Excerpt
Balancing an armload of mail, an overloaded briefcase, and a gym bag with two yogurt cups teetering on top, Dierdre Clancy rushed to her cubicle. For the fourth time this week, and the umpteenth time this month, she was late. Once again, a power outage in the decrepit apartment building where she lived had caused her alarm clock to fail.Please, Lord, don’t let my chauvinist pig of a boss realize I’ve been missing.
The yogurt cups threatened to topple off the gym bag. Dierdre wasn’t about to let her lunch decorate the linoleum. The mail showered to the floor. The briefcase hit her foot. With her free hand, she plastered the cups to her side. The gym bag slid down her arm. The webbed strap twisted, tourniquet style, around her wrist.
She managed a couple of sideways hops that brought her to the edge of her desk. The gym bag swung wildly. Leaning against the arm weighed down by the bag’s stranglehold, she managed to dump the yogurt cups onto the desk without mishap. She pulled herself upright and reached for the strap at her wrist.
Somehow, during all the hopping, the bag had swung around her legs and gotten wedged in the narrow space between her desk and file cabinet. The same strap that cut off circulation to her hand pressed into the backs of her knees, pinning her neatly to the desk. Only an act of extreme dexterity could save her from her own folly. Imbecile, why didn’t you make two trips?
Because I didn’t want to risk having the boss see me coming in late.
“Clancy! You’re late.”
Dierdre’s heart hit the ceiling. She knew the shout—a cross between an operatic tenor and a pig at slaughter. Still, she hadn’t been prepared to hear her boss’s screeching quite so soon.
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Hero Bio: Adam Talcott was born rich. He went into business with his best friend from college and made even more millions. His methods may be unorthodox, but he nearly always succeeds. Now he’s been challenged to live for two months without any of the privileges and resources he’s known all his life. Adam is confident that he can conquer this challenge as he has all others. But he didn’t count on Dierdre Clancy and that danged cat.
Heroine Bio: Dierdre Clancy grew up in a family of givers. Her parents were missionaries and often too busy saving other, less privileged people to realize how lonely and abandoned Dierdre felt. When she reached her teen years, she was shipped back to the USA to live with her Aunt Shea on Shea’s rundown farm and animal shelter. Finally she was in a stable environment with an adult she could count on. Dierdre went on to gain a degree in social work and took up the Clancy family tradition of helping others. Most of the time helping others was easy. But Adam Talcott broke that mold and every other box she tried to put him into. How could one man be so difficult to manage?
Hi, I’m Rue Allyn, I write heart melting romance novels. Books about characters and adventures in which love triumphs at the darkest moment. The kind of hopeful, steal-your-breath romance that melts a reader’s heart. The type of book I like to read. Hope you will too.
Freebie~~Get a FREE download of Rue Allyn’s May 2019 release Forever Hold My Heart, a Scottish historical novella. Just sign up for her newsletter here https://www.rueallyn.com/ravonsubscribe/.
Meet and Greet with author:
Please introduce yourself, who are you and what do you do?
Hello Sally, Thank you very much for hosting me at Wolf’s Reading Den and sharing The Catnapped Lover with your followers. I’m Rue Allyn. I write Contemporary and Historical romances.
What genre do you like to write?
Oops, I think I already answered that
If you were to branch out from your current genre which one(s) would you like to explore?
I have a few paranormal (Fae) stories that are begging me to write them. Since magic is so hard to resist, I probably will.
How long have you been writing? What prompted you to start writing?
I have written all of my life. I cannot recall a time when I did not write. I started writing professional in 1996 and had my first book published in 2001.
What inspires you to write?
Pretty much everything inspires stories for me. However, my thought process almost always starts with “what if . . .” As an example, I have a historical romance that is being reissued in September of this year. The title of that book, A True and Perfect Knight, is taken from a line in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The narrator of the tales is describing on of the pilgrims he is traveling with as a “very true and perfect knight.” The description was ironic for Chaucer, since the character described was a squire and definitely not a knight. The squire was, however, decked out with all the trappings that his master—a real knight—should have been wearing and wasn’t. The contrast put me to wondering what exactly is a ‘true and perfect knight,’ and what if a man with that reputation had to learn to be not quite so true and perfect
When a story idea pops into your head, how long does it typically take to write it (from start to finish)?
If you mean from the first work of a draft to publication the process takes about six months. The book is usually compete, edited and proof read, but getting reviews, setting up blog dates and a thousand other things needed to ‘get the word out’ about the book takes another three months.
What do you find to be the most difficult part of the writing process? Easiest?
Drafting is easiest, because a first draft doesn’t need to be understood by anyone but the author (me). What is most difficult is that last three months of ‘getting the word out.’ Most writers (and I’m typical) are an odd mix of introvert and extrovert. Put me behind a desk writing or in a chair reading, and I’m clam happy. The world could explode around me, and I would never notice. But put me in a very crowd of people, and I become nearly catatonic. I’m most extroverted in smaller groups of two to ten. Then it’s hard to get me to shut up. Most social media feels like a huge crowd to me. I have to make Herculean efforts to overcome my natural introverted behavior in that situation. Blog posts and interviews like this one are easier to do than the short FB, Pinterest, Twitter, etc. simply because I can imagine myself talking to one or two people—the blog host(s). I hope that makes sense to you and your readers. Writers are pretty weird people, but we’re very nice.
Of all your characters whom do you most relate to?
All and none. That’s the short answer. No author can write without putting something of him or her self into the book being written. Often the ‘something’ is very small pieces of personal experience, belief or opinion. So small that unless you know the author extremely well (or the author decides to tell you), you’d never be able to pick those pieces out of the entire story. The Catnapped Lover has a number of pieces from my personal experience. I knew a woman whose character was a tad different than Shea Doyle but she owned a run-down farm and took in just about every stray she came across—including people. I am a cat person. For almost fifty years, I had one or more cats in my life. Like Adam Talcott (hero of The Catnapped Love), if you put me to work on a farm, I wouldn’t have the first clue how to do anything. Little pieces of myself are scattered throughout The Catnapped Lover and every book I’ve written.
Is there one of your characters that you did not like when you started writing about them, but found yourself liking by the end of the story?
Not in The Catnapped Lover. I even liked the supposed villain of the piece. I’ve written two books with strongly villainous characters (The French Duchess and Knight Errant). I admired those to nefarious gentlemen for their inventiveness, but I didn’t like them. I mentioned A True and Perfect Knight earlier. The hero of that story, Sir Haven de Sessions, is pretty unlikeable at the outset. The book starts with him insulting the heroine, and he’s never even met her—ugh. However, by the end of that book, Sir Haven becomes a hero the heroine (and I) could truly love.
When you are not writing or editing what do you do for relaxation?
I read just about everything or watch television and movies, and I travel. All of those things help me refill my authorial well.
Tell us about your books where can people find them?
Thank you very much for asking. There are a few buy links and media links given below, but you can find excerpts and other information about all of my book on my website. Just go to my books page and click on the book you most want to know about.
Sally, please accept my thanks for taking time from your busy schedule to interview me and share The Catnapped Lover with your followers. I”ve enjoyed talking with you and hope to do so again.
Your fans, followers and friends can find me on the Net at the following places:
Rue Allyn’s Social Media
Rue's Website
BookBub
Amazon
Goodreads
