Hannah Fielding's Blog, page 134

Lucky in Love Blog Hop: Win a copy of Burning Embers, a Swag Pack and a $100 Amazon/B&N card!

What is love – a happy coincidence? A connection created out of luck? The creation of destiny? Or a product of hard work?

Consider the lead characters in my novel, Burning Embers:

Coral Sinclair, a young and fiery English photographer, is on her way to Kenya, the land of her birth, to take ownership of Mpingo plantation, a legacy from her recently deceased father. Handsome and charismatic Rafe de Monfort, a mature French widower and owner of a nightclub and the Whispering Palms plantation, holds a dark secret deep in his heart. The two meet on board the ship that is taking them both to Kenya, and feel an immediate attraction, and so begins the first connection that will grow to a fiery, passionate love affair.

What of this first meeting? Is it luck that they are aboard the same ship, that Rafe happens upon Coral, crying at the guardrail and looking out to sea? Perhaps. But I prefer to think they were destined to be together. Destiny has so much more gravitas to it than luck; such romance. I like to think that life would have kept pushing Coral and Rafe towards each other until a spark was created to kindle the flame.

Once in Kenya, Coral discovers that Rafe is her closest neighbour, but she is warned off him by her old nanny. Gossip has it that Rafe is a notorious womaniser who counts among his mistresses Morgana, the dusky night club dancer, and Cybil, Coral’s stepmother with whom it is believed he was having an affair – an affair that might have contributed to her father’s death. Yet despite herself, Coral finds herself falling in love with this man who shows her only kindness.

What is she to think when a witch doctor tells her that Rafe killed his heiress first wife and that he is now pretending to care for her simply to get his hands on Mpingo? When beautiful Cybil says that Rafe has been her lover for over ten years and Morgana assures her that Rafe will never be hers? What is the secret in Rafe’s past that colours his every move and makes him more vulnerable than Coral could ever imagine?

Now, good luck seems to have given way to bad luck – this handsome man no longer seems someone to whom Coral could give her heart. This is where luck or destiny gives way to hard work. Because in love, some higher power affording fortunate happenings only takes you so far – after that, you have to fight for your love. Coral must face her fears, and find the courage to uncover the truth; and Rafe, in turn, must be brave enough to let her into the shadows in his heart.

And so, I believe that both luck and courageous work play a part in love. But the luck bit is certainly the most fun part!

TO WIN A COPY OF MY NOVEL, BURNING EMBERS, SIMPLY COMMENT ON THIS POST TELLING US WHAT PART YOU THINK LUCK PLAYS IN LOVE. BE SURE TO INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS.

And now for the Lucky in Love Big Prize:

Lucky in Love? Well, are you? It’s a time of luck and wealth…or not. With each romance we find ourselves in a new world of love and memories. Are these just by chance? Is it luck? Welcome to your second annual Lucky in Love Blog Hop where we want to hear about your love, your romance, and how much you love St. Patrick’s Day! Are you wearing green? Ready to get pinched…or wait…do you like that?

Almost 300 bloggers have giveaways and posts about those men we love!

But that’s not all….

We have TWO grand prizes. You as a reader can go to EACH blog and comment with your email address and be entered to win. Yep, you can enter over 200 times!

Now what are those prizes?

1st Grand Prize: A $100 Amazon or B&N Gift Card (INT entry)

2nd Grand Prize: A Swag Pack that contains paperbacks, ebooks, 50+ bookmarks, cover flats, magnets, pens, coffee cozies, and more! (US entrants only)

To join the hop, visit http://carrieannbloghops.blogspot.com/

“Splendor of ended day floating and filling me”

A sunset viewed from my home in France.

Do you read the book first, or see the movie?

If a film adaptation is released of a book I enjoyed, I will generally try to watch it. But it is always a risky endeavour.

The movie may encapsulate the spirit of the book beautifully: the setting may inspire you; the characters may be the perfect fit and have wonderful chemistry; the interpretation of the story may be, in your view, just right. But there is also the danger that the film will fall short.

When I read a book, in my mind pictures form of the places and the people, and I become quite attached to these. If I watch a film and find the director’s vision of the story differs wildly from my own, that can be really rather unsettling. Worst still is when the script writers hack away at the story in the book, removing elements that I found to be essential to the development of the plot and adding in extra bits (which always feels somewhat sacrilegious to me).

