Amanda Cabot's WAITING FOR SPRING
Amanda Cabot & Waiting for Spring
Read below for more about Amanda Cabot and her thoughts on why she wrote Waiting for Spring; plus find out what else is in the works...
"Thanks so much for inviting me to be part of your blog. I’m delighted to be here today, talking with you and your followers about Waiting for Spring and myself.
Let’s get the least interesting part of this done first: a bit about me. For almost as long as I can remember, books have been a major part of my life. I love the fact that in addition to teaching me things, they can transport me to a different time and place. As a child, I decided that the most wonderful thing in the world would be to be a writer and give others the pleasure that I found in books. Of course, even then I somehow knew that it would be a difficult way to earn a living, so I took a “real” job, and writing became my second job. I used to describe it as a case of “for love or money.” Writing was what I did for love; the day job helped pay the mortgage. Now I’m fortunate enough to be a fulltime writer.
Now, on to the book. I could talk for hours about that, but I’ll try not to be too long-winded. After all, I wouldn’t want you to start yawning. One of the questions I’m often asked is why I wrote a particular book. In the case of Waiting for Spring, I had two goals. The first – and most important – was to answer the question of, “What lengths would you go to to protect your child?” Charlotte’s a young widow with what we would now call a special needs child in an era when parents were advised to put those children into an institution. That would have been enough of a challenge for her, but her life is further complicated by the fact that her husband was murdered, and the killer is after her. What can she do? And, as if that weren’t enough, she begins to fall in love with a man who’s practically engaged to one of her best friends. Poor Charlotte! It took a lot of pages to unravel all that.
My second goal for this book was to introduce readers to my adopted hometown of Cheyenne. Did you know that in 1883, Cheyenne was the wealthiest city per capita in the world? Furthermore, the city had the only opera house west of the Mississippi, and its InterOcean hotel was the first hotel anywhere to have electric lights in its guest rooms. Add to that the incredibly wealthy cattle barons, one of whom just happens to be the hero of my story, and a brutal winter that changed their lives in ways they could not have expected, and you have the background for my story.
Weaving those details into the love stories (yes, there’s more than one romance in Waiting for Spring) was a lot of fun, but it also created one of my biggest fears, what I refer to as nasty-grams from readers. I love hearing from readers, since they truly are the reason I write, and I pray that my stories will touch their hearts and deepen their faith. But writers being the insecure creatures that we are, I always worry that I’ll disappoint someone. Those worries increase exponentially when I write about a real location, because now there’s the possibility that I got a fact wrong and that some eagle-eyed reader will be upset about it. I take research very seriously and read countless books to get everything about Cheyenne just right, but there’s still that niggling fear that I missed something. That’s why the Texas Dreams books took place in a fictional location and why my next series will also feature a fictional town.
Speaking of the future, I’m currently working on my 2014 releases. I’m waiting for copy edits and cover art for With Autumn’s Return, the third of the Westward Winds trilogy. That’ll be a January 2014 book. In addition, I’m excited to announce that I’ll have a novella in Revell’s first novella collection. The release date hasn’t been finalized yet, but it will be during the first half of 2014. Each of the four stories in the collection is written by a different author, and each features a woman whose life is changed when she receives a letter. Having read that, you probably won’t be surprised to know the title of the book will be Sincerely Yours.
My heroine is an heiress who needs to marry a man of her own social standing within two months or she’ll forfeit her inheritance. The special letter she receives leads her to a handsome carousel carver – obviously not the man her parents had in mind for her. But the carver has a secret. As a side note, I developed an incurable case of carousel fever in early 2000, so when I started thinking about this story, I knew my hero would be one of those talented men who turned chunks of wood into fabulous painted ponies.
And, if that wasn’t enough for 2014, I’ll also have the first book of a new series out in the fall. The title and date haven’t been finalized, so I can’t tell you too much about it other than that it takes place in a fictional town in the Texas Hill Country. If you want to know more, I hope you’ll sign up for my online newsletter. All it takes is an email. My email address and lots of other information are available on my web site, www.amandacabot.com. You might also enjoy my blog with the popular Wednesday in Wyoming posts. My blog URL is http://amandajoycabot.blogspot.com/.
And now it’s time to say farewell. I’ve enjoyed our time together and wish you a year filled with many, many wonderful books to read."
From the time that she was seven, Amanda Cabot dreamed of becoming a published author, but it was only when she set herself the goal of selling a book by her thirtieth birthday that the dream came true. A former director of Information Technology, Amanda has written everything from technical books and articles for IT professionals to mysteries for teenagers and romances for all ages. She’s delighted to now be a fulltime writer of Christian historical romances. Her Texas Dreams trilogy received critical acclaim, and Waiting for Spring, the second in her Westward Winds series, was released in January.
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