In addition to being a fellow fan of CBS’s Ghosts, Jen DeLuca is a newly minted Arizonian as well as a published author. She published her first novel, Well Met, in 2019. Since then, she has published several novels including her recent story, Haunted Ever After. Centering on a haunted house in Florida, this rom com tale has quickly become a must read for many supernatural romance fans. Wanting to learn more about this novel as well as DeLuca, I was able to interview her for ScifiPulse.
You can learn more about DeLuca by visiting her homepage.
Nicholas Yanes: What were some stories you loved reading growing up? Are there any you still enjoy revisiting?
Jen DeLuca: As a little kid, the Oz books were my favorite. I imprinted on The Wizard of Oz very young, and was astounded to learn that there were 13 more! I still have those battered old paperbacks. Speaking of battered old paperbacks, I was a huge fan of the Dragonlance books in my teen years (both the Chronicles and Legends trilogies). And as a romance writer, I’m also a romance reader. Jennifer Crusie’s Bet Me is one I return to again and again to re-read.
Yanes: When did you decide to pursue a career as a writer? Was there a moment when this goal crystalized for you?
DeLuca: Writing was always something I did for fun, as a main hobby. I started taking it seriously around 2010, when I wrote a romance novel for a NaNoWriMo challenge. It was the most fun I’d ever had writing, and very slowly over the course of a few years I took workshops, joined writing organizations, and took part in mentorship programs to make my writing better and see if I could actually do something with it.
Yanes: Well Met was published in 2019. When did you realize that it was going to be critically praised as well as popular?
DeLuca: There was so much I didn’t know as a debut author! I was ignorant in the ways of Bookstagram and the like. So when I started getting tagged in posts that featured gorgeous shots of my book, followed by features in Entertainment Weekly and NPR, that was when I started to think wow, people are liking this book. It felt so niche and nerdy to me, so it was intensely gratifying!
Yanes: On this note, were there elements of Well Met’s success that stood out to you? For example, was there an aspect of its marketing that impacted how you approached marketing going forward?
DeLuca: I think my favorite element of the success of Well Met and its sequels was the positive response it’s received from the Renaissance Faire community as a whole. A lot of the time, the Renaissance Faire is mocked in popular culture, or portrayed as a joke, whereas I wanted to celebrate the hard work and love that goes into living this unique life.
Through the writing of this series, I’ve gotten to do book signings at the Maryland Renaissance Festival and meet lots of performers and patrons and musicians that do the Faire circuit, and they’ve all been so welcoming, making me feel part of things for writing these books. I’ve had people tell me they’ve started attending, volunteering, or even getting cast at their local Renaissance festival as a result of reading these books, and it’s just so great that my stories have been embraced by the community.
Yanes: Your latest book is Haunted Ever After. What was the inspiration for this story?
DeLuca: I’ve always been a fan of ghost stories. But not scary ones—more lighthearted hauntings like Julie and the Phantoms on Netflix, or Ghosts on CBS. When figuring out where to set a ghost story, I thought about a Florida tourist town that just happened to be haunted, and the residents used it as a marketing gimmick. Kind of like if the mermaids at Weeki Wachee were real.
Yanes: Haunted Ever After is set in Florida. I’m a Florida native and I’m curious, what were some aspects of Florida that surprised you when doing research for this book?
DeLuca: I lived in Florida for twenty-five years, so not much surprises me about the state! I moved from Florida to Arizona in 2020 during the height of the pandemic, so in a lot of ways, Haunted Ever After was my love letter to the state I left behind. I included so many of my favorite things: the chicken flautas from Tijuana Flats, Publix chicken tender subs, Weeki Wachee and Cassadaga shoutouts.
Yanes: As you developed this story, was there a character or subplot that took on a life of its own?
DeLuca: The character of Elmer (the original owner of the Hallowed Grounds café, who’s been dead for a couple decades and communicates with the main character via text message) was one who definitely took on a life (afterlife?) of his own. I love writing characters with no filter who simply say what they think. (In the Well Met books, that would be Mitch.) It was a lot of fun having that no-filter character be someone who’s a ghost!
By extension, Elmer’s objection to add-ins to banana bread (cinnamon, chocolate chips, etc.) became a whole thing, to the point that the launch party for this book became a banana bread bake-off! It was a little silly and a lot of fun.
Yanes: Reflecting on how you crafted the story, how did you determine when the ghostly aspects of the story were scary enough but still worked within a rom-com narrative?
DeLuca: I am very much a wuss when it comes to horror. Anything scarier than The Haunted Mansion at Disney is too much for me! I certainly wanted some moments of “Gah! My house is haunted!” and maybe give a little creep factor here and there. But I think to fit a true rom-com narrative it couldn’t veer too far into actual horror. One reader described this book as Scooby-Doo scary, and that works for me!
Yanes: When people finish reading Haunted Ever After, what do you hope they take away from the experience?
DeLuca: I want them to feel like they took a little vacation to Florida and met some new friends in their new favorite small town, and maybe fall in love a little. I’d love for them to look forward to their next visit.
Yanes: Finally, what else are you working on that people can look forward to?
DeLuca: I just turned in a draft of the second book in the Boneyard Key series, which will undergo many, many revisions before it hits shelves sometime next year. And I’m currently planning a return to Willow Creek with the fifth installment in the Ren Faire Romance series!
Remember, you can learn more about DeLuca by visiting her homepage.
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You captured Jen’s joy in writing and being a published author. I have loved all of her books!