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Thanks so much for being here today, Andi. Your novel sounds terrific and I can't wait to read it!
First of all, Lisa, thanks so much for having me here
today. It’s greatly appreciated. I guess the answer to your question is that I
saw the book—and read it of course—Fortune’s Daughters by Elizabeth Kehoe,
which discusses in part the marriage of Clara Jerome, aunt to Winston
Churchill—to Morton Frewen. Frewen was
one of the English aristocratic adventurers who ran a cattle company on the
Powder River in WY. This led me to
discover that the British aristocracy was greatly involved in the development
of the cattle industry out west. Meantime, I had just returned from England to
live in NYC, but always had a great love for the west where my family had often
vacationed. So things sort of went from
there.
Wow!
Sounds like you have lived in some interesting places and have a love of
history.
Which one of your main characters came across strongest to you?
Lady Alex! As an
aristocrat, her role models have been men who are used to having things their
own way. She is craving her independence
from this world of men but at the same time emulating them, and she sets out to
do just that. In the 1880s it took a
helluva lot of gumption for a woman to make her own life.
Indeed!
In many ways, it still does.
How long did it take you to fall in love with your Hero?
Ohhhh, you know:
half a second! LOL. I think for
Loveland I had to create a man I could love, otherwise I think it wouldn’t have
come across as truthful that Lady Alex was willing to give up her independence
for this man--Jesse. I haven’t found a
reader yet who doesn’t love Jesse!
I
think it’s a unique ability for authors to be the first to fall in love with
characters that, for everyone else, doesn’t yet exist, then our hearts melt all
over again when our readers fall in love with them, too.
Did you borrow certain traits for your
characters from someone you know personally?
Which ones?
I’m always surprised when someone asks me this; maybe I’m
naïve but I think we create characters to fit the story we’re telling and if
they happen to have a trait similar to someone we know, well, I’d call it
coincidence. Of course, I guess the
converse could be true, that an author sees something in someone they know that
fits the profile of the character for the story and they use it. For me, the only things I may have stolen are
habits or mannerisms: the way a girl
flicks her hair back, the way someone picks at their nails or jiggles coins in
their pocket. That sort of thing. But for Loveland, I created a lot of people I
would want to know and have around me:
Jesse is pretty much my ideal man, Cal is the friend I would love to
have, Tom is the avuncular older man I’d like to be able to go to.
Is this book a single category or can we
expect to see more of your characters in a series?
It’s single category for now, though I’d like to perhaps
one day write Cal’s story since I know exactly what happens to him. And the thought has also crossed my mind that
Loveland could have gone on for another couple of hundred pages at least, since
I know the end of Alex and Jesse’s story as well.
I
always wanted to be just a category writer, but I fall in love with my
secondary characters and, like you, know what happens to them. Therefore, I
usually have a tendency to go ahead and write that second, third or fourth
book.
What is your most difficult “no-no” when
you write? (Show vs. tell, dialogue, plot problems, passive voice, etc.)
Dialogue comes to me fairly rapidly and easily but I do
have a problem with plotting at times. I
always know the beginning and the ending of a book but getting from one to the
other can present problems. And I’m a
pantser so nothing is really plotted out.
I just start writing and hope for the best!
I’m
also a pantser, and from most authors I’ve spoken with, this is true of them
also. However, I’m learning the plotting part of the process so I don’t write
myself into corners and have to backtrack.
When you take a break from writing, what do
you do to allow your brain time to regroup?
I try to take exercise, go to the gym or do something
that requires standing and moving. It
seems to be on the news almost every night and in every magazine I pick up
these days as to just how bad sitting for long periods is for your health. Since I suffer with AFib, it’s particularly
important to me to keep the blood flowing…and make sure it gets to the brain
cells!
I’m
sorry about your condition, but so glad that you’re on top of it. I hate
exercise and with nerve damage in my left leg, have trouble with much of it. I
do try to walk and take the stairs whenever I can. Besides, if the blood stops
flowing with all that wonderful oxygen, we get sidetracked in our writing
anyway.
In one sentence, tell us what your book is about.
Loveland is about one woman’s battle to become the person
she wants to be and marry the man she loves.
What is your one “guilty” pleasure?
Oh, Lisa—I don’t feel guilty about anything that gives me
pleasure! Thanks again for having me here. Much
appreciated! J
LOVELAND BLURB:
When
Lady Alexandra Calthorpe returns to the Loveland, Colorado, ranch owned by her
father, the Duke, she has little idea of how the experience will alter her
future. Headstrong and willful, Alex tries to overcome a disastrous marriage in
England and be free of the strictures of Victorian society --and become
independent of men.
That is, until Jesse Makepeace saunters
back into her life...
Hot-tempered and hot-blooded
cowpuncher Jesse Makepeace can’t seem to accept that the child he once knew is
now the ravishing yet determined woman before him. Fighting rustlers proves a
whole lot easier than fighting Alex when he’s got to keep more than his temper
under control.
Arguments abound as Alex pursues her career
as an artist and Jesse faces the prejudice of the English social order. The
question is, will Loveland live up to its name?
LOVELAND EXCERPT:
As the round-up wound down, the Reps took their
stock back to their outfits,
and
soon the men were back at headquarters or at the camps. Alex knew
word
had more or less got out and found the punchers were gentler now
around
her, had a sort of quiet respect for her, and she hated it. She tried to
bully
them a bit to show them she was still the same girl, jolly them into
joshing
with her as they had before. It was slow work. At the same time,
she
yearned to see Jesse, to speak with him, to try to get life back to the way
it
was before the argument at the corral, and before he saw the scars. The
opportunity
didn’t present itself. She would see him from a distance some days,
riding
with the herd, sitting his horse with that peculiar grace he had, throwing
his
lariat out with an ease that reminded her of people on a dock waving their
hankies
in farewell.
Hoping to just be near him, she slid into one
of the corrals one evening
to
practice her roping. The light was failing and the birds were settling with
their
evening calls. Somewhere in the pasture a horse nickered. She sensed Jesse
was
there, watching, but she never turned as he stood at the fence. She heard him
climb
over and ease up behind her. He took the coiled rope from her in his left
hand
and slid his right hand over hers on the swing end, almost forcing her backward
into
his arms. She thought of paintings and statues she had seen, imagining his
naked
arms
now, how the muscles would form them into long oblique curves, how he
probably
had soft downy fair hair on his forearms, how his muscle would
slightly
bulge as he bent his arm. His voice was soft in her ear, and she
could
feel his breath on her neck like a whispered secret.
“Gentle-like, right to left, right to left
to widen the noose, keep your eye on
the
post—are you watchin’ where we’re goin’?” He made the throw and pulled
in
the rope to tighten the noose. Alex stood there, his hand still entwined with
hers
and, for a moment, she wished they could stand like that forever. Then
she
took her hand away and faced him. For a second he rested his chin on the top
of
her head, then straightened again and went to get the noose off the post while
coiling
in the rope.
She looked up at him in the fading light and
saw nothing
but
kindness in his face, simplicity and gentleness that was most inviting. A
smile
spread across her face as he handed her the coiled rope and sauntered
away,
turning once to look back at her before he opened the gate. Emptiness
filled
her like a poisoned vapor seeking every corner of her being, and she
stood
with the rope in her hand listening to the ring of his spurs as his footsteps
retreated.
BUY LINKS
PERSONAL:
Website: http://andreadowning.com
Twitter: @andidowning
