Lizzie Jenks Writes Passionate American Revolutionary Romance
Lizzie Jenks, welcome to my blog.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
I am a lifelong history nerd and have always escaped into books. My office has eleven bookcases, and I still have books stacked on the floor because they don’t all fit. Books are my happy place. I live in beautiful and inspiring upstate New York with my own romance hero. Our lives rotate entirely around the whims of our rescue mutts, as is proper.
What event or experience in your life affected you as a writer?
I am a bit of a chicken little in real life—you won’t catch me skydiving, or rock climbing, or doing any activity that includes the word “whitewater”—so I tend to write about characters overcoming dangerous situations so I can learn from their courage.
Why did you become a romance writer?
I love steamy, nuanced historical romances, but I couldn’t find enough of them set in the US. So I sat down to write one. That first novel, Devil in Our Hearts, set around a colonial New England witch trial, won a number of awards, so I figured that meant I wasn’t the only one who loved stories set in early America. That launched me into writing my current series set in New York during the French and Indian War.
What inspired the idea for this book?
The Daniel Day-Lewis version of Last of the Mohicans inspired this whole series. My process tends to start with me getting so annoyed by something women had to put up with in a particular historical moment that I start thinking about a strong female character who fights against it in some way or another. Then I imagine a swoony hero who has the capacity to see the injustice of the situation. In this book, it is a woman who bailed her father out of debt with her business acumen, but she is still relegated to being a marriageable financial asset. She has less legal autonomy than the penniless former indentured servant she falls in love with. The setting is the beginning of the French and Indian War, which my characters are smack in the middle of. That war has always fascinated me, because without it, the Revolution would never have happened. The shift in social alliances, as well as the political ones, was tremendous. Such a juicy and under-explored era for romance!
Can you tell us about any other upcoming books, series, or writing plans?
The second book in this series, Passion’s Claim, is coming out on December 1, 2026, and is the story of a Mohawk army ranger who finds himself forced to pretend he is married to a Scottish widow who has zero tolerance for men thinking they have authority over her. The two of them are electric together and have been an absolute blast to write!
Inescapable duty. Undeniable passion. New York Colony, 1755
Irishman James Carroll is hellbent on independence. In the wilderness of the Mohawk Valley, armed service to a powerful benefactor offers a rare opportunity for a once-indentured servant. But as hostility brews between the British and the French, a beautiful trespasser threatens to shatter James’s singular focus on his one path upward.
Faith Richmond was supposed to have been a son. A disappointment to her military father, despite her quick intellect and obvious talents, she chafes at being bartered to a wealthy officer to prop up her family’s fortunes. Stranded with a surly Irishman, she revels in the gaze of this man who seems to actually want her for who she is.
War is coming. But the spark between them ignites into something neither can resist. And once they stop fighting it, there will be no protection from patron or family—even as it puts them directly in the path of French raiders bent on revenge.
Book One of the Romance and the American Ranger series, Passion’s Duty is a steamy, open-door historical romance of forbidden love and forced proximity, with a strong heroine and a hero who is worth the wait. Set at the outbreak of the French and Indian War.
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Lizzie Jenks is a Romance Writers of America Diamond Heart finalist and author of steamy historical romance novels. She writes passionate, adventure-packed stories set in the real-life drama of the American past.
