Guest post by Kate Curran!

Hello and welcome to my blog today.  Kate Curran is here and agreed to answer a few questions. So, relax and enjoy the interview:

Thanks for stopping by today, Kate.

So happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Can you please tell us a little bit about yourself?

I’m married with two grown sons. I travel quite a bit because of my job (photojournalist specializing in agriculture) and my husband and sons are avid fly fishermen as is my daughter-in-law which has given me the bug to learn. We also mountain bike, and in the last year I’m learning to cross country ski. I’ve gotten back into yoga and of course I’m an avid reader--anything from contemporary romance and recently some paranormal and fantasy, but honestly if it’s a good book I’ll read it.

When did you start writing?

I started writing in the early 1990s when my youngest started kindergarten. I went back to college, took a creative writing class and a writer was born.

What genres do you write in?

Contemporary romance.

How many books do you have available?

Two, Only For You and Falling For You…Again.

When did you get started in photography?

Well I was kind of forced into it. When I started writing non-fiction in the early 90s photos weren’t expected. Today if you want to sell an article photo are expected and honestly I think a good picture could sell before the article. I pretty much self taught myself how to do it. My photography work has grown a lot over the years. I get photography assignments alone, and I signed with a stock photo agency, too.

Do you get any inspiration for stories from your photo shoots?

Sometimes. I have a thing for waterfalls and always try to seek them out when we’re traveling. I find them mysterious as well as beautiful and try to work a waterfall into the story if appropriate. It’s generally more the articles I do that have given me some ideas. For instance, in the last book Falling For You…Again my heroine is an outdoor photographer, and Only For You the heroine is a farmer. They say write what you know and I guess that’s what I’ve done.

You also write children's books, can you tell us a little bit about that?

It’s been said that 50 years ago everyone knew someone who owned a farm. Today that isn’t the case, so I wrote a series of books that showed kids how their food was produced. The first book is about a dairy farmer who’s cow had quadruplets which virtually unheard of. I my own photos so kids can see how farming works and I worked with a reading specialist to design them for second and third graders, but I’ve had many older kids enjoy them, too. I’m am about to release my fifth new book, From the Farm to the Table Almonds. I also just released my first book with a new cover and title and a new the series title, From the Farm to the Table and this book is now called From the Farm to the Table Dairy. In the next few months the other four titles bees, table olives and potatoes are getting new covers and titles. A sixth book will be coming late this year on cranberries.

Can you please tell us a little about your current book Falling For You…Again?

Clare and Ethan Burke are the heroine and hero living in northern Idaho in the town of Paradise Falls. Clare is an outdoor photographer and Ethan is an eighth grade science teacher, and they’ve had a fairytale marriage in many respects until two years before the story begins their 14 year-old daughter, Grace, dies in a boating accident. Ethan almost dies in the same accident. As the story begins, Clare and Ethan have struggled with their grief, and they are on the verge of divorce until Clare goes missing on a photo shoot. A blizzard is eminent and as Ethan searches for her, they both discover their love is stronger than either of them realized.

This isn’t a story about death and dying, it’s a story of survival and that there can be happiness and love and an engaged life after losing a child. I hope I succeeded. A fan who’s lost a daughter who was just out of teens told me she wasn’t sure she could the read book, but she did and she said it didn’t bring her down, but uplifted her. And that in a nutshell is what I hope to give my readers. A few tears, some laughs, romance and an ending that warms your heart.

What can readers expect next from you?

Leave Me Breathless is the next book. My heroine Cordelia Jane, C.J., Pulaski is a photojournalist who’s worked for a major newspaper in San Francisco until a story she’s working on costs her her credibility and her job. She return to her hometown of Conspiracy, a small northern California coastal town, and goes to work for the local newspaper covering agriculture. She meets Nate Cole, the local chief of police. In cast of characters is her father, Charlie owns a restaurant and pub on the Pacific ocean and in his spare time is a conspiracy theorist. He has his own group called the Trench Coat Brigade, TCB for short. When they uncover a true conspiracy, Nate and C.J. work to resolve the mystery and this is the story that will put C.J. back on top of her career. By helping her Nate knows she will leave him, but her happiness trumps his broken heart.

If you were deserted on an island, who or what would you have to have? Toilet paper.

Early bird or night owl?

Early bird

Favorite color?

Mauve

Muscle car or sports car?

SUV

Salty or sweet?

Combination of both

Favorite ice cream?

Anything with caramel in it.

Hahaha, I love the toilet paper answer! Thanks again Kate, for a great interview. And we'll be looking forward to Leave Me Breathless.

Please visit Kate's website and browse around a bit. Here a peek at her books.

Blurb:

Reunion or heartbreak––only time will tell. . .

Emma Delaney has always loved Sam Parker, her childhood friend turned superstar athlete. Sam reminds her of warm sunshine, laughter and passion. In his arms, she dreamed of white picket fences and happily-ever-afters, until the day he abandoned her. She won’t fall for him again, or so she says until he comes home...

Sam spent nine years trying to relieve his guilt over his brother’s death and avoid a father he disappointed, but when Emma calls to tell him his father is gravely ill and that Sam is his only hope, he returns home. Now he must face his guilt and the woman he abandoned, the woman he loves more than life, the woman he can never have--Emma.

Buy Links:

Barnes & Noble

Smashwords

Blurb:
They vowed to love each other forever, then grief tore them apart.

Clare and Ethan Burke carved out a life in Paradise Falls, Idaho. While Clare built a career as an outdoor photographer, Ethan taught eighth-grade science. They raised three children and had a happily-ever-after life until tragedy struck and their daughter was killed in a boating accident.

Two years later Clare and Ethan still love each other, but their grief has pushed them to the brink of divorce. Their problems become insignificant when Clare leaves for a photo shoot into the mountains and doesn’t return. With a blizzard looming, Ethan must move heaven and earth to find her.

Will they get a second chance or lose each other forever?


Buy Links:

Barnes & Noble

Smashwords

My journey as a writer began when I turned 30, my youngest started kindergarten, and I went back to college. I took a class on fiction writing and the author was born—except it wasn’t a direct route to publishing my novels. I took a 15-year detour as a photojournalist specializing in agriculture. Twenty years later I published my first book, but it wasn’t the romance novel I’d anticipated—it was a children’s book. Three more children’s books have followed and now, finally, my first romance. This book is near and dear to my heart as Emma reflects all my years in agriculture and more than a decade sitting on the bleachers watching my children play baseball.


Kate's links:
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Website