In many ways, the cinematic experience would be less fraught if I were to watch the film before reading the book – then the book adds in new dimensions, rather than the film stripping or twisting the narrative. But for me, this never quite fits. When I read a book, I want to be immersed in the story world, and part of the pleasure of the act is that I can use my own imagination to picture a scene. If I have already seen the scene on the big screen, then I struggle to displace that image with one of my own making.

For example, before the films were released, I wonder what pictures were in your head when you read Twilight or Harry Potter. Whatever they were, I am sure the might of Hollywood branding has washed away those images and replaced them with film sets and locations and the actors now associated with the key roles.

What do you think? Do you also prefer to read a book before watching the film? Have you ever been frustrated by an adaptation – or, conversely, pleasantly surprised? Have you discovered books that you love through having watched them at the cinema? Which comes first in an ideal world: book or film? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Ode to the musical

Singing in the Rain, Les Misèrables, Guys and Dolls, Cats, My Fair Lady, Cabaret, West Side Story, Chicago, The King and I, Anything Goes, The Phantom of the Opera… Musicals: you either love them, or you hate them. And I think most dreamers and romantics, like myself, are firmly in the former camp.

I love, love the expressionism in a musical. Everything is bigger, brighter, more vivid, more colourful: the settings, the costumes, the lighting, the audio, the movements. Music and dance have such power to convey emotion, and in the musical every feeling is heightened through such mediums:

When a character falls in love, we feel it. Think of ‘Tonight’ in West Side Story and ‘Hopelessly Devoted to You’ in Grease.

When a character is joyous, we feel it. Think ‘If I Were a Bell’ in Guys and Dolls and ‘I Could Have Danced All Night’ in My Fair Lady.

When a character is sad, we feel it. Think of Joseph’s ‘Close Every Door to Me’ and ‘Where Is Love’ in Oliver.

When a character dies, oh how we feel it! Think of ‘A Little Fall of Rain’ in Les Mis and ‘Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again’ in Phantom.

Everything that draws me to reading and writing romance novels is there in a musical. Of course, they push the boundaries further into fiction than a simple romance film or play, but there is something wonderfully escapist about that.

When I was young, I loved the classic Hollywood musicals, and I think the depth of the feeling between characters in these productions inspired me in my writing. One my favourite reviews of Burning Embers is ‘romance like Hollywood used to make’. My characters don’t break into song and dance routines, but I hope that they sweep my readers away in the same vein as a musical.

It has been a delight, in recent years, to see Hollywood resurrect the medium of the musical, and indeed it is a genre that has been gaining critical recognition, with BAFTAS and Golden Globes and Oscars for the recent Les Mis. I was so pleased to see the artistic effort that went into the film, and its unashamed pursuit of being a big-screen epic. Perhaps this will be the film that finally earns the musical much-deserved respect as a worthy and influential art form.

Recently, I read an interview with Patricia Kelly, wife of that classic Golden Age musical actor Gene Kelly. She pointed out that filmmakers today are reticent about making musicals because of the cost:

“When Gene was at MGM he was working with an extraordinary repertory company that would make several films a year. They had the greatest composers, arrangers, actors, dancers, costume makers, cinematographers – everybody was at hand. To pull that kind of talent together now is prohibitively expensive in today’s Hollywood terms. Studios don’t want to risk that, instead they’ll make big action movies and make millions of dollars.

Gene kept waiting for the next guy to come over the hill; he was somebody who looked to the new generations. Of the people who could sing, dance and act, such as Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly, Hollywood seems to have made them and then broken the mould. Hollywood needs to cultivate that talent again.” (Source)

I so hope they do, because I for one think the world would be a better place were the cinemas showing more musicals and fewer violent, dark films.

I will leave you today with the iconic scene in the musical genre, ‘Singing in the Rain’ from the musical of that name, which was named the best musical of all time by the American Film Institute. It is one of my favourite uplifting songs from the musicals (well, living part of the year in England, I do have to find some means to smile through the rain!). Amazing to think that Gene Kelly shot this scene with a temperature of 103 – he utterly defies the concept of man flu, don’t you think?

Book review: The Portrait by Hazel Statham

From the blurb:

England 1812. Severely injured at the battle of Salamanca, Edward Thurston, the new Earl of Sinclair, returns home to his beloved Fly Hall. Determined not to present his prospective bride with the wreck he believes himself to have become, he decides to end his betrothal, unaware that Lady Jennifer, for vastly differing reasons, has reached the selfsame decision. Throughout the campaigns, Edward was often seen relying greatly on a miniature he carried, and it is to this token he clings upon his return. Will he eventually find happiness with the girl in the portrait, or will he remain firm in his resolve not to wed? Reason dictates one course, his heart another.

