Welcome Betty!

November 21, 2019 | Leave A Comment

Good Morning! Welcome to TBR Thursday–where I introduce you to a new author and book to add to your “to be read” pile. This week I welcome fellow Common Elements Romance Project author Betty Bolte.

First, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I’m happy to be here, Christina! I’ve been a technical writer and editor since the 1990s, working as afreelance, temporary, and a corporate employee at different times. I love to travel, visiting historic sites for research or just for the fun of it. I’ve lived in 6 different states in America. I enjoy long walks, crocheting, reading, playing my guitar and singing, and a classic gin martini. Not all at once, though! And of course I read practically nonstop, everything from nonfiction for research to novels in a variety of genres including classics. I adore Charles Dickens’ last novel, Our Mutual Friend, for example, though I recall not enjoying his works when I was in high school. I have other classics I want to read but haven’t gotten to yet, so that’s on my long to-do list, too. I think that list is at 3 pages right now.

Married, single, or waiting for Mr. or Mrs. Right?

I’ve been happily married for 32 years and counting. Not that it’s been all peaches and cream, but we’re better together, one of the recurring themes I’ve discovered in my stories, too.

What are some day jobs that you have held?

I love working with words every way I can, so I’ve been a secretary, a word processor, government clerk, and of course a writer of essays, magazine and newspaper article, nonfiction books, and most recently fiction. I worked for a time as the secretary for a small-town planning commission, wrote a newspaper column on life in the Sandwich Generation (having my dad living with my hubby and I and our young children), and did some nonfiction editing of books. While I focus on fiction now, I still do some freelance editing of fiction and nonfiction now and then to keep my hand in that realm.

Have any of them impacted your writing? How so?

I believe every one of my jobs has had some kind of impact on my writing. First, by helping me learn how to define the intended audience and purpose of the piece I’m writing, whether it’s a technical manual or rocket science (literally) or an essay or article or even the governance documents for one of my organizations. Knowing that helps me with word choices and sentence length, for example. Second, by helping me hone my authorial voice and altering it to suit the intended audience.Third, it helped me strengthen my ability to write—to put thoughts together and on the page without fearing the process, because I know I can change them if I don’t like them. Unlike before the wonders of personal computers and word processing software! I remember when cut and paste was manual labor using sticky tape and an Exacto knife. Now I’m showing my age, aren’t I?

When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

I am a natural writer, having started writing reports and short stories as a child. Those efforts simply evolved into writing novels and nonfiction books over my lifetime. But let me be clear: just because I have always written doesn’t mean writing novels is easy! I actually find it more of a challenge than nonfiction.With fiction you need to invent entire lives for the characters so you can understand each person’s motivation and reasons for their beliefs and reactions to events. Nonfiction is way more straightforward. But I love crafting great stories?

What do you think most characterizes your writing?

Wow, that’s a tough question! I’m told I write good stories with depth of characters and interesting situations. And I work really hard at ensuring the historical accuracy of my historical fiction/romance, too. I hope readers will come away from my historical stories in particular with a better sense of the world as it was during the time period in the story.

Tell us about your Common Elements book.

I love Roxie and Leo’s story so much! Charmed Against All Odds released on November 11 and has been called the best book I’ve written by my daughter who is both a voracious reader and one of my beta readers.Charmed is also my 20th published book, both fiction and nonfiction. Roxie is a witch happy to run the family business, the Golden Owl Books and Brews bookstore, until her ex-fiance Leo returns unexpectedly to town carrying a silver jewelry box that changes their lives forever. They’re under a quest spell and are told they have to go find hidden charms to put on an enchanted charm bracelet to finish the spell and learn their true destiny. But he has no interest in staying in town where his powers were bound in punishment for misusing them.

Where did the idea come from for your Common Elements book?

