Cate: Please welcome Linda LaRoque. Linda, will you please share a short bio with us?Linda: Hi Cate. Thanks for having me here today.
Linda is a retired teacher who loves West Texas, its flora and fauna, and its people. Her stories paint pictures of life, love, and learning set against the raw landscape of ranches and rural communities in Texas and New Mexico. Linda is a member of RWA, her local chapter of HOTRWA, NTRWA and Texas Mountain Trail Writers.
Cate: Tell us about A Way Back and where it's available.
Linda: A Way Back is a time travel set in the 1930s oil fields of Texas. It’s available at Champagne Books, Omnilit.com, and Amazon.com.
Cate: Time travel’s so cool. Please tantalize us with a story blurb or excerpt.
Linda: In the 1930s oil fields of Texas, a woman from the future finds new purpose as she helps a banker rebuild his financial empire.
Amber Mathis, a Wall Street investment banker, returns to her office after burying her mother. Distraught, tired of the rat race, she's determined to make a career change. In the elevator she falls and rises to find herself in a vintage lift. The date is February 25, 1930, and a man stands on the window ledge in her office ready to jump.Wellman Hathaway, owner and CEO of Hathaway Bank in New York struggles to pay his depositors half their losses. A woman claiming to be from the future appears in his office and involves him in a scheme that forces them into marriage. With Amber's knowledge of the financial history of the 1930s, they travel to the oil fields of Texas to recoup Wellman's funds.
Two people from different centuries are thrown together to survive a difficult time. Will they find more than A Way Back to prosperity?
Cate: Love that she saves him from such a desperate time. Can you tell us why we're going to love your hero?
Linda: Amber is out of her element and still grieving, yet she embraces the experience of living in the past. A thoroughly modern woman, she resists the inequalities women often faced in their marriages and in the workplace in the 1930s.
Born into wealth, Wellman is mindful of his place in society, honest and hard-working. As he and Amber work to restore his wealth, he learns to live by his heart rather than by society’s code.
Cate: Tease us with one little thing about your fictional world that makes it different from others.
Linda: Stories abound about the past, but not many touch on the 1930s, a time period graced with many changes. Life was hard, yet people knew how to have a good time without television and the many gadgets we own today. And, for those with money, it was a glamorous era when women wore long gowns to dinner and dancing, and Art Deco was a common art style evident in clothing, art, and architecture.
Cate: Love that period. What's next for you?
Linda: I’m working on a follow-up story to A Law of Her Own, short time travel set in 1889 in the Texas Panhandle. Another project is a romantic suspense set along Route 66 in New Mexico.
Cate: What inspired you to draft your first story? Linda: In the early 1990s, I went through a period of depression and anxiety. At night I had trouble going to sleep so decided to craft a story in my mind as a distraction. Doing so never failed to put me to sleep. I liked the story idea so much I decided to put it to paper. Fifteen years later, When the Ocotillo Bloom came out with Wings Press and I’ve been writing ever since.
Cate: Do you have a writing routine?
Linda: Unfortunately, I don’t. I write in spurts.
Cate: Where can readers find you on the web?
Readers can sign up to receive my monthly newsletter by completing the form on the either my website or my blog. If you’d prefer, you can sign up by emailing me at linda@lindalaroque.com and put newsletter in the subject line. I’m also on Facebook and Twitter.
I have a monthly ebook drawing on my blog every month and would love to have readers stop by my blog to see if it interests them.
Cate: Is there anything you’d like to ask our readers?
Linda: Yes, I’d like to know if readers like to learn a few historical details when reading a historical romance. Also, do you skim any part of a book and if so, which parts – description, internal dialogue, etc.
Cate: Readers, Linda is giving away a book to a random commenter... so start commenting. She’ll announce a winner Friday morning, Feb. 18th. The winner can select an ecopy of any of my books.
Linda: Thank you all for stopping by today, reading my interview, and leaving a comment. It’s always a pleasure to connect with readers and hear what you have to say. Again, Cate, thank you for having me here today.
Cate: Always a pleasure, Linda! Thanks for being my guest.
