Award-winning author, wife, mother, grandmother, Harry Potter geek, Army veteran, karate black belt, and online gamer girl.
1. What is your favorite Wintertime Activity?
Drinking a hot chocolate while reading a good book. Though, to be honest, those two don’t usually go together anymore. I do most of my reading anymore by audiobook. I’m a huge fan. That’s why all my books are available as audiobooks.
2. How many unpublishes / half-finished books do you have in progress?
I tend to be a finisher. In the Keirsey Personality Sorter (that one with classifications like ESFJ), I’m an “SJ.” We tend to start a project and finish it before starting another. I’m getting better though and can frequently work on more than one project at a time. But leaving one hanging is like having a pebble in my shoe. The only undone project that’s hung around for any length of time has been my fantasy duology, now in the hands of my editor. That took so long because it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
3. What was the most surprising thing you learned when creating your book (in research or in yourself?)
The male love interest is a widower who lost his wife in an avalanche. As part of his grieving, he’s been working on a design for a wider-ranging transceiver. While I don’t go into a great deal of detail about it, I still needed to understand how avalanche transceivers and beacons work. I watched a lot of videos. It can be scary stuff.
4. Tell us about the greatest Christmas gift you ever received.
I actually have two, though one of them wasn’t a gift to me but to my grandmother. Like Merry in the book, my mother’s birthday was on Christmas Day. The other gift was my second son who was born enough before Christmas that I was feeling good enough to enjoy the holiday holding a sweet new baby.
5. What did you edit out of your book? (Such as a cut scene or an idea that just wouldn’t fit?)
The only real change was to the epilogue. For spoiler reasons, I can go into details. 🙂
6. What inspired you to write this novel?
Last year I noticed some Christmas books that were written as part of a multi-author project. I thought it’d be fun to have a group of us write in the same fictional town. I mentioned it to some friends–and Huckleberry Falls, Wyoming was born. This year our stories are inspired by Christmas songs. Next year might be different. We’ve already fallen in love with the town and the people. Since they’re “Huckleberry Falls Holiday Romances,” they won’t all be set during Christmas.
