📖 Blog Tour ~ Author Interview ~ A Summer of Second Chances by Suzanne Snow

 

📖 Delighted to be on this blog tour today 📖 

Canelo
10 June 2021

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book
and to Katrina Power for the invitation to be part of the blog tour

Sparks and tempers fly when Ben comes to stay in Daisy's holiday cottage.

Ben is training for a triathlon, working himself to the limit in an attempt to overcome a recent trauma. Daisy wants to help, but even as they draw closer with every week that passes, he pushes her away whenever things threaten to get serious.

Volunteering with a local equine charity, Daisy discovers Ben’s history with horses, and his desire to help others as he has been helped is suddenly very close to home.

Can Ben open himself up to love again? With his real life waiting for him back in New York, can they have a future together even if he does?

For fans of Victoria Walters and Trisha Ashley, this is a perfect and much-needed slice of summer escapism.

It gives me great pleasure to introduce Suzanne Snow to Jaffareadstoo today

Hello Suzanne and welcome to Jaffareadstoo. Thank you for spending time with us today.

Suzanne, tell us a little about yourself and how you got started as an author.

Hi Jo, thank you for having me on your blog. I’m Suzanne Snow and I write contemporary romantic fiction. I’ve been writing for some time, in between previous day jobs in financial services and planting redesigned gardens. I joined the Romantic Novelists Association in 2018 when I discovered its New Writers Scheme. I’ve learned such a lot since becoming a member and made some great friends, it’s a very supportive and welcoming association. I was fortunate to meet my agent Susan Yearwood at the 2019 conference, which led to representation and eventually publication with Canelo.

Your novels are set in Thorndale, which is a pretty little village, is it based on a real place?

Thank you! Thorndale was inspired by Littondale and Wharfedale in Yorkshire. I borrowed bits from Kettlewell, Arncliffe and Hawkswick to create my village. Whenever I return I always feel closest to Thorndale in Arncliffe. I love the sense of community found in rural villages and so enjoy writing about them.

The Summer of Second Chances is now book three in the Welcome to Thorndale series, how does it fit in with the rest of the series?

It’s set in Thorndale and a few characters have returned from the previous books, including Sam and Charlie Stewart. Daisy grew up in Thorndale but moved away and Ben is just visiting to train for a triathlon. There are some scenes in Cumbria and it was interesting to take my characters into a new location. I’ve expanded on Thorndale for this book and writing new characters such as Mrs Timms in the café and Edwin, a local farmer, was a lot of fun and we’ll see some of them again at Christmas.

For readers who are not familiar with your writing, what can they expect from your novels?

I hope readers will find romantic, uplifting stories with a strong sense of setting and community connecting the lives of my characters. I love to imagine people who have long lived in a place, and those who might be recently arrived, and why. Writing romantic fiction is a passion and it’s a joy to create characters who fall in love and need a little help to reach their happy ending!

Where do your ideas for your stories come from, and as one book finishes do you already know where the next book will take you?

I find the landscape around me very inspiring, and it’s often when I’m out walking that ideas pop up. This book was actually inspired by a house with an old barn at the end of the garden, and the character of Ben appeared very quickly in my mind. There’s always a farmhouse, a hamlet or a tiny cottage to discover when I’m researching or just exploring with my family and then my imagination takes over.

As well as creating a backstory for my characters I always plan their futures, at least for now, as this feeds into the ending of the books. I need to understand where they will go next and what they will do when they get there, especially as some of them do reappear. Before I start writing I like to plan the book and usually have an outline of each chapter. I always know the ending, it’s often one of the first things that comes to me, and I know it’s not the same for all authors. For me writing the book is the process of drawing the characters to that ending and knowing a little of how their futures will look.

When you started writing – did you always intend this to be a series? And if so, did you know at the start where the story eventually finish?

I didn’t originally plan for the books to be a series but I very quickly knew that I wanted to connect them and that some characters would play a role in each story. This soon evolved into the Welcome to Thorndale series, and it’s now grown to 4 books with a Christmas one being published in September. I didn’t plan the end of the series, just the individual books with an idea of how the characters might relate to each other in the future.

Have you another novel planned?

I’m at the beginning of a 3-book series and this time I’m setting it in Cumbria, still in a rural community with people at its heart. I have an outline for each book (as well as the endings!) and was recently able to spend time in a house which is the inspiration for mine in the series. This was a pleasure, and such a help, to be immersed in the setting and picture my new characters living their lives in a wonderful place. I also have a stand-alone story I’m planning to set in Connemara and that will definitely require a visit for research! And I’m not entirely sure I’ve finished with Thorndale yet!

Thank you for the opportunity to be featured on your blog, Jo, I’ve really enjoyed answering your questions.

Suzanne

Thank you so much, for being such a lovely guest.

🌠

 

Suzanne Snow writes romantic, uplifting fiction with a strong sense of setting and community connecting the lives of her characters, finding inspiration in beautiful views, old houses and abundant gardens. The Summer of Second Chances is Suzanne’s third novel in the Welcome to Thorndale series. Her first two novels in the series, The Cottage of New Beginnings and The Garden of Little Rose, are also published by Canelo.

After working in financial services and then spending several years as a stay-at-home mum, Suzanne was ready for a change. Her interest in horticulture led her to study for RHS qualifications at agricultural college in Yorkshire, enabling her to pursue a new career planting redesigned gardens.

Suzanne has sung in a choir, trained as a worship leader and raised money for charity by making huge volumes of soup for anyone she can persuade to buy it. She is an infrequent horse rider after years competing in dressage, and a ranch holiday in Montana is top of her bucket list.

She lives in Lancashire with her family and loves to read, particularly historical crime and biographies of writers. She also enjoys walking, cooking for family and friends, and watching movies, especially if they have a happy ending.

Suzanne is a member of the Romantic Novelists Association and the Society of Authors.

Twitter @SnowProse 

@canelo_co

@Katrina_Power