Interview with author Becky Lower

Hi Becky! Do dreams ever inspire your writing? What did you last dream about? 

I wish my writing could be that easy. Wake up from a romantic dream and write the story. My dreams, those that I remember, anyway, make no sense, or are nightmares. What I am successful with is thinking about my story idea as I’m drifting off to sleep. My current WIP is the result of having the whole story roll out in my head as I was on my way to sleep. Fortunately, I remembered it the next morning.

When did you first start writing? And when were you first published? 

I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t writing. I won an award for my writing when I was 12, but high school, college, and then life got in the way. I didn’t get published for the first time until 2012.

Can you tell us a little about your latest book? 

My latest book, An Unconventional Courtship, which released on June 8, is a fun novella, which was totally unplanned. I have a nine-book series of American historicals in process right now. Each book focuses on a different sibling from the same family, and how they find their true loves. The only secondary characters who are in every book to some degree are the parents, Charlotte and George Fitzpatrick. The parents are so colorful, I have an editor who tells me when I write a line that’s out of character. Several readers have asked me how the unlikely pair met, so I decided to write about it. 

Who designs your covers? 

My covers for the historical series are designed by the great graphics team at Crimson Romance. They allow me to have a lot of input in the design, though, which I appreciate.

What were the last two books you read? 

I’m reading The Raider by Jude Deveraux right now, and I just finished Jayne Anne Krentz’s Midnight Jewels. Don’t get me wrong. There are a lot of highly talented newer authors out there, but Jayne and Jude are two of my all-time favorites.

Tell us a random fact about yourself. 

I love to take road trips, and have made it to 47 of the 50 states.

Tell us an interesting fact about where you live. 

Oberlin, OH is the home of Oberlin College, which was the first school of higher learning to admit people of color and women, both in 1833. Oberlin was also extremely active in the Underground Railroad. Even though Ohio was a free state, there was a lot of slave traffic making their way north to Canada, and Oberliners hid them from authorities.

What are your (writing) plans for the future? 

I have one more book to write in the Cotillion Ball Series, and then all nine Fitzpatrick children will be happy. Beyond that, there were some secondary characters in the nine books who wandered off into the sunset, and my current WIP follows one of them, as he embarks on a completely different situation, set in Ohio during the Civil War. But, I also write contemporary romances, and have a trilogy planned about 3 generations of women in the same family who have a lake house. Book One is done, and I’m in the “Contemplating” phase of Book Two.

Tell us one thing that's on your bucket list. 

Crossing off those last three states. 

Becky Lower has traveled the country looking for great settings for her novels. She loves to write about two people finding each other and falling in love, amid the backdrop of a great setting, be it present day middle America or on a covered wagon headed west in the 1850s. Contemporary and historical romances are her specialty. Becky is a PAN member of RWA and is a regular contributor to USA Today’s Happy Ever After column. She has a degree in English and Journalism from Bowling Green State University, and lives in an eclectic college town in Ohio with her puppy-mill rescue dog, Mary. She loves to hear from her readers at beckylowerauthor@gmail.com. Visit her website at www.beckylowerauthor.com

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Meet Crimson Romance author Ruby Lang

Hi Ruby! Can you tell us a little about your latest book?
In my first contemporary romance, Acute Reactions, Petra Lale is a newly licensed allergist in Portland, Oregon, with a struggling solo practice. Although she’s a good doctor, she finds it hard to switch gears and run an office—a business, really. Ian Zamora is the owner and manager of a local restaurant. He’s been working himself hard for the last few years and he’d ready to settle down. And he’s also allergic to cats and begins receiving weekly immunotherapy shots from Petra.
They’re attracted to each other, but Petra can’t date Ian—it’s unethical—and she can’t ask him to go see another doctor because she can’t afford to lose patients.
So really, it’s just your usual contemporary romance about business and ethics in American medicine, injections, loneliness, and sex. With kale jokes. There are a couple of kale jokes.

What inspired you to write it?

My husband commented once that guys who have allergies are never the romantic lead. (See also, characters who are mean to the waitstaff.) They’re usually blowing their nose just when the heroine needs affection, or rooting around for tissues, or being overly anxious about their food.
I also received immunotherapy shots for a couple of years and as a result, I really did end up spending a lot of time with my allergist. Every Tuesday at noon for a couple of years, I’d walk to her office, get the jab, and then sit in her waiting room for 15 minutes to wait out the reaction. She’d check me and rub some anti-itch cream in my arm and send me on my way. For a while, I think I saw her more regularly than I saw some of my friends.
Once I put those pieces together, the story emerged.

