Love Inspired Historicals discussion

Hi Keli! Thanks for being our hostess. I can't believe it's June already. I'm looking forward to this month's Q&A and whatever the special event is.
I'll see you Monday!

Good Morning Keli, May did pass quickly. I'm guessing that the special event is a pretend wedding because June is known as a month for weddings. Glad we get more chances to win a LIH book. So upset that they Harlequin will discontinue LIH. I hope I don't forget to be here next week.

Keli,
Hard to believe it is June already. Looking forward to the Q & A.

Hello LIH friends! I did a guest review on Susanne Dietze's My Heart Belongs in Ruby City, Idaho. I know it's not one of our LIH books but she is one of our LIH authors so I thought I would share. If you leave a comment on the blog post you will be entered to win a copy of the book. I think the contest is only for a couple of days so go enter! It would be great if one of you win.
https://cfpagels.blogspot.com/2017/06...

Hi Keli,

I'm looking forward to the Q & A. I love books with children in them and this month we have one with twins and one with triplets! I think just writing a book about triplets would make me tired. LOL

I'm also looking forward to the special event! It's going to be a great month!

Seven books being given away by our generous authors this month? I have my work cut out for me. I'm taking down names, so bring your friends along, ladies.

Andrea wrote: "Hello LIH friends! I did a guest review on Susanne Dietze's My Heart Belongs in Ruby City, Idaho. I know it's not one of our LIH books but she is one of our LIH authors so I thought I would share. ..."


Thanks , Andrea. We have to support our authors.

sounds interesting. was it hard keeping the triplets straight as in which one was which (personalities etc)

Good morning everyone! May did seem to fly by. Especially because at the end of May my brother, sister-in-law and niece came in for Memorial Weekend! It was so fun to see everyone. I won a book last Q&A so please don't enter me in this month's contest. As to the surprise event I agree with Brenda something with a wedding! In fact this past weekend started Hallmark's June Wedding movies! Those are always so much fun to watch and then we have a week of Christmas movies during the first week of July.

Ok about The Bride's Matchmaking Triplets. I will definitely be getting this one since I have the other two books in the continuity as well as I love Regina' work. I just finished reading the first groups of the Lone Star Cowboy League both the LI & LIH. I decided I need some suspense so last night I started the K-9 Rookie continuity by our LIS authors.

So to my question and it's for all our authors. With the closing of the LIH line will there be one last continuity for 2018?

Hi Regina! How much information were you given for this story? Did it limit you in any way?

Thanks for hosting us, Keli! Elizabeth has been a nanny/governess for several years in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but her charges are at the point where the parents want to send them to boarding school, so she was looking for her next big challenge when she decided to come to Little Horn. Still, nothing prepared her for triplets!

Jenny, it was actually pretty easy. Linda Ford, who has a lot more experience with children than I have, came up with the descriptions and personalities for the triplets. Noelle embroidered on them, and I took it from there. It was fun watching them "grow" through the books. They are about 9 months in Linda's book, 10 months in Noelle's, and coming up on a year by the time my book ends.

Hi, Laura! I don't know about another continuity. I haven't been asked to write a piece of it, but I'll ask around and see if I can find out.

Hi, Wendy! The information we're given for these books is pretty thorough--character backstory and descriptions, community descriptions, basic plot and subplots. That said, it's like a framework. All the lines have been given, but it's up to you to put in the colors and shapes. Elizabeth Mazer, the continuity editor, is wonderful to work with. She was ready to listen to suggestions from Linda, Noelle, and me, so we even got to redefine the framework a bit to make the stories fit our personal styles.

Laura, just connected with Elizabeth, the continuity editor. She says LIH will be returning to Cowboy Creek, the continuity that ran from April to June of 2016, for another three-book series with the same authors-Cheryl St. John, Sherri Shackelford, and Karen Kirst. The books focus on three brothers finding love and building their own families in the Kansas boomtown. They will be out in April, May, and June 2018.

I've already read The Bride's Matchmaking Triplets and enjoyed it so don't put me in today's drawing for it.
Is LIH still closing down? When will the last LIH book be published?
I really wish LIH would continue.

Hi, Brenda! Glad you enjoyed the book.

Yes, alas, LIH will be closing, but not until June 2018, so we have a whole year of books to look forward to. I think they announced it so early because publishers accept proposals for books a year before publication date, and they didn't want more books in a pipeline that was closing.

Hi Regina! What an adorable cover! I love it. I wish I had been at that cover shoot! LOL

I watched one of my best friends raise twins along with a two year old and, I'll tell you, it was a full time job! Especially when they started to crawl. One would go one way and the other the opposite way. They absolutely tormented the poor two year old who would try to play with his toys.

Did you have any friends with twins so you could call on their experiences for ideas for the triplets?

