Loyalty or Royalty?

With the release of Wild Mint Tea on March first, I've had the privilege of being interviewed on or writing guest posts for dozens of blogs. Yes, dozens. It's been a wee bit crazy, quite frankly.

Readers are loving Claire and Noel, and that is so gratifying to an author! The feedback has confirmed what I suspected, that this story is "better" than the first book in the Farm Fresh Romance series, Raspberries and Vinegar. By better, I mean that Claire is a sweeter person than Jo, and readers find it easier to root for her.

A question I often get asked is why I write stories set in Idaho when I live in Canada. There are levels to the answer.

One is that if Green Acres Farm were a real place, I could drive to it in twenty minutes if border traffic was light. Yes, my home in southeastern BC is that close to Idaho. The landscape and climate are the same as home, which is very helpful to me being as I write about farming and gardening.

Another answer is that when the Farm Fresh Romance stories began to form in my mind several years ago, Americans, who form the largest market share of English-speaking readers, often passed up foreign-set books in preference for the more familiar. This is, in fact, one of the reasons the International Christian Fiction Writers blog was formed: to help spread the news that authors from other lands might offer great stories set in other places, and weren't something to be feared or avoided!

To make my series the most appealing to a wide readership (which included agents and editors), I chose to set my stories in the USA. Ultimately I signed a contract with a small new American publishing house, Choose Now Publishing, who might've been open to a Canadian setting. As well, the doors to foreign settings have started to crack open. I chose not to submit the two completed novels in the series to an international overhaul but to stick with the way they'd been written in the first place.

In an exchange with Janice Dick, a fellow Canadian author who writes historical fiction, she said she had to choose "royalty over loyalty." The phrase stuck with me. I'd done the same. In an effort to have the best chance to actually sell my novels, I'd chosen that as more important than loyalty to a Canadian setting.

I make other choices for the "royalty" reason as well. I make sure my contemporary romances are written in both the heroine's and hero's point-of-views. I write to a standard romance formula, finding it doesn't strangle my stories at all. I make sure there's a happily-ever-after, which I prefer anyway. I make sure the word count is within the acceptable range for my genre.

God didn't give me "Canadian" stories. He gave me stories with universal topics and themes. The hope, the sense of belonging, the joy of being sought by God, the wonder of human love…these are all things that everyone can relate to. They're far more important to me than the little spot on the checklist that says where the story is set.

Sure, I have ideas for novels set in Canada. A couple are even written and waiting their turn for revision. Meanwhile, I have more contracted stories to write in the Farm Fresh Romance series…both because I want the royalties and because I want to reward the loyalties of my increasing fan base.

What about you? Do you find the setting as important to you as the themes, genre, and story line in a novel?

Valerie Comer's life on a small farm in western Canada provides the seed for stories of contemporary inspirational romance and farm lit. Like many of her characters, Valerie and her family grow much of their own food and are active in the local food movement as well as their church. She only hopes her creations enjoy their happily ever afters as much as she does hers, shared with her husband, adult kids, and adorable granddaughters. Visit her website and blog to glimpse inside her world.

The second novel in Valerie's Farm Fresh Romance series, Wild Mint Tea, released March 1, 2014.

New Zealand and Idaho Connect

One of the best things about the writing life is the connections one makes with writers and readers around the world. Alex Reece Abbot at a writer’s day out in York more than a year ago. (pictured above: Jane Finnis, Dolores Gordon-Smith, Donna, Rebecca Jenkins, Alex) Since Alex is from New Zealand, lives in England, and is thinking of moving to Australia she qualifies as a one-woman International Christian Fiction Writer.

Alex and I connected on such diverse subjects as love of apple butter and mustard (not together), and love of books and history. Alex’s pre-published novel The Maori House has already garnered an impressive list of prizes: last year it reached quarterfinals of the ABNA Awards in the US, this month, it has been selected for the long-list of the International Proverse Prize for unpublished writing and the long-list of the Lightship First Chapter Prize. I have already booked Alex for an ICFW interview when The Maori House is published.


Because Alex was writing about pioneer days in her native New Zealand, I suggested she might find my family saga of Idaho pioneers interesting. She responded with a review which I am thrilled to share:

Donna Fletcher Crow’s love of history shines out in this epic tale, centered on (in her words)
"valiant women, who pioneered in Idaho's desert before irrigation was available and still managed to keep journals."

The novel opens with Kathryn arriving from Nebraska to settle in Kuna, Idaho, at the age of seventeen— and from there, the pace doesn’t stop. This well-plotted story is hard to categorize— it has the elements of mystery, romance and historical saga, all skillfully interwoven. A diverse cast of well developed characters create plenty of tension and conflict, right down to the last pages.

Idaho is not a part of the world I know, but I had the good fortune to catch Ken Burn’s documentary series The West while I was reading this, which brought another dimension to the politics of this era of settlement of America, when competing dreams transformed the land.
Those competing dreams are central to this story and the author’s research— drawing on her own family history as a native of the Boise area and fictionalized events based on original pioneer manuscripts— is deftly handled and brings authenticity and insight to the lives she writes about.

Since this is published by Moody Press (and Greenbrier as an ebook), you’d expect to find some scripture references. Again, as events test Kathryn’s resilience— and her faith— these form an integral and natural part of her sense-making and motivation as the daughter of a preacher.

And having left her friends and family, how she is tested! Kathryn finds herself lonely in an alien, untamed land, where the nearest fresh water is some fifteen miles away; "a wilderness so hot and dry that the only growing thing is endless miles of rattlesnake-infested sagebrush."

If that’s not enough, the early farmer-settlers grapple with the challenges of irrigating a desert and face swarms of flying ants, packs of coyotes and hungry jackrabbits— and encounter their share of human pests too, in the form of gamblers, opportunists and shysters.

Well-written and consistently enjoyable, this is a deceptively easy read— you find yourself learning and reflecting along the way— and the story has a special resonance today, as so many parts of the world, including America, are suffering drought.

                                                            http://ning.it/16s3FqZ

The next in the series picks up Kathryn’s daughter Elizabeth, and her experiences as a teacher in a country school during the Great Depression.
Thank you, Alex, my around-the-world writer friend. I can’t wait for the opportunity to review The Maori House.

Visit Alex at:
http://alexreeceabbott.info/wp/

Posted by Donna Fletcher Crow whose most recent releases are An Unholy Communion, The Monastery Murders; A Tincture of Murder, The Lord Danvers Series; and A Jane Austen Encounter, The Elizabeth and Richard Mysteries. See them at
http://www.donnafletchercrow.com/