A Slice of Cake With... Maria Riegger

This week I am delighted to be having a slice of cake with fellow indie author, Maria Riegger.

Maria Riegger is based in the Washington, DC area. She is a banking/corporate attorney by day (but please don't hold that against her), and a fiction author by night.

Maria is a Gemini whose head has always been in the clouds. From a young age, her mother scolded her for not paying attention; when she was bored, she would make up stories in her head.

She has been writing since she was about thirteen years old. A lover of languages, she speaks French, Spanish, and Catalan.

She has been caught air-guitaring in public. She loves to laugh and is the "go-to" person if a friend needs someone to laugh at his lame jokes. In true Gemini fashion, she indulges both her logical personality as an attorney as well as her creative fiction-writing personality. She loved law school and even misses it, which led her friends to conclude that she is certifiable.

A native of the Washington, DC area, she is a political junkie who has respect for all views and who admires the political involvement of Americans. She loves nothing more than a solid political discussion where all views are represented.

An irreverent Gen X’er, she writes gritty contemporary romance, with plenty of sarcasm.


What kind of books do you write?

Let's see. I have story arcs in mind, then I write the book or series. After I've finished, I figure out what genres fit them best for marketing purposes. I don't set out to write, e.g., a romance novel. I see where the writing takes me.

That being said, I have issues with how romances are depicted in many books, movies, and television series, in that it’s difficult to understand how the main characters connect and feel emotionally attracted to each other. The audience usually wants the couple to get together right away, but that’s typically not how it works in real life. It’s normally this process of sharing and starting to be vulnerable with each other, and then realizing that there is this emotional and intellectual attraction.

I also got tired of reading about perfect protagonists. In real life, everyone has some past trauma and other issues to work through. I'm not interested in reading about a protagonist who has no flaws. I'm interested in reading about characters that have deep flaws, and what they do about the hands that they are dealt. There are always reasons behind why people are the way they are and act the way they do. I'm fascinated by that.

Whatever genre I'm writing in, I like to put characters is difficult situations and see what they do about it.


Can you describe your writing why?


Oh man. Where to begin? I’ve been reading and writing stories since I was around six years old. Reading and daydreaming have always been escape mechanisms for me, especially when dealing with traumatic events. My daydreaming got to the point where I had so many stories in my head that I had to get them out by writing them. It’s also a creative outlet for me. I enjoy my day job (as a bank regulatory attorney), but it does not satisfy my need to create as much as fiction writing does.

Share with us your favourite passage from the book you enjoyed writing the most.

Here's one of my favorite scenes from Miscalculated Risks, the first novel in the romance series, Law School Heretic:

   Then suddenly a soft voice cut through all the chatter.

   “Hey, Isabel.”

   I whipped my head up, looking over my open laptop.

   It was Tarek.

   Jesus. I hadn’t even heard him approach.

   I decided to take in the entire sight of him. Since he had addressed me directly, I finally had an excuse to take a good look at him. I decided afterward that it was kind of a mistake.

   He was wearing a black T-shirt with dark jeans. His T-shirt hugged his chest, which, like his entire body, was lean and muscular. His short beard and goatee were neatly trimmed. He was certainly dark enough to be what Lara and Eric called “my type,” although I usually went for Latin men. I guessed his age to be about 28, but his eyes held an experience that made him seem more mature. 

   He wasn’t super-tall. I guessed that he was between 5 feet, 9 inches and 5 feet 10 inches. I was 5’6” so I more or less did a quick comparison. His curly black hair hung in carefully groomed, tight tiny ringlets around his face and almost down to his shoulders. He was incredibly sexy. He probably had to spend a lot of time on his hair, moussing it up, and that if he let it go it would probably be frizzy. His curls reminded me of Lara and her unruly hair, although her ringlets were more tousled and larger, and always framed her beautiful face perfectly. She was forever straightening it, but I kept telling her it looked gorgeous in ringlets, like Tarek’s curls did now. I felt myself softening a little at the thought of my sister, but I steeled my reserve and plastered a semi-scowl on my face. My scowl and general surly attitude were my defense mechanisms. After enough unpleasantness, people generally left me alone. I liked it that way. Eric, Josh and Dinesh were somehow building up a tolerance for it. It was starting to piss me off. Lately, everything was pissing me off.

   I had to admit, however, that I was intrigued as well as annoyed. Few people had the nerve to come and talk to me like this, with no warning.

   I decided not to say anything at first. I just stared and raised my eyebrows.

   He waited a good three to four seconds before he spoke. The left corner of my mouth started to go up into a smirk. Invariably, there were only two reasons a guy like this, a semi-stranger no less, would deign to talk to me. If he was going to miss class and wanted to get my notes, he was shit outta luck. And if he wanted a booty call, well, I wasn’t quite sure yet how I would handle that. Little did I know, he wasn’t going to ask me either of those things.

Tell us about your latest project.

In February, I'll publish Thunderstruck, which is a standalone romance novel set during a fictionalized political campaign in the Washington, DC area. Here's the blurb:

Former lovers. Now political opponents. Will they succumb to their passion before Election Day?

Monica, a congressional candidate, who had a past affair with her now opponent, Brian, must now deal with the fallout from a public scandal while navigating a razor-thin election and resolving her recurring emotional attachment to her opponent.

As oversized egos and the desire to win an election at all costs threaten the bond slowly forming between these two political opponents, they end up discovering that they may have more in common than they originally thought.

What is your favourite cake?

I don't have a sweet tooth. I'd take salty carbs over sweets any day, but I love a flourless dark chocolate cake, especially when accompanied by strong coffee.

Thanks, Maria! For those of you baking along, here is a recipe for a flourless dark chocolate cake.

You can keep in touch with Maria at her website and follow her on Facebook & Twitter.

Join me next week when I will be having a slice of cake with writer Andrya Bailey, grilling them gently about their writing life and of course sharing their favourite cake.

If you would like to take part in A Slice of Cake With... please fill in the form found here. I'd be delighted to have you.

Claire Buss is a multi-genre author and poet, completely addicted to cake. Find all her books on Amazon. Join the discussion in her Facebook group Buss's Book Stop.