Welcome, Romance Lovers! Miriam Newman is with us this morning!

June 5, 12:13 AMSalt Lake City Romance Novels ExaminerFran Lee

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 Available now at DCL Publications

Welcome, Romance Lovers!

My guest this morning is Romance author Miriam Newman, who writes for The Dark Castle Lords Publications.   Welcome, Miriam!  You have a number of great books out!

Please tell us a little about yourself.

I’m a sixty year old widow and stepmother of five, currently living alone on a small horse farm in Pennsylvania. I still work full time and writing is my other full-time job.

That seems to be a very busy life you have! Horses, huh? Love horses, myself, but they are a lot of hard work.

But I love it.

Of all the past great Romance authors, who would you say had the greatest influence on you/your writing style?

I do remember reading a lot of Roberta Gellis from a very early age and I once had the pleasure of meeting her. I loved Mary Stewart, too.

How do you find ideas for your books? Real happenings? Dreams? A great imagination?

It’s mostly imagination though I have tapped some things from dreams. If I use things from real life it’s generally just for flavoring.

How difficult is it for you to get into “writer’s mode”?

Not at all. The minute I sit down at the computer, it’s usually there.

You have a new book out. We’d love to hear about it.

I just finished a fantasy historical called Spirit Awakened, which released May 28. It’s the story of a couple trying to survive in a pre-medieval, warn-torn land.

How did the inspiration for this work come to you? 

My heroine is a young woman with no speech and no memory. Try writing 42,000 words about a woman who can’t speak! But when I was in my late teens I had a very serious head injury with amnesia, and in my later work in psychiatric social services and home health care I worked with people who had expressive and/or receptive aphasia. That is, they either could not understand speech, could not formulate it or both.

What is your next project?

Right now I’m working on a straight historical romance set in the year 1066, which of course was when William of Normandy invaded England.

If you could interview any of the characters in your books, which one would it be, and why? What shocking thing might that character say?

Sergius Magistri, the mad general in The King’s Daughter (my favorite book, by the way). Welthink he would admit that he was totally out of his mind. But I know that!

Where can we find you on the Internet, Miriam?

www.miriamnewman.com

I hope you don't  mind me adding some more of your books on this column Miriam.  They are all so good!

Thanks, Fran, I appreciate that! My books to date are: a contemporary fantasy romance set in Ireland, Confessions of the Cleaning Lady, with a little spin-off called Stupid Cupid...and a fantasy historical series, The King's Daughter and Heart of the Earth. You can see all of them on my web site www.miriamnewman.com !  I go back and forth, to be honest, and have another fantasy historical, a futuristic and a sci-fi in an anthology all set to release this year.

There are also trailers for The King's Daughter and Heart of the Earth. Those two, to be honest, are consistent 5 and 5+ reviews and award winners. The King's Daughter finished #8 in the recent Preditors & Editors Poll for Best Romance Novel of 2008.

I would especially like that one to gets its just rewards. I don't mean to be immodest, but when an experienced reviewer says your fantasy historicals are the best books she has read in that genre, it has to mean something.

These sound fabulous!  Did you bring us some blurbs?

Of course!  Here's a blurb for The King's Daughter:

When the idyll of Tarabenthia's childhood ends, she will defy her father for the sake of love, tip the balance in a world poised on the brink of war and ensure ruin and redemption for her land and herself. She will be a slave and a Queen and will marry a famous general, a Northern Prince, and a man who arrives on her shores with only the clothes on his back. And, always, the love of her land and the Goddess she worships will rule her life.

And here's a blurb for Heart of the Earth:

Robbed of her husband by the arrows of assassins, Tia must flee to the Northern Prince who has always wanted her. But the price of Hilgi’s protection is too high. Separated from her land and her Goddess, can Tia find a way to return to them…and to a love that may redeem her?

And last but not least, a blurb for Confessions of The Cleaning Lady:

In need of a housekeeper, Malachi McCurdy is introduced to Shawna Egan, unaware that “his” faeries have taken up residence in her oak tree. Shawna, who was raised with tales of the Fair Folk but never realized she can see them, learns it the hard way when she cuts down the tree in which they made a home.

All of these books are available at the DCL website, right?

Yes, all of them!

Thanks so much for taking the time to be here this morning, Miriam!

Thank YOU, Fran, for asking me!