We are excited to welcome author Victoria Vane. She is joining us to day with an interview as she promotes her latest book Slow Hand.
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Date of publication: November 2014
In rural Montana…
Wade Knowlton is a hardworking lawyer who’s torn between his
small-town Montana law practice and a struggling family ranch. He’s on the
brink of exhaustion from trying to save everybody and everything, when gorgeous
Nicole Powell walks into his office. She’s a damsel in distress and the breath
of fresh air he needs.
Even the lawyers wear boots…
Nicole Powell is a sassy Southern girl who has officially
sworn off cowboys after a spate of bad seeds—until her father’s death sends her
to Montana and into the arms of a man who seems too good to be true. Her
instincts tell her to high tail it out of Montana, but she can't resist a
cowboy with a slow hand…
Kari&
Autumn: What inspired you to become a writer?
Victoria: Writing is not anything I ever intentionally set out to do.
It just sort of happened. I have always
envied writers who walk around with their heads constantly filled with
fantastic ideas for books. It took me forty four years to come up with what I
thought was a worthy premise to write about - a historical novel Combining
thwarted love, blind ambition, political intrigue, and horse
racing! The idea just kept churning around in my head during the day
and invading my dreams at night, until I actually dared confess it to a good
friend of mine, while we were riding up a mountain on horseback.
A few days later (coincidentally on my birthday), I found a
package on my front porch. Inside was a book on how to publish a
book. I don’t even remember the name of it now, but it was all the extra
push I needed. After fourteen months of blood, sweat and tears, (well…not so
much blood… unless you count paper cuts) I completed my first draft of THE HIGHEST
STAKES, a Georgian era drama/romance set against the backdrop of early Thoroughbred
horseracing. At the time I didn’t know a single writer. I had no literary
contacts so I then set out to find a literary agent (thus began the sweating
part).
Thirty-plus queries later, with as many rejections, (This is
where the tears actually came in.) I finally decided that none of these agents
were worthy of representing my masterpiece. I then set out to find a publisher
that did not require an agent. I queried Sourcebooks and Kensington, both of
whom to my shock expressed interest in my book. Sourcebooks offered me a
contract. I cried again but these were tears of joy.
Fourteen months later (and after much more profuse sweating
throughout the editing process) The Highest Stakes (writing as Emery Lee was
published. That was April of 2010. I
later moved into historical romance (writing as Victoria Vane) and now have
thirteen published novels and novellas.
Kari& Autumn: Where do you come up with the ideas for your books?
Victoria: Mostly from things that I read. I am a true research geek so
I am constantly web surfing anything that strikes my fancy. All of my stories,
whether historical or contemporary, contain various elements of reality. In my
upcoming contemporary Western series I feature the struggles of modern day
cattle ranching, as well as the wolf and wild horse controversies.
Kari& Autumn: What exciting projects are waiting in the wings?
Victoria: I am happy to say readers will be seeing a lot of me as I
have eight books coming over the next 18 months. Ironically, I
am currently under contract with BOTH of the publishers who first expressed
interest in my debut historical novel.
My first hot contemporary cowboy series launches November 4 with SLOW HAND, book #1 in Hot Cowboy Nights
from Sourcebooks and then I have a Las
Vegas set cowboy series coming from Kensington in
early 2016. The first book is called HELL ON HEELS.
Kari& Autumn: Who is your favorite literary character and why?
Victoria: My favorite literary character is probably Rhett Butler from
Gone with the Wind. I love that charming rogue! He seems perfectly feckless but
then surprises us with a noble side when he join a lost cause and again later
with how deeply he loves his daughter and how affected he is by her death. He’s
a fabulous character.
Kari& Autumn: Just for fun, if you could be any animal, what would it be and
why?
Victoria: That’s a no brainer- a horse. I have loved them my entire
life and have owned thirteen of them. I currently own a gorgeous and sweet grey
Arabian named Princeton.
Victoria Vane is an award-winning author
of smart and sexy romance. Her works range from historical to contemporary
settings and include everything from wild comedic romps to emotionally
compelling erotic romance. Her books have received more than twenty reviewer
awards and nominations to include the 2014 RONE Award for Treacherous
Temptations and Library Journal Best E-Book romance of 2012 for The Devil
DeVere series.Look for her hot new contemporary cowboy series coming from
Sourcebooks in Fall of 2014.
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Wolf in White Van: I got about 1/2 way and I didn't care for it. I wanted to like it, but I didn't like the confusion about what exactly happened in terms of the catastrophic event to the main character. It was all getting muddled in the telling of the story.
Mink River: I didn't get very far into this one before giving up on it. A lot of times I really like these types of books where it's multiple characters telling stories about their lives and they become interwoven. I assume that's where this book was going. However, I just wasn't feeling it right now. It might have been good, but I just wasn't really in the mood for this kind of book right now.
Roses for a diva: I didn't know going into this book that it was a sequel. I felt from the beginning that there was some back story I was missing. I also didn't like the writing style. Nor did I like the story line. I had a hard time buying a star who ignores creepy flowers and notes from an unknown person. 
Afterworlds: This is another one that I tried to listen to. Maybe reading the actual book would have been better. The book shifts between Darcy, the author of a novel, and parts of the story of the book she wrote. I found the shifts in the story disorienting. I didn't care for the story within a story.