The idea for locating the charms and putting the bracelet together is the reverse of Harry Potter’s quest to find and destroy the Horcruxes. I was enjoying a Harry Potter marathon with my husband and son and pondering the backstory of Roxie and Leo. I wanted something that would bring these two lovers together again and make them become reluctant partners, force them to fall back in love. It is a romance, after all! So I came up with the idea of them having to relive important moments of their past relationship so they could come to understand what they’d pushed away. An interesting bit of serendipity about the title is that I was coming home from a writers’ retreat where I’d been working on Roxie’s story when I heard the song Against All Odds by Phil Collins on the radio. The story in the song of one person walking away from their love inspired both the backstory concept and the title for the book. Then it was a matter of interrogating my characters to understand their story.

How does it fit in with your other books?

This story is the oldest sister’s story of the three witches who run the bookstore in Roseville, TN. She’s always been the most sure of herself and I think of her as capable and somewhat bossy. In a loving sort of way, of course.

Is it part of a larger series?

Charmed Against All Odds is Book 5 of the Secrets of Roseville paranormal romance series. The first 2 books take place in Twin Oaks, a haunted plantation house outside of Roseville owned by the O’Connell sisters, then books 3 and 4 tell Roxie’s sisters’ stories. All five women are cousins so you learn a good bit about their family and heritage in the five romances.

What did you enjoy most about writing this book?

Creating the stories behind each of the charms, and selecting a charm that represents one of the traits of a strong relationship based on my own experience. I really had to live Roxie and Leo’s youth with them in order to help them restore the love they’d denied as teens. The process brought home to me what I think is important for my own relationship with my husband.So it turned out to be a good reminder for me, too.

Okay…time for the Hot Seat…

1. You are going on the show Fear Factor. What are you facing?

I so understand Indiana Jones’ statement of “why’d it have to be snakes?”! Actually, snakes, cockroaches, spiders, anything that slithers and scurries qualifies. The worst experience ever was having a mouse on my pillow one morning while I was still in bed…shivers! Trust me, the hubby was yelled for to come deal with it!

2. What is the most random memory you have from a vacation?

I remember when I was a girl my dad got mad at me because he wanted to take a photo of me squatting in the hollow of a tree trunk. See my note above about spiders and such and you can imagine the reason for my refusal to sit in that dark and to me scary place! He was a professional photographer and thought it would look adorable, but I wouldn’t do it. He was so frustrated with me!

3. What was the last thing (besides a book) that you bought online?

I bought a charm bracelet and 2 charms I used in my book: an open book and the word Friends. I called it a Book Friend Bracelet. That was a prize I gave away at the Facebook launch party in September for the Common Elements Romance Project. I’m tempted to actually buy the complete bracelet for myself to wear…

What one piece of advice (negative or positive) drove you to become a better writer?

I had a world history professor at Indiana University in 1994 tell me that I couldn’t write history. He was obviously saying that my writing had too much of a narrative flair, not scholarly enough to suit him. Now I write historical fiction/romance, including winning a gold medal from the Children’s Literary Classics organization for my historical fiction/biography book, Hometown Heroines: True Stories of Bravery, Daring, and Adventure in 2015. I guess he was wrong after all.

What is the next project you’re working on?

I have several in the works at one time, which is more than a little daunting, let me tell you! I’m outlining book 2 in my Fury Falls Inn historical fiction series. Book 1, The Haunting of Fury Falls Inn, released October 1 to good reviews, too. Notes of Love and War, a WWII story set in Baltimore, MD, is out to beta readers and I hope to publish it in the spring of 2020. I also have a historical fiction story to revise and choose a publication path for next year, debating on finding a publisher who might be interested or indie publishing.But I want this story out for readers to enjoy one way or the other.

Where can we find out more about you and what you write?

I pop in and out of a lot of different sites, so feel free to pick and choose from the following list or sign up for my newsletter at https://www.subscribepage.com/z6j8p9. I do love to hear from people who read my books! Thanks so much, Christina, for inviting me over today! I’ve had a fun time.