Happy Monday, writers! Today we've got another author interview for you. Amanda Cabot's latest Christmas title, Christmas Roses is a delightful read! You can read my review for her book at Net's Book Notes today as part of her blog tour/promotional. (I didn't plant that, but it's perfect timing!) Let's learn some interesting behind-the-scenes facts, shall we? Read on! ~ Annette
What
makes your Christmas story different than others you’ve seen or
read?
I’d like to say that my book
is different from every other book that’s ever been written, but we know that’s
not true. After all, there are only so
many basic stories. What differentiates Christmas Roses from other holiday
stories is the setting—a fictional mining town in eastern Wyoming—and the
characters. Celia is a widowed Swedish
immigrant who wants nothing more than to keep her daughter safe, while Mark is
an itinerant carpenter searching for his long-lost father. Neither one is looking for love or marriage,
but ...
What
genre is your story?
Historical romance.
How
did the story come about?
I’m a fan of Christmas
novellas. I love everything about them—the shorter format, the special
theme, the fact that many of them are published in hard cover—and so after I
read Kathleen Morgan’s series of Culdee Creek Christmas stories, I knew I
wanted to write one of my own. Christmas Roses is the result.
The biggest challenge was
choosing the setting. Although I toyed with the idea of making this another
Ladreville story, featuring secondary characters from my Texas Dreams trilogy,
for marketing reasons, my editor suggested I create a story with no ties to my
other books.
Where would it take place? The same night that I received my editor’s suggestion, I attended a lecture about a copper mining town called Sunrise, Wyoming, and I knew I’d found my setting. My town is fictional, but it is a copper mining town, and it’s located in the same part of the state as Sunrise. As for the characters, they’re purely fictional, although don’t tell Celia and Mark that. While I was writing, they became real to me, as I hope they will for you.
Where would it take place? The same night that I received my editor’s suggestion, I attended a lecture about a copper mining town called Sunrise, Wyoming, and I knew I’d found my setting. My town is fictional, but it is a copper mining town, and it’s located in the same part of the state as Sunrise. As for the characters, they’re purely fictional, although don’t tell Celia and Mark that. While I was writing, they became real to me, as I hope they will for you.
What
time of year did you write it, and how did you motivate yourself to write a Christmas
novel at that time of year?
As it turned out, I was
writing Christmas Roses in the fall,
so it wasn’t a huge stretch to imagine myself in a snow-covered landscape. One of the things I’ve discovered, though, is
that when I’m immersed in my writing, I’m oblivious to the outside world. At one point, I was writing a book with a
blizzard scene in the middle of a particularly hot July. When the doorbell interrupted me and I realized
it was hot outside, I was shocked.
I love getting lost in the writing zone too. Just happened recently. What’s
next for you in writing? (Will you do more Christmas stories?)
My next release (January
2013) is the second of the Westward Winds trilogy. Like its predecessor Summer of Promise and Christmas
Roses, Waiting for Spring is set
in Wyoming. This time, though, I’ve used
a real location, namely Cheyenne, rather than a fictional town. And, yes, I’d love to do another Christmas
story. I have, in fact, proposed one to
my editor. Will she buy it? I certainly hope so!
Thanks for visiting today! What a pleasure to see this behind-the-scenes peek.
Thanks for visiting today! What a pleasure to see this behind-the-scenes peek.
To learn more about Amanda Cabot, visit her website.
Christmas Roses released September 1, 2012 from Revell.
Celia
Anderson doesn’t need anything for Christmas except a few more boarders, which
are hard to come by in this small mining town. She certainly doesn’t have a
husband on her Christmas wish list. But when a wandering carpenter finds
lodging at her boarding house, she admits that she might remarry if she found
the right man—the kind of man who would bring her roses for Christmas. It would
take a miracle to get roses during a harsh Wyoming winter. But Christmas, after
all, is the time for miracles . . .
Amanda Cabot invites readers to cozy up with a romantic, heartwarming tale of the greatest gift of all—love.
Amanda Cabot invites readers to cozy up with a romantic, heartwarming tale of the greatest gift of all—love.
