Today I am delighted to be able to bring you a lovely interview with Suzanne Leal who has published her latest novel, The Teacher’s Secret, with Legend Press. 

Many thanks to Imogen Harris, at Legend Press, for arranging the following interview and for offering a paperback copy of The Teacher’s Secret for me to giveaway!

Interview with Suzanne Leal…..

For those who don’t know already, could you tell us about yourself and your book(s) please?

I’m a Sydney-based writer, lawyer and mother.

My new novel, The Teacher’s Secret, is about life in the close-knit coastal community of Brindle and the struggles and scandals of the people who live there. Terry Pritchard, assistant principal at Brindle Public School, watches his career collapse when he is accused of inappropriate behaviour towards his students. Nina Foreman, new to the school, struggles to deal both with the breakdown of her marriage and a classroom of students who don’t like her. Rebecca Chuma is also new to Brindle: she’s a curiosity for the locals who don’t know what she’s doing there and just why she can’t return home.

For me, The Teacher’s Secret is the story of a small community and its search for grace, dignity and love in the midst of dishonour, humiliation, grief and uncertainty.

Where did/do you get your ideas from?

The Teacher’s Secret is set in the fictional town of Brindle. Geographically, Brindle is very similar to the little town in south-eastern Sydney where I live. In many ways, The Teacher’s Secret is my lovesong to this little place and the community I have there.

As a lawyer, I have worked in criminal law and in child protection. In The Teacher’s Secret, I drew upon this experience to consider those issues of trust and suspicion that can emerge within a school setting.

Are any of your characters based (however loosely) on anyone you know?

I have worked in refugee law and, in the course of my work, have encountered many people seeking asylum in Australia. Many have been strong, articulate and impressive women who had experienced great hardship. The character of Rebecca Chuma emerged from my knowledge of these women and their lives.

With the character of Nina Foreman, I wanted to look at the juggle for a working woman who is also a single parent. For some years, I was a single parent myself and I used this in creating Nina’s story.

How do you pick your characters names?

When I can visualize my character, I google lists of names and scroll down until I find the name that best suits him or her. There’s always a name that jumps out at me as the right one, even if it takes a bit of searching.

Can you share your writing process with us, in a nutshell?

Whenever I begin a new manuscript, I open a new project on the software package, Scrivener, and start to plot my story and develop my characters and settings. Then I sit down and make myself write for three hours every day. Once I have a full draft of the manuscript – however rough – I go back to the beginning and fix it up; then I do it again and again and again and again.

Who are your top 5 favourite authors?

Jane Austen

Roald Dahl

Emile Zola

Ruth Park

Rachel Seiffert

If you could meet any author, who would it be and what would you ask them?

I would meet William Shakespeare and I would ask him how on earth he managed to be so prolific.

Were you a big reader as a child?

As a child, I would read all the time. For me, reading gave me the chance to live other lives and escape into other worlds.

When did you start to write?

I was always writing as a child and always hoped to become a writer when I’d grown up. Then one day, I realized that I had, in fact, grown up – I’d even had a baby – and still wasn’t a writer. So when the baby finally went to sleep, I would sit down – mostly sleep deprived – and start to type.

Is there a book you wish you had written?

I wish I’d written A Boy in Winter by Rachel Seiffert

If you could invite any fictional character for coffee who would it be and where would you take them?

I would invite Anne Shirley of Anne of Green Gables for coffee. I would take her anywhere she wanted to go to thank her for letting me grow up with her and for allowing me to lose myself in her world.

What are you working on right now?

I’ve just finished the manuscript for a time travel story for children aged between 10 and 14 years. I’m now working on a new novel about the far-reaching consequences of long-held family secrets.

Tell us about your last release?

The Teacher’s Secret was released in hardback in the United Kingdom last year.

Do you have a new release due?

The paperback edition for The Teacher’s Secret is being released in the UK on 1 March 2018.

What do you generally do to celebrate on publication day?