This is an endearing love story following Edward Thurston and Lady Jennifer’s journey after the break-up of their betrothal, and it is told from both character’s perspectives. You cannot help but feel for handsome Edward, who has returned home from war severely affected – both physically and mentally – by the atrocities that he was part of whilst away. He cannot bring himself to ask Jennifer to deal with this aftermath and so he breaks off their engagement:

“Ironic is it not? To the outside world ‘twould appear that I have time aplenty, but you see, I have not. I am to be married, John. Or, more rightly, I was to be married. Yet how can I expect a wife to commit herself to the wreck I have become?”

Edward is a very caring man, close to his family and very honourable, so when Jennifer later needs his help, he does not turn her away. What follows is an unexpected adventure that allows them to finally get to know each other properly.

Despite the seriousness of the topic of post-traumatic stress, this book has a lot of fun elements. I love the quirkiness of Lady Jennifer – she certainly isn’t your usual historical romance novel heroine. She is feisty, she is smart, she isn’t afraid of other people’s opinions of her and she certainly does not swoon. But she is confused about her feelings for Edward and at times somewhat naïve of the complications of love:

“Ned, I must know. Did you offer for me out of a sense of honor? Did you feel obligated to offer marriage?”

She saw his shoulders stiffen, and his tone was cold when, without turning, he answered, “If that is what you truly believe, you silly girl, then yes. If that explanation satisfies you, and it is how you perceive it, yes.”

There is also a sense of mystery to this book. Edward is obsessed with a miniature portrait which he took with him to war and depended on during his long convalescence. Why can he not let it go? Who is the image of? What does it mean?

This book is a mix of adventure, romance and mystery. It’s not highly descriptive, but focuses on a well-crafted plot. I liked the myriad settings, with the characters going from the London ton scene to country estates to travelling on public coaches and staying in cheap inns with commoners. The pace and intrigue make this a real page turner – I wanted to know what would happen and who was in that portrait, and I wanted to keep reading to make sure that Edward and Jennifer would be happy.  I was not disappointed, but I was kept guessing until the end.

I look forward to reading more from this author.

The Portrait is available now from Amazon; click on the book cover below to visit the store.

How often do you unknowingly borrow from Shakespeare?

Every writer’s worst nightmare is unwittingly plagiarising another writer’s work. You read a novel or a poem and it settles in your mind – and then some time later, when you write, some semblance of the original work comes forth onto the paper, and you think they are your own words. For this reason, while writing many authors are careful what they read. So, for example, while writing a romance novel I may avoid reading in that genre.

Unknowingly quoting another’s work is much more common than many think. Take Shakespeare, as an example: the seventeenth-century bard whose prolific writings have far-reaching influence over culture the world over, not just in his native England. No doubt, were you to use the following in your writing or in conversation, you’d recognise only too well that they are quotations from Shakespeare:

A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse
A plague on both your houses
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio
All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks
Brevity is the soul of wit
Screw your courage to the sticking-place
Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn, and cauldron bubble
Et tu, Brute
Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears
Frailty, thy name is woman
If music be the food of love, play on
Neither a borrower nor a lender be
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more
The course of true love never did run smooth
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Though this be madness, yet there is method in it
To be or not to be, that is the question

But what of the Shakespearean phrases that are commonly used and understood in modern parlance? All of the following were penned by Shakespeare:

A dish fit for the gods
A fool’s paradise
A foregone conclusion
A sea change
A sorry sight
All corners of the world
All of a sudden
All that glitters is not gold
All’s well that ends well
As dead as a doornail
As good luck would have it
As pure as the driven snow
At one fell swoop
Come what come may
Discretion is the better part of valour
Eaten out of house and home
Fair play
Fancy free
Fight fire with fire
For ever and a day
Foul play
Good men and true
Good riddance
Green eyed monster
Heart’s content
High time
I have not slept one wink
In a pickle
In stitches
In the twinkling of an eye
Lay it on with a trowel
Lie low
Lily-livered
Love is blind
Make your hair stand on end
Milk of human kindness
More fool you
Night owl
Off with his head
Oh, that way madness lies
Out of the jaws of death
Pound of flesh
Rhyme nor reason
Short shrift
Shuffle off this mortal coil
The Devil incarnate
The game is afoot
The short and the long of it
Too much of a good thing
Truth will out
Up in arms
Vanish into thin air
We have seen better days
Wear your heart on your sleeve
Wild goose chase
Woe is me

How many of these do you use in your speech and writing? Did you know they were Shakespearean? Of course, using such words doesn’t constitute plagiarism – they are part of our language today. Still, I find the origin of phrases like these fascinating.