Brenda and Laura, I have made note of your requests concerning the drawing for books this month. I'll follow your wishes.

And may I say...Good guess about the special event we are holding next week! Wrong...but good. LOL

Regina, it seems like most of your books have been set in the Regency era. What was it like to switch historical periods? Was it challenging the first time you did it, or a breath of fresh air?

Anon101, I didn't do any research on maternity mortality. This is one of those rare books where the editor invites an author to write a set story, so it didn't matter if triplets were incredibly rare or that many babies and mothers didn't make it through childbirth on the frontier. But my mother is an amateur genealogist, and she would tell you that too many babies didn't make it into the world or died in infancy. So sad! Makes me glad for modern medicine!

Thanks, Dorothy! Appreciate your faithfulness in keeping track of our winners!

No friends with twins, but I have twin cousins 9 years younger than I am, and I certainly watched them grow up. Mostly I relied on Linda Ford's incredible knowledge of little ones. She brought the triplets to life. I just aged them a little--LOL.

Hi, Hannah! I researched the Regency period for 10 years before my first book set then was published. I had always wanted to write about my local history and had been researching pioneer Washington Territory on and off since I was 18 before writing my first book set in frontier Seattle. When my editor invited me to write about 1890s Texas, I had six months to bone up. It was certainly a challenge, but I enjoyed trying something new. I hope I did the time period and location justice.

Ok so it's not a wedding celebration. Well I just looked and the LIH line started in Feb 2008 so are we celebrating almost 9 1/2 years of publishing? I know that the party isn't a good bye party cause there is a year left of books and we aren't closing the group down.

Hi, Regina! I'm a little late today. So many good questions have already been asked. Did writing this book make you wish you had been a mom to multiples? I also love your Regency books, do you have a preference in which genre to write it? Do you ever find yourself writing words that belong in the other genre?

Another good guess about the special event, Laura. You're coming up with reasons that hadn't even occurred to me! But...nope. : )
Care to try again?

Regina wrote: "Thanks, Dorothy! Appreciate your faithfulness in keeping track of our winners!

No friends with twins, but I have twin cousins 9 years younger than I am, and I certainly watched them grow up. Mostl..."

If you watched your twin cousins grow you must have had impressions about twins. They can be funny! Those twins of my friend were identical, and when they were teens and would get into an argument over something, one would say to the other, Get your ugly face away from me!

Hello, ladies! I have already had the pleasure of reading The Bride's Matchmaking Triplets, and it is a delightful story!

What did you enjoy most about being part of this continuity series, Regina? What were some of the challenges?

Andrea--it's funny. Twins run in my family. When I was pregnant the first time, there was a moment when the doctor thought he heard two heartbeats. I was so excited! When they did the test to be sure and found only one baby--I grieved. Of course, it turned out that one baby was a handful. So, no, I don't think I could handle triplets!

I love the Regency period, but I love other times in history too, so it's been a blessing getting to explore different eras. I have to be very careful to only deal with one book at a time, though, or my pioneer Seattle folks or Little Horn cowboys start sounding a bit British. :-)

Dorothy--LOL! Love it! I'm working on a story now with twin 8-year-old brothers. I can see them doing that.

Hi, Britney! (waving)

I loved working with the other two authors, Linda Ford and Noelle Marchand. They are wonderful! And I liked revisiting Little Horn. After two continuities, I can safely say I don't do well with ideas that aren't my own. Both times the story seems to have come out all right (at least you all tell me you liked it!), but oh, what a fight all the way through. (Not with the editors--with myself.) I grew up as a "pantser" type of writer--jumping off into an idea and seeing where it led. I've gradually moved myself into more of a plotting mode, which was hard enough. Using someone else's plot nearly did me in. But hats off to the editors who come up with the great stories in these continuities!

Hi , Regina,
I enjoy all the stories with twins and triplets. You seem to do well no matter what the time period is. What type of story are you currently working on? How long does it take you to write a story?
Loved reading everyone's questions and your answers.

Hi, Melinda! Thank you for your kind words.

I am currently working on the final book in my Frontier Bachelors series, about Beth Wallin, the younger sister of my logging brothers. She's played matchmaker for them all. Now it's her turn. :-)

Depending on how much research I need to do, a book can take me anywhere from 3 months to a year to write.

Thanks for answering. Looking forward to Beth's book as the Frontier Bachelors series as been one of my favorite.

Thank you, Melinda!

Hello Regina! I just got home from vacation and I'm catching up! Sounds like a great book! I love books with children and this one has TRIPLETS!!!! You hit the jackpot! Can't wait to read it!

Good morning! I'm thrilled to join you today for the Q&A.

