Welcome to my post on Rosanne Bittner's Desperate Hearts Author Spotlight Tour presented by Buy The Book Tours.
Rosanne is here answering a few of my questions. Thanks for being here today!!
Hello to all visitors to FOR WHOM THE BOOKS TOLL. What a neat name for a blog site! I am answering some questions you sent to me and always enjoy visiting other blogs! My name is Rosanne Bittner and I’ve been writing over 35 years, with 59 books in print and #60 coming next summer! I absolutely love writing, especially stories about American history and particularly about this country’s “Old West.” It’ my favorite subject, and my love for history and America’s grand western landscape shines through in my books. If you go to Amazon and check out some of the readers’ comments about my books, you will see that my research and my deep love and respect for the 1800’s Old West era really shines through in my stories. The biggest comment I get is that my stories seem so real that some readers actually write and ask me if this or that really happened and if any of my characters really lived!
I have won numerous writing awards, and my husband and I have traveled the West extensively for over 30 years. Many of my titles are now published in foreign countries – Germany, Italy, France, Norway, China and England. I am from Michigan and have been married to the same man for 49 years. We graduated from high school together, but we never dated until almost two years after that.
My most current work (book #59 above) is DESPERATE HEARTS. The gorgeous and rugged hero, Mitch Brady, is a Montana vigilante who falls in love with a young woman who’s come to the little gold town of Alder, Montana (a real gold town) under mysterious circumstances. It’s a great, wild-west, fun and romantic read you will really enjoy!
You asked about my favorite music – I like everything, and it depends on what mood I’m in when it comes to listening. I love country, classical, romantic music, rock (love Bon Jovi), some hip-hop, Christian music – pretty much everything except Jazz. That I don’t like. I also have the theme songs from just about every famous western ever produced, from THE BIG COUNTRY to GIANT to HANG ‘EM HIGH. Listening to the theme songs from those movies puts me “way out west” and helps me envision the magnificent western landscape.
My typical writing day is – EVERY day – cramming writing into every nook and cranny I can find. I love to write, love my subject/genre, love my heroes and love every story I work on. Once I am going full tilt on a book I can write it in about two months, then I go back and fill in things I momentarily left out to look up later – and do a lot of tightening, changing, editing and so forth. Three to five months is pretty much the full time it takes. You asked how long it takes to write a sex scene. Not long at all! I am right there with the hero. LOL!! I just try to make it beautiful and sensual – and as hot as possible without being crude. I am mad about a really good love story – love that holds two people together against the dangers and challenges of settling in an untamed land. And I love a rugged, able hero who is respectful and gentle and loving toward the woman he holds dear.
You asked about inspiration for writing – I don’t need any particular inspiration. My own personal love for American history and the West is all it takes. My brain is constantly brewing up another western romance. I have never had writer’s block! I prefer to write with music in the background but don’t have a favorite place to write. Once I am zeroed in on a story, it doesn’t matter if I’m in my bedroom, at the kitchen table, on the couch, or at my big, beautiful office at the family business, where I keep all my equipment and research books. And it doesn’t matter what’s going on in the background. If the TV is on – doesn’t matter. If people around me are talking – doesn’t matter. My mind can shut down everything around me and I’m in the middle of a range war. I managed to learn how to shut out the outside elements when I wrote at home evenings after working all day – in a very small house with the TV about three feet away and two sons wrestling on the living room floor. You just do what you gotta’ do.
You asked about the scene hardest for me to write. I guess that would have to be in my sixth SAVAGE DESTINY book, when the hero, who had been an integral part of the heroine’s life for a good 25 years or more, had to die. OMG – ask anyone who has read those books how they managed to get through that. I balled like a baby. Even my stout, sober German husband cried when he read that book! I debated and debated about that, but I knew it had to happen, and it made the SAVAGE DESTINY series one of the most powerful and memorable stories I’ve ever told. It’s a lot like James Michener’s CENTENNIAL, and it’s my proudest achievement. The only thing that comes in at a close second is the book I just finished, my 60th – called DO NOT FORSAKE ME. It’s a sequel to OUTLAW HEARTS, which will be reissued next June with a new cover, followed in July by DONOT FORSAKE ME. The two books comprise a grand love story you will long remember, and I am totally in love – truly, literally in love – with the hero Jake Harkner. I can’t wait for everyone to read these books! I will celebrate that one with a big on-line contest and a full-color cover ad in Romantic Times magazine. I wanted to write DO NOT FORAKE ME for the past 20 years and finally was able to do so. The story just poured out of me, and it’s a fabulous love story full of redemption and forgiveness and the hero finally facing demons from the past that have always haunted him.
What makes a good story? Love – devotion – lots of action and dialogue – solid research – and the author absolutely MUST love her genre. That love shines through and creates a memorable story readers will treasure.
If I could bring one of my characters to life? It would be a toss-up between Jake Harkner (DO NOT FORSAKE ME) and Zeke Monroe (SAVAGE DESTINY).
