The Snowbound Bride – Meet Davalynn Spencer!

My guest this week is an author I met a few years ago at the Colorado Christian Writer’s Conference. Since then, she has a new book coming out every time I turn around. I know you will enjoy meeting Davalynn Spencer and hearing about her new book for Christmas, The Snowbound Bride!

 

 

Wandering Wednesdays

 

Davalynn, we’ve only met each other in workshops at writer’s conferences, when did you first discover that you were a writer?

Sixth grade was a wake-up year for me. I discovered many things about myself, one of which was an addiction to words and finding their perfect combination to write what I saw or felt.

 

 

Your writing career includes a variety of projects and experience. How did your journalism, devotionals, and teaching background impact your fiction writing?

I have to write, whatever the medium. Fiction was my ultimate goal, and I wrote short stories in middle school and high school and later in college. In adulthood, journalism allowed me an avenue for that writing compulsion and taught me how to write lean and tight. As a crime-beat reporter, I experienced situations I would not have otherwise, and several of those have shown up in my fiction. But journalistic work also thickened my skin to editorial revision and taught me the importance of deadlines—two real-world necessities for every author. Devotional writing is my way of showing through words what God shows me through His handiwork or circumstances in my life. And teaching writing at a community college keeps me in the mix when it comes to editing and finding better ways to say what it is a writer wants to say.

 

 

What is your target audience?

 My audience is romance readers who enjoy escaping into the Western world with a rugged cowboy.

 

 

Tell us about your latest release and how it came about.

 My agent, Linda S. Glaz of Hartline Literary, contacted me about Barbour Publishing’s call for historical Christmas novellas for their newest collection, The 12 Brides of Christmas. I submitted a proposal for “The Snowbound Bride” set in a fictional Colorado town in 1885, and Barbour took it. They also contracted for a sequel, “The Columbine Bride,” which releases in their summer brides collection in June 2015.

 

 

Tell us how much of yourself you write into your characters. 

I think there is more of what I want to be in my characters than what I really am.

 

 

What is your favorite period in history and why?

 I love the 1880s. Life was hard, but it was simpler, at least in the West where my stories take place. I live in rural Colorado, so I can look around the countryside and along the mountain ridges and see the landscape pretty close to what it was back then. Honest. Rugged. Straightforward. The people of that era reflected these same characteristics—except the bad guys, of course!

 

 

The Snowbound Bride is a Christmas book. Tell us something about your favorite family Christmas tradition.

Scent plays a big part of the Christmas season for me. Cinnamon, pumpkin, sugar cookies, pine. The more fresh-cut pine or cedar boughs I can get in our house, the better. A scene in The Snowbound Bride involves the hero and heroine gathering pine boughs …

 

 

How many books do you have in print? Share something with us about your other books and where readers can find them.

I have a contemporary Western romance with Love Inspired | Heartsong Presents, The Rancher’s Second Chance, available through Harlequin and all online outlets in print and e-book editions. Also through Heartsong, I have a three-book historical series, though each stands alone, set in Cañon City, Colorado, in the 1800s: The Cowboy Takes a Wife, Branding the Wrangler’s Heart, and Romancing the Widow. These are also available in both e-book and print formats. Another Christmas e-book is available online or through Pelican Book Group, As You Are at Christmas, a contemporary. And my devotional book, Always Before Me, is available in print or e-book online or through my website.

 

 

What events in your personal life have most impacted your writing, and how?

My life as the wife and mother of rodeo bullfighters has impacted everything about my life—from my walk with the Lord to my work as an author. Our family lived on the road for years, following the rodeo circuit. I wouldn’t trade those experiences in a 45-foot fifth-wheel with two kids, two ponies, a mule, two dogs, a couple of chickens, and a half-dozen Guinea hens for anything. Everything was part of my husband’s rodeo clown acts. I even learned how to drive our 2.5 ton International Harvester truck pulling that rig, our house on wheels with living area, animal compartment, and tack room.

 

 

How would you like to inspire your readers?

I want my readers to warm themselves by the home fires of love and come away from my books with a good helping of faith and fresh hope.

 

 

Book Title: The Snowbound Bride

10 Digit ISBN: ASIN: B00NVZW7NE  (it’s an ebook)

Publisher: Barbour

Genre: Inspirational historical romance

Release Date: Dec. 15, 2014

Book Blurb: On the run from a heartless uncle, Arabella Taube hides in Nate Horne’s buckboard just as a harsh winter storm sweeps into Colorado. Can Ara find her way out of the storm—physically and emotionally—before the handsome mountain horseman steals her heart?

 

 

About the author:

Davalynn Spencer writes Western romance, and she comes by that talent honestly since falling for her own handsome cowboy bullfighter. Her award-winning work in the national rodeo market and as a newspaper journalist continues today with her inspirational fiction, both historical and contemporary. She calls Colorado’s Front Range home with her cowboy and their Queensland heeler, Blue.

 

Connect with Davalynn:

Website: www.davalynnspencer.com

Facebook Author Page: www.Facebook.com/AuthorDavalynnSpencer.com

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/davalynnspencer/boards/

Google+: https://plus.google.com/100390441095589359653/about

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5051432.Davalynn_Spencer

Twitter: http://twitter.com/davalynnspencer