Meet Heather | heathersnowbooks

"The chemist who can extract from his heart's elements compassion, respect, longing, patience, regret, surprise and forgiveness and compound them into one can create that atom which is called Love."

~Kahlil Gibran

Heather Snow is a USA Today Bestselling historical romance author with a degree in Chemistry who discovered she much preferred creating chemistry on the page rather than in the lab.

Her books have been published in nine languages around the world and have won numerous awards, including: The Golden Quill, The National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award, The Write Touch Reader's Award and the Book Buyer's Best Top Pick.

She lives in the Midwest with her husband, two rambunctious boys, three insanely huge dogs, a pair of very put upon cats and now, due to a moment of motherly weakness, two ferrets...

Frequently asked Questions

1

“Have you always wanted to be a romance author?”

No. I didn't start writing seriously until my early thirties. But I've always been an avid reader, and I've been hooked on historical romance since the day I outgrew Nancy Drew. I considered many genres when I decided to try my hand at a novel, but in the end I decided to write romance because it's a genre that celebrates love, growth, positive emotions and happy endings, and putting more of that into a world where endings are not always so happy, putting more of that hope out there, is important work.

2

"But you have a chemistry degree... How has that helped you as a romance author?"

One of my favorite quotes is from Carl Jung, who said, "The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed."

My background in chemistry prepared me for writing romance better than you might think. There are rules to follow, and some you can break when you want to experiment. Historical romance, like science, requires careful research. Most chemical reactions require a catalyst to drive them, just like characters require motivation to drive the story forward. And finally, both chemistry and writing, if done well, involve a careful mixture of elements and careful manipulation to achieve that perfect reaction that makes you want to sigh with satisfaction...

3

“If you could have dinner with any three romance authors, who would you choose and why?”

Lisa Kleypas, definitely. I'm a huge fan of her writing, first of all. Second, listening to a talk she gave at a Romance Writers of America conference is what pushed me over the edge into writing historical romance. I'd like to thank her for that. Next, Julie Garwood. Besides being an absolute favorite author of mine, she had young children and an outside job in the early days of her career. I'd love to talk to her about how she juggled it all and still created such amazing stories. Finally, Sabrina Jeffries. She's an author on my auto-buy list and there are always one or two moments in her stores that I just stop and think, "Wow...that was beautiful!"

4

“Why do you call your sons 'The Heir and the Spare' on Twitter and Facebook?”

I made the decision not to share my children't identities in a public forum, either by name or face, but I can't NOT talk about them! They are too adorable!

As for why I call them The Heir and the Spare, it's a little historical romance author humor playing on how the sons of noble families were referred to (and certainly not a reflection of how I feel about the boys, particularly the Spare!). Since only legitimate sons could inherit, aristocratic wives were expected to keep having children until she'd provided her husband with an Heir and at least one Spare, in case something happened to the eldest (to prevent the family holdings falling into the hands of distant relatives or worse, reverting to the Crown if the lord died without issue).

5

“What does Mr. Snow think of being a romance author husband? Does he get asked ribald questions by his mates? And what does he think of this infamous hero inspiration list we've heard rumor of?”

Mr. Snow is quite a good sport about it all, actually. He's taken his share of ribbing in his male dominated profession, and yes, he often gets the question about whether he's the inspiration for my heroes, particularly in terms of the racy bits. Since my first heroine is a chemist who likes to...ahem...experiment, he used to answer glibly, "Well, we now refer to our bedroom as The Lab."

As for the List... Well, basically, Mr. Snow understands that if any of these men ever show up on my doorstep with a smouldering, come-hither look, I'm hithering. Just as I understand that if Reese Witherspoon or Salma Hayek every glance my darling husband's way, I'm history!