INTERVIEW WITH DENISE HUNTER

Denise Hunter is the internationally published bestselling author of more than 25 books, including "Dancing with Fireflies" and "The Convenient Groom". She has won The Holt Medallion Award, The Reader's Choice Award, The Foreword Book of the Year Award, and is a RITA finalist.

Denise writes heartwarming, small-town love stories. Her readers enjoy the experience of falling in love vicariously through her characters and can expect a happily-ever-after sigh as they close the pages of her books.

In 1996, inspired by the death of her grandfather, Denise began her first book, writing while her children napped. Two years later it was published, and she's been writing ever since. Her husband says he inspires all her romantic stories, but Denise insists a good imagination helps too!

When Denise isn't orchestrating love lives on the written page, she enjoys traveling with her family, drinking green tea, and playing drums. Denise makes her home in Indiana where she and her husband are raising three boys.

You can learn more about Denise through her website www.DeniseHunterBooks.com or by visiting her FaceBook page at https://www.facebook.com/authordenisehunter

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? 

I’ve been happily married for 26 years, and I have three boys—two in college and one still in high school. I started writing my first novel 19 years ago, writing while my children napped, and here I am 27 books later and still writing. I feel very blessed! 

What do you do when you’re not writing? 

Having a very boy-centric household, our TV is pretty much permanently set to ESPN. It’s a good thing I love to read! When I’m not reading I love to travel with my family. Research trips are also a great perk of my job!

Tell us something about yourself that might surprise your readers. 

I’m an introvert (not surprising) so most people are surprised when they find out I play the drums. I taught myself to play when my husband and I were part of a new church start, and we were lacking a drummer. I’d always wanted to play, so I thought, hey, why not? I think my husband thought I’d flipped my lid because I’d never even played an instrument before. But I taught myself to play, I was the sole drummer for our church for almost ten years. I don’t play now so much anymore, mainly because life has gotten busy, and we had another drummer come along to fill my shoes.

Did you choose the genre you write in, or did it choose you? 

Oh, it definitely chose me. I’m such a romantic at heart. There’s something about the love relationship between a man and woman that I find intriguing. I’m also endlessly fascinated by the hurts in our past and how they affect our decisions and behavior in the present. No matter how many times I tell love stories, it never gets old.

What has been the toughest criticism given to you as an author? What has been the best compliment? 

I won’t lie, it hurts to read a negative review. My stories come from the heart, and it feels very personal when someone hates what I wrote! Fortunately most people are very kind with their words. The biggest compliment is when someone tells me they made a change in their life because of something I wrote. I can’t imagine a nice compliment.

If you could go back in time and do something differently in your writing career, what would it be? 

You know what? I can’t think of a thing. Sure I made some mistakes. Things could’ve been easier, the road less bumpy. But all those bumpy back roads taught me something, and all those detours led me to where am I now—and I really like where I am now. 

Eden Martelli is too busy fleeing the clutches of danger to realize she’s running straight into the arms of a new love.

Speeding north through rural Maine, Eden Martelli wonders how her life came to this—on the run with her mute five-year-old son dozing fitfully in the passenger seat. When a breakdown leaves them stranded in Summer Harbor, Eden has no choice but to stay put through Christmas . . . even though they have no place to lay their heads.

Beau Callahan is a habitual problem solver—for other people anyway. He left the sheriff’s department to take over his family’s Christmas tree farm, but he’s still haunted by the loss of his parents and struggling to handle his first Christmas alone.

When Eden shows up looking for work just as Beau’s feisty aunt gets out of the hospital, Beau thinks he’s finally caught a break. Eden is competent and dedicated—if a little guarded—and a knockout to boot. But, as he soon finds out, she also comes with a boatload of secrets.

Eden has been through too much to trust her heart to another man, but Beau is impossible to resist, and the feeling seems to be mutual. As Christmas Eve approaches, Eden’s past catches up to her.

Beau will go to the ends of the earth to keep her safe. But who’s going to protect his heart from a woman who can’t seem to trust again?

 

 Denise is giving away a copy of her book, FALLING LIKE SNOWFLAKES! Leave a comment, along with your contact information, and you could be the winner! (U.S. only)