Talkshow Thursday: Meet award winning author Amanda Cabot

Talkshow Thursday: Meet award winning author Amanda Cabot

Linda:  Thanks for stopping by my blog, and congratulations on your latest release A Borrowed Dream. I appreciate that your books can be read in any order, even those part of a set. What was your inspiration for this particular story?

Amanda: I’m delighted to be here, Linda, and thank you for the opportunity to be part of your blog.  As for the inspiration for this book, if you’ve read the last of my Westward Winds trilogy, With Autumn’s Return, you know that I’m interested in nineteenth century medicine, especially the advances that occurred when the horrors of what was called Heroic Medicine (techniques like bleeding and purging) were replaced by more modern theories such as cleanliness. I still shudder when I think about those leeches, not to mention the bleeding cups!

Since I’d already created a heroine who was a doctor (Elizabeth in With Autumn’s Return), I didn’t want to repeat that. That would be boring for you and for me. Instead, I decided to pair a woman who’s seen just how barbaric Heroic Medicine can be and who has a justifiable mistrust of all physicians with a highly skilled surgeon. You can imagine the conflict that caused.

LM:  Wow! You're right - I can only imagine the conflict! How do you decide where to set a story?

Amanda: The short answer is: carefully.  The full answer is a bit longer.  First of all, the setting needs to be someplace I’ve actually visited.  While I know some authors are comfortable doing their research about places online, I believe it’s important to know what the air smells like, to see and touch the plants that are growing there, to listen to residents’ accents, to taste the local cuisine.  In other words, I need all my senses engaged before I can begin to write a book.  It also has to be a place that ignites my imagination, and it’s an easier sell to a publisher if it’s a reader favorite.  The Texas Hill Country meets all those criteria, which is the reason the majority of my books are set there.

LM: Lots of research goes into each story to ensure historical accuracy. On your website you indicate that a great place to start researching is the children’s section of the library. What is an “aha” or “wow” moment you had while conducting research for one of your books?

Amanda: When I started thinking about what became my Texas Dreams trilogy, I knew I wanted to set it in the Hill Country and expected my fictional town to have been settled by Germans like so many of the Hill Country communities.  But as I was reading T.R. Fehrenbach’s Lone Star (not something I found in the children’s section!), I found a reference to a town whose settlers came from Alsace and were both French and German.  That was a definite aha! moment, because it gave me a readymade conflict based on the centuries-old enmity between those two countries.

LM: I love that! Have you ever experienced writer’s block, and if so, what did you do to push through it?

Amanda: I’ve never had a full-fledged attack of writer’s block, but there are times when I’d rather be doing anything – even cleaning house, which is my least favorite thing in the world – than writing.  When that happens, I take a walk.  I’m a firm believer in the therapeutic effects of exercise, not only for burning calories but also for releasing endorphins and breaking through mental barriers.

LM: Great advice! What is your least favorite part of the writing process?

Amanda: Without a doubt, it’s the first draft.  I refer to them as the skeletons.  Like real skeletons, first drafts are essential, because they’re the framework on which everything else rests, but they’re ugly.  I’m always thrilled when I finish that first draft and can start adding the flesh and blood, which is my term for the second draft.

LM: Here are some quickies:

Amanda:

Favorite childhood book: Little Women

Favorite season: Spring

Favorite place to vacation: Yellowstone

LM: What is your next project?

Amanda:  The publishing cycle is so long that you may not be surprised to know that I’m currently working on the first book in a new series.  This one, which has only a working title at this point, will be released in 2020.  Like the Cimarron Creek books, it’s set in a fictional town in the Texas Hill Country, but unlike them, it takes place in an earlier time, specifically 1856.  Meanwhile, A Tender Hope, which is the last of the Cimarron Creek trilogy, has been through its first round of edits, and the cover is being designed as we speak.  That book will be released in March 2019. 

LM: Where can folks find you on the web?

Amanda:

The first place to start is my web site, www.amandacabot.com.  That’s the go-to spot for information about each of my books, including excerpts, discussion group questions, and – new for A Borrowed Dream – bonus features.

You can also find me on Facebook at either my author page https://www.facebook.com/AuthorAmandaCabot/ or my personal one  https://www.facebook.com/amanda.j.cabot

If you prefer Twitter, I’m there too.  https://twitter.com/AmandaJoyCabot/

And, if you’d like to learn a bit more about my adopted home, be sure to look for my Wednesday in Wyoming posts on my blog http://amandajoycabot.blogspot.com/.

Book Blurb: 

There is no such thing as an impossible dream . . .

Catherine Whitfield is sure that she will never again be able to trust anyone in the medical profession after the local doctor’s treatments killed her mother. Despite her loneliness and her broken heart, she carries bravely on as Cimarron Creek’s dutiful schoolteacher, resigned to a life where dreams rarely come true.

Austin Goddard is a newcomer to Cimarron Creek. Posing as a rancher, he fled to Texas to protect his daughter from a dangerous criminal. He’s managed to keep his past as a surgeon a secret. But when Catherine Whitfield captures his heart, he wonders how long he will be able to keep up the charade.

With a deft hand, Amanda Cabot teases out the strands of love, deception, and redemption in this charming tale of dreams deferred and hopes becoming reality.

Purchase Links: 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0800727576

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-borrowed-dream-amanda-cabot/1126332861?ean=9780800727574

https://www.christianbook.com/a-borrowed-dream-2/amanda-cabot/9780800727574/pd/727570?product_redirect=1&Ntt=727570&item_code=&Ntk=keywords&event=ESRCP

Amanda's Bio: Amanda Cabot is the bestselling author of more than thirty novels including the Texas Dreams trilogy, the Westward Winds series, the Texas Crossroads trilogy, A Stolen Heart, and Christmas Roses. A former director of Information Technology, she has written everything from technical books and articles for IT professionals to mysteries for teenagers and romances for all ages.  Amanda is delighted to now be a fulltime writer of Christian romances, living happily ever after with her husband in Wyoming.