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| Leah Braemel , photo taken at Lori Foster's RAGT June 2013 |
Happy Holidays all and welcome author Leah Braemel to BOC. I had the pleasure to meet Leah at Lori Foster's Reader Appreciation Weekend. She is a very interesting lady and has a super awesome Contemporary Western Romance out now that I really enjoyed named SLOW RIDE HOME.
Can you please tell us a
bit about yourself?
This is probably the
hardest question to answer. *scratches head and tries to figure out a way to
sound interesting* I’m Canadian. Which means I say “eh” a lot at the end of
sentences. I occasionally type it in my tweets too, LOL. I swear I do NOT say
aboot instead of about—even if other people insist I do, I refuse to believe
them. I married my college sweetheart—we celebrated our 35th anniversary this
year. I have two 20-something sons—which means I’m writing heroes the same age
as my boys (Yowza that makes me feel OLD) but that means I can ask them “would
a guy your age say this?” to double check my characters’ dialog. And I have a Shih Tzu cross puppy named
Seamus who thinks he’s a cat, and a cat named Turtle who acts like a dog.
When and how did you know you wanted to be
a writer?
I’ve always always always
made up stories in my head—I remember lying in bed when I was about four
telling stories to myself. Then when I was about 7 or 8, my sister taught me
that I could write them down. Of course then she critiqued them which promptly
taught me to never ever ever show my writing to anyone ever ever again. (Boy,
I’m starting to sound like I’m channeling a Taylor Swift song here.) As I got
older, I kept hearing people saying “everyone thinks they can write a novel;
what makes you think you’d make it” whenever I broached the subject, so I kept
my writing secret. (Though my mother once walked in on me and found me
surrounded by maps and floor plans I’d created for the world I was writing
about – little did I know at the time that was a real good trick for
world-building.)
It wasn’t until about 2003
or so that I met my friend Becky online and learned she was trying to get
published. I finally admitted to her that I wrote too, and showed her some of
my work. She read what I sent her and made some suggestions to improve my work.
Despite all the red ink on the edited docs she sent back, I was thrilled. I
still didn’t even considering getting published—that was too scary to think of.
But Becky continued pushing and prodding and poking me until I joined a local
writers’ group where I hooked up with a former Harlequin editor who pointed me
towards the Toronto Romance Writers. Seven months later I somehow found myself
attending the 2007 Romance Writers of America conference in Dallas—right near
where Becky lives. Next thing I knew I was pitching a story to an editor. I
think that’s really the first time I allowed myself to dream that I could
actually be published. And even then it shocked the heck out of me to receive
the email from Angela James offering me my first contract. So I guess my final
answers to ”When” is 2007, and “how did I know” is when I received a contract,
LOL.
Tell us about your upcoming work?
I have two books left in
The Grady Legacy trilogy. Jake’s story is book two, No Accounting for Cowboys.
It’ll come out in May 2014. In Slow Ride Home, Jake’s been keeping some secrets
from his brother. In Jake’s story, even though his reasons were understandable
some aren’t so forgiving, so he’s trying to make amends. And while he’s working
on that, he gets some good news and some bad news and it turns his world upside
down so he has to decide what place, if any, he has on Bull’s Hollow in the
future.
Do you have any mentors? Heroes?
I was privileged at the
Lori Foster RAGT in June to be able to sit down with Lori Wilde for over an
hour as she gave me some tips for improving my writing. It made me realize how
much I’d love to have someone so talented I could contact regularly and send a
chapter to and have them come back and show me where/how to tweak my writing so
I could take it to the next level. But it’s tough because that level of author
would be under her (or his) own deadlines and that type of advice takes a lot
of time to give.
My heroes are the people
who do in real life what my fictional characters do. They’re the firemen who
run into burning buildings when everyone else runs out, or the police officer
or soldier who protects us. They’re the farmers who get up at the crack of zero
dark thirty and take care of their animals whether it’s a hundred degrees or
thirty degrees below.
Can you tell us your favorite character
from your books so far and why?
Oh wow, another tough
choice. I know my readers are probably expecting me to say Sam Watson, from
Private Property and Personal Protection. While Sam will always be a
favorite—he was such a larger than life character who just walked into my head
and took over—I have a special place in my heart for Brett Anderson from Texas
Tangle. I tortured that poor guy. I even killed him off in one iteration but I
realized he deserved his HEA with Nikki and Dillon.