After working so hard to get the book finished, on publication day I finally allow myself to simply wallow in euphoria.

How can readers keep in touch with you?

I love to hear from readers.

My website is suzanneleal.com

You can find me on:

Instagram @suzannelealauthor

Twitter @suzanne_leal

My Facebook page: suzannelealauthor

Is there anything else you would like us to know?

Thanks for the interview and for the great questions.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions, Suzanne 🙂

Giveaway…..

For your chance to win a paperback copy of The Teacher’s Secret (UK only!) simply comment ‘Yes please’ below and a winner will be chosen at random.

Thanks in advance for entering

Good luck!

Things aren’t always as they seem…

A small town can be a refuge, but while its secrets are held, it’s hard to know who to trust and what to believe.

The Teacher’s Secret is a tender and compelling story of scandal, rumour and dislocation, and the search for grace and dignity in the midst of dishonour and humiliation.

Perfect for fans of The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas, Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty and A Song for Issy Bradley by Carys Bray.

‘Packed with heart and suspense… I absolutely loved it’ Jenny Ashcroft

‘Delicately woven… a big-hearted book’ Joanne Fedler

‘Elegantly structured, unsettling, yet with moments of surprising wit’ Kathryn Heyman

‘Masterfully constructed… Drawn with wit and clear-eyed affection’ Mark Lamprell

‘Leal’s novel shows us, achingly and beautifully, the slippery nature of truth’ Maggie Joel

‘A rich interweaving of beautifully drawn characters’ Robin de Crespigny

‘A gutsy yet intricate examination of one of society’s nightmares’ Robert Wainwright

‘Leal writes with her hand on her heart’ Charles Waterstreet

‘Suspenseful, moving and full of heart. I couldn’t put it down’ Richard Glover

‘An eloquent story of a life thrown into disarray; it drew me in and held me’ Rachel Seiffert

Buy a copy here…..

Enjoy!

OUT NOW!

Happy Publication Day to Caroline Mitchell 🙂

My review…..

(Written 15^th January)

Wow! Another awesome read from Caroline Mitchell and a privilege to have been able to read it ahead of publication.

Caroline always creates the most interesting characters. Not always likeable, but fascinating. Their stories draw you in from the very beginning and this was exactly the case with Silent Victim. We meet Emma, Alex and Luke. Emma and Alex are married with a four year old son. Luke used to be Emma’s teacher when she was 15 years old. He groomed her and abused her using her difficult childhood as a weapon against her. Telling her lies to gain her trust and making her believe he loved her until he had got what he wanted. Then he blamed her for everything, made her life a complete misery until he pushed her too far.

Emma has spent the last few years keeping the secret that she killed Luke and buried him on their land in Mersea. When Alex finally pushes for a move to Leeds, she worries about new owners making a grim discovery and her past starts to torment her all over again.

The book is set in 2017, but flashes back to 2003 and 2013. The whole story flows beautifully and certainly kept me glued to my kindle paperwhite.

Emma is a fragile character. I can’t imagine trying to build a future whilst keeping such horrendous secrets and having felt completely alone thinking no-one will believe what you have been through. No wonder her nerves are shot to pieces.

Luke made me so mad! His chapters made my blood boil. It’s so scary to think there are people like him in positions of trust with easy access to our children. These are clever and manipulative people who most people would never suspect of anything untoward, which is just terrifying, especially as a mother of the teenage daughter. This story highlights just how easily we can be manipulated and I hope anyone who has been a victim of anything like this is brave enough to speak out. Someone will believe you.

Alex is a likeable character. I think his reactions towards the truth, or not knowing the truth as the case may be, were very believable. I would have been confused also! Heart and head battling against each other trying to figure out who and what to believe.

I knew Theresa was hiding something, I just didn’t realise what!

Absolutely brilliantly written, as always. Full of suspense, twists and a roller-coaster of emotions as some very sensitive subjects are tackled. It kept me on the edge of my seat from the first page to the last and I will recommend happily!

