Welcome debut novelist, Sandra Dailey!

Thank you for hosting me on your blog, Rachel. I’m so excited to be sharing my first book with you and your followers.

I’ll start off with a little about me:

I live in North Florida, near Gainesville, with my husband. During my time off the computer, I work as a home healthcare provider for the elderly. My husband and I have a combined family of two sons, two daughters, and seven granddaughters.

‘The Chief’s Proposal’ is the first book I’ve submitted for publishing. I’ve been blessed to have it accepted by The Wild Rose Press. My second, so far titled ‘Trouble at the Double J’, is still being considered. I hope to get word on it soon.

Wow! You're certainly off to a promising start, Sandra :) I absolutely adore your cover - who was the artist? I think The Wild Rose Press have some of the best artists in the industry. Fabulous! Okay, let's start the interview. I'm so looking forward to learning more about you and your writing...

1)  What is your writing routine? I’m embarrassed to say, I don’t have a routine. I leave my computer on and peck away at it whenever I get the chance.

2)  Which author/s inspire you to write? This is an even worse admission. I have several authors that I love and follow religiously, but it was the worst book I’d ever tried to read that inspired me to write. I knew I could do better. I won’t say who the author was.

3)  Which is your favorite romance subgenre to read? To write? I love to read westerns. Cowboys are my weakness. However, I’ve only written contemporary, so far.

4) How do you deal with criticism/rejection? I don’t let criticism upset me. I try to learn from it, as long as it’s given in the right spirit. If it’s just mean, I won’t give them the piece of my heart they’re trying to take. They aren’t worth it. However, I haven’t had a lot of experience with this, YET.

5)   What do you expect from an editor? Besides the basic mechanical knowledge, I expect to learn from their experience. I’m new to this game. I figure she knows what readers want better than I do. ‘The Chief’s Proposal’ is set in South Georgia.  When my husband asked why my main character didn’t sound as southern anymore, I told him that the editor knows what readers across the country understand and like. Still, she gave me a lot of leeway with the dialect. She’s the greatest.

6) Tell me about your latest release. ‘The Chief’s Proposal’ is a marriage of convenience story. My heroine, Ginny Dearing, is a young white school teacher from a city in Michigan. My hero, Brett Silverfeather, is a Native American sheriff from a small town in Georgia. They need each other to achieve their separate goals, but they’re opposites in every way. Their differences bring a lot of spice to the melting pot.

7)   Tease us with a blurb or short excerpt.

His long braid hung over his shoulder as he leaned his head down. She’d never been particularly attracted to men with long hair, but with Brett she couldn’t help wondering what his hair would be like, loose from its binding and brushing over her skin. She’d never known a man with waist length hair.

Everything about him seemed as wild as the animals that prowled the nearby woods. She imagined he would be just as wild while making love and it thrilled her a little, but scared her a lot. She’d known dominant men before and they weren’t kind, considerate, or gentle. She was beginning to wonder if any man was really like the ones in the paperback novels she sometimes read late at night. If any man could be, though, she wished it would be him. He was so beautiful and soon he’d be her husband.

Ginny jumped when Brett suddenly spoke.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, of course. Why do you ask?” Ginny was embarrassed by her breathless voice.

“I don’t know, you looked a little pale and spaced out there for a minute. Did you sleep well?”

Ginny gave him her most charming smile. “That must be it. I slept so well, I’m not fully awake yet.”

Buy Link:

http://www.thewildrosepress.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=195&products_id=4927

8)  Which is your favorite character in the book? Why? It’s hard to choose, but Ginny was a lot of fun. She’s smart, ambitious, determined, brave, and has a huge heart. She’s also accident prone, domestically challenged, and has a tendency to get into trouble.

9) What are you working on right now? Hopefully, I’ll be starting edits on my next contemporary romance, ‘Trouble at the Double J’ soon. Until then, I’ve started a five part series of short stories that are a lot spicier. They’re intended for a new line for men. The series is called, ‘5 Card Studs’ and has a poker theme.

10)  Your biggest piece of advice to aspiring novelists? Read everything, learn the craft, never give up, and have patience.

11)  Where can readers find you?

www.sandradailey.com

www.sandradailey.blogspot.com

www.facebook.com/sandradailey.author

Great interview, Sandra! I wish you all the best with sales and your future writing career - welcome to The Wild Rose Press family, they are a fantastic publisher and I always love working with them. Okay, over to you, guys. Sandra is waiting to chat... :)

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