If you’d like to trace the Shakespearean context for any of these phrases, you can do so here: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/phrases-sayings-shakespeare.html.

 

Book review: Winter Storms by Lucy Oliver

From the blurb:

Two years ago Carly Roberts split from her lover, Daniel Edwards, after he caused a terrible sailing accident that cost her both the use of her right leg and her Olympic dreams. Unable to watch his climb to double Olympic success, she stayed in the Cornish village they grew up in, while he travelled the world.

Racked with guilt, knowing he destroyed her future, Daniel has finally returned home to make amends. But he didn’t expect to fall in love with her again.

Carly has her own life now and it doesn’t include him. She can’t forgive him for the catastrophic injuries that changed her life. While the storms of a Cornish winter lash their village home, can Daniel persuade her to give him a second chance?

I was delighted to receive a copy of this book for review from the author, as I knew from the blurb that it would be up my street. I was not disappointed, and I thoroughly enjoyed my reading. I sat down to start reading the book one afternoon, and found myself frustrated to have to break to have dinner – then I went back and finished it by bedtime. It’s a fairly short book, but makes for compelling reading indeed!

Carly and Daniel are wonderfully vivid characters with whom it’s impossible not to empathise. Both are haunted by the accident that changed their lives and threw up a seemingly insurmountable obstacle in their relationship two years before, and as a reader I was moved by their tumultuous feelings – Daniel’s overriding sense of guilt, and Carly’s struggle with anger and an inability to accept the change in her life. I was quite swept away in their story, and found myself very keen to learn the details of that terrible day, which are expertly interwoven into the plot, and to see both characters make their peace with what was ultimately a terrible accident and no one’s fault.

At the core of the book is an exploration of what love really means – forgiveness, acceptance, flexibility in the face of change. I found Carly’s journey in particular inspiring and believable in terms of her thoughts and feelings. I love the fact that Daniel finds Carly just as beautiful after her accident than before; it is refreshing to find a hero in a romance novel who sees past disability in this way.

I adored the Cornish setting for the book – Cornwall is such a romantic county! If I could, I think I’d quite like to visit Carly’s little seaside gift shop and watch boats race out in the bay. I also loved the connections with the lifeboat station, and the Olympics. But beyond the place, the weather was also memorable. I found the wintry, stormy backdrop highly atmospheric in offsetting the lovers’ story.

In all, a delighted five stars from me, and a recommendation if you enjoy passionate, poignant romance.

Winter Storms is available now from Amazon; click on the book cover below to visit the store.

A seat for dreaming

I’ve spent many happy hours looking at this view from this rocking chair and dreaming up scenes in my novels.

The book as art

Writing is, of course, art. For centuries it has been part of the family of arts, alongside music and drama and painting and sculpture. Certainly, when I write a vivid description of a place, I picture myself as an artist before a canvas, carefully layering up texture and colour to transport my reader to the setting.

But why not go a step further – why not blend the medium of writing, the book, with another art form? Why not take the printed pages and shape them into a sculpture that says, ‘Look at me. Look how beautiful and evocative and transformative a book can be.’ And thus was born the increasingly popular art form known as book art – recycling old books into works of art.

Book art brings together two of my favourite things in the world: the printed book and objets d’art. Wonderfully imaginative artists who are also keen bibliophiles take a book as the starting point for an innovative and inspirational artwork. Jodi Harvey-Brown is one such artist, and her interpretation of classic novels through sculpture is truly breathtaking – take a look at this article for pictures. Another artist in Edinburgh, Scotland, makes the most amazingly detailed sculptures and leaves them as anonymous gifts – see this BBC News piece.

