Authors Supporting Authors: Amy McGuire

Thank you Megan for having me as a guest on your blog today.  It’s always exciting to be part of a fellow author’s blog and meet new people. My name is Amy McGuire and I am the author of The Hope Valley Saga and my current work in progress, Collateral Damage.


I’d like to talk to you all a bit about my saga and then talk about my upcoming book. The Hope Valley Saga is a young adult romantic series. In the first three books, the main characters are Anjaline Rodriguez, a beautiful Latina from Quito Ecuador, and Gabriel Walker, the oldest son of the Camp Director in Hope Valley, British Columbia. Book One, The Heart’s Discovery, follows our hero and heroine as they experience first love, cope with a tragedy and struggle to overcome obstacles to their relationship. These obstacles come in many forms, from a jealous sister, to a bad boy visiting for the summer, to their own securities. 
Book Two, Worlds Apart, follows our hero and heroine as they live their lives separately, she in Ontario where he stepfather’s job has taken them, and he remaining back in Hope Valley. This book shows their lives as they make new friends and begin new relationships. At first they stay in fairly constant contact through letters, but soon they start to develop feelings for other people and their separate lives are just too far apart. It’s not all sad though. As they learn how to be who they were meant to be, they each follow their dreams. Gabriel becomes a talented carpenter with plans to one day open a school of his own. He gets to practice being a teacher by teaching a woodcarving class during summer camp. Anjaline comes to terms with her new life and begins to pursue her dream of becoming a famous reporter. This book is a lot about the journey. 

Book Three, Dreams Come True, is the story that kind of ties everything together. In a twist of fate, or destiny, Anjaline, who has become Charity Sutherland, top reporter for The National Herald in Toronto, Ontario, is called to Coquina Cove, British Columbia. There she is supposed to interview rising artist, CR Tanbrook but the hitch is, her living quarters for the duration of her job are in Hope Valley. And Gabriel is still living there. After so many years of not speaking, it could be very awkward, but what makes it even more awkward is that CR Tanbrook is Gabriel’s girlfriend. Since this is a romance, you know there will be a happy ending, but there are twists and bumps along the way that make this an interesting and not always predictable read.

Books Four and Five are about Gabriel’s younger sisters and their journeys to a happily ever after. Book Four, Love’s Point of View, is about Evelyn Walker, the adopted member of the Walker family and her struggles with believing she’s worthy of love while dealing with two possible suitors. Book Five (which I don’t have a title for as yet), is about Leah Walker, the youngest of the Walker crew and by far the most sensitive and compassionate. She will grow up (she is nine or ten in The Heart’s Discovery) in a time of war and her overflowing, caring heart will be what helps her friends and family deal with the loss. She of course has a love of her own, but I don’t want to give away details. Books Four and Five are set to come out sometime after Collateral Damage is released.

Collateral Damage is a book that is coming about, exclusively due to input from my amazing, loyal readers. This book is about Damian Vega, a character who appears in The Heart’s Discovery as the typical bad boy with a complicated past. After wreaking as much havoc as he possibly can in a short period of time, he vanishes from the saga. Originally, that was my plan. Have him swoop in, cause all kinds of problems and be a general pain in the butt, then disappear. Well, my fans had other ideas. The reviews and comments I got, saying they wished they knew what happened to Damian got me thinking. So, in Dreams Come True he makes a brief reappearance (two or three chapters I believe) but he’s not the bad boy we all knew and either loved or hated. He’s changed. He’s slower to anger and now he seems a bit more responsible because he has young boy that he must care for. I tried to tie up some loose ends on his life, but later found I just wasn’t satisfied. I had to tell his whole story, not just the bits and pieces I got to weave through The Heart’s Discovery and Dreams Come True. You see, over four years of writing the first three books in the saga, Damian Vega grew on me. In Collateral Damage, we get to learn about his past, what makes him tick, how he got into the lifestyle he’s part of by the time we catch up with him in Dreams Come True. There are twists and turns, losses and sorrows but ultimately, he gets the redemption all my characters deserve.

 It’s a story I hope will be well liked, not only by my female readers, but also by the few male readers I’ve manage to interest in my writing. I’ve never ventured into the adult crime genre, but moment I did, I got excited. Not only do I have a whole different audience (and some of the current audience who are loyal to my writing), but I’m branching out in ways I didn’t even know were possible.

So, that’s it from me. Thank you again, Megan, for letting me be a guest on your blog.

About The Author:
The third child of missionary parents who worked mostly in Africa, Amy McGuire was born in the little town of Campbell River, British Columbia. She now lives in Toronto with her husband, their young daughter, a Beta fish named Sunflower and a completely spoiled cat named Murdock. Both British Columbia and Ontario are near and dear to her heart. Having spent a large portion of her childhood overseas, then moving ‘back home’ to Canada at the age of ten, she can relate to Anjaline’s story. Amy works part time as a dental receptionist, full time as a wife and mother, and writes in her spare moments. Collateral Damage is her fourth novel.

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