Interview & #Giveaway with @KimWoodhouse

It's always a bright day for me (Jaime) when I can feature some favorite authors! Today we have Kimberley Woodhouse joining us as she chats about two new releases coming your readerly direction!!! 
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Thank you so much for visiting us today here at the CCC blog! Can you tell us about your latest release and what inspired you to write the story?

Well, I actually had two books release in January:
The American Heiress Brides Collection from Barbour (my story is ALL THAT GLITTERS)and
IN THE SHADOW OF DENALI – from Bethany House
For this interview, I’ll focus on In the Shadow of Denali – but I’d love it if you all would go grab a copy of the other book as well!
As for the inspiration for this book—it’s actually book one in The Heart of Alaska of Series that Tracie Peterson and I are writing together for Bethany House Publishers—we both love Alaska and we wanted to bring a bit of the history alive to our readers. We chose Curry, Alaska, because of the fascination we had with this little Railroad town and the fact that it no longer exists as it once did. It’s in the middle of nowhere – very hard to get to, except via the Alaska Railroad – and yet it was indeed the heart of Alaska for many years.
 Of all your characters in this story, which one did you enjoy writing the most and why?  Cassidy Faith Ivanoff – our heroine. She was also the toughest character to write because she’s dedicated to a young teen in our community who was killed in a tragic accident in September of 2015. But bringing Cassidy to life in fiction to honor that beautiful girl’s memory was a joy. Cassidy Ivanoff in In the Shadow of Denalihas a lot of real-life Cassidy’s personality – and I love, love, loved writing it.

Moving on from your story, tell us a little about yourself. We’ll help! What literary character is most like you and why?
The marketing peeps at BHP did a fun Facebook promotion asking all of the authors this question and it was fun sitting down to figure it out – (but these are more movie characters rather than literary) first, I said I was like Anne – in Anne of Green Gables (I could totally see myself breaking a slate over a boy’s head). Then my husband said that I was also Giselle from Enchantedbecause she sang everything and was always optimistic… THEN he said I was all of that with a mix of the author (played by Emma Thompson) in Stranger Than Fiction.
All of it together is rather an odd combination… but I’m pretty odd. <smile>
  Do you have a writing mentor, or another author who has inspired/encouraged you in some way?
Tracie Peterson (for almost twenty years now has been there through it all), Colleen Coble and Donita K. Paul (were huge mentors to me in my first few years of contracts and publication), and then the incredible Karen Ball—who is now my agent extraordinaire—has been a mentor the past decade. I can honestly say that I wouldn’t be where I am without these incredible people in my life.
 We talk a lot about faith and how it weaves throughout our fiction, here at the blog. How has your faith affected/or not affected your writing?
I’ll be honest: My faith is everything. I believe that everything we do should be done to the very best of our ability for the glory of the Lord and my purpose statement is to point the non-believer to God and to challenge the believer in his/her walk with the Lord.
Because Jaime has some darker elements to her split-time historical and contemporary romantic suspense coming out this year, she likes to ask weird questions. So, if you were responsible to write your own epitaph for your tombstone, what would it say?
I love weird questions. Now if only I could make this as clever on paper as it sounded in my head:“She finally ran out of words on this earth… But now she’s got eternity with her Savior—and she’ll never run out again.”
 Anne is an insatiable romantic with a serious vintage aura in all she writes. Do you have fabulous love story in your family history that you could share with us in a few words? If not, what about your own?
My beloved Grandparents (both sides) have fascinating love stories: one set – they wrote beautiful love letters back and forth, the other set – they eloped and were married seventy years!!!
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Thank you so much for visiting today! It was a blast! And I especially love your romantic grandparents! Happy sighs!!
Kim  is giving away a copy of In the Shadow of Denali AND The American Heiress Collection!
It's a TWO BOOK GIVEAWAY Be sure to enter to win! :)
a Rafflecopter giveaway