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   1. Tell us about the world of Killer Heels.

   It's about a very ambitious young woman, Jodie Raeburn, who is desperate to become a famous fashion editor, and the journey she takes to achieve her goal. I loved setting the book in the fashion world, as it's so obsessed with image and identity, and it's also very sexy! Jodie apprentices herself to Victoria Glossop, the editor of STYLE magazine, who has her own driving ambitions, and the two women's stories are interlinked. Jodie starves herself from a UK size twelve to a size zero (UK size 4), and embarks on a torrid affair with the Svengali Jacob Dupleix, her boss, to try to walk in Victoria's footsteps - but though the two women have the same goals, their paths are very different. Victoria thinks she's got everything she ever wanted - but during the course of Killer Heels, she discovers a whole new sexual side to herself she never thought possible, and starts to crave something completely new…

2. 2. Have you ever worked for any glossy fashion mags?

   Yes, I interned in the fashion desks of Cosmo and Company when at university, and have written for both magazines extensively since, plus Grazia and Marie Claire and quite a few other fashion magazines.

3. 3. One character had her name changed to the more fashionable Coco. Why did you pick Rebecca Chance as your pseudonym?

   I had written a lot of books under my real name - Lauren Henderson; mysteries, chick fic, non-fiction and YA mysteries. So my publishers wanted me to choose a pseudonym when I started writing bonkbusters. Rebecca is my second name, and Chance sounded fun, sexy, daring, dashing… Both Lee Child and my publishers told me that a surname starting with 'C' sells well, so that was another reason for picking 'Chance'!



4. 4. What are the secret ingredients to creating a great villain?

   You have to put yourself in the villain's shoes. When I was writing Carin in Divas, who's clearly a villain right from the start, I had to think like her, identify with her manipulations and her twisted sexual tastes - and you have to enjoy it, which I definitely did! It's fun to take a walk on the dark side every now and then. In Killer Heels, there isn't a single, over-arcing villain as there is in Divas (I can't comment in detail without giving away various plot twists and turns), but Victoria starts off as being appallingly bitchy and unsympathetic, and hopefully, throughout the course of the book, she grows on you. She isn't just a one-dimensional caricature - I wanted the reader to admire her drive and determination and perfectionism, and to understand why Coco, the main heroine, sees Victoria as being a role model, despite her awfulness.

5. 5. Which of your characters would you most/least like to be friends with?

   In Killer Heels, definitely Coco - I can't imagine either Victoria or Mireille having female friends, as they're very much men's women! Coco is pretty young in Killer Heels, early twenties, but I think she's going to grow into a very impressive woman, and she knows the value of female friendships.

6. 6. How do you think the success of Fifty Shades will affect the traditional bonkbuster?

   Hopefully it will have a great effect, particularly for my books, as they're a lot racier than the traditional bonkbuster. Women love to read good sex scenes, and I love writing them, so anything that encourages the press to talk about sexy books - and makes women feel okay about sharing them with each other - is great for me. And I think it's very empowering too.

7. 7. Do you find it difficult to write sex scenes?

   See above - not at all, quite the reverse! The sex scenes are a key part of all my books and I outline the plots with a very clear awareness that I need to have a certain amount of them, that they need to be original, different, exciting, even shocking - it's a big part of my job and one I enjoy tremendously. From my first book, Divas, I wanted to get away from the convention that the hero and heroine have 'vanilla' sex while the villainess has filthy time of it with her henchmen, so I'm very keen to show that you can find love and still have a deliciously kinky time in bed (or out of it!) if those are your sexual tastes.



8. 8. Have you ever been asked to turn down the raunch?

   My first editor cut some of the sexiest scenes out of Divas, obviously against my advice. I felt that she was wrong - that one of the reasons people read bonkbusters is precisely for the sexy scenes! She left the publishers and my new editor is very keen on the sexy content (even nagging me to make sure I have a good sex scene early on in the book, if possible!) so that's no longer a problem. I saved the cut bits from Divas and revisited them this year, expanding them all, and they're now available to buy as Rebecca Chance’s Naughty Bits online.

9. 9. What inspired you to start writing novels?

   I started twenty years ago and wanted to write a detective novel that featured a heroine who was tough, strong, sexy and liked men - most of the crime novels then had heroines who were either trying to be like men, or pretty wimpy, and that didn't reflect the life I was living in London. I wanted to create a central character who was a feminist but didn't think men were always the enemy, and one who liked to have a lot of fun! She was called Sam Jones (the books are written under the name Lauren Henderson) and she lasted for a seven-book series.

10. 10. What are you getting up to on your summer in Tuscany?

    Eating, sunbathing, hiking, doing a Pure Barre DVD, drinking, dancing, and outlining my new book!

11. 11. What did living in New York teach you?

    Not to listen to a word New Yorkers say about dating - they're mostly insane on the subject and think you need to be a size 0 for a man to want to marry you. Which is obviously ridiculous. It inspired me to write a self-help book called Jane Austen's Guide To Dating, which I enjoyed tremendously.



12. 12. Bad Angels is out later in the year. Then what’s next for you?

    A new Rebecca Chance novel featuring European princesses in a whole lot of trouble.

13. 13. Have you ever been tempted to write a sequel for any of your characters?

    No, their stories are fully told in the books in which they feature. Ie, who they'll end up with, what path they'll take, what the future will hold for their careers and love lives. But I do drop little snippets in following books about characters from the previous ones, as treats to loyal readers. You find out what's happening to Skye from Bad Girls in Bad Sisters, and to Devon and Deeley from Bad Sisters in Bad Angels - but though it's supposed to be nicely satisfying, the reader won't be surprised at where they are now.

14. 14. Prince William or Prince Harry?

    Prince Harry, of course! And did I mention that my next book has the working title BAD PRINCESSES? There'll definitely be some prince action in it…

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