And now, I’m falling in
love with Jake from No Accounting for Cowboys. I think I have to fall in love
with each of my heroes as I write them so I can have the heroine fall in love
with him too.
Was it difficult for you to get published?
I know most authors tell
stories of thick wads of rejections slips (or these days lots of emailed
rejections) but I got published fairly quickly. As I said above, I pitched a
story to an editor at different publisher than I’m with right now who asked for
me to submit the story. I did, and didn’t hear anything back for almost a year.
When I inquired, I learned the editor had quit and erased all her submissions,
so my story was lost. Which was an interesting introduction to the
industry. They invited me to submit to
them again, so I submitted Private Property to them. They form-letter rejected
it but invited me to submit something else—that’s been my only rejection so
far. I went back and edited Private Property some more and submitted a new, and
I think stronger version, to Samhain in the spring of 2008. In July that year
Angela James, who was Samhain’s executive editor at the time, offered a
contract and Private Property was released in January 2009.
Who are your favorite authors/reads?
Oh boy, where do I start?
Patricia Briggs is an autobuy for me. I love both her Mercy Thompson series,
and her Alpha/Omega series. I’ve read all of them multiple times. She can
create such a wonderful in-depth world, with multi-faceted characters that show
constant growth book after book, that always leaves me in awe. Lorelei James is
another autobuy for me. I love love LOVE her cowboys and I love the books she
writes under her alter-ego Lori Armstrong too. She’s another “I want to be like
her when I grow up” authors (even though I’m quite a bit older than her.) Add
Jill Shalvis to the list—what more needs to be said, I love Jill’s humor and
the sexual tension she creates. I love Lynsay Sands’ Single White Vampire, and
JR Ward’s Lover Eternal (I love her BDB series, but LE will always be my
favorite.) Shiloh Walker, Cheryl Brooks, Lauren Dane, and Jane Porter are all
up on my keeper shelves too.
Hobbies?
*falls down laughing* I
don’t have time for many hobbies these days. I’m stuck at my desk writing. (or
doing physiotherapy exercises because I’ve injured my shoulder from sitting at
my desk typing too much.)
Before I got serious about
my writing, I used to do a lot of pulled-thread embroidery and cross-stitch
(couldn’t do it now—my eyes suck.) I have about 15-17 large projects rolled up
in a box waiting to be framed but I have no wall space left. (Plus framing is
expensive!) I’ve dabbled a bit in making some jewelry and swear that if I ever
“get a moment to breathe” I’ll try making some more.
9. What is your dream job?
When I was doing anything
else, being an author was my dream job. Now I’m doing it, it’s a LOT harder
than it looks, especially the promo side of it. So I guess I’d say I’d still
say my dream job is being an author, but one who makes enough that she can have
an assistant to enter all her receipts, and run around and do all the
administrative side of the job. I’d also have a publicist, a graphic artist, a
personal web designer etc. In my dreams, anyway, LOL. I’ve got a LONG way to go
and a lot to learn about writing still before I can afford all that help.
Do you have any favorite TV shows?
I’m a huge Big Bang Theory
fan. And I’m also hooked on Grimm, Castle, Longmire, and White Collar.
What’s next for you?
Once No Accounting for
Cowboys is off to my editor, then I have to start writing Wrangling the Past,
which will be book 3 in the Grady Legacy trilogy. After that? My very loyal
Hauberk Protection fans have been patiently waiting for the next book in that
series. And from there? I don’t know. People keep asking me if Logan is going
to get his own story, and maybe he will. It’s too soon to tell. I have so many
stories sitting on the backburner clamoring for attention.
Where can we find you?
I’m just about everywhere –
I’m probably most active on my Facebook profile though I’m trying to figure out
whether to post more on my author page but FB’s decisions as to who sees what
and how pages can interact with profiles makes it difficult for them to see my
page posts unless I pay to promote them. I’m on Twitter less than I used to be,
but I still check in once a day or so. I post on Tumblr on occasion. Oh and
Pinterest—that’s so addictive! And of course I can always be found on my
website.
What would you like readers to know about
you?
I’m a control freak, and a
bit of a perfectionist, except when it comes to cleaning house—then I prefer
chasing plot bunnies to dust bunnies. I love to hear from my readers—otherwise
I feel like I’m working in a void. But I feel awkward in groups and am baffled
by small talk so if they meet me at a conference, they need to start the
conversation. Then once I get going…well, as you can tell from this interview,
it’s hard to get me to stop talking. ;)
Thanks so much for
participating and Merry Christmas!
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