FEARLESS DESTINY BY ANNETTE BOWER

Fearless Destiny

by Annette Bower

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GENRE: Women's fiction with romantic elements

Annette Bower will be awarding a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble Gift Card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.

First, here's a lovely interview with Annette.

Good morning Caroline, thank you for sharing your followers and time with me today.

Where did I grow up?

I was born, attended elementary school, high school and nurses’ training in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. My grandparents were German immigrants from Russia who came to Saskatchewan as part of the government’s plan to open the land to farmers, on what is commonly referred to as Canada’s Bread Basket to the world. My parents moved into the city and raised me and my five siblings here. However, we were close to the land, when we visited grandparents and extended family. We often spent part of our school vacation on the farm, jumping in hay stacks, being led around a clearing and told stories about our First Nations gathering around fire camps, and getting stuck in the mud in our Easter finery. I recall one day on my cousins’ farm, from the kitchen window, seeing a bull mount a cow. I commented that the animals were playing piggy back. My much younger cousin confided in me years later that she asked her mother if she should tell me what was really happening. Her mother said, I’d find out in good time. And she was right.

 Then our cousins would come into the city and be awe struck at the life of leisure we had, making our bed and doing the dishes was considered easy. After I married my husband and I moved to Ottawa, the capital of Canada. We had an exciting life mingling with politicians and the movers and shakers of our world, however, I was too inexperienced to realize the full impact of this. But I did learn that people in power have problems very similar to the rest of us. They may have more connections to get things done, and more money to help but the sorrow, pain, and joy is the same. The old saying that they put their pants on one leg at a time, just like everyone else, is true.

(In the photo, I’m next to my oldest sister, three years older than me. My mom dressed me and my younger sister the same, even though we were three years apart.)

What are your favorite authors and favorite genres?

I read on a wide range of subjects as most writers do. We need to research and continue filling our imagination and knowledge well. I picked three books from my self that have influenced Fearless Destiny.  The first is When I Fall in Love by Iris Rainer Dart. She writes about characters who are differently abled and they have HEA lives.

Next is The Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez who spent five years teaching at and later directing the Kabul Beauty School. This is a creative non-fiction about a woman who took charge of her destiny and in her courage helped many other women realize and change their lives.

And a book of poetry, Exile on a Grid Road by Shelley Banks. This is poetry about the land I live in and write about, I relate to the experiences and the solitude writers need to create. Banks uses compressed language and images to bring landscape and emotions to her readers.

What is your favorite way to relax and recharge?

The last ten years my husband and I take advantage of low fees to travel to Europe in the shoulder season-late fall or early spring. We can’t swim in the ocean but we can explore other words, museums, galleries, and I can find other authors’ books translated into English. We’ve been to Portugal, France, Greece, China and a river cruise down the Rhine, Maine, and Danube. I’ve been to Spain, London, and Italy with women friends.

I enjoy walking in new countries and watching how they live and checking out the architecture. This photo is a picture of the Monastiraki Flea Market in Athens, Greece.

Do you have a favorite quote that sums up how you feel about life?

“Late Fragment

And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on the earth.”

― Raymond Carver, A New Path to the Waterfall

AND,

How long have you been writing?

I’ve been writing for many years as part of my other careers. I recall when I was an assistant to Regina Beach’s Village Secretary, I wrote a two-page letter to a man who was not obeying the village dog bylaw. His dogs ran around the village and frighten people. I don’t think I changed the dog owner’s mind. 

I began seriously after I graduated from University with my BA majoring in English. I then attended every workshop, writers’ retreat, conference, and joined the Saskatchewan Writers Guild and the RWA. I began with success as a short story writer to gain some publishing credits and then found a publisher willing to take a chance on my way of writing in the romance genre. My first novel, Moving On was published by a small Canadian Press which went out of business. Soon after that Soul Mate Publishing contracted Woman of Substance, and then re published Moving On, when I received my rights back, and now Fearless Destiny.

I write in the quiet of my office without music but a fabulous view of the city skyline. Because Regina is a small city, I look out past the few tall buildings and toward the fields on the horizon.

I usually have a rough idea where my story will go. I do a great deal of research before I begin and then I’m a panzer. I write and rewrite and rewrite, and therefore I am a slow writer. A new book every two or three years.

What do you hope your writing brings to readers?

What I would like my stories to bring to readers is a HEA romance as well as shine a little light on a social issue. In Woman of Substance I tap societies’ views on women’s body shapes. In Moving On I discuss grief and loss. And in Fearless Destiny I discuss the challenges of being an artist and a member of the community and family with all of those responsibilities calling on such limited time in a day.