Many thanks to the author and publisher for my ARC.

You lucky people can read it right now! Grab your copy here…..

Enjoy!

Previous posts featuring Caroline Mitchell and her books…..

Caroline Mitchell – Paranormal Intruder: The true story of a family in fear

Love You To Death (Detective Ruby Preston Crime Thriller Series Book 1) by Caroline Mitchell *Review* @Caroline_writes @bookouture

#Witness by Caroline Mitchell @Caroline_writes #BlogTour #BookReview

My 5* reads of 2016…..

Sleep Tight #BlogTour @Caroline_writes @bookouture #BookReview

Murder Game #BlogBlitz @Caroline_writes @bookouture #BookReview

#FlashbackFriday with @ChristieJBarlow @Caroline_writes @Fab_fiction @LouiseRoseInnes @AlexMarwood1 @HollyKammier @Marcie_Steele & Bill Clegg

 

 

 

First of all, my apologies to Lara Temple and Rachel for this post being a day late, but I hope you enjoy this fab interview I have with the author herself.

Interview with Lara Temple…..

1) For those who don’t know already, could you tell us about yourself and your book(s) please?

Hi, I’m Lara Temple and I write historical romances for Harlequin Mills & Boon set during the Regency period (give or take a few years). I’m a bit of latecomer to romance writing. I’ve worked in finance, high tech, and consulting most of my life and I only began publishing two years ago after entering the Harlequin SYTYCW contest and being offered a contract. I’m now about to release my fifth book with them and hard at work on more. It isn’t easy, juggling the writing between my other work and my family (I have two amazing but time consuming little kids), but the high I get from writing is something I could never give up. Thankfully I work from home and my husband and kids (and dog) are pretty forgiving when I get that blank I’m-lost-down-a-plot-rabbit-hole look.

2) Where did/do you get your ideas from?

I should say from my degree in history and a life-long love of reading historical fiction and romance but while those provide background for my stories, the ideas themselves often come from just about anywhere – a dog I see on the street, a chance line I overhear at a café, and very often in the middle of the night after having been woken up by one of my kids. The number of times my mind has gone into overdrive as I try to get back to sleep at 4am might explain the bags under my eyes. Suddenly I’m swamped by heroes, heroines and all manner of characters climbing onto my mind’s stage and demanding I drag myself out of bed, open my laptop, and get to it…

3) Are any of your characters based (however loosely) on anyone you know?

Very rarely. Once an idea is sparked, my characters just take on a life of their own, they grow as I write and I often have no idea who they are going to be until I am finished writing them. That is part of what I love about writing – it is like watching a movie and I simply have to stay and find out how it is all going to work out.

4) How do you pick your characters names?

Sometimes characters come name-ready (4am inspiration again) but sometimes I browse through time appropriate lists of names, or in the indices of old books, until I come across a name that sounds right. Sometimes I even sneak names from books I loved – my Lord Ravenscar is a case in point (Max Ravenscar was the first Georgette Heyer hero I encountered and it was love at first card playing scene). Once I find that name there is always a kind of inner sigh – ‘yes, that’s it.’

5) Can you share your writing process with us, in a nutshell?

I’m an absolute pantser who wishes she was a plotter and decides before every new books that she will reform but fails miserably. For the first trimester of my book I just sit down and write and my characters take over and I pretty much discover them as I go. It really is like watching (and listening to) a movie in my head. This doesn’t mean it is easy. I often run myself into a plot ditch and then I have to take a step back and rethink where they are going – I force myself to stop being a passive reporter and start taking a hand in their destinies. This second trimester is usually the hardest. Then after that agonizing attempt to make believe I’m a plotter, it gets easier again and I can finally see where they are heading and start wrapping things up.

This whole process is complicated by the fact that I don’t have much writing time, but I do try to maximize it by having a few hours set aside only for writing between dropping my kids off at school and seeing to my other commitments. Oh, and I drink lots and lots of tea in the process…

6) Who are your top 5 favourite authors?

