Osiyo~

Want a super read? I have Jenna McClure with me on the ranch answering some questions and talking about her July release, Animal Attraction from The Wild Rose Press!

Welcome, Jenna. Let’s do this!

Q: What was the best advice you were given leading you to getting published?

A: Believe in yourself, your story and never give up! It really pays to be persistent and consistent with query letters to agents or editors. You never know who is going to believe in you and your story enough to take a chance on it. It also helps to attend conferences and seminars, and network with as many people in the business as possible. But in order to sell your story, you have to believe in yourself enough and have enough faith that it will happen, eventually.

Q: Why do you write what you do?

A: I write romance because, like other authors, I am a hopeless romantic and I wanted to write my own story. I also like to think I have a message to relate. For my first book, I wanted to get a message out there about how eating meat affects the environment, but I didn’t want to do it in any way that would put people off from reading the book. Writing has always come easy to me, but writing from the heart to hit someone else’s heart takes more than just writing. It takes an understanding of people, emotions and conflict, and learning how to intertwine them into a believable story that someone else wants to read. I want to be an author that a lot of someone else’s want to read.

Q: How likely are people you meet to end up in your next book?

A: It’s probably less likely to happen in this litigious society because you never know who is going to take offense at reading about a character that may seem a little too familiar for comfort, but it’s still a possibility. 🙂 I’ve only written one book, and the characters may or may not have some personality quirks that may or may not be similar to those of people I know. I would imagine most authors draw upon personal experience to some extent for their work, and that probably includes people, or at least parts of them. You’d have to be incredibly imaginative and creative to not have to draw upon real-life people. Either that, or you just use the same characters, only with different names, over and over again.

Q: What is your favorite time of year?

A: Fall, definitely. I love the clean, crisp Fall air, the colors of the leaves and the warm (not hot) sun on my face. I am definitely more of a cold-weather person than a hot-weather person. One of the reasons I moved to Colorado was for the cold weather because you don’t get a lot of snow in the South. Besides, if you get cold, you can always put on more clothes, but if you get hot, well, there’s only so much you can take off.

Q: If you were going to cast the hero of your book, what actor would get the part?

A: Jake Gyllenhall, no question. He is an absolute hunk with that dark hair and those baby blue eyes. He is yummy sexiness rolled into a whole lot of hottness, and I know he looks good in a cowboy hat (think Brokeback Mountain).

Blurb:

Environmental consultant Emmalyn Ashmore is outraged when she discovers the last minute replacement for the guest speaker at her annual conference is none other than Adam McLean, a cattle rancher, whose lifestyle represents everything she stands against.

Adam McLean has never met a more contrary woman. From the moment Emmalyn opens her mouth, he knows she’s exactly the type of woman he doesn’t need in his life – ever.

But Fate has other plans, and as the sparks fly, Emma realizes there’s more at stake than conserving just the environment. She has to learn how to conserve her heart, before she loses it forever.

Excerpt:

“It’s never good to make assumptions about people you don’t know,” Adam replied, throwing her words back at her.

She jerked her eyes to him, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Right. Sorry.”

Idly, he wondered if she was always this nervous, or if it was just him. Selfishly he hoped he had the same effect on her as she did on him.

“I know you’re a cattle rancher and all,” she started, “but I couldn’t let you leave without talking to you about your speech.”

He didn’t care for her opening words, but he liked her voice, so he concentrated on that. Besides, if he missed anything important, he’d ask her to repeat it. Over dinner, he mused as he continued to stare at her mouth. It was still moving, which meant she was still talking and he was still not listening, but she didn’t seem to notice.

Or so he thought.

Her lips stopped moving, snapped shut, then opened slightly. A brief, shrill whistle pierced the air. He jerked his eyes back to hers, and found her staring at him in angry disbelief.

If she didn’t look so mad, he might have laughed.

“Mr. McLean, were you listening to a word I said?”

Adam scratched his chin. “Sure. You said something about me being a cattle rancher, which I already knew, and then something about your impressions. But you kind of lost me after that.”

She placed her hands on her hips. “I was trying to talk to you about how misleading your speech was.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah? I must have missed that part.”

“I think you missed all my parts.”

“Trust me, I didn’t,” he drawled.

You can buy the book here http://www.thewildrosepress.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=175_133&products_id=4572

And contact Jenna on her website on Facebook and on Twitter 

Thank you for visiting Jenna! I want in on this drawing…just saying- horses+hot man= I’m there!

For one lucky commenter, Jenna has a free copy of Animal Attraction, so be sure to leave your email and format preference in your comment and Random.org, or Jenna will choose a winner tomorrow!

Dodadagohvi~