Last month I was able to do something on my bucket list I was able to talk on the phone with one the authors that I look up to the most Ms. Julie Garwood. I had such a fun time talking to her. We talked about Vegas and shopping here. How much I have enjoyed reading her books over the years and so much more. Unfortunately I can’t put everything we talked about here, but there is a lot of good stuff, so I am breaking this up into two posts. So get your beverage of choice and sit back and enjoy my interview with Julie..
I called her from work and that started the conversation off…
J: Where is 702?
H: Vegas
J: I love Vegas, I take my sister there. I put her in front of a slot machine and I shop.
H: We do have some great shopping here.
H: One of my favorite bookstores is in Crystals
J: I didn’t see a bookstore there.
H: It is by Wolfgang Pucks…it is one of those stores where my kids have to stand outside and not touch anything. They always ask to go somewhere else as it is boring
J: How old are you kids?
H: They will be 11 this summer?
J: Twins?
H: Yes, we are going into the pre-teen ages.
J: I’m so sorry…I laugh whenever I have a friend that says they are starting to act weird.
H: I am hoping that they discover girls soon, so that they will start giving me their laudry and bathing, so that I don’t have to spray febreeze on them when we leave the house.
J: I totally understand.
H: mom’s of boys get it..moms of girls not so much.
We talked kids and sports for awhile and it was great to get the perspective of a mom with grown kids.
H: I have to tell you I was so nervous to talk to you.
J: How come?
H: You read my fan letter on the website..
J: Not only did I read it, I printed it out and thought on days when I wondered how am I going to fix this, or do this I am just going to whip this letter out. It is very sweet
H: Thank you so much..So you can imagine how many years I have been reading you. I think the very first book of yours that I picked up of yours was the The Gift and it had just come out. I have been through they years. I have two authors really well I have four but I met two last year, that are on my life bucket list to talk to, you and Nora Roberts. In fact I was talking to a friend of mine today about how nervous I was and she told me that if she ever met Steven King she would pass out, I said if I ever meet him I would pass out to as he scares the crap out of me.
J: I’m that you like what I do. When I first started I wrote a children’s book, which is really a YA, but I didn’t know that back then, and at the same time I was taking an ancient medival course so I decided to get a knight redy to go into battle, and I dressed him, then I though well his all dressed what now. And that is how I wrote that first book, and then I put them both on a shelf until I met an agent, and she called about the YA which is what she told me it was, and asked if I had anything else, and I told her I had a love story, but there is a catch it takes place in 1086, and she said well that is a historical. I told her later that I though she was probably thinking DORK..
But not knowing anything I was lucky in that she sold them both.
H: Was that The Prize or Honour’s Splendor?
J: It was Gentle Warrior
H: Is that one with Geoffory and Elizabeth?
J: Yes
H: I haven’t read that book in awhile, I love that book. But I gotta tell you I love the Prize.
J: It is so cool to me that everyone has their book. I always wonder about some author who everyone has that one book and it is their first book. If that happens that’s not good. They never get any better. The Prize was fun to do.
H: She was just a kick but heroine. I think for me for you every time I pick up one of your books I fall in love all over again. I don’t think I could pin point a favorite, I love them all. There are scenes in every single book…in fact my sister and I were talking about this the other night, she said I have the strangest brain I can remember all these characters and plots, but what I think I really like about your books is that I get something new every time. It is like discovering a new author all over again.
J: That is so nice
H: I love them all equally is what I am trying to say.
J: When I was writing Heartbreaker, I tried making it a historical by the way, I had this idea for this book, I couldn’t get the story I wanted to tell in a historical setting so I broke down and wrote a contemporary, and well that is the Buchannon’s, if you told one brother than you had to tell the other’s. I come from a big family and the only you can understand is to bei there, with everyone being loud and talking over you.
That is what I did with the Ideal Man, he is one of seven.
H: Can I just tell you one of my favorite lines from that book is “let me talk to my white brother”. The reason is I tell my oldest son all the time that he might be black but he has a white mama. And I was just like OMG, and then at the end when he is pacing in front of the elevator talking to himself about her and what was going to happen and how she could just deal with it.
I went your last name doesn’t match but you could so be the descendant of Ian or Brodrick but we already know who their descendants are.
J: Some guys are not real flowery
H: I thought though that Max and Ellie are the perfect match for each other. I really enjoyed it. In fact I didn’t even miss Noah who is my favorite of your FBI characters. In fact I think I even said it in my fan letter that when I finished reading the Heartbreaker I went is he a relative of Cole.
J: I love bringing them back, in fact in Sizzle I did it again, and took them back to Scotland.
H: I know, I was reading it and not even putting it together and then at the end I gasped and went NO WAY.
Noah is one of my favorite of your characters. The Claybournes are one of my favaorite families of yours. I do have to tell you that I saw the movie For the Roses, and I was so mad at that I threw my book at the tv.
J: Keep in mind, I had nothing to do with that movie. I didn’t write it I wrote the book
H: That is what my mom said..I saw the movie after Cole’s book came out.
J: I was one of the very first romances that Hallmark purchased, I was very proud of the fact. but I had no approval over anything because you sell the rights. No one was more surprised than I was. In fact I remember thinking uh oh, I knew I was going to hear about it, and I did. I got a lot of how could you, and I had to say I didn’t.
H: I think since then authors get to keep more control.
J: I think so
We talked movies for a bit longer, about how she would love to have HBO or Showtime make her FBI series a show so long as she could have some say.
H: Who would you cast as Nick and Noah and Dr Morganstern?
Morganstern is one of my favorites, he would have to be short with thick glasses. The interesting thing about these is these guys never age. When you write them they are 28 – 30 and five books later they are the still 28-30 years old. I am going to have think about it. Who would you cast.
H: For Morganstern I would cast the guy that played opposite Meryll Streep in Julia Julie
J: He’s fabulous.
H: For Nick and Noah I have no clue
J: Talk dark and handsome that is a hard one.
There is so much more to this interview that I couldn’t put all in one post so come back next Monday for the rest of the conversation as that is what it turned out to be.
