Welcome contemporary romance author, Emily Mims...


Hi Emily! It's great to welcome you back to my blog - I'm looking forward to hearing more about you and your latest release, SMOKE. Wishing you much success and sales! Let's kick off with my questions...

1.)              What was your first job? Did you like or dislike it? Why?  I offered tutoring in math from the time I was a senior in high school on through my early twenties, even after I was a full-time teacher.
2.)              Do you have a pet peeve? If so what is it?  I sure do!  I get aggravated with people who, no matter what, look on the dark side of things and moan about doom and gloom.  Look around folks!  Life is wonderful!
3.)              Would you describe your style as shabby chic, timeless elegance, eclectic, country or ___­­­_?  Most of the time it’s jeans-and-T-shirt casual (or Aloha-shirt-and-shorts casual when it’s warm).  For church and business I go for modern classic (interpretation: nice dress pants and a classic blouse) and I have been known to bling it up on occasion with rhinestones on my jacket.
4.)              Tell me about your book ‘Smoke’ and where you got your inspiration for it?  ‘Smoke’ is the second of my ‘Smoky Blue’ titles set in the world of Appalachian bluegrass and mountain music.  I wanted to do a ‘fish out of water’ story and figured that a classical violinist thrust into this world and playing this music was about as out of her comfort zone as I could imagine.
5.)              Who is your role model? Why?  Probably Nora Roberts.  She hasn’t let all the hype distract her from her writing and turns out an incredible number of quality stories every year.
6.)              How much of your book is realistic?  I don’t know how realistic the story is.  Do classical musicians and bluegrass musicians ever fall in love in real life?  I don’t know.  But a lot of the rest of it is.  I don’t play the fiddle, but I do play some of the other instruments depicted in the book.  The tunes Francesca learns to play are straight out of my mountain music loose-leaf, the festivals they attend are closely modelled on the ones I’ve attended, and the portrayal of Eastern Tennessee is pretty much what I’ve experienced on many visits with my grandchildren in Kingsport.
7.)              What are your ambitions for your writing career?  I want to keep on writing!  I have more plots in the works for Smoky Blue and then I would love to write another series, not sure where or what

8.)              Share one fact about yourself that would surprise people.  Between us, my husband and I own an even forty musical instruments.  We seem to have IAC (instrument acquisition syndrome) with a particularly bad case of UAC (ukulele acquisition syndrome with eighteen of those).

Smoke
by Emily Mims

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GENRE:   Romance/Romantic suspense

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BLURB:

A concert violinist and musical prodigy, Francesca Giordano is internationally acclaimed and always in the spotlight—right where she doesn’t want to be. Not after she’s witnessed a murder. Suddenly on the run, she finds her way to Bristol, Tennessee, and to the music club Acoustics. There, as “ Chessie Hope,” she can hide out in the open. But with this newest gig comes a different kind of danger. Older and impossibly sexy, bluegrass singer Cooper Barstow is everything she’s ever wanted in a man, and his daughters are just as easy to love. Yet Francesca cannot enjoy the luxury of such a relationship, not even if he could protect her from the men on her trail or if she could be honest with him about who she is. Cooper is as wounded as he is strong, and he needs someone who will stay by his side for the rest of his life. Just as Francesca does. And the smoke on the mountains and the haze of desire almost make her believe that could happen.


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EXCERPT

Cooper hit his front door and took the quickest shower on record.  Still, he was almost a half hour late by the time he pulled into Chessie’s driveway.  Hopefully she would understand.  He was about halfway across the yard when he heard music coming from somewhere inside the house.  He slowed down and stopped, listening in astonishment to the outpouring of a violin, a violin in the hands of an incredibly gifted musician.  Who was playing the violin?  Was Chessie a closet classical music fan?  Was that a recording, or was that Chessie herself making this incredible music?
           
Cooper glanced in the window and his mouth fell open.  It was Chessie.  She was standing in front of the window in her pink cotton robe, her fingers flying over the strings so fast they were a blur and her bow moving nimbly over the strings as she made that violin sing.  It was Chessie making that incredible music.  Music that Jake never in a million years could have made.  Music that he himself could never have made.  Music that required more talent and technique that she would ever need as a bluegrass fiddler.  Music that somehow seemed strangely familiar, even though he didn’t think he’d ever heard it before.  Cooper suddenly thought back to his initial reaction to her, the first time he heard her play.  He wondered then why a woman of her talent played bluegrass music.

Now he knew.  She didn’t play just bluegrass music.  She played classical music too.  And she played it wonderfully.

Chessie Hope was not the simple bluegrass musician she presented herself to be.

   

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Author of thirty romance novels, Emily Mims combined her writing career with a career in public education until leaving the classroom to write full time.  The mother of two sons and grandmother of six, she and her husband Charles live in central Texas but frequently visit grandchildren in eastern Tennessee and Georgia.  She plays the piano, organ, dulcimer, and ukulele and belongs to two performing bands.  She says, “I love to write romances because I believe in them.  Romance happened to me and it can happen to any woman-if she’ll just let it.”
Website:
Facebook:
Twitter:
 @EmilyMimsAuthor

Amazon buy link:
Barnes and Noble buy link:


GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE

Emily Mims will be awarding a  $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.





3 comments

  1. Congrats on the tour and thanks for the chance to win :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great post - I enjoyed reading it!

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  3. Thank you for having me today!
    Best, Emily

    ReplyDelete