By Elloise Alexander

Jules Wake is a romantic fiction author who became a professional author and takes inspiration for her books from her around the world travels. For Jules being an author felt like a distant dream, she never thought her books would be so successful. Jules has been writing since 2008 and in that time she has written 24 books.

Originally after university studying English literature Jules worked in PR marketing but she regarded being an author as a childhood dream. “It never occurred to me that I could be a writer, that’s what other people did” but after being made redundant she finally had the time to start writing. “At university we always said were going to have a go at writing a mills and boon because they seemed easy and short and sweet but actually their incredibly difficult to write, but I just always wanted to write romance”

For Jules books have always been an integral part of her life she has always been an avid reader and always gravitated towards romance “I fell in love with reading when I read pride and prejudice, for me romance is complete escapism.” When she began writing general romantic fiction, she went under her married name Jules Wake but when she was approached to write a three-book series called romantic escapes she used her maiden name both to differentiate from her other books and just in case the books didn’t do too well. Little did she know that a three-book deal would blossom into an ever growing 12 book series. The first book little café in Copenhagen being sold in 22 countries.

One of the reasons her books have been so successful is that Jules has a unique talent for creating imagery in her romantic escapes book series that heightens the escapism in her books by using real places and landmarks which makes what happens in her books and her characters feel real. “It’s a balancing act, you don’t want it to sound like a travel log because that’s not why people are reading it, but you should leave Easter eggs that are real places so people can go and find them”

Jules’s books are also unique because of the characters she writes “I love an enemies to lovers, forced proximity” she added “I like to write that sparky bitter dialogue between them where they get to say all the things you would love to have said but remember two weeks later – that’s why I like writing because the characters can be more assertive than me. I really like my characters to say what they think.”

But where does she get this inspiration from? For the romantic escape series, she takes some inspiration from her travels and sometimes visits places with a book in mind for the first romantic escapes book the little café in Copenhagen was pitched by her editor after watching Paul Hollywood and Rick Stein weekend away series, so Jules went to Copenhagen to research it. Jules had already been to Paris, Brooklyn and Italy so the books were written based on memory. “It just depends at the time; Croatia I had my heart set on so I went there for the research” she added “The great thing about writing is you can do it from anywhere in the world."

An interview with Jules Wake