HOME SWEET HOME ~ Guest Post by author Deborah Cooke #TimeTravel #PNR #Toronto

It gives me great pleasure to welcome my friend and fellow Canadian author, Deborah Cooke to the blog. She will be attending Romancing the Capital hosted by Eve Langlais in April 2015.

Home Sweet Home!

By Deborah Cooke 

(also writing as Claire Delacroix)

When I first began to write, I heard that authors should write what they know. My first books were set in Canada, since I’m Canadian. I know southern Ontario better than any others. It took a long time for me to place a book with a Canadian setting: American publishers tend to be more interested in American readers, who are believed to be more interested in certain settings (and Canada isn’t one of them!) I did ultimately sell two Canadian-set romances, and they are two of my favourites of all my books.

TheMoonstone is a time travel romance. It begins in medieval England, where Viviane has been condemned as a witch and sentenced to die. She makes a wish upon a magical pendant, hoping to be taken as far away from that court of justice as possible. Niall, the knight in charge of this particular prisoner, can’t believe it when she disappears before his very eyes. When Viviane ends up on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia, she figures she’s made it to Avalon. It might just be paradise, especially when the hunky knight who granted her last wish shows up, too. Niall is determined to fulfill his vow and deliver Viviane back to the court, but a little time together in British Columbia makes him doubt that she’s really a witch—although he does find himself under her spell. This is a fun, light-hearted time travel romance, set in one of my favourite places in Canada. It doesn’t hurt that Viviane—who has a gift for telling romantic stories—decides to earn her living in our world pretty much as she did in her own, and resolves (with the help of a few friends) to become a romance writer. I had such fun writing this book and am very pleased to have it available in a new edition.

More Information: http://deborahcooke.com/claire-delacroix-books/time-travel-romances/the-moonstone/

My second book with a Canadian setting is Love Potion #9, a paranormal romance, set in the Annex neighbourhood in downtown Toronto. Lilith is a tarot card reader and psychic, separated from her one true love for centuries, and waiting on him to reincarnate. She’s hunted down an elixir of immortality to be sure she’s still around when he turns up—because Sebastien, despite his promise, is taking an awfully long time to show up and find her again. Impatient as many of us get in the middle of a sweltering Toronto summer, she casts a little spell to hurry him on. Her new neighbour, a single father named Mitch, knocks at her door and she believes he’s Sebastien. You can imagine the welcome she gives him after five or six centuries of waiting—and Mitch is astonished by the friendliness of his new neighbour. I love this story for a number of reasons: not only does it remind me of the quirky neighbourhood where I lived for years, but each chapter is named after (and governed by) one of the tarot cards in the higher arcana. I also love how Mitch and Lilith bring out the best in each other and build a relationship that really will last for all time. Although this one is also available in a new edition, I was lucky enough to have the original cover artist make the illustration available for this edition as well—I think it’s a perfect image of Lilith in her garden and love that it still is on the book’s cover.

More information: http://deborahcooke.com/claire-delacroix-books/time-travel-romances/love-potion-9/

I’m planning a new linked series of contemporary romances right now that will be set in a small town. I’m pretty much convinced I’ll set it in southern Ontario. That way, I can put that extra u in lots of words <g> and I’ll know all the best chocolate bars for my characters to eat. It’ll be like coming home again.

Do you read books with Canadian settings? Do you choose to read books specifically for that reason, or is something else more important to you? Maybe you choose by the story, the blerb, or the author. Tell me what you think of romances set in Canada—whether you read them and why.

About the Author:

Deborah Cooke sold her first book in 1992, a medieval romance called The Romance of the Rose that was published under her pseudonym Claire Delacroix in 1993. Since then, she’s published over fifty novels in a variety of subgenres and under three names. Her medieval romance, The Beauty, was her first book to land on the New York Times’ List of Bestselling Books. She’s USA Today bestselling, nationally bestselling and Kindle bestselling. In 2009, she was the writer in residence at the Toronto Public Library, the first time that TPL hosted a residency focused on the romance genre. Currently, she writes the Dragonfire series of paranormal romances as Deborah Cooke, and the True Love Brides series of medieval Scottish romances as Claire Delacroix. Her next release is a collection of short stories and novellas called Beguiled: Tales of fantasy, romance and forbidden love, which will be available on Thursday. (http://deborahcooke.com/claire-delacroix-books/novellas/beguiled/)

For more information about Deborah and her books, please visit her website at http://deborahcooke.com