Peeking Between the Pages

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Guest Post with RaeAnne Thayne, author of Woodrose Mountain & Giveaway

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Today we have RaeAnne Thayne, author of Woodrose Mountain which releases on March 27, with us here at Peeking Between the Pages.  Doesn’t this book have the prettiest cover?  I haven’t yet had a chance to read this novel but it sounds wonderful and I’m excited to be able to share this guest post and giveaway with my readers.  RaeAnne joins us today with her thoughts in a post entitled My Writing Journey…

 

I’m one of those rare and fortunate people who have actually been able to realize a dream – forty times over! I still have to pinch myself sometimes to make sure it’s real.

While I didn’t set out to be a writer when I was young, I was always a voracious reader who used to sneak books and flashlights under my covers at night to squeeze a little more reading time out of my day. I hated not having a book in my hands and by the time I reached junior high school, my favorite genre had become romance novels. I didn’t care whether I read historical romance or contemporary romance, I just wanted (and still do!) the kind of story where two deserving people confront difficult challenges and must grow and stretch and change before they can find joy.

My love of reading led me to a career in journalism. I enjoyed the excitement and diversity of working in a busy newsroom but throughout the decade I spent as a reporter and editor, I dreamed about writing a romance novel. My friends at the college newspaper where I worked used to hang out between deadlines trying to come up with pseudonyms for me!

Like many dreamers, I didn’t do anything more than talk about it for a while but I finally gathered the courage to start my first book a few years after college, when I was home on maternity leave with our oldest daughter, who is now twenty-one. Writing that first book was a magical experience, exploring this incredible, exciting world where I suddenly had ultimate power.

By then, I was the news editor for the daily paper where I worked, charged each day with reading through every wire service story to choose those that would run in our paper. Reading each day about murders and wars and political corruption was tough, grueling business. I found a much-needed escape through this fictional world I was creating during my time off. I would get up at 4 a.m. each day, write for a few hours, then rush to the newspaper office for my shift that started at six-thirty. Writing became my joy and my comfort!

For the next five years, I did all I could to learn my craft, reading everything I was able to get my hands on about storytelling. I completed two books in that time and endured some hard disappointments and rejection, a rite of passage for all writers! I had some successes, too, which fueled the fire inside me, most notably selling several romantic short stories to Woman’s World magazine.

In August of 1995, I received The Call, informing me Bantam wanted to buy my first two books for their Loveswept line. I don’t think any author ever forgets that moment! Mine was about two o’clock on a Friday afternoon. I remember it with brilliant clarity – my five-year-old daughter and a couple of friends running around the house laughing and playing, our wild German shorthair barking at them in the background and trying to join the fun, and me on the phone to an editor I had been working with, trying to sound calm. As I hung up, I sank to the kitchen floor (probably desperately in need of mopping!) and started to shake. I can remember thinking my life was now going to change, ready or not.

I wrote three more books for Loveswept before the publisher discontinued the imprint in 1998. It was a scary time, as I had only months earlier quit my job at the newspaper to write full-time and be a stay-at-home mom upon the birth of our second child. To my vast relief and delight, I quickly found a new home with Harlequin/Silhouette, where I’ve been ever since.

Forty books later, I still can’t quite believe I have taken a dream that once seemed impossibly out of reach and somehow wrestled it into reality.

In my latest book, WOODROSE MOUNTAIN – second in my Hope’s Crossing series for HQN – my heroine has dreams of her own, of finding peace and serenity in the small Colorado town. Evie Blanchard has struggled with pain and loss and wants nothing more than a quiet place to rebuild her life. When Brodie Thorne shows up at her doorstep pleading for her help with his brain-injured daughter’s rehab, Evie is torn between protecting herself and potentially changing a young girl’s life.

In the process, she discovers – as I have over these last two decades and 40 books, that sometimes dreams shift and evolve – becoming something better than we ever could have imagined.

What about you? What are your dreams and how are you working to make them come true? If you have already made it happen, what lessons did you learn through the process?