How did you come up with the idea for the cover?
I didn’t—the excellent folks at Crimson worked it up--but I like it! ☺

If it was made into a movie, who would you like to play the main characters?
Eduardo Noriega is a Spanish-Mexican actor, who has that lean, intense look that I wanted for Ian. Imagine him wearing silver-rimmed spectacles. Now imagine taking them off of him.
Norah Jones could work as Petra. Although they’d have to write a karaoke scene into the movie. You can’t have Norah Jones in a movie and not have her sing.

What is it about this genre that appeals to you so much?
Romance is a genre that focuses doggedly on the emotional life of its characters, and I am fascinated by what goes on in people’s brains and hearts, and the things that aren’t necessarily spoken out loud.
This is maybe a fancy way of saying that I’m nosy. The woman who gets caught staring at the neighbours and has to twitch her curtains shut? That’s me.

What made you want to become an author?
I’m a reader first. I have always loved narrative: listening to stories, reading them, eavesdropping on people. And sometimes I make my own stories.

How do you come up with character names?
Ugh. With great difficulty.

Name one of your all-time favourite books?
Middlemarch by George Eliot is everything. What I love about it most is the fact that it examines—with such wit and affection—the ordinary lives of people in a small English town. And circling back to the question of why I’m drawn to romance, Middlemarch isn’t a part of the genre but it is a novel that acknowledges that love is at once one of the most dramatic and normal things that can happen to a person.

Who, or what, inspires you?
Old movies, songs, things I talk about with my family, books, overheard subway conversations. My husband, crime fiction novelist Preston Lang, issues challenges; a recent one was to include one Finnish character in every novel I wrote. As a result there’s a Finnish character in Acute Reactions.

Where is your favourite place to write?
I write at a rickety desk that has managed to defy the laws of physics and is holding together despite the fact that some fairly important screws are missing from its architecture. I face a white wall. I wouldn’t say it’s a glamourous place, but it’s the view I’m used to and it’s where the stuff gets done.

What is your favourite movie that was based on a book?
If ever I had to save the world and a supervillain put on The Wizard of Oz, I would sit down to watch it and let the universe go down in flames. What I’m trying to say is 1) I would not be a good hero and 2) The Wizard of Oz is really important to me. I’m from the Canadian prairies, which isn’t that far off from Dorothy Gale’s Kansas, and that Technicolor moment where she bursts into Oz works is like a promise.
The L. Frank Baum book was important to me in different ways when I was growing up. When I was in third grade, I got my parents to drive me across town to look at the library’s antiquarian edition of one of the Oz novels. The librarian hovered over me while I paged through it and I wasn’t exactly sure what to do with myself or this—well—artifact. It put the awe of writing in me.

Name two of your favourite authors.
Courtney Milan is my favourite romance author. Most of her books are Victorian historicals and they tackle medicine and public health, law, race, class, women’s rights. Milan manages to make stories about these big issues intimate, because really, that’s what they are.
I also read outside of genre (and write outside of it, too, under my real name) and I love short story writer Lorrie Moore.

If you could have a dinner party with any authors from any time in history, who would you choose and why?
Oh man, the trouble with inviting writers to dinner is that so many of the especially fascinating ones are raging introverts. So while I’d be so tempted to invite Emily Dickinson, she’d feel so disquieted by the whole thing she’d probably spend a lot of time hiding behind her napkin.
But because this is a fictional party with fictional cutlery and plates that I don’t have to worry about salvaging, I’d have a drunken smashup with Southern short story writer Katherine Anne Porter and . Fran Lebowitz, who wrote Metropolitan Studies, could make snide comments, and poet Maya Angelou would give everyone a good talking to.
I’d be horrified and riveted. And probably hiding behind my napkin.

Tell us a random fact about yourself.
I once slid down the banister—well, the escalator handrail—of the Westin San Diego Hotel. I was 25 years old.

Who would play you in the movie about your life?
Someone asked me recently which fictional relationship best describes my real-life relationship and pretty quickly, I realized that my husband is the Jeeves to my Bertie Wooster. So Hugh Laurie would play me and my husband would be an unflappable Stephen Fry, and there would be hijinks involving antique silver cow creamers.