The best advice I have for aspiring authors? Again – LOVE WHAT YOU WRITE – RESEARCH WHAT YOU WRITE – BELIEVE IN WHAT YOU WRITE – LOVE, LOVE, LOVE YOUR GENRE. Don’t write for what’s popular at the moment. Write what’s in your heart.
Coffee or tea? – COFFEE!!! All day long.
Pepsi or Coke? PEPSI!!
Salty or sweet? SWEET!
Chips or pretzels? NEITHER
Chocolate or vanilla? CHOCOLATE! DARK, DARK CHOCOLATE!
Mountains or beach? Are you kidding??? MOUNTAINS!!
Shoes or barefoot? I am barefoot all the time at home, even when I run outside for something and there is snow on the ground.
Favorite color? PURPLE/ORCHID/HOT PINK
Don’t like ice cream.
Casual or dress up? Look at my Facebook pictures. Definitely casual – and always either MISS ME or ROCK REVIVAL jeans!
I am definitely an EARLY BIRD.
Don’t like cookouts or restaurant dinners. I like to cook at home and chill out on the couch with a tray. Same for my husband. I only use the table when we have company.
That about covers it! I hope you will look for DESPERATE HEARTS, and be sure to pick up OUTLAW HEARTS and DO NOT FORSAKE ME next summer! Keep an eye on my web site – www.rosannebittner.com – and my blog – www.rosannebittner.blogspot.com – for news about what’s happening and what’s coming next! I’m also on Facebook and Twitter and Goodreads and a ton of other social networking sites! Enjoy the beautiful fall weather, and happy reading!
I grew up reading Roseanne's books, a lot of her books. I am a total fan girl. I was so excited to be a part of this tour for her. SQUEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!
Title: Desperate Hearts
Author: Rosanne Bittner
Genre: Historical Western Romance
Length: 384 Pages
Release Date: September 2, 2014
Blurb:
SHE’S A WOMAN WITH A SECRET
Elizabeth Wainwright is on the run. Accused of a murder she didn’t commit, she has no choice but to cut ties with her old life and flee West. The last thing she wants is attention, but when her stagecoach is attacked, she suddenly finds herself under the fierce protection of one of Montana’s famed vigilantes…whether she likes it or not.
HE’S A MAN WITH A CODE
Lawman Mitch Brady is sworn to uphold justice in the wild lands of 1860’s Montana. He’s never met a man he’s feared, and he’s never met a woman more desperately in need of his help. Something’s shaken the secretive Elizabeth, but as he gets to know the beautiful city belle, he finds the only thing he wants more than her safety…is her trust.
Buy Links:
Amazon: Desperate Hearts
Excerpt:
“I really don’t want to dance,” Elizabeth protested, half yelling above the whooping men and loud piano playing. “It hurts my shoulder.”
“Just one little dance, lady?” her partner begged.
“Really, I …”
Suddenly a big fist rammed into her partner’s jaw, sending him flying across two tables. He landed against a bar stool and everyone backed away from Elizabeth. She turned to see Mitch Brady standing there with a dark look of rage in his eyes. “The lady said she didn’t want to dance!” He scanned the room. “Everybody here understand that?”
The man Mitch had clobbered rolled to his knees, groaning.
“Stu was only wantin’ a dance, Mitch,” another man spoke up. “Ain’t no harm in that.”
“There is when the woman was dragged in here against her will and never agreed to the dance.”
Everyone backed farther away, and Elizabeth could see no one in the room was about to give Mitch Brady any more trouble. … He took hold of Elizabeth’s arm and led her toward the swinging doors at the saloon entrance. “Let’s go,” he said.
Elizabeth followed him out.
I’ve been writing for over thirty years and to date have had 60 novels published, all about the American West of the 1800’s and Native Americans. I write romance, but not the typical bodice-ripping adventures. My stories are deep love stories, often family sagas told as a series. It is the hero and heroine’s love that holds them together through the trials and tribulations of settling America’s western frontiers. I absolutely love the Rockies, the Tetons, the Sierras, and the wide-open plains, prairies and desert land west of the Mississippi. In my books, I strive to tell the truth about the settling of the West and how it affected our American Indians, as well as the gritty depth of what our brave pioneers suffered in their search for free land and a better life.
I am a member of the Nebraska and Oklahoma Historical Societies, my local southwest Michigan historical society, Women Writing the West, Mid-Michigan Romance Writers of America, the national RWA, National Rifle Association and a local charity group called the Coloma Lioness Club. I help run a family business and love doing things with my three young grandsons. If you visit my Website you’ll see all my titles listed as well as a page that lists all my many writing awards; or you can visit me on Facebook. At either site you will learn news of new books to come as well as reprints of many of my past titles soon to be published in trade paperback and as e-books! I also have an author site at Amazon.com.
Contact Rosanne:
TOUR SCHEDULE
Monday, September 29
Tuesday, September 30
Wednesday, October 1
Thursday, October 2
Friday, October 3
Saturday, October 4
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