If, like me, you love the book as art, I recommend a browse through the following websites that feature breathtakingly clever sculptures:

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/book-paper-sculptures/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/gallery/2012/nov/30/scotland-secret-book-sculptures-in-pictures
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturepicturegalleries/9211702/Book-sculpting-by-Alexander-Korzer-Robinson.html?frame=2196625
http://pinterest.com/Bmetamorphosis/books-sculptures/
http://pinterest.com/wetcanvas/book-sculptures/

The following video is also well worth a look:

In addition, I highly recommend Book Art: Iconic Sculptures and Installations Made from Books for a superbly illustrated coffee-table book – that’s if you can get to grips with the idea of a book about books that are no longer books!

Interview with Cinthia Ritchie, romance author

Cinthia Ritchie is a former journalist who lives and runs mountains and marathons in Alaska. Her work can be found at New York Times Magazine, Sport Literate, Water-Stone Review, Under the Sun, Memoir, damselfly press, Slow Trains, 42opus, Evening Street Review and over 45 literary magazines. Her first novel, Dolls Behaving Badly, released Feb. 5 from Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group. 

 

Welcome to the blog. Can you tell us a little about yourself?

I live in Alaska and I suppose that’s the most defining thing about me. I’m also a mountain runner and spend a good part of the summer out on the trails, dodging moose and bear scat. I love running in the evenings when the light is silver and the sky feels quiet and there’s nothing around but me and the dog.

I’m also a vegetarian (almost but not quite vegan), mother of an awesome college-aged son, a huge animal lover, and while I don’t like to cook much I do love to bake bread. There’s something about kneading that is so elemental and female that it never fails to soothe me. Often, as I make bread, I feel connected to the generations of women who came before me. It’s a simple yet powerful feeling.

What made you want to become a writer?

I grew up in a Pennsylvania farming community, our nearest neighbours almost a mile away. Since there wasn’t much to do, my sisters and I read. We read all the time, and books were my closest friends. I still feel that way. I can’t imagine life without books. It’s inconceivable. So yes, I always knew I’d be a writer, I knew this instinctively before I knew it consciously.

I’ve been writing for decades. I worked as a journalist for over 13 years, which offered the chance to hike over glaciers, fly in float planes and hang out in prison with women murderers, yet it also severely subtracted from my “real” writing time. I was never satisfied with journalism. It wasn’t personal or raw enough. It didn’t come from deep inside of me.

The main reason I write is because is to release feelings I have no other way of releasing. Maybe I’m replaying old situations, righting old wrongs, or maybe I pick up on cues that others ignore—I don’t really know, except that writing is as essential as breathing. If I go a few days without writing, I feel lonely, not for other people but for the sound of my own voice.

Who are your favourite writers?

Oh, there are so many! I read mixed genres so I’m always reading poetry, nonfiction, fiction, romance, erotica, cookbooks, all mixed up together. My favourites vary depending on my mood and time of day. Right now I’d say Margaret Atwood, Richard Siken, Lauren Slater, Kathryn Harrison, Meredith Hall, though if you asked me again tomorrow, I’d probably say something else altogether.

Why do you choose romance as the genre within which you write?

Well, I write in a variety genres: Poetry, creative nonfiction, literary fiction. Dolls Behaving Badly is classified as romantic fiction, though I didn’t choose the genre. It chose me. I initially set out to write a book without romance, but it didn’t work out that way. Romance intruded upon my book and probably this is because I grew up reading romance and gothic novels. I love Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Kate Chopin. I think my whole life would have been different if I hadn’t of read Wuthering Heights when I was young. It turned me into a hopeless and brooding romantic, though I secretly prefer it that way.

What’s the most rewarding element of writing for you?

The unknowingness, and the mystery. I love sitting down to write with no idea where my characters might take me. It makes everything in my life richer and more wondrous.

What’s the most challenging element of writing for you?

The editing. It’s brutal. Cutting out chunks of my own prose is like cutting out chunks of my skin. It hurts that much. Sometimes it almost feels like an amputation. I often get so caught up in myself and my words that I over-write. And while I may love writing a 400-word description of the sun setting over the mountains, I doubt many readers would enjoy reading it. Trimming is a necessary evil. I’ve come to terms with that but don’t think I’ll ever be happy about it.

At what point did you think, ‘I’ve done it – I’ve become a writer’?

Well, I worked as a journalist so I always knew I was a writer; I just wasn’t the type of writer I longed to be. I knew I had “made” it when an editor from New York Times Magazine saw an essay I had published in a literary magazine and requested that I write a column for her. That was about six years ago. A short time later I found an agent (Elizabeth Wales), and I finished Dolls Behaving Badly about two years ago. It was picked up shortly after that by Grand Central Publishing. It’s been an unbelievable experience.