Keli, to answer your question, Singapore, Michigan was a real town. It was one of the lumber boom towns that vanished once the timber ran out. Singapore has an additional distinction in that it was located on the sand dunes at the mouth of the Kalamazoo River. Over time the shifting sands buried the abandoned buildings, leading some to dub it "Michigan's Pompeii".

When I was first married, I lived in nearby Saugatuck, just upriver from the site of Singapore. The archaeologist in me was always fascinated by the story of Singapore, which at one time was a thriving town. I wanted to dig, but since that wasn't an option, I settled for writing a series of stories set there. The last book in the series, Would-Be Mistletoe Wife, due out in December, will wrap up the series and lead into the town's final years.

Morning everyone! Another great sounding book! Even though they are discontinuing the LIH line it sounds like a lot of our authors will be finishing their current series. I am really looking forward to reading them. Do any of our other authors have series they will be finishing by next June?

As to next week's surprise? Is it a party to celebrate some of our newest LIH authors? I went back and looked and we have had quite a few new authors join LIH this past year.

I will defer on both of these questions, though I'm intrigued by the surprise party too. What could it be????

Christine, this sounds like a wonderful story!
What inspired you to have Fiona be a theater singer?

Christine, I have loved the first two books you published through Revell and am looking forward to the third. I loved the sense of time and place and the descriptions, and feel like I almost took a trip there. I haven't yet read any of your LIH books; what are some of the challenges of creating a similar sense of setting in a shorter format?

Christine,
I have enjoyed this series. What has made Sawyer so determined to make it on his own and to be accepted for a person instead of his wealth?

Laura AKA Loves 2 Read Romance wrote: "Morning everyone! Another great sounding book! Even though they are discontinuing the LIH line it sounds like a lot of our authors will be finishing their current series. I am really looking forwar..."

Laura, all of the books currently under contract by LIH will be published. That may leave some of the current series unfinished, and some of them may be shortened. My Stand-In Brides series will now be finished with the completion of the third book. I'm writing that book now. I don't know what will happen with the stories that I had planned to write for the series. I hope that answers your question.

Having a party to celebrate the new LIH authors is a wonderful idea! I wish I'd thought of it! But, no...that's not what the special event is. : )

Hi Christine. I love your cover. I'm really going to miss the wonderful artists that design the LIH book covers.

To follow up on Laura's question. I see this is book #3 of your current LIH series. Will this series be finished before the LIH line closes?

Ooh, I like the sound of this one, wondering how Sawyer is going to prove to Fiona he should be the one she marries! What was the idea that sparked this story?

Andrea wrote: "Christine, this sounds like a wonderful story!
What inspired you to have Fiona be a theater singer?"

Hi Andrea! Thank you!

Hmm. I don't have a good answer for your question, because Fiona sprang to life with that as her background. When a character makes an appearance, I act more as the interviewer, trying to get at what makes her (or him) tick. Fiona's fancy clothing and somewhat arrogant attitude made me wonder why she would travel to a lumbering town in answer to a mail order bride advertisement. It didn't make sense. She's pretty private, so it took a lot of prodding to get at the heart of her story.

Hannah wrote: "Christine, I have loved the first two books you published through Revell and am looking forward to the third. I loved the sense of time and place and the descriptions, and feel like I almost took a..."

Hi Hannah! I'm so honored you enjoyed the two books with Revell. Thank you!

Great question! My tendency is to cram the same amount of detail into the shorter books. Since I personally love the inclusion of sensory detail, I usually limit the subplots rather than cut back on the setting.

Melinda wrote: "Christine,
I have enjoyed this series. What has made Sawyer so determined to make it on his own and to be accepted for a person instead of his wealth?"

Hi Melinda! This is really hard to answer without giving away some of the plot. Let me just say it has a lot to do with his upbringing.

Dorothy wrote: "Hi Christine. I love your cover. I'm really going to miss the wonderful artists that design the LIH book covers.

To follow up on Laura's question. I see this is book #3 of your current LIH series...."

Yes, this series finishes up in December with Would-Be Mistletoe Wife. I hope you can find a home for the rest of the stories in your Stand-In Brides series. My heart still aches for the closing of the line.

Anon1001 wrote: "Do you have to read this series in order?"

Welcome! Great question.

Book 1, Mail Order Mix-Up, and Book 2, Mail Order Mommy, will make more sense when read in order. Book 3, Mail Order Sweetheart, could be read out of order since the storyline doesn't depend on the first two books.

Wendy wrote: "Ooh, I like the sound of this one, wondering how Sawyer is going to prove to Fiona he should be the one she marries! What was the idea that sparked this story?"

Hi Wendy! This is one of those stories where the characters dictated the storyline. I had to get to know Sawyer and Fiona, and then I had to learn why Fiona didn't think Sawyer was good enough for her. Lots of digging, and these characters weren't ready to divulge all their secrets up front! I learned a few things deep into the writing.