After readers read, Woman of Substance, they told me that they looked differently at women who were larger and a young man came up to me and told me that he was raised by his grandparents and they saved his life.

In Moving On readers have shared their feelings of loss of a loved one. And Fearless Destiny is new, so I haven’t heard back from anyone yet.

I hope your followers will comment on their challenges between creating art and other responsibilities.

What advice would you give to unpublished authors?

My advice would be to keep working on your craft. Get the best person you can to read your work and help you edit. If you can afford it hire a professional editor, or at least the best one you can afford. And if after a while you don’t find a publisher, now is a good time to be an Indie publisher. Also know that the work doesn’t stop once you are published, whether it be with a publisher or as an Indie. It’s a big genre out there and readers have to find you. Tell people anyway you can that you are an author and you have a book/books. Have your pitch ready.

An opportunity came up through the Saskatchewan Writers Guild to sell books at Save On Foods. I was there with bells on.

Thank you Caroline for hosting me today and allowing me to present myself to your followers. 

FEARLESS DESTINY Blurb:

From the Romance Review Readers Choice nominee, Annette Bower, comes a new small town romance, Fearless Destiny.

Tiffany George, riding high on her commission as a fresco artist, returns home for some deserved rest and relaxation.

The drive is uneventful until she rescues Will Cleaver on the side of a highway. While savoring memories of a kiss and a well formed butt, her future goals do not include a romance.

Once in town, she discovers the hopes and dreams of her community hinge on the development of a new resource mine and Will Cleaver’s designed neighborhood. Her parents demand she give up art and resume her working partner role in the family business.

Tiffany George is pulled by her community roots and stretched by her newly discovered independence.

Will Cleaver knows about taking charge of destiny. He models the courage she uses to become the woman she needs to be.

FEARLESS DESTINY Excerpt:

The words “hello there” ploughed down the silent hallway as Tiffany’s roadside linebacker advanced with a synchronized arm and leg crutch-walk.

Tiffany bit her cheek while she watched her father grab the railing on the wall. She stepped forward. “Tiffany George of George’s Family Plumbing. There’s a water break.”

His gaze traveled up from her chest to the collar of her pink coveralls and then to the top of her head, where she was sure her spikes had tumbled like dominoes. Then down to the tips of her lime-green boots. “Nice boots, real nice boots.”

Tiffany tugged at the weight of the tool bag across her body.

“A sprite of many talents, I see.” He gripped his walking aids.

“We can’t all be just a pretty face.” She could have bitten off her tongue.

He raised his eyebrows and his eyes sparkled. They weren’t black after all, but a deep brown.

“You think I’m pretty?” He sounded amused.

She took a wide stance and began an assessment of him from the tip of his dusty loafers, gray trousers, a rumpled white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows exposing firm, and tanned arms. His whiskers shadowed across his firm jaw, his full lips held neutral, his straight nose and those dark watchful eyes had deep etched laugh lines around them.

“You have a certain road weariness that I’d like to capture on paper.” Reaching with her callused fingers, she touched his beard.

Amazon Buy Link for FEARLESS DESTINY:

https://www.amazon.com/Fearless-Destiny-Annette-Bower-ebook/dp/B01IW1Y83S   

Annette Bower, Author

Annette Bower sets her romance novels in Saskatchewan because she believes home can be as exotic as anywhere else in the World. Annette travels extensively, but always returns home to Regina, Saskatchewan. Born in Regina, her experiences as a nurse, administrator, town councillor, teachers’ assistant and student inform her stories and reflect the experiences of many readers. Annette’s stories are read around the world and have been shortlisted on many national and international stages.

Annette Bower writes about women’s roles in families, in communities and women’s emotions at the beginning and end of love in her home office in Regina, SK. Her short stories are published in magazines and anthologies in Canada, United States, and United Kingdom.

Her women’s fiction novels with romantic elements, WOMAN OF SUBSTANCE and MOVING ON are published by Soul Mate Publishing.

Annette Bower’s day-to-day experiences as a nurse, administrator, town councillor, teacher’s assistant and student means that her stories are the real thing because they are about you and your neighbours. Her short stories and novels are read around the world. Her romance novels are set in Saskatchewan because she believes home is as exotic as anywhere else in the wide world she has visited.

Links:

www.annettebower.com

www.annettebower.com/blog

https://www.facebook.com/annette.bower1author

https://twitter.com/BowerAnnette

Annette Bower will be awarding a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble Gift Card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway