We love celebrating new Mills & Boon authors by sharing their journey with aspiring romance writers and readers.

We are thrilled to be joined on our blog this week by new Historical series author, Elle Jackson. Her debut romance A Blues Singer to Redeem Him is out on August 19th.

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Welcome Elle! Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I’m Elle Jackson, and I love to read and write romance fiction! I’m married with a five-year-old son and two-year-old daughter. I am a professor and editor, and I love to teach others about writing. Reading is my happy place, where I go to learn and live through characters.  

Why did you want to become a romance writer? 

I love, love. I think falling in love is one of the most amazing journeys you can go on in life, and I love that the romance genre makes it possible for anyone to experience that journey through the lives of characters. I have been writing since I was a kid. I wrote about monsters and aliens. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized all the stories I wrote were actually love stories.  

What were the major steps in your journey to becoming a published author? Was this the first manuscript you submitted? 

My first degree was a Bachelor of Arts in English and Creative Writing. Characters had been floating around in my head for as long as I could remember. I would wake up at night and have to write down a story idea or something a character said. I went on to become an English teacher, a literacy coach, and a principal. I enrolled in a low-residency Master of Fine Arts in Writing Popular Fiction program with Seton Hill University where I met some of the most amazing writers and got to escape to a university in the Northeast for two weeks a year where I could just be a writer. When I finished with my MFA, I was determined to do something significant with my writing. I became an English faculty member at a University. I self-published a YA romance novel that hit three best-sellers lists. Diversity and the need for diverse stories was becoming a thing. I found out about Romance Includes You Mentorship from Harlequin [Mills & Boon’s publisher in the USA] from a friend and decided to apply. During that same time, I was offered a multi-book contract for erotic sci-fi romance novellas.  

Months later, I learned that I was a finalist in the Romance Includes You contest. Bryony Green in the Mills & Boon London office reached out to me and we started working on my novel, Blue’s Moon. I received an email from Bryony requesting to do a virtual meeting, you know because of Covid and the fact that she is in the UK and I’m in the US. And she offered me a contract for my book!  

What one piece of advice would you offer aspiring writers? 

My advice is to find your writing community, study your craft, read all the time, and never give up on yourself. I believe that having a strong writing community can help writers learn and keep going when things get hard. We have to be diligent about improving our writing craft constantly, so that we are putting out our best into the world that people are going to spend their time reading. Be a lover of reading as well. Read widely. Read everything. You never know what will inspire you. But, most importantly, never give up because your time could be right around the corner. 

What did you do when you got the call from Mills & Boon? 

I didn’t know what to do with myself, honestly. I told my husband, my close friends, and my family. I was in shock because signing with Mills & Boon had been a goal of mine since I started writing romance. It is on my vision board right now, actually. I’ve sort of been in shock since getting the call. 

Hear from the editor, Bryony Green 

Elle’s submission was a finalist in Harlequin’s 2019 Romance Includes You Mentorship for diverse voices and really stood out then as an #ownvoices Historical romance set in 1925 Kansas City, with the background of prohibition, mob violence and racial injustice. It’s a dramatic, heart-stopping and emotionally compelling romance with a strong, determined heroine who needs a hero who’s just as strong as her! It’s a fabulous addition to Mills & Boon Historical! 

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Pre-order A Blues Singer to Redeem Him by Elle Jackson!

By Lauren Gardiner