I'm delighted to catch fellow TWRP Rose, Andrea Downing, today and have her visit. She's been such a busy lady since her debut novel, Loveland, lauched recently from The Wild Rose Press, so settle down in your chair and switch off any distractions. There are some nice answers coming, after we learn a little about Andrea, and the brilliant excerpt afterwards isn't to be missed!
Andrea has
spent most of her life in the UK
where she developed a penchant for tea-drinking, a tolerance for rainy days,
and a deep knowledge of the London Underground system (or ‘Tube’). In 2008 she returned to live in the city of
her birth, NYC, but frequently exchanges the canyons of city streets for the
wide open spaces of the West. Her love
of horses, ranches, rodeo and just about anything else western—especially
cowboys (not one in particular, sadly, but still looking…) is reflected in her
writing. Loveland,
a western historical romance published by The Wild Rose Press, is her first
book. She is a member of Romance Writers
of America and Women Writing the West. Her WIP is contemporary women’s fiction
with a Texas Hill Country meets the New York Hamptons setting.
That sounds very intriguing! We'll catch up with your WIP soon.
After the wonderful
buzz of the contract offer for Loveland died down a bit, were you prepared for how hard you have to work at
marketing your novel? I know it has scared me to death at times!
No! Nothing prepares you for
that, I don’t think. You keep hearing
you have to have a platform, you have to be on all the sites, you have to blog
until you’re blue in the face, but you never really realise how very time
consuming it all is, or how many emails it is going to entail. It keeps you
away from the real writing and I find that tremendously depressing. And then the disappointments… I just heard today that a bookshop that
originally offered me a signing in Loveland
itself has retracted because they are renovating. Loveland
isn’t exactly a huge town so bookshops aren’t thick on the ground. It’s truly upsetting.
I definitely sympathise with that, Andrea. We have very few stores, where I live, and only a few of them stock books.
Tell me
about Loveland.
It’s a western historical romance set against the background
of the ownership of large cattle companies by British aristocrats in the
1880s. The heroine, Lady Alex, has been
sent to the Faringdon Ranch after a scandal in London; she lived there a short period
earlier on. Now she is reunited with the
ranch hands who love her…especially one!
What's your hero's name?
Jesse
Makepeace! Jesse is very gentle and kind
because Lady Alex has been through quite a lot in her young life and wouldn’t
want someone who knocked her about a bit.
But that doesn’t mean he’s a complete wimp. He does throw her over his shoulder at one
stage and carry her off!
Here's a little more info about Loveland:
When Lady
Alexandra Calthorpe returns to the Loveland,
Colorado, ranch owned by her
father, the Duke, she has little idea of how the experience will alter her
future. Headstrong and willful, Alex tries to overcome a disastrous marriage in
England
and be free of the strictures of Victorian society --and become independent of
men. That is, until Jesse Makepeace saunters back into her life...
Hot-tempered and
hot-blooded cowpuncher Jesse Makepeace can’t seem to accept that the child he
once knew is now the ravishing yet determined woman before him. Fighting
rustlers proves a whole lot easier than fighting Alex when he’s got to keep
more than his temper under control.
Arguments abound
as Alex pursues her career as an artist and Jesse faces the prejudice of the English
social order. The question is, will Loveland
live up to its name?
Were there any triggers which led to the plotline?
I’m so glad you asked this question, Nancy. The trigger was my own return to the USA where I was born after living in Britain almost
all my life. When my daughter was
growing up we used to have long vacations out west. You know, the English school system has these
month long vacs at Easter and Xmas and then just 2 months in the summer. We used to spend the Easter vac in Arizona on a ranch in Tucson
and the summer ones further north in Wyoming, Colorado or Montana. So I began to think…and Loveland
is where that thinking got me.
Did the names for characters just pop into your head as soon
as you started to write?
Almost! Alex was easy because Alexandra is such an
aristocratic name and Calthorpe, you may know, is a very old English name. Jesse is such a western name, that part was
easy, but the Makepeace came to me after a time. He was meant to have an English background.
The others—Cal , Garrett, Garrison, Joe—they really did just pop into my
head. Tom and Annie Yost took a little
more effort—especially the Yost part. I
needed something that sounded like a settler in the west and suddenly came upon
Yost in some reading I was doing so chose that; the Tom and Annie
followed. Oliver was always Oliver no
matter what.
What's Jesse's biggest challenge?
Loving Alex, accepting that she is what she
is—a strong, independent woman who will never be under his control, for whom he
will always, always have to make concessions.
And he has a temper and that is going to have to be controlled because
of what she has been through. He adores
her, and he is willing to let her have her way, but it isn’t always easy!
Which was the hardest
part to write-beginning, middle or end? My answer is probably all of the bits, but what's yours?
Oh, the middle for sure. I always know the opening, and I always know
the ending—but the middle. Ugh! Getting from A to Z is VERY hard. I was reading a piece by John Updike recently
and he said he always knows the last sentence or paragraph and he always knows
the beginning but until he gets the middle he can’t write. I have what I think is a terrific idea for my
third book and I know the beginning, the first sentence, and I know the last
sentence but the middle—nada! Sometimes
I find it’s just smart to start writing and see what the characters do, which
is what happened with the book I just finished.
