and memoirs about real-life outlaw motorcycle clubs. Most of what I read between these pages was far too terrifying to put in a romance novel, but it helped me see that we were writing about heroes dramatically different from the beta heroes I usually write. The books also taught me the biker lingo – names for the different positions in a biker club and other stuff I had no idea about.
And then, of course to even out the terrifying, I had to spend hours (okay maybe days) on Pinterest gazing at photos of the type of men we wanted our biker heroes to be. Much more akin to Jax from SOA than the type of men I read about in the pages of Wrecking Crew and Enforcer.
To understand what I’m talking about you can check out my Pinterest board for FIRE ME UP here – https://www.pinterest.com/rachaeljohns/fire-me-up/– and also look at the shared board for the series here – https://www.pinterest.com/maiseyyates/the-deacons-of-bourbon-street/
I hope you’ll read FIRE ME UP and the whole Deacons of Bourbon Street series and enjoy the ride as much as I did.
Please check out the other stops on the FIRE ME UP Blog Tour.
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I devour books, vampires and supernatural creatures are my genre of choice but over the past couple of years, I have broadened my horizons considerably. In a nutshell – I love to write! I love interacting with a diverse range of artists to bring you interviews. Perhaps we were perfect before – I LOVE WORDS!