RomCon Tuesday Interview with Lori Wilde

We are excited to welcome Lori Wilde to our blog today. Not only are we excited to talk about her latest book, but she is also our RomCon Tuesday author, and part of the RomCon Reading Challenge.

TBRG: Who has been the biggest influence on your writing?

LW: My father. In his career he was a journalist, a teacher and a song writer. He always wanted to be a novelist, but since he worked two jobs to raise five kids he never got around to it. But he passed his love of reading onto me and he gave me Dwight Swain’s book Techniques of the Selling Writer when I was 13.

TBRG: What is the one thing your readers would be the most surprised to know about you?

LW: I’ve been a participant in Harvard Nurse Health Study for 22 years. Whenever you hear statistical data out of Harvard about women’s health, it comes from the results of this study.

TBRG: Where is the one place you have always wanted to, a place on your bucket list?

LW: I’ve always wanted to go down under to Australian and New Zealand.

TBRG: Who are some of your go to authors, and what are you reading right now?

LW: Some of my go-to authors are Stephen King, Larry McMurtry, Janet Evanovich, Deborah Smith, John Irving and Anne Tyler. Right now I’m reading a fabulous humorous mystery with Southern-fried charm by the brilliant Michael Lee West called Gone With a Handsomer Man.

TBRG: If you weren’t writing and keeping us in books (thanks for that by the way), what would you be doing?

LW: Cooking. I love to cook.

TBRG: Who is on your playlist when you are writing?

LW: Leonard Cohen, The Rolling Stones, The Black Keys.

TBRG: Where do your ideas/characters come from?

LW: Everywhere. Any time something happens in my life I ask myself, “How can I put this in a book?”

TBRG: Are you a planner or a fly by the seat author?

LW: I plan, but not too much.

TBRG: We have just read your latest book The Welcome Home Garden Club, the story of Gideon and Catilin is very sweet but also brings up a lot of issues, especially with Gideon. What made you decide to write a hero like Gideon?

LW: I read an article about how the young men and women coming home from the Middle East were dealing with a lot of post traumatic stress. Telling Gideon’s story is my way of thanking them for their service to our country. They put their lives and mental health at risk not just for the time they are at war, but for years afterward.

TBRG: I loved the concept of the garden that Caitlin creates and how it relates to our soldiers, and also the way that it ends up. Where did the idea for this garden come from?

LW: The idea of the Victory garden evolved organically from the previous books in the Twilight, Texas series about this core group of women who form clubs that benefit their community.

TBRG: You will be attending RomCon this summer what are you looking forward to most about this convention?

LW: Meeting readers!

USA Today bestselling author, Lori Wilde has sold fifty-six novels to four major New York Publishing houses. She holds a bachelors degree in nursing from Texas Christian University and a certificate in forensics. She volunteers as a sexual assault first responder for Freedom House, a shelter for battered women. She has served as the RWA National conference workshop chair and PAN retreat chair. In 2009 she was the pacesetting author for the Cystic Fibrosis annual fundraiser.

 

She is an instructor for a company who provides online community education to over 2100 colleges and universities internationally. Lori is a past RITA finalist and has four times been nominated for Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award. She’s won the Colorado Award of Excellence, the Wisconsin Write Touch Award, The Lories, The More Than Maggie, the Golden Quill, The Laurel Wreath, The Beacon Award and The BestBooks of 2006 Book Award.

Her books have been translated into 22 languages and excerpted in: Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Complete Woman, All You and Quick and Simple magazines. She lives in Texas with her husband, Bill.

Caitlyn Marsh stopped believing in happily-ever-after when high-school sweetheart, Gideon Garza, left for Iraq. Now she raises her small son while her matchmaking gardening club members drive her crazy. Then Caitlyn’s world turns upside-down when Gideon swaggers back to Twilight.

Gideon had left town in the middle of night with threats ringing in his ears. A lot of things have changed since then. This bad boy-turned-Green Beret bears scars from the war, the timid girl he loved is an independent mother, and the father who refused to recognize his son in life has, in death, left him a vast cattle ranch.

He still aches for Caitlyn, and now there’s a dark-haired boy who looks exactly like Gideon did at that age. Could the child be his? And can this war-weary soldier overcome the scars of the past to claim the family he so richly deserves?

Don’t forget to check out Melanie’s review of The Welcome Home Garden Club and enter to win one of 2 copies.