I was surprised at what the characters did, where they took me.
What's your favorite time of year?
I’m a winter person
actually. When I was writing Loveland I really luxuriated in writing the
winter of 1886/87, which was thought by some to be a second Ice Age, it was so
horrid. Temperatures dropped to minus 60
in some places in the USA
(that’s Fahrenheit!) and about 60 to 75% of some of the herds died. They said you could walk on the carcases of
dead cattle for miles on end.
I like winter too, but not when it's slushy snow. Walking over dead cattle has never been an issue, but I can't say I fancy that!
Do you have favourite snack foods while writing?
Ah ha! You must know that sitting for long periods
is very unhealthy, so I’ve begun to be very health conscious and don’t
snack—unless for some reason there is chocolate in the house. Chocolate is my nemesis! But I try to drink mostly while working! Water mainly, tea of course, possibly a treat
of hot chocolate in cold weather or a ‘coke float’ in heat and, yes, a glass of
wine when the sun is over the yard arm—or even Jack and Ginger. I realise Jack is something of an anomaly to
you Scots—one can’t have an American whiskey but we do have them and it mixes
with ginger ale or Coke very well. Then
again, you’re probably thinking it’s only FIT to be mixed with such horrible
sodas…
I have to confess that I let the Scottish side down when it comes to whisky. I hate the smell of it, and never drink the stuff, but my husband has been known to like a very peaty malt.
Did any music inspire your
book? Do you have a playlist?
I’m
a Country and Western fan, big time, and it’s part of the western genre but I
can’t say any of it inspired me and I can’t really work with lots of noise of
any kind, including music.
If I'm writing I can't have music on, but when I'm editing I play something that's not demanding.
Which of your characters would
you invite for a lovely, tempting, evening meal?
Well, if I can’t steal Jesse away from
Lady Alex then I’ll settle for Cal
and have him to dinner…and more! Cal is the best friend
for anyone, anywhere; he is completely and utterly loyal, has terrific good
sense and sees through the lies people tell themselves and gives good
advice. He is also extraordinarily kind
and has a great sense of humour. The
character I would least like at my dinner table is Oliver Calthorpe who is
completely ego-centric, selfish and, quite honestly, an utter fool. He’s a liar and a cheat and although he does
have redeeming features—and, indeed, redeems himself more or less at the end—he
is not very likeable.
What's
next on the writing cards for you?
When I get Dances, my current WIP, off and running and can start the next,
it’s about a woman who recalls a former life and goes in search of…well, I
don’t think I should give too much away at this point in case the characters
write something other than what I have in mind!
I think that's fair enough, Andrea. I don't like to talk about anything I've written till I'm sure it's my absolute last version...in case it changes a lot during self-editing!
But now here's an excerpt that won't be changing...
The two
men looked over at Jesse who was leading his own horse into the stable, anger
etched in every muscle of his face. Joe nodded toward the chuck house and they
followed the others in to leave Alex alone when Jesse came out.
She was
starting back to the main house when Jesse grabbed her arm and turned her
around. “You ever do that again,” he said in a voice she had never heard,
intense in its anger, rage just below its surface, “I swear to God, Alex,
I’ll...I’ll take you over my knee and give you a lickin’ once and for all.”
“How
dare you!” She shook him off. “How dare you talk to me like that! How dare you!
Who the hell do you think you are?”
Jesse
jabbed his finger at her to emphasize he meant what he was saying. “Who do I
think I am?”he snarled back. “Who do I think I am? You ever, ever take a gun
off me again and point it at someone, you’ll find out who the hell I think I
am. You know that coulda gone off? You know you coulda killed someone? I told
you—out there yonder—I told you, you never point that thing at anyone less’n
you mean bus’ness.”
“I did
bloody well mean business! They were destroying that horse. Furthermore, I
knew, and you knew, and they both knew, there wasn’t a shot under the hammer.
You taught me that, didn’t you? So there was no chance of an accident!”
“That
don’t matter none. You coulda pulled the hammer back twice. Way you was, you
were nothin’ better’n a loose cannon, Alex. You ever do a thing like that
again—”
“You’ll
what?” She shook with her rage as tears pooled against her will. “I apologized
to them both and they accepted my apologies. It’s none of your concern—”
“None of
my concern! You pulled my gun! You ever do that again— Don’t you walk away when
I’m talkin’ to you!”
She
turned back to him after a few steps. “You’ll what? You’ll what, Jesse? What
will you do? I want to hear it! Say it again. What will you do?” And she stood
there in the evening darkness, facing him down, wearing him out like she’d
faced down the stallion.
Andrea can be found at:
Thanks
so much for having me, Nancy. It’s been
fun!
It's
been a pleasure having you here, too, Andrea. Best wishes with the
sales of Loveland, and for your continued writing success.
Slainthe!
