An Accidental Kiss and #Romance with #Author Dawn Douglas!

Happy Friday, everyone! I'm very proud to introduce our guest today, author Dawn Douglas. Her romance An Accidental Kiss is making its debut with The Wild Rose Press. Dawn has very kindly agreed to let me ask her five nosy questions. So let's get started!

1.       Welcome, Dawn! Your romance An Accidental Kiss features characters who are well past their twenties. What is it about love between mature characters that appeals to you?

I am 51 years old and so find it quite easy to identify with the characters in An Accidental Kiss. I crafted this story for The Wild Rose Press’ Last Rose of Summer line and it seemed very natural for me to be telling a story about a couple who really didn’t rate their chances of finding love very highly. It’s fantastic falling in love at any age, of course, but when you’re getting a little older I think it’s easier to appreciate all the qualities in your mate and to understand that this really is quite a rare and precious thing that’s come along.

2.       Your Amazon author page says that you were raised in England. What brought you to the U.S. and particularly to Colorado, where you now live?

       I came here 22 years ago to get married. That didn’t work out so well, but I’m still here, loving the mountains, my three kids who still live at home and my writing life.

Dawn with her friends Rudy and Emily!

3.          Before you began writing romances, you wrote for the confessions market. What got you into writing confessions and do you think it helped prepare you for romance writing? 

As a stay-at-home mom of 3 small children, I was desperate for some income of my own. I’d just had a manuscript very swiftly rejected by Harlequin when I found an online article about writing confessions. I scooped up a copy of True Story at my local grocery store, put pen to paper and didn’t look back for the next 6 years. Writing those stories gave me some experience in developing a plot within a limited number of words, coming up with ideas at short notice, and meeting deadlines for seasonal stories. It was tremendous fun and gave me the confidence I needed to start writing other kinds of stories for different markets.    

4.       That is really fascinating. It sounds like that writing for that market really helped you hone your skills as a writer. Another one of your interests is photography. How long have you been doing it and what kind of subjects do photograph?

 I am more of a wannabe photographer than anything else! I don’t have any fancy or complicated equipment, just a digital camera that I love snapping pictures of my surroundings with – having said that, I am quite proud of some of my pictures even though I’m sure they’re probably quite amateurish!

One of Dawn's lovely photographs.

5.       Writing can be stressful, and it's great that you have another interest you enjoy. Can you share more about An Accidental Kiss and do you have any other stories we can look forward to?

 I really smiled a lot as I wrote An Accidental Kiss. It tells the story of a single parent, Marcy Garrett, and Frank Anderson, a successful writer of westerns. Although I didn’t plan it, several characters popped up and helped me tell the story and wanted to have their say. There’s Justine, Marcy’s sassy teen daughter, and Marcy’s mom and dad. Kath and Herb, who have never given up on marrying off their daughter. And Frank has a sister who arranges blind dates for him over the Internet. Humor is something that tries to find its way into everything I write. Even though the characters may have experienced great loss and tragedy, just as in real life, there are those ‘you have to laugh or you’ll cry’ moments. I’m currently working on a novel set during WWII, which is almost complete. I’ve smiled a lot writing this, too!

Blurb for An Accidental Kiss:

Single mom Marcy Garrett yearns for a soul mate but finds it difficult to trust people. The victim of several blind dates gone horribly wrong, she reluctantly agrees to yet another, with a well-known author.

Western writer Frank Anderson isn't looking for love. Since his wife died six years ago, all he wants is to be left alone with his solitary plans for the future. To make his sister happy, he agrees to meet Marcy, but he has every intention of telling her he's not interested in a relationship.

After a surprisingly enjoyable evening, fate intervenes as they say goodbye. Can one unplanned kiss on a magical snowy night melt Frank's lonely heart and overcome Marcy's doubts?

Excerpt:

As she shoved open the heavy, dragon-guarded double doors of the Jade Wok, Marcy glanced nervously around the lobby. She wasn’t nervous, exactly. Somehow, from their brief conversation, she felt absolutely sure that Frank Anderson wasn’t the kind of man who stood women up. She was nervous about what might happen after he did turn up.

A waiter looked at her and raised both brows in question.

“I’m waiting for someone, he should be here any minute,” she began, and as if on cue, the doors behind her opened, letting in a rush of chilly night air.

Marcy turned and her breath caught in her throat. It wasn’t so much that he was good-looking, his features were too rough and irregular for that – it was more a matter of his presence, his height, the grave intensity of his dark blue gaze. He gave a slight nod in her direction. He had thick, ruffled graying hair and he ran his hands through it as if annoyed.

“Marcy Garrett?”

For a moment, Marcy was too flummoxed to even know her own name. Then she managed to nod dumbly.

“You must be Frank,” she blurted, inwardly cringing at how stupid she sounded.

He didn’t bother to dignify her words with a response. They were shown to a table and handed menus. He glanced around.

“It’s nice in here, isn’t it?” Marcy gabbled. “The decor is very restrained for a Chinese restaurant – of course all the dragons and what have you are fun – but the food is really something special, and the service is great. I always come here on my birthday. They have a take-out menu, too.” Shut up, shut up, she thought, and felt herself flush bright red.

Buy An Accidental Kiss from Amazon!

Thanks so much for being here today, Dawn. It's been delightful. Much success with your new release and your future writing!

Have a wonderful weekend, all!

Nona Raines

Hot Contemporary Romance
Edgy ~ Emotional ~ Erotic
www.nonaraines.com

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