 

About Woodrose Mountain

Six months ago Evie Blanchard left her hectic life in Los Angeles for the peace of a small town. She loved her job as a pediatric physical therapist there when her adopted special-needs child passed away from complications of her condition, Evie was thrown into an emotional tailspin.

Walking away from the medical field and moving to Hope’s Crossing has helped Evie find the calm and serenity lacking in her life. While some part of her misses helping children gain or regain the skills they need for daily life, she loves her friendships with the clients at Claire’s bead store where she now works, as well as the creative challenge of designing custom jewelry on the side. She has even started a popular occupational therapy beading program for senior citizens to help arthritic hands maintain flexibility and strength.

Evie loves her life here. But her new-found peace is threatened when widower Brodie Thorne bursts into her life, along with his injured daughter, Taryn, seriously wounded in the crash in BLACKBERRY SUMMER and facing extensive rehabilitation.

Evie doesn’t want to become involved with Brodie or Taryn. It’s one thing to help senior citizens open jar lids. It’s something else entirely when the person in need is a girl who is now in a wheelchair and may never walk again or even be able to hold a pencil. Evie knows she must steel her emotions against giving everything inside her to another child. But she is no match for Brodie, 38, who will do anything for his daughter, even humble himself by asking Evie to help him care for Taryn. Brodie brings the same intensity to giving his daughter a new chance at life that he does to all his vast business and real-estate endeavors around Hope’s Crossing.

Despite Evie’s best efforts to keep a safe emotional distance, she finds herself inexorably tugged into the lives of Brodie and Taryn. The girl becomes a symbol to everyone in Hope’s Crossing of healing and recovery, of second chances, and the entire town becomes invested in helping her. Evie is heartened by the changes in the town she has come to love and she begins to realize she must confront the shadows of her past so that she and Brodie can work together to build a future for his daughter … and for themselves.

Pre-order your own copy of Woodrose Mountain at Amazon.com or Amazon.ca

 

About RaeAnne Thayne

USA TODAY bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne started off as a newspaper reporter and editor for fifteen years. She sold her first book in 1995 and since then she’s published nearly forty more. Her books have won many honors, including three RITA® Award nominations from the Romance Writers of America and a Career Achievement Award from RT Book Reviews magazine. RaeAnne finds inspiration from the rugged northern Utah mountains, where she lives with her hero of a husband and their children.

RaeAnne’s website
Find RaeAnne on Facebook
Follow RaeAnne on Twitter

 

GIVEAWAY DETAILS

I have one copy of Woodrose Mountain by RaeAnne Thayne to share with my readers.  To enter…

  • For 1 entry simply leave me a comment entering the giveaway.
  • For 2 entries, follow my blog.  If you already do, thank you, and please let me know so I can pass the extra entry on to you as well.
  • For 3 entries, blog or tweet this giveaway and spread the word!

This giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents only (no PO boxes) and I will draw for the winner on Saturday, March 17/12.  Good luck everyone!

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Comments

  7. The book sounds great, and what a pretty cover. I enjoyed reading about the authors journey to becoming a published writer. Nice guest post 🙂

  9. It does sound as if becoming an author was a dream come true for her, and I loved hearing that story in her own words. I used to think I didn’t like romance novels, but that was before I read a few good ones! I loved this guest post, Dar, and would love to be entered in your giveaway! Thanks so much for sharing this with us!

    zibilee(at)figearo(dot)net

    • Zibilee,

      I love hearing about people who have given romance novels a chance! Thanks for commenting 🙂

  11. RaeAnne is not only a fabulous writer, but a generous teacher, willing to share her insight and tips about keeping your writing life sustainable. She is one of those people who has made her own success and deserves every bit of it!

    Best of luck with your current new release, RaeAnne!

  12. Thanks so much for having me, Darlene! Sometimes I get so wrapped up in the craziness of right now that I don’t look back at the joy I’ve experienced in the journey over the last twenty years.

  14. RaeAnne, I am always delighted to read your books and I love the new ones. This sounds fantastic. I enjoy hearing about the beginning to where you are today, it gives me the needed nudge that it’ll happen. Wonderful post, ladies.