  Can you share a little about your writing process?

I’m a night person and I write mainly at night, and often all night. I find that when I’m slightly tired my mind opens up and my inner-editor fades, and it’s almost as if in the safety of darkness (though granted Alaska doesn’t offer much darkness during the summer months), I can open up places I normally keep closed, veer off in directions I wouldn’t consider in the harsh glare of daylight. I sit at my desk, in a room surrounded by birch trees, and I listen to music and write. Usually I write for three to five hours a night. I don’t work from an outline. I write totally blind; I have no idea where my characters might go or what they might do. Once a week I sit down and edit everything I’ve written, decide what to keep, what to delete (I don’t actually delete anything, I simply save it to an “extra” folder), and order it into some semblance of understanding.

I edit a lot. I’ll rewrite and edit one chapter five or six times before I’m satisfied. I’m very picky about my writing.

What’s your most recent book about?

Dolls Behaving Badly is about a divorced mother in Alaska who makes doll art for extra money and avoids romantic love at all cost. She’s visited by the ghost of her Polish grandmother, who offers oddball advice and recipes for Polish baked goods. When a tall, blond anthropologist enters her life and begins leaving her gifts of ancient bones, it turns her world upside down.

What inspired you to write this book?

I was a single mother working two jobs, and late at night I’d sit in the bathroom and read novels (the bathroom, you see, was the warmest room in the house in the winter). One night it hit me: There are very few single mother heroines in contemporary fiction. I decided to change that. I wanted my protagonist, Carla, to be strong yet imperfect. It was important to me that she be flawed because face it, we are all flawed, we all have baggage, and we all fumble through life making mistake after mistake.

The oddest thing is that as soon as Carla’s love interest, Francisco, entered the picture, I met someone, and our relationship began as odd and wonderfully as Carla and Francisco. At times I almost felt as if I were writing my own future and maybe, in a way, I was.

How did you decide upon the title?

Well, I didn’t. My editor chose the title. I’m horrible when it comes to titles. I still haven’t chosen one for my second novel, and I’m on the last chapter.

What message would you most like readers to take away from the book?

To never give up on your dreams, and to know that you don’t have to be perfect to deserve love. We are all so careful, we plan and organize and try to keep our lives so neat, so groomed, yet it’s only when we let in the mess, when we stop trying to hide our flaws and imperfections, that we are truly alive.

If a movie was made of your book, which actors would you cast in the leading roles?

I have no idea. I love Laura Linney and I can imagine her as my main character, Carla. As for the others, I don’t watch enough movies or TV to know most actors by name. Usually, I read. Though I doI imagine my main character’s love interest as a blond Captain Wentworth (from Austen’s Persuasion).

When you’re not writing, what do you most like to do?

Run. I’m a long-distance runner and I’m a bit obsessed. I love talking about running, researching training methods and browsing gear and shoes. I’m currently training for an ultra-marathon race. I’m not very fast, but I love to run. I love everything about it. I often write in my head as I run. Some of my best ideas come during my long weekend runs.

What, for you, is the very epitome of a romantic moment?

An ordinary moment interrupted by the unexpected. Most people assume that romance has to involve candlelight, silk slips or frosted wineglasses, but I say: Nonsense! Some of my most romantic moments have happened when I was at my worst. Likewise, in Dolls Behaving Badly, Francisco, my protagonist’s love interest, leaves gifts of bones (he’s an anthropologist, you see), lovely wrapped with a single ribbon, and to me that’s so romantic that I get chills whenever I think about it. Because he’s giving her a part of himself, the very thing he loves and cherishes. If that isn’t romantic, nothing is.

What’s next in your writing career?

I’m currently working on a second novel, though it’s not a romance–it centers around a woman trying to come to terms with the loss of her stillborn daughter. After that, I hope to write a horror novel. I have the book outlined (which is odd since I don’t usually outline before I write), and it’s set in rural Alaska, in a town isolated by water and mountains. It’s very moody and romantic and scary. I can’t wait to begin. I so loved being scared.

Thank you, Cinthia – it’s been wonderful learning more about you and your writing, and I’m looking forward to reading the book.

You can connect with Cinthia at www.cinthiaritchie.com; http://www.facebook.com/#!/cinthia.ritchie and https://twitter.com/cinthiaritchie1.

Purchase links: 

Amazon; Barnes & Noble; IndieBound