I actually can’t name just five, because the list keeps changing, but there are some authors that shaped my reading world and I go back to them again and again including Jane Austen, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Georgette Heyer. I’m also currently rereading my P.D. James collection and I also just read a marvellous historical mystery by Arianna Franklin, Mistress of Death.

7) If you could meet any author, who would it be and what would you ask them?

This is hard. Very hard. I think I would like to find myself with the three Bronte sisters and all I would ask was to be with them so I could try and puzzle how they created such brilliant stories in a world so ungenerous to women. The same would be true if I could ask Mary Shelley what was going through her mind when she wrote Frankenstein, or any of the brilliant genius women who were writing works of art during the period I write about.

8) Were you a big reader as a child?

I devoured books. My mother would take us to the public library in Farringdon and my brother and I would cry when we had to leave. Even when I was a little older I would fall in love with a series and then, again, cry when I came to the last book (we read every Sherlock Holmes but I still found it hard to accept when we reached #64 and my mother told me that was the end – so we started at the beginning again…). I especially liked mysteries until the day I discovered Georgette Heyer and my fate was sealed…

9) When did you start to write?

I dictated my first story to my mum when I was four years old so I suppose that counts. It had lots of dinosaurs and skeletons and secret stairways, which makes me wonder just what bedtime stories she was reading to me at that age. I kept writing stories over the years but I never made an effort to become published. I worked in finance and high tech and used writing as an escape and a private pleasure – I wrote what I wanted to read. When my kids were born I started looking for less stressful careers but it still took a stroke of circumstance to make me embrace the choice of becoming a writer.

One day my mom drew my attention to Harlequin’s SYTYCW contest and to my absolute amazement I made the top ten and was offered a contract. In two years I will have published five books with them and so I am finally beginning to face the wonderful reality that I am a bona fide writer.

10) If you could re-write the ending to any book what would it be and what would you change?

Romeo and Juliet. Not because I like the story in that play, but because I have a problem with the romanticization of suicide. I hate that two teenagers (yes, I’m aware things were different back then and they were considered adults) felt so boxed in by circumstance they had to obliterate themselves. Yes, I know it’s only a story but it is iconic and it always bothered me.

11) Is there a book you wish you had written?

That has happened to me many times, but I remember that feeling very strongly when I was in my late teens and was addicted to Milan Kundera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Dostoyevsky, and Camus. I devoured their books and was really depressed I would never write anything as brilliant. I’ve grown up since then and realized we all have our own stories to tell and our own way to tell them but I can still remember that burn of envy when faced with genius.

12) If you wrote an autobiography, what would your title be?

I’d never write one, that’s for sure. But a possible title could be: Did Not Go According to Plan.

13) What are you working on right now?

I’m working on my next series. In my third Wild Lords’ book Lord Stanton grapples with the toxic legacy of his mother’s family – the Sinclairs. In a scene where he was telling the heroine Christina about escaping to play with his Sinclair cousins Lucas and Chase in the woods, I had an image of two dark haired, intense brothers. So the moment I finished writing Stanton’s story (which comes out in June) I began writing their stories, which are called for the moment, the Sinful Sinclairs.

14) Do you have a new release due?

My second Wild Lords, Lord Ravenscar’s Inconvenient Betrothal, is out 1st March and my third, Lord Stanton’s Last Mistress, is our 1st June. I love that all three of my Wild Lords are coming out in such a short period of time so people still have each one in mind as they read the other. They are definitely standalone books but the heroes do make appearances.

15) What do you generally do to celebrate on publication day?

Publication day is one of mixed feelings for me. My baby is finally out there after months of tender care and I’m full of hope everyone will love it as much as I and worry that they will hate it. So on the day itself I don’t at all do what I would like – which is put up my feet, open the bubbly, and celebrate. That usually waits for the day after, when my nerves have calmed.

16) How can readers keep in touch with you?