Tell us an interesting fact about where you live.
My red brick New York City apartment building is about one hundred years old and back in the day, they made slits in the backs of medicine cabinets for people to dispose razor blades. The reasoning behind it is that it’s safer to store them in the walls than putting blades in the trash where kids or pets can get into them.
But sometimes I just think of all these old buildings full of sharp steel just bristling.

What are your (writing) plans for the future?
I have a couple of romance manuscripts at various stages of doneness set in the same universe as Acute Reactions. At some point I’d really like to write a novel where reality diverges in the 1950s and 60s—a post-war, pneumatic-tube-city-of-industry romance.

Tell us one thing that's on your bucket list.
I’d like to take my family to New Zealand for a year. I have this image of us becoming healthy and pink-lunged as we hike cheerfully over the hills.

Favourite myth / fairytale?
There’s a delightfully gruesome Grimm fairy tale called The Twelve Windows in which a princess who can see all in her kingdom from her magic windows challenges her suitors to hide from her. The unsuccessful aspirants are killed and their heads put on pikes around the castle. Only the man who accomplishes the task she sets out gets to marry her. (The story of Turandot is similar.)
(On a side note, when I was in eighth or ninth grade, I adapted The Twelve Windows and named the successful suitor Elvis, thus earning myself the pleasure of setting down the words, “Elvis became king.” As a writer, I peaked early.)

Who/What did you want to be when you were a kid?
I wanted to be a botanist, a clothing designer, a novelist. I also wanted to be Hildy, Rosalind Russell’s fast-talking reporter character from His Girl Friday. Or maybe I just wanted Hildy’s hats.

Ruby Lang is the pen name of non-fiction and short fiction writer Mindy Hung. She is small, prim and bespectacled. She enjoys running (slowly), reading (quickly), and ice cream (at any speed). She lives in New York with a small child and a medium-sized husband.
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Meet the lovely Melinda Dozier

Book: New York Minute
Author: Melinda Dozier
Release Date: March 9, 2015

Shy accountant Veronica Bass is determined to live it up a little before settling down with a perfectly respectable man to live a perfectly respectable life, just the way her mother wants.
So when rock star Diego Diaz flashes his bedroom eyes at her during a wedding reception, Veronica swallows her shyness and leads him to the nearest hotel room. Now this total sex god keeps popping up in her life, and she finds herself telling some not-so-little white lies to keep him interested.
Diego's world evolves around music, women throwing themselves at him, and having fun. His lifestyle hasn't allowed him to find the right girl to settle down with until now, but his own secret stands in the way of forming a lasting relationship with Veronica.
Is their love destined to last for only a New York minute?
Sensuality Level: Sensual
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Hi Melinda! Can you tell us a little about your latest book? 
New York Minute is about Veronica, a shy accountant, who wants to live it up a little before having to bow down to her mother's expectations of settling down. She meets up with Diego, a rock star, and the two spice up Veronica's life in out and out of the bedroom.

What inspired you to write it? 
The characters wouldn't stop talking to me! Veronica is a secondary character in another novel I wrote, long ago, and Diego was an easy hero to create -- I knew I wanted a sexy Latino and he's perfect!

If it was made into a movie, who would you like to play the main characters? 
Diego's physical characteristics are based off an Argentinean actor/model, Rodrigo Guirao Diaz. Veronica would be a sexy Anne Hathaway.

What made you want to become an author? 
I'm an avid reader of romance and one day I said to myself, "Hey, let's give this writing thing a try." I'm glad I did!

How do you come up with character names? 
Diego is one of my favorite hispanic names, so that was easy. Vero is the short version for Veronica in Latin America, so I went with it.

Who, or what, inspires you? 
Music and sexy #Mancandy inspire me.

Where is your favourite place to write? 
In my bed, cuddled amongst my blankets and pillows.

What is your favourite movie that was based on a book? 

Pride and Prejudice, the one with Keira Knightly, though I like the BBC version too.

Name two of your favourite authors. 
Jill Shalvis and Kristin Higgins are a hoot!

If you could have a dinner party with any authors from any time in history, who would you choose and why? 
C.S. Lewis, because he was a wise-wise man.

Tell us a random fact about yourself. 
I'm an ex-pat and have lived in Guatemala for 19 years and I teach middle school English.

Tell us an interesting fact about where you live. 
Guatemala is a beautiful country full of culture and beauty. I have daily views of volcanoes that I never tire of.