  15. What a great post. Please enter me in the giveaway.

    I am a GFC follower – kayswederski

    Thanks!

  16. RaeAnne, I love your books! Period. That’s all – I just love everything you write. This sounds really good – as usual.
    I enjoyed learning more about you – thanks.

  17. I have an autographed copy of Blackberry summer and it is one of my prized possessions. I love your books and can’t wait to read this one.

    • Thanks Elaing8 🙂 So glad you enjoyed Blackberry Summer. I just finished Sweet Laurel Falls (Maura’s story) and can’t wait until October when it comes out!

  21. RaeAnne is an inspiration to our RWA chapter, and I’ve been lucky to get to know her both as an accomplished author, and person. Best wishes for success with Woodrose Mountain (just the name makes me want to live there).

    • Joelene, thank you 🙂 I’m having great fun coming up with all kinds of great place names for this series. I’m not sure the rough-and-rugged miners who settled my Colorado town would actually ever name anything Woodrose Mountain (or Sweet Laurel Falls, for that matter!) but it’s my fictional world and I can name things what I want. LOL

  24. RaeAnne God has really blessed us with your talent. What an accomplishment forty books in two decades!
    Looking forward to read Woodrose Mountain. Thanks for the opportunity to win one of your books.

  29. RaeAnn! Congratulations on the next release. I’m so excited to get my hands on more stories from Hope’s Crossing. And thank you for sharing your journey. It’s heartening to know that great writers like you also struggled a bit in the beginning. I love your new photo, too.

  35. I always enjoy reading about an author’s journey into their career. I really liked that you kept believing in yourself and took time to learn your craft. I imagine you wouldn’t forget that first call! 🙂 I have some dreams I’m working on realizing. I’m keeping quiet about them and hoping they come true.

  40. I never got to read Blackberry Summer but I would gladly buy so I could read it before this story. I love this kind of book. It sounds so heartwarming.

    CarolNWong(at)aol(dot)com

  43. RaeAnne, the description of this book brought me to tears. All your books are so emotionally satisfying and this promises to be another great one. Thank you for sharing your story to publication. They are my favorite.

  45. RaeAnne, it was fun reading about your experience. You are a wonderful writer and I have enjoyed your books!! I want to be like YOU when I grow up. (wink)

    Marie

  46. I will have to get the 1st book in the series because I definately want to read both. I love the cover, I would have stopped to check out the story. Thanks for the giveaway. I’m a follower & tweeted about it. 😉

  49. I am a new reader for RaeAnne’s work. I must say I really love her and look forward to reading more and more! Thanks so much for sharing her thoughts on how she got started as a writer…it makes me feel that there is hope for me as well since I am a late bloomer in this arena!

      • Susan, thank you so much. There is absolutely hope for you! I knew nothing about fiction writing at all before I sat down to write my first book. My philosophy is that anyone who works hard enough, keeps at it and never stops trying to improve will succeed as a writer! Best of luck to you.

  50. I haven’t read any of RaeAnne’s books but I’ll remember to look for them the next time I’m in the library! I love the story of her finding out she’d be a published author!!

    • Staci, it really was a magical moment. It’s been fun looking back, all these years later. We were still poor, struggling twenty-somethings and my husband took me out that night to what at the time seemed like a grand indulgence for us — Red Lobster 🙂 I remember sitting in the restaurant over our cheesy biscuits and feeling like I had seriously won the lottery. I was going to be a published author! It’s still cool — I received the author copies today for Woodrose Mountain and even though I have boxes of author copies from my previous releases, I still pulled one out of the box and couldn’t stop grinning.

  51. Oh gosh, this is an awesome series!!! Please, I beg you to include me in this one!!!
    I read the first one and believe it will leave you wanting to get your hands on this one!!!
    I am a gfc and I tweeted about this!!!

  59. From the first meeting I ever attended at the Utah RWA Chapter, you’ve been an inspiration to me. I love your books. I’m excited to have an opportunity to win a copy of your new one.

  60. Sounds like a great book, and I’d enjoy reading it. I really love the cover. Please enter me. Thanks!
    ayancey(at)dishmail(dot)net