Amanda Cabot
As a very special guest to start us off with interviews of Christian authors of then and now, Amanda Cabot, a bestselling author of historical Christian romance, joins us. First, let me introduce her and share the cover of her new book, Echoes of Sunrise.
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From the age of 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 is now the bestselling author of more than forty novels and a variety of novellas. Her books have been honored with starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal and have been finalists for the ACFW Carol Award, the HOLT Medallion, and the Booksellers’ Best. For her, a day is incomplete unless it includes books and at least one pot of tea.
1. Could you tell a bit about your new Sisters of the Heart series—where it’s set and who the characters are who will be featured—friends as close as sisters or real sisters who are best friends as well?
First of all, Barbara, thanks so much for inviting me to join you here. I’m honored to be the first author you’ve interviewed.
I’m excited about my Sisters of the Heart series for a number of reasons. One of those is that I enjoy writing about sisters. That’s why I featured real sisters in two of my previous series. The Westward Winds books introduced readers to the Harding girls, and my most recent series, The Secrets of Sweetwater Crossing, told the stories of the three Vaughn sisters. It was so much fun watching the women interact and showing the differences in their personalities because of birth order and, of course, their individual experiences.
Sisters of the Heart is different in that it features three women who met as adults but who became as close as sisters. They don’t share DNA or childhood experiences, and they come from three very different backgrounds, but despite—or maybe because of—that, they develop unbreakable bonds.
Here’s a brief introduction to the series. They call themselves the three As, not because of their academic achievements although they aren’t slouches in that area, but because their names end in A. Sophia, Victoria, and Olivia are three of the dozen young women in the inaugural class of Mrs. Marshall’s Academy for the Refinement of Young Ladies. As an alternative to the Grand Tour, it gives single women in their mid-twenties the opportunity to live abroad, spending four months each in smaller cities in England, France, and Germany. For these three women, it’s a chance to form deep friendships that rival those of sisters, and as their time in Europe ends, they promise that neither time nor distance will destroy their love for each other and that somehow, someway they’ll be together again.
Since you know how much I (and my readers) enjoy books set in the Texas Hill Country, you won’t be surprised to learn that while the women met in Europe, they all wind up in Sophia’s home town of Carr Valley, Texas.
2. Could you tell some about Book 1, Echoes of Sunrise?
Echoes of Sunrise is the story of Sophia Carr and Gideon Spencer, the man she met and fell in love with during her stay in France. When Gideon was called back to the States to be with his dying friend, he and Sophia promised that they would meet in New York on Independence Day, neither of them dreaming that events would prevent the happy reunion they’d envisioned. Instead of the courtship they’d planned, they enter into a marriage of convenience, one with an unusual stipulation, while they do their best to save Sophia’s town from eventual decline and to protect the young boy Gideon has claimed as his own.
3. Echoes of Sunrise has an intriguing—and beautiful—cover. What inspired this particular scene?
Isn’t the cover gorgeous? When I first envisioned it, I pictured my heroine standing in the backyard of the hotel her family owns, surrounded by live oak trees, but when I had lunch with my cover designer, the extremely talented L.A. Sartor, and started telling her how Sophia, who’s an only child, has had recurring dreams that she has a twin sister, L.A.’s eyes sparkled. “We need both women on the cover,” she declared. And she was right.
4. Speaking of inspiration, could you share how you came up with the story?
I’ve always enjoyed marriage of convenience stories and thought it would be fun to write a slightly different one. My last marriage of convenience book was Scattered Petals, which was published—can you believe it?—fifteen years ago. It was time for another one. Unlike Scattered Petals and most marriage of convenience stories, Sophia and Gideon aren’t strangers who are brought together by external events. Instead, they’ve already developed a relationship, and the marriage they both need tests their commitment to each other.
5. What is the theme and the take away you hope readers will be touched by?
There are several themes in Echoes of Sunrise. One is the need to forgive; another is the need to trust, but the overriding theme of this book and every one of my stories is the healing power of love—the love between a man and a woman and, most of all, God’s love for us.
6. What did you learn while writing this book and in what ways did it impact you as the author?
It wasn’t so much that I learned something new while writing this book but that it reinforced several things. One was the fact that I love writing historical romances. Although I’ve written contemporaries, my heart is definitely in times gone by. I enjoy bringing those times and places to life for my readers, and while it may sound like a cliché, I feel as if I’m at home when I’m writing about the 19th century. And because this book is a story of family relationships—whether by birth or friendships like the three sisters of the heart have developed—it reinforced the importance of keeping those ties strong.
7. Echoes of Sunrise is up for pre-order now. When is the release date—for Kindle and for print.
The Kindle version has a release date of Thursday, March 20. Thursdays are unusual dates for book releases, but that date is very special to me. You see, it’s the date of my first date with my husband. The print version will be available for order on March 14.
8. Could you tell us about One Special Christmas, Book 4 in the Sweetwater Crossing series, for readers who may have missed it and would like one of your stories to enjoy while waiting for the release of Echoes of Sunrise?
When I sold the proposal for the Sweetwater books, there were only supposed to be three, but as I was going through the second round of edits on Into the Starlight, the third Sweetwater story, I realized there was an open question: what happened to a piece of property? I wanted to know the answer, and I suspected my readers did too. And since no one—including me—was ready to leave Sweetwater Crossing, I decided to answer that question. One Special Christmas was supposed to be a novella, but I’ve always been challenged by word count limits, so the story grew and grew and grew until it was a full-length book.
I should note that even though this is a Christmas story, reviewers have told me what I hoped they would, namely that it’s a book that can be enjoyed at any time of the year.
If you’d like to learn more, here’s the back cover copy.
It will take a miracle to salvage her dreams, but Christmas is the season of miracles, isn’t it?
Fearing this may be her young brother’s last Christmas, Greta Engel is determined to make Otto’s dream of spending it at the foot of Pikes Peak come true. She’ll do anything, even selling a priceless family heirloom, to get them away from Houston and the man who threatened both of them. But the trip to the fabled mountain is more arduous than she’d anticipated and a crisis leaves them stranded in the Texas Hill Country.
Even though it’s only a temporary stay, Greta finds much to like about Sweetwater Crossing, including the opportunity to manage the town’s tearoom. And then there’s Matt Nelson, the all too handsome man who’s running for sheriff.
She wants to trust him when he proposes they serve as chaperones to help his brother win the woman of his dreams, but what if she’s making a mistake like the one she did in Houston? What if the rumors are right and there’s more to Matt’s request than he’s admitted?
Greta’s head tells her she and Matt can be nothing more than friends, but her heart has other ideas.
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Thank you, Amanda, for sharing this interview and the stories of your heart!
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