Guest Blog - Kate Walker

Welcome Kate Walker! My readers and I are so excited to learn a little more about you! Thanks for a great interview!
1. What is your favorite thing to do when you are not writing? Reading! I just wish I had much much more time to do it. I never ever have as much time as I'd like to just curl up with a really good book- preferably with one of my cats on my knee. The other favourite thing is just being with my loved ones, specially my DH. Sadly we lost his mother earlier this year and if there's one thing that brings home to you how much you should value those you love it's that.


2. What books are sitting in your TBR pile right now? What book are you currently reading?I am always buying books and then letting them sit on my shelf (shelves) . I swear that they then breed there because there is never any space, no matter how much I do try to read. So the honest answer to what books? – is a whole library. I tend to read two or more things at once – depending on my mood, and I have upstairs and downstairs books so that I can grab a book and sneak a read even if I only have a few minutes. The 'downstairs' book I just finished is The Drowning Girl by Margaret Leroy – a spooky tale about a little girl who seems to have lived before. And upstairs I have Jane Porter's latest Presents title A Dark Sicilian Secret. Next after that is my dear friend Michelle Reid's new title, The Kanellis Scandal. I'm in the UK so these books are in the Mills & Boon Modern Editions.
3. Please, share something you found most interesting or fun that you did to research for a book.My newest title The Return of The Stranger is something different - it's part of a mine series that takes some of the classic books from romantic fiction as inspiration and uses that as a launch pad for a whole new story. So when I was asked to do the Wuthering Heights book I had a great excuse to watch all the film versions from Laurence Olivier onwards, to soak up the atmosphere and the passion. I grew up so very close to Howarth where the Bronte sisters lived, so I also got to explore the village and the countryside around it.
4. How did you come up with - or - setting - or character occupations - or - plot, etc. for The Return Of the Stranger?

So as i said, Return of the Stranger is something rather different from my usual books – but I was not going to copy or just lift the story from the original book, I wanted to take that as the springboards and write my own novel as a result. But I wanted to keep some of the power and intensity of the original. So my hero and heroine are Kat Charlton and Heath Montanha. The setting was one ting I didn't want to change because what everyone remembers about Wuthering Heights is the way it's set on the wild moors of Yorkshire and having walked over those moors many times I knew just how atmospheric they can be. Finally, the story of Heath(Heathcliff) is that he leaves the place he grew up and goes away to make his fortune. So I created a whole new life for my Heath - discovering that he came from Brazil and there he was involved in mining, discovering a rich seam of emeralds that he mined to make his fortune. And so the story begins when, no long the bad boy stablehand, the rebel who caused trouble in the past, but as a rich, powerful man, Heath comes back to take his revenge on the family who treated him so badly – and to claim the one woman he has always wanted.
5. Action adventure or romantic comedy? What is your favorite movie lately?
That really depends on mood. I love action adventures – but they have to have a strong relationship developing story in there. That's the romance novelist in me! So I suppose I'll have to say that deep down it has to be a romantic story I love to watch most. But the most recent movie I watched – on DVD because it's not a new film but one our son bought for my DH for his birthday - was neither of these. It was Capote starring Philip Seymour Hoffman. It's a grim, dark story about the writing of In Cold Blood and Capote's relationship with a murderer – but it was riveting, totally compelling. And the acting was magnificent.
Thanks Lucy for allowing me to visit with you today! I'd love to hear from your readers. Anyone who leaves a comment on today's interview will be entered into a drawing to win The Return Of a Stranger - winner will be announced on Lucy's blog on Saturday!