ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 13, 1997 TAG: 9702130006
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
``I'm assessing my life, thinking about what I want instead of what everyone else might want. It'll be easier for me to be different if I'm not in Roanoke.''
``Good,'' Maddie immediately said. ``And you're well rid of that prig, Carl Yancey. I always thought he would be rotten in bed, anyway.''
- from ``The Five-Minute Bride,'' by Roanoke native Leanne Banks
Leanne Banks does not want her mother to have to wear a bag over her head to her bridge club gatherings in Roanoke.
So, Banks, an award-winning romance novelist and Roanoke native, is careful to focus on the nonsexual attributes of her latest book, ``The Five-Minute Bride,'' which is set partly in Roanoke.
There is no dirty language, she points out during a telephone interview from her home in Richmond.
Scenes of a sexual nature - of which there are four - are described using euphemisms for body parts. Example: the word ``masculinity.''
Boiling it down to a formula, Banks says her books contain ``90 percent anticipation, 10 percent consummation.'' (Meaning: No, Mom, there isn't sex on every page.)
And - because she believes it's her responsibility as a writer and a mother - condoms are always discussed before intercourse takes place.
In fact, it was her mother, Betty Minyard, who introduced her to romance novels - of the less-steamy variety - back when she was 12, growing up on Pawling Street in Northeast Roanoke.
Pawling Street was also where many of her girlfriends gathered, fighting over who was going to marry Davy Jones, strumming badminton rackets on basement bar stools and singing songs by The Monkees.
Romance novel fans - and people who grew up with Leanne Minyard Banks (Northside High School, Class of `77) - might want to get their hands on a copy of ``The Five-Minute Bride,'' which comes out this month.
The first of a trilogy called ``How to Catch a Princess,'' the book begins in Roanoke with heroine Emily St. Clair, who has just left her fiance at the altar. The church is First Presbyterian in South Roanoke, the reception-that-never-was at The Hotel Roanoke.
Emily flees to Ruxton, N.C., for most of the book - with the exception of a trip back home to have lunch at Hunting Hills Country Club. Her mother, embarrassed by the scene at the altar, has been languishing in her bedroom, and Emily believes ``it's time to strut your stuff and give the old bags an eyeful.''
Of course, the focus of the book is Emily's own stuff-strutting. She's drop-dead gorgeous (of course), and still wearing her wedding dress when she immediately catches the eye of county Sheriff Beau Ramsey. The first night they meet, she drowns her botched-wedding sorrows in a bottle of tequila - starting a series of flirtations that begins when she throws up the tequila on the sheriff's boots and climaxes in ``consummation'' on page 112 (of 184 pages).
Banks, 37, doesn't apologize for her stake in the $1 billion-a-year romance genre. Two of her books have made the USA Today Best-Seller List, and several have been translated into foreign languages, including German, Italian and Czech. She earns about what a "low-paid doctor, not a specialist" earns.
And best of all, she says, her readers love her work. ``In an age when so many things are uncertain, it's nice to be able to pick up a book and things happen the way they should,'' she says.
The way things should work out, according to the formula set forth in Silhouette's ``Desire'' series, is this: The stories focus on the development of a monogamous relationship between a man and a woman. There are struggles. There is consummation (there's that euphemism again). And - after a few more struggles - a happy ending, preferably marriage.
``It's not the way life really is, but it's the way we wish it was,'' Banks says.
Banks had been a part-time sales rep and a stay-at-home mom when she decided to try writing as a career in 1988. She joined a local Romance Writers of America chapter in Richmond, went to several critique groups and conferences - and four rejections later - began publishing books at a rate of three every 12 to 14 months.
It's worth noting that she's among a rare group of professional writers who get to do the thing she loves, at home, every day - and get paid for it. Very well.
Now on her 15th book, the first part of a second trilogy that's also set in Roanoke, she describes her life as one of juggling middle-school kid schedules and book deadlines.
She does most of her writing on a laptop in bed. While she imagines torn wedding dresses and too-tight jeans, she adorns herself in sweat pants, knee socks and a Betty Boop night shirt.
Her husband, Tony, a health physicist for Virginia Power, likes to tell people: ``I may not be the guy on the covers, but I'm the guy between the covers,'' Banks says, adding, ``Isn't that nauseating?''
Banks also interviews people on the phone to get background for her characters. Jenna Jean Andrews, the heroine of the third book in the present trilogy (``The You-Can't-Make-Me Bride,'' due out in June) is a Roanoke prosecutor, partly culled from an interview Banks conducted with real-life prosecutor Betty Jo Anthony, Roanoke's deputy commonwealth's attorney.
Among the details Banks lifted from Anthony: Jenna Jean refers to her boss as ``The Ayatollah,'' the same nickname staffers gave to real-life chief prosecutor Donald Caldwell. (Anthony's nickname, by the way, is ``The Heart of Darkness.'')
The second book in the Princess series, ``The Troublemaker Bride'' (due out in April) begins when a relationship is born near the Interstate 81 sinkhole, inspired by the real-life Roanoke Valley event in 1992.
Maddie, who is in labor, gets stuck in traffic. She's stranded, alone (the baby's father recently died) - until a man comes by to rescue her ... and he's driving a pickup truck that just happens to have a motorcycle in back!
He zooms her to the hospital on his motorcycle, coaches her during delivery and - about two-thirds through the book - voila, here comes that word again: They consummate.
Speaking of which, just how does Banks get inspired to write the sex scenes?
``People ask me if I light candles and put out whipped cream and feathers,'' Banks says, laughing. ``No! The steamy scenes are done by characterization.''
Asked to define "characterization," she dodges the question, adding: ``I do think sex is a very important part of a romantic relationship. It's my point of view that sex changes us, how you see somebody, how you feel about him, and that can be good or bad,'' she says. ``It can mess you up if you're not ready for commitment.
``There are consequences emotionally to having sex, and this is something you'll see in my books.''
Banks once tried to sell a book devoid of sex scenes. ``I sent it to two places and got rejected,'' she recalls. When she sprinkled in about five pages worth of consummation, the book sold immediately.
Banks has been recognized for her sensual writing with a Career Achievement Award from Romantic Times magazine.
``I have the trophy on my mantel to show the UPS man and religious people who come to my door!'' she says, laughing.
Her mother, Betty Minyard, says she's proud of her daughter for forging a career that allows her to work from home and spend more time with her children.
As a little girl, her youngest daughter always excelled in the imagination arena. "When she was little, we took her to see 'Mary Poppins,' and the first thing she did when we got home was get out the umbrella and jump off the rock wall. She sprained her ankle."
As for the steamy content of her work, Minyard says: "It doesn't bother us, she's an adult."
In fact, she adds, "it's been a real interesting conversation piece. My friends at bridge just laugh and carry on about it."
Leanne Banks will sign copies of "The Five-Minute Bride" from 1 to 2:30 p.m. March 1 at Waldenbooks in Valley View Mall.|
LENGTH: Long : 144 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. Covers of four books. color. 2. (headshot) Leanneby CNBBanks.