If you?re a headstrong maiden with a heaving bosom in search of a dashing young Lord with a wicked gleam in his eye, then the Bookworm Beat has just the book.

This week the Bookworm Beat caught up with Jennifer Shashaty, author of ?Bermuda Hearts? a historical romance novel set in Bermuda.

Bermuda Hearts is a romantic thriller full of spicy clinches, horses and rogues.

?I have written a lot of stories. This is my first book,? Mrs. Shashaty said. ?I am in the process of writing my second book which is actually a prequel. I call them adventure romances.?

Mrs. Shashaty might be better known to Bermudians as Jennifer Vladimir as she spent more than a year in Bermuda with her father Andrew Vladimir who was Director of Tourism in the 1980s.

?I am American,? she said. ?Twenty years ago my father got the job as Director of Tourism of Bermuda. I was going into my senior year of high school, so I went to the combined Saltus Grammar School, Bermuda High School Senior Year programme.?

Although she has never returned to the Island, fond memories led her to set part of Bermuda Hearts, the first in the Bennington Hall Legacy trilogy, on the Island.

?There are not a lot of books in the genre that are about Bermuda,? she said. ?I set the start of the book in London, because I wanted something that pulled in a mainstream audience.

?I wanted to pull in Bermuda because it is such a beautiful island. It is very vivid, very unusual. It is not like anywhere else.?

Bermuda Hearts is self-published by iUniverse which is owned by Barnes & Noble.

?I went the self-publishing route, because I decided I wanted to tell the story the way I wanted to tell it,? she said. ?I was very nervous about putting my story out there for the first time.

?Self-publishing is a way to circumvent the rejection,? she said. ?The self publishing industry is changing very fast. I went with iUniverse which is a division of Barnes & Noble. They are taking on more and more mainstream writers. The actor Alan Thicke just published with them.?

To help her edit her books, Mrs. Shashaty has a peer group of other romance writers to read her work and offer critiques.

She met her writer?s group on a website called romancefanfiction.com which caters to writers of all types and has over 20,000 members.

?We call each other ?betas? because we beta test each other?s writing,? Mrs. Shashaty said.

?They will read it, critique it and grammar check it. They are my test market. They are the same people who read romance novels.?

Writing a historical novel requires a great deal of research, and historical romance novels are no exception.

?I had to do a lot of research and it never ends,? she said. ?The problem is trying to take out stuff. I am a big history buff and it is easy to get burdened down by that.

?First and foremost it is a romance and it is entertainment. I am not writing a story about the history of Bermuda or London or what happened in 1793. It is meant to be fun and entertainment. Parts of it are supposed to give you the feel of the place but should not overwhelm the reader.?

To help promote her books, Mrs. Shashaty started her own website, www.jennifershashaty.com. So far this combination of self-publishing and self-promotion is working very well for her.

?Bermuda Hearts is selling well for a first-time writer and an unknown,? she said. ?I have the website and some people have found me through that. The book is also available on Amazon.com.

?You have to promote yourself, which is hard for writers. Most of us are nervous about our work.

?It is very hard. I try to convince other writers on my site to promote themselves more. It is scary to put yourself out there to be judged.?

After leaving Bermuda, Mrs. Shashaty went to college and then worked for different cruise lines for a number of years before deciding she wanted to stay home and raise her two children.

?I write and I also manage a small boarding facility for horses,? she said.

?The passion for horses probably will come out in my books in general as will all of my passions. I was a history major in college. A lot of what happened in history was fuelled by horses.?

She said most of her writing happens in the morning after her children have gone to school.

?After I get them off to school I take care of my horses,? she said. ?That is my thinking time. I am doing something physical.

?The stories are talking and percolating.

?By the time I get to my computer the characters perch on my desk and off we go.

?They start talking and I get it down. By then I have figured out what is going to happen.

?My betas/editors constantly laugh at me because the night before we will talk about what I am going to write about and where the story is going, but in the morning I write something totally different.

? I think I have an idea and it totally changes by the next day. How the characters twist and turn always surprise me.?

She said she is inspired by other writers like Catherine Coulter, Nora Roberts, and John Grisham, amongst others.

Bermuda Hearts is available locally at The Bermuda Bookstore on Queen Street.