Interview with Pamela Meyers and #giveaway!!!

Today we welcome Pamela Meyers to my blog. Pam is graciously offering a giveaway of her book to one commenter.  Be sure to include contact information. 

Pam, glad you stopped by. Where did you grow up and attend school? Are there any other authors in your family?  

I grew up in Lake Geneva, WI, a picturesque small town on a beautiful lake about 12 miles north of the Illinois border. My creative genes come from my dad’s side of the family. He had artistic talent and could craft a good speech, but never was a writer. His maternal grandfather was a portrait photographer in the late 1800s and early 1900s and several generations before him, a cousin by the name of George Bancroft wrote a U.S. history book (a copy of which is in my local library) and was Secretary of the Navy under President Van Buren.

How did you get started writing? How old were you? What made you want to start? What did you enjoy reading as a child?  

I was an avid reader as a child, as was my mother. I was always interested in writing things down and asked for a diary for Christmas when I was eight. I never wrote stories, but I had a huge collection of paper dolls and would play for hours, developing storylines for them. I never thought about writing as a profession until I enrolled in an accelerated adult bachelor’s program at Trinity International University where I took a lot of elective writing classes including one on creative writing and discovered my love of telling stories. After graduation I attended the Write to Publish writers conference which is local to me. There I took continuing fiction writing classes from authors Gail Martin and Gayle Roper and learned about American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) and joined that. In God’s own timing I signed my first book contract in 2011.

How do you research the communities and people you write about? Do you find yourself having do a lot of research?  

Each book has had it’s own unique form of research. Love Finds You in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, which is my hometown, had the greatest need of research. You’d think it would have been easy peasy given I grew up there, but it is an historical romance set in 1933, and I had to make sure everything I wrote about was there at that time. I spent hours at the Lake Geneva library (about an hour’s drive from my home), going over the local weekly newspaper on microfilm to be sure the stores, restaurants and other elements of the town I was using in the story were correct. The story is a romance, but it also focuses on the construction of a recreational building on the lakefront. I learned more about that building than I ever thought I would need to know.

For my current release, Second Chance Love, the story is set at a real rodeo that takes place every Labor Day weekend in a tiny village about five hours south of Chicago. A friend and I attend the rodeo every year, so I was very familiar with the setting. But, after I was contracted to write the story, my next attendance at the event was more about paying attention to the details and less to the actual rodeo. I took tons of pictures and drove around the town, ate at local restaurants, and paid attention to the routes to and from the rodeo and to other places mentioned in the story. I have a first-hand rodeo expert in a friend who is a retired bull rider and he was a huge help, but I also watched a lot of video on line, including teaching videos on how to ride a bull. No. I never tried to ride one. I’m not that crazy LOL.

Which is your favorite book? Do you have a character in your books you identify with the most?

For the most part, whatever book I’m working on becomes my favorite, but I’d have to say because of the personal connection to my Lake Geneva book, that one is very special. I’m very blessed to have had the opportunity to write a story set in my hometown. As I wrote the book I came to realize that the hero and heroine resembled my parents a lot, although their story is not at all like the one I wrote.

Having said that, loving to watch rodeo, and bull riding in particular, Second Chance Love is a close second as far as favorites go. It’s always exciting to write a story set in a real place and then take your book there and say, here’s a story I wrote about your town. It’s almost like a love letter to the town in thanks for wonderful memories I have of the area.

As for the character I relate to the most goes, I think there is a little of me in all my female characters and I can’t say any one is my favorite.

About the book: 

Chicago lawyer Sydney Knight and Texas bull rider Jace McGowan have nothing in common but everything to lose when they are thrust together during a weekend rodeo in rural Illinois. Neither one of them would have imagined two years ago that the deep attraction they sensed during a day-long outing would resurface when Sydney’s boss assigns her to Jace’s legal case.

Sydney has been through a world of hurt since losing her dad when she was sixteen, then being dumped the morning of her wedding. She’s sworn off romance and instead devotes her time toward a partnership in her father’s law office.

Jace has found faith in God and wants out of his sponsor contract with a risqué restaurant chain that requires him to pose with scantily-clad women. He’s about to bail on the contract and pay steep penalties—something he can ill afford, given that his deceased father left the family with unpaid taxes.

Sydney is determined she’ll get Jace out of his contract and return to Chicago with her heart intact, but Jace is just as determined to help her see they are meant to be together. Can a city girl with roots deep in Chicago and a bull-riding rancher with roots deep in Texas give themselves a second-chance love?

Bio: Pamela S. Meyers, Author of Inspirational Fiction

A native of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, author Pamela S. Meyers lives in suburban Chicago with her two rescue cats. Her novels include Thyme for Love and her historical romance, Love Finds You in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Her novella. What Lies Ahead, is part of a novella collection, The Bucket List Dare, which is now available at Amazon in both print and Kindle formats. Second Chance Love from Bling!, an imprint of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas, releases in January 2017. When she isn’t at her laptop writing her latest novel, she can often be found nosing around Wisconsin and other Midwestern spots for new story ideas.