What are your (writing) plans for the future? 
I'm in the middle of a few projects, but I hope to write another spinoff from New York Minute called Every Second Counts. It'll be about Veronica's crazy friend, Chloe.

Tell us one thing that's on your bucket list. 
Visit New York!

Who/What did you want to be when you were a kid? When I graduated high school, I actually wanted to be a music therapist. 
Thanks for having me at your blog!

It's my pleasure, Melinda :)

Excerpt
She pushed him against the armoire, opened his jacket, and her hands roamed over his dress shirt. Her long fingers trembled, and it reassured him that she didn’t always do this. Her words said one thing, but her actions conveyed another. She was a novice at seduction. He loved her hesitant yet obvious desire to lure him in.
He bent down the few inches to touch her lips with his. A lightning bolt of energy shot through his body. Her body was like heaven, her lips soft, pliable, accepting and eager. His heart beat faster and he hardened even more than he thought possible. Damn, it’d been too long.
He grabbed her waist, the curve of her hips under his fingers, and pushed her against the desk next to them. When her lips opened, he delved deeper with his tongue. She still tasted of whiskey and a whole other unique flavor. It turned him on more to know she had a taste that was all hers—and his for the night.
Her voice quavered when he pulled back. “I hope I’m doing this right.”
“Keep doing what you’re doing. It’s perfect.” Again, her uncertainty was a clear indication of who she truly was. She didn’t seduce him to get in the limelight. She wanted him for him, just as badly as he wanted her.

Trailer

Melinda is a multi-published contemporary romance author with books from Crimson Romance, Swoon Romance and The Wild Rose Press represented by Dawn Dowdle of Blue Ridge Literary Agency. She lives in Guatemala, Central America with her husband/college sweetheart who brings "mucho amor" to her life. Melinda enjoys being the queen of her household and dreams of being pampered fully by her three boys once they are grown. Melinda's guilty pleasures include reality t.v., traveling, blogging and playing Farmville.
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Interview with author Amie Louellen

Hi Amie! Can you tell us a little about your latest book?

My latest book is a zany romantic comedy that takes place in my beloved South. Southern Hospitality is an opposites attract/fish out of water story centering around a Yankee tabloid reporter and a conservative Southern politician. It's a little on the madcap side, totally fun, and a little bit crazy.

If it was made into a movie, who would you like to play the main characters?
Wow, this is a hard one. Okay, I think Karl Urban would make a fantastic Malcolm. He's sexy and a little bit brooding. Hmm, I wonder how he would feel about dying his hair red. And only Zooey Deschanel could do justice to Roxanne.

What is it about this genre that appeals to you so much?
I LOVE a happy ending. Life's tragic enough that I don't want to read books that have a tearful ending. I want happily ever after and lots of it!

How do you come up with character names?
Sometimes the characters tell me their names. Sometimes I struggle trying to find it out. I guess writers are a bit eccentric when it comes to things like this. Once I had a male character that I wanted to name Sloane, yet every time I had him and the heroine in the same room she called him Blake. I couldn't get her to stop, so I caved. The hero of Can't Buy Me Love is named Blake, but not entirely from my choosing.

Name one of your all-time favourite books?
My all-time favorite book is To Kill A Mockingbird. I read it about once every other year. I am also a huge Harry Potter fan. :)

Where is your favourite place to write?
I'm a nomad writer. I migrate all over the house, writing in whatever room I happen to be in. My main criteria is that I need to be alone to do my best work. I'm something of a natural hostess and if someone else is around, it's too much of a distraction.

What is your favourite movie that was based on a book?
My favorite movie based off a book would have to be The Vow. Though the movie is so loosely based on the book that it's hard to see the two stories as the same. Still they are both worth a watch and a read.

Name two of your favourite authors.
Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Lavryle Spencer

If you could have a dinner party with any authors from any time in history, who would you choose and why?
Stephen King, hands down. He's intelligent, a brilliant writer, and I would hope that by having dinner with him some of his genius would wear off on me.

Tell us a random fact about yourself.
I own all sorts of music, but the most bizarre is the soundtrack for a movie I've never seen.

Tell us an interesting fact about where you live.
I live in Tulsa, which is considered the 'buckle of the Bible belt." We are also home to the world's largest praying hands.

Favourite myth / fairytale?
Gosh, I love them all. Currently I'm completely obsessed with Frozen, but I would have to say that Beauty and the Beast is my all-time favorite. After all, isn't that what it's all about? Seeing past the outside to the person underneath?

