You know how, no matter how thoroughly you plan, things don't work out quite according to plan? I'd been planning on a guest blog to publicize my giveaway of THE PRINCE OF VAL-FEYRIDGE on The Romance Review's Fall Into Love Party, but plans fell through.
Rather than let my preparatory work go to waste, I'm putting up two of the questions I wrote answers to because I think they're good questions.
Tell me why you wrote THE PRINCE OF VAL-FEYRIDGE.
THE PRINCE OF VAL-FEYRIDGE is the book
of my heart. I conceived the storyline and characters the summer before I began
college. I’d been reading THE FOUNTAINHEAD, GONE WITH THE WIND, and THE LORD OF
THE RINGS. The world was full of turmoil in the Middle East (no change there)
and racism in the US (not much change there either). I wanted to tell a story
about a broken country and the characters that would stitch it back together
again. They would have to overcome class and ethnic divisions to do so.
While thematically that was the
premise, the heart of the story was the against-all-odds love that grows
between my warrior prince hero and my displaced healer heroine. While everything is stacked against them, what
binds them together is honor. They can—and do—trust each other with their
lives.
You’re multi-published. Which of your heroes is your favorite
and why?
That’s
a hard one. I love my heroes, never more than when I’m writing their individual
books, but they are very different people.
Prince
Arn is a swashbuckler, a charismatic leader of men who puts his life on the
line—recklessly, some would say—to single-mindedly pursue the lost Crown and
restore the Kingdom. Having survived the assassination of his family at age 12,
he loves no one, trusts but a few, and gambles daily to achieve what’s
rightfully his.
Durren
Drakkonwehr of BLOODSTONE was once a warrior, descendant of a long line of
dragon-keepers, but his personal failure has led to his land’s collapse and the
curse that makes his life a living hell. He lives in isolation, determined to
protect his people from his cursed appearance and too proud to die at the hand
of subhuman beings.
Flip
sides of the warrior coin, one could say—success versus failure—but both
scarred inside and out, with stone walls around their hearts that have to be
chipped away by the heroines.
My
heroes are two stubborn, prideful men whose emotional journeys are equally
satisfying, but I think I had more fun torturing Durren. Still, if I had to
choose, I have to go with my ‘firstborn’ Prince Arn because he’s been with me
so long.
As to the giveaway, it's one day only! On Thursday, Sept. 25, pop over to TRR's Fall Into Love Party and correctly answer the trivia question for THE PRINCE OF VAL-FEYRIDGE for a chance to win an e-copy. (Hint: Click here for the answer in the excerpt.)