I love hearing from readers (criticism too – I’ve learned so much from reader feedback in the past couple of years and I benefit from it). I’m in touch with an amazing group of readers through Facebook (www.facebook.com/laratemple1), twitter (@laratemple1), and my website (www.laratemple.com). Also – I and a group of amazing historical romance Harlequin Mills & Boon authors manage a Facebook group where we chat with readers, share amusing and amazing stories, and do giveaways. I recommend all romance lovers come and join us at https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheUnlacedBookClub/.

17) Is there anything else you would like us to know?

I think I’ve taken up more than my fair share of your time, but there is one thing I’d like to add. One of the most wonderful things about writing romance is the women – I work in a very male world and during the past two years I’ve met so many amazing, enriching, and generous women (readers, authors, and editors) I am simply blown away. It has been a double gift – not just seeing my writing published and enjoyed, but also becoming part of an amazing world I hadn’t even known existed. I wish I had taken some steps to become part of that world even before I published – like joining a local RNA or RWA chapter. To all the women contemplating writing but not sure about it – I really recommend find a community of romance lovers/authors around you!

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions, Lara 🙂

You are so welcome, Kerry! It’s been a pleasure to be on your blog.

Lord Ravenscar’s Inconvenient Betrothal

“Women either ran from Lord Ravenscar or ran to him.” A Wild Lords and Innocent Ladies story Alan Rothwell, Marquess of Ravenscar, is furious when unconventional heiress Lily Wallace refuses him purchase of her property. He can’t even win her over with his infamous charm. But when fever seizes him and they’re trapped together, horrified, Alan realizes Lily’s attentions will compromise them both! His solution: take Lily as his betrothed before desire consumes them completely…

Purchase Link:

myBook.to/Ravenscar

Author Bio –

Lara Temple writes strong, sexy regency romances about complex individuals who give no quarter but do so with plenty of passion. Her fifth book with Harlequin Mills & Boon, ‘Lord Ravenscar’s Inconvenient Betrothal,’ will be published in March 2018, and is the second in her Wild Lords series. Her four previous books are: Lord Hunter’s Cinderella Heiress, The Duke’s Unexpected Bride, The Reluctant Viscount, and Lord Crayle’s Secret World. When she was fifteen Lara found a very grubby copy of Georgette Heyer’s Faro’s Daughter in an equally grubby book store. Several blissful hours later she emerged, blinking, into the light of day completely in love with Regency Romance but it took three decades of various fascinating but completely unrelated careers in finance and high tech before she returned to her first love. Lara lives with her husband and two children who are very good about her taking over the kitchen table for her writing (so she can look out over the garden and dream). She loves to travel (especially to places steeped in history) and read as many books as possible. She recently went looking for that crowded little bookstore but couldn’t quite remember around what corner it was…hopefully it is still there and another girl is in the corner by the window, reading and dreaming…

Social Media Links –

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/laratemple1

Twitter: https://twitter.com/laratemple1

Website: http://www.laratemple.com

Amazon author page: http://amzn.to/2mWin9R

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/LaraTemple 7

As I’m the last why not go back through the tour and check out the fab posts by these awesome book bloggers…..

Enjoy!

 

 

Today I have the pleasure of joining in with, and rounding off, Daniela Tully’s Hotel On Shadow Lake blog tour, with Legend Press 🙂

(Many thanks to Imogen Harris, at Legend Press)

Interview with Daniela Tully…..

For those who don’t know already, could you tell us about yourself and your book(s) please?