Amie Louellen loves nothing more than a good book. Except for her family...and maybe homemade tacos...and nail polish. But reading and writing are definitely high on the list. 

Fun and contemporary, whimsical and sexy, Amie's novels are true love stories with a guaranteed happy ending.
Born and bred in Mississippi, Amie is a transplanted Southern Belle who now lives in Oklahoma with her deputy husband, their genius son, two spoiled cats, and one very lazy beagle. Oh, and don't forget the stray kitty that has taken up residence on her front porch. ^..^
When she's not creating quirky characters and happy endings, she's chauffeuring her prodigy to guitar lessons and orchestra concerts. She has a variety of hobbies, but her favorite is whatever gets her out of housework.
Amie Louellen is the contemporary pen name for romance author Amy Lillard.
Amy is a member of RWA, ACFW, and is an award winning author. You can reach her at amylillard918@gmail.com or visit her on the web: http://www.amywritesromance.com * FACEBOOK * TWITTER *
Or at http://www.amielouellen.wordpress.com .

Guest Blog Post: Shopping the Indies: Why It Matters

By Cynthia Swanson, Author of The Bookseller (Harper, March 2015)
My cousin Mary, who works at Secret Garden Books, a small independent bookstore in Seattle, says that she and her colleagues call that big online retailer (you know, the one that starts with an A): “It Which Must Not Be Named.”
While that may be a bit ominous (and I am certainly not going to knock Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or any big retailer - they carry books and they sell mine, for which I’m grateful) - I understand the sentiment. The vast majority of consumer book-buying these days is done online. Second place goes to the big retailers, whether they primarily sell books or also carry other items.
That leaves little shops like Secret Garden, and hundreds of other indies around the country, scrambling for book lovers’ business.
It’s a tough industry. Indies generally do not have the luxury of running sales or slashing prices. When you walk into an independent bookstore and ask for the latest bestseller, you can expect to pay full cover price for it. That could be as much as 15-25% more than you’d pay a big retailer, which can afford to give discounts and have promotional sales.
So why would anyone do that? We all have to watch our pennies, right? Why would anyone knowingly pay up to 25% more for the same item, if they could get it for the lower price?
I can’t tell you anyone else’s reasons. But I can tell you mine.

1) Indie bookstores are the heart of a community. Here in Denver, we have a major indie, The Tattered Cover, which opened more than 40 years ago in a small shop in the Cherry Creek North shopping district. They now has three large stores, as well as two satellites - one at the airport and one at the downtown train station. Its flagship store is in a restored theater in a historical district. The Tattered Cover recently moved into this space, and their choice of neighborhood was a boon for every other business nearby. When indies thrive, other businesses do, too. 

 
2) Indie booksellers are interested in their customers. Set foot in an indie, and chances are that if you ask, you’ll get the opportunity to meet the owner. I know the owners of not only The Tattered Cover, but also several other indie shops around town - BookBar, The Bookies, and others. Owners of such shops are in this business because they love books. As such, they want to get to know other book lovers. They want to know what you like to read, what events you’d come to at their store, how they can support your book group. Come back again and again, and chances are they’ll remember you and your tastes. 

3) Indies support one another. Sure, the competition for business is fierce. True, if their customers shop at a different indie, they lose precious business. But you know what? Despite all that, indie booksellers have each others’ backs. Last fall, I went to the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers’ Association trade show to pitch my novel. Here’s what I noticed: these people like each other. They get each other. They may be competing for business, but they know that success of any indie is good for indies everywhere.

I’m a discriminating book consumer - I don’t buy every hot new title that comes out - but in particular, I try to support local authors and debut novelists. And I generally buy their books at indie bookstores. Yes, if I shopped online, I’d have a few more bucks in my pocket. And yes, I know I’m fortunate to have a liberal enough “book budget” that I can afford to spend a little more to buy a book in an indie bookstore than I would if I bought it online.
But I’m okay with that. The smile on the face of a bookseller, the handshake, the warm words exchanged as my purchase is rung up - all of that is worth much more than a few extra bucks in my pocket.

Photo by Glenda Cebrian Photography

CYNTHIA SWANSON is a writer and a designer of the midcentury modern style. She has published short fiction in 13th Moon, Kalliope, Sojourner, and other periodicals; her story in 13th Moon was a Pushcart Prize nominee. She lives in Denver, Colorado, with her husband and three children. The Bookseller is her first novel. Visit her on Facebook