I’ve been working for almost two decades in the film and TV world, first in script development and then as producer. So I had surrounded myself with stories and story tellers pretty much all of my adult life. Then I made the leap into writing myself, in a step away from the audio-visual world of story telling – and I’ve never regretted it. I am German, married to an American, currently living in Dubai, where I am writing my next novel, in English. Hotel on Shadow Lake is my debut novel. Its dual narrative is divided between a Munich on the cusp of WWII, and today’s upstate New York. In the media it has been described as “an intricate mystery, an epic romance, and a Gothic family saga.” It is a thriller at its core, about a young woman in Germany who thought she had come to terms with the disappearance of her grandmother, who was her surrogate mother, her best friend, and a storyteller of spellbinding, mystical fairy tales. When a landslide in upstate New York uncover her remains, twenty-seven years after her disappearance in a country her grandmother had no connections with, the granddaughter begins to question everything. Who was this woman? What made her leave Germany? What were her ties to the captivating yet chilling Montgomery Hotel, located near the site of her death? As Maya seeks answers in the States, she finds herself sidetracked by her own assumed identity—and how much it enchants the charming heir of the Montgomery dynasty. She soon discovers that the best way to the truth about her grandmother might be through surrendering herself to the majestic Montgomery Hotel, the strange family that owns it, and the spirits that live on in the dark surrounding wilderness.

Where did/do you get your ideas from?

For Hotel on Shadow Lake it was the combination of a letter and a specific location that gave me the idea for the novel. The letter was written by my grandmother’s twin brother, a German fighter plane pilot, who died during WWII. As he felt his death nearing, he wrote a farewell letter to my grandmother and their mother, at the end of 1944. That letter, however, was held up in the East, when the Berlin Wall was erected, and only reached my grandmother in 1990, after the Wall had come down. The first scene of my novel recreates that moment, the receipt of the letter, delayed by forty-six years.

My husband is from upstate New York and so I was introduced to a beautiful area called the Hudson Valley, which I fell in love with immediately. And on one of my earliest visits he took me to this hotel, Mohonk Resort, a place unlike any other place I had ever seen. It blew me away. It’s a potpourri of different architectural styles, combined into a unique building, part castle, part Swiss Alpine chalet, looming over the surrounding valleys and Catskills in the distance, from a high plateau. Its Gothic aura fascinated me. In fact, they hold an annual murder mystery event there and people like Stephen King have attended and stayed there. The family in my plot has absolutely nothing to do with the Smiley family, a family who have run that resort for decades. My fictional family, or let’s say some of the family members, are as sinister and dark as the forests surrounding the hotel on the high plateau, blocking it off from the outside world, and giving birth to a world of its own.

Are any of your characters based (however loosely) on anyone you know?

Oh, yes, absolutely. Martha Wiesberg is partly based on my own grandmother, whose Christian name was also Martha. A couple of the people in the present plot strand, too, are based on existing people, people who I met in the Hudson Valley (I also spent a year living there).

How do you pick your characters names?

Subconsciously I probably give my heroines the names of existing people I either like, or adore, or have any form of positive association with. And the antagonist, probably the names of people I cannot stand in reality. But when I think of this novel, I just went with the first name that came to my mind. A name that suited the characters.

Can you share your writing process with us, in a nutshell?

I write best on the move, on planes, trains, road trips… And since life doesn’t give me the luxury of being constantly on the road, I create my own mini-moves. I find it harder to write from home. I need to venture out into public, to observe people. I often find different coffee shops to write in.

Who are your top 5 favourite authors?

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jojo Moyes, Kate Morton, Jennifer McMahon, Carlos Ruiz Zafon.  

Were you a big reader as a child?

Oh yes! In fact, I always wrote that into those friendship books, Poesiealbum we call it in German, which we used to pass around at school. When the book asked: “What do you want to become one day?” I always wrote: “A librarian.” Which in German is a long and complicated word, especially for someone in elementary school, and still I went through the trouble of writing Bibliothekarin. I ran into a mother of an old friend from elementary school on last year’s Christmas visit, and she remembered only that: that I wanted to become a librarian. I wanted to become one, just so that I could read all the books in the library (obviously I had the wrong idea about what a librarian does all day).

When did you start to write?

I started writing a first chapter of a coming-of-age novel once when I was twelve. I am sure that little booklet still exists, with my handwritten words. Probably cringeworthy, should I ever come across it again. But I lived in so many places and moved countries so often that I don’t know where some of my memorabilia are. Then I started writing again at the age of 28, with a concept for a series, a telenovela that was picked up by Italian television.

If you could re-write the ending to any book what would it be and what would you change?

I have to admit that I don’t have the best memory, probably also because I read quite a bit, but I remember a recent book, a thriller, Night Film, by Marisha Pessl, one that I read last summer, where I felt so cheated by the end of that book. While I am not the type of reader that needs to have all plot points come full circle and leave nothing to wonder about, I felt betrayed by too open an ending.

Is there a book you wish you had written?

That’s a really tough question. I have the same reaction when I am asked what my favorite films are. There are many, not just one. Of course, there are the novels by my favorite writers, for example I would have loved to have written One Hundred Years of Solitude. Others because of the genius idea behind them – like an invention that drives you crazy because it seems to be such a simple idea in hindsight, yet it was so genius to be the first to come up with it. And Then There Were None, for example! And then, of course, several of the titles that Martha Wiesberg has to read secretly in my novel, the ones that had been blacklisted and kindled the fire during the book burnings in 1933, like Mann’s Buddenbrooks or some of Erich Kästner’s titles.

Do you have a new release due?

February 1^st for Hotel on Shadow Lake

What do you generally do to celebrate on publication day?

It’s my first time, so I don’t know yet. Probably drink (a lot of) champagne , and hope that all my readers will enjoy the novel as much as I enjoyed writing it, getting lost in the worlds I have painted for others.

How can readers keep in touch with you?

I have a web page: www.danielatully.com and also a FB page, https://www.facebook.com/hotelonshadowlake/. They can also contact me through Goodreads and ask questions through that platform. I am very happy when readers reach out to me, no matter if it’s positive or negative criticism. I love creating a community.

If you wrote an autobiography, what would your title be?

Daniela Tully: Nomad On The Run

If you could invite any fictional character for coffee who would it be and where would you take them?

I love Pippi Longstocking, but I wouldn’t want to take her for coffee, I would like to fight pirates with her for a day.

What are you working on right now?

My next novel is set in Dubai, a place where I have lived on and off now for almost seven years. It’s a place filled with contrasts, good and bad ones. But you have to have lived here to understand it fully. An important theme will be the third culture kids, or third culture individuals, as they are also often referred to. It will be my next thriller.

If you could meet any author, who would it be and what would you ask them?

Well, first of all it would need to be someone who is dead now. The others I still have hopes I might meet with anyway one day (hope springs eternal). As for those who have passed away, again, there are many, so I need to make a selection. Henry James would be on the list, I loved Portrait of a Lady and have read it several times, as well as The Turn of the Screw. I would love to discuss European vs American identity with someone from the 19th century. Then there’s Hemingway. I would ask him if that penny stuck in his house on Key West was truly thrown by him into the wet cement (he was asking his wife why she doesn’t take all of his money, including his last penny).

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, Daniela 🙂

When Maya was a girl, her grandmother was everything to her: teller of magical fairy tales, surrogate mother, best friend. Then her grandmother disappeared without a trace, leaving Maya with only questions to fill the void. Twenty-seven years later, her grandmother’s body is found in a place she had no connection to. Desperate for answers, Maya begins to unravel secrets that go back decades, from 1910s New York to 1930s Germany and beyond. But when she begins to find herself spinning her own lies in order to uncover what happened, she must decide whether her life, and a chance at love, are worth risking for the truth.

‘It’s a story of love, tragedy and intrigue that vividly illustrates the unyielding grip that the past holds in shaping the future…and the enduring power of love.’
Lee Goldberg, NYT Bestseller & TV Producer

Giveaway…..

(UK only due to postage costs)

For your chance to win a paperback copy of Hotel On Shadow Lake, courtesy of Legend Press, all you need to do is comment ‘Yes please’ and a winner will be picked at random.

Thanks in advance for entering!

**The winner will need to email me their address for me to pass on to the publisher**

Good luck!