Welcome to An Indie Adventure, Mary Vine. Tell us, what inspired you to write your book, A Nugget of Time?
Hi, L.A., thank for having me as your guest today. I have been in love with the woods of Northeast Oregon for about twenty years now. My husband likes to pan for gold there, but I am more interested in the history of the mining district during the mid to late 1800s. We bought a couple of lots in the ghost town of Bourne (first named Cracker City) and that is where my story came alive. While wondering what it would have been like to live in this town during its heyday, I brought back heroine Dixie Lea, a 21st-century newspaper reporter, to 1870.If you were not a writer, what vocation would you pursue?
I was blessed to find two jobs I really enjoy. Writing is one of course, and the other is education. I spent 28 years in the field and then retired last summer as a licensed speech and language pathology assistant, teaching k through 12th grades.
Retired Lieutenant Colonel James Brogan is at a complete loss of what to do with this self-directed woman alone in the woods with no knowledge of how to survive in 1870. His sense of right and wrong gives him no choice but to keep her safe. Yet, someone else is waiting and planning for them to come to a disastrous end.
Do you prefer to read in the same genre you write in, or do you avoid reading that genre? Why?
I usually prefer happily ever after romances with mystery and/or suspense and that is what I write. I’ve always liked romantic time travel as well.
How do you create internal and external conflict in your characters? I find conflict often the hardest to create when I start planning a book.
I don’t know that I have the answer to that specifically. I am the kind of author that doesn’t plan much on paper but lets the story unfold in my head at the computer. But, I usually start the story knowing the setting and the internal struggle of the heroine and hero and go from there.
If you could live during any era of history, which one would you choose?
The 1870s or just after the Civil War. Yet, when I wrote Nugget of Time I had the heroine, Dixie Lea, doing tasks around the house without the use of 21th-century technology and it didn’t seem quite as “romantic” as I once thought. I would like to learn how to wash clothes at the river by hero James Brogan, though.
A Boise newspaper sends Dixie Lea to interview the owner of the largest gold nugget found in the 21st century. While waiting for him in a mining territory in Northeast Oregon, she walks into a cave. Feeling dizzy, she puts a hand to the wall of the tunnel and wakes up alone on a hill. Retired Lieutenant Colonel James Brogan is at a complete loss of what to do with this self-directed woman alone in the woods with no knowledge of how to survive in 1870. His sense of right and wrong gives him no choice but to keep her safe. Yet, someone else is waiting and planning for them to come to a disastrous end.
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Mary Vine is the author of contemporary romantic fiction books MAYA’S GOLD, A PLACE TO LAND, SNAKE RIVER RENDEZVOUS and historical novella WANTING MOORE, published by Black Lyon Publishing.
Through Melland Publishing, LLC, she has published a romantic mystery, A HAUNTING IN TRILLIUM FALLS, a time travel, A NUGGET OF TIME and an inspirational children’s book, THE BIG GUY UPSTAIRS.
She has also published two children’s books by author Velma Parker, EMMA COMES THROUGH and MOLLY’S MONKEYSHINES. Mary, and her husband can usually be found in Southwest Idaho or Northeast Oregon.
Through Melland Publishing, LLC, she has published a romantic mystery, A HAUNTING IN TRILLIUM FALLS, a time travel, A NUGGET OF TIME and an inspirational children’s book, THE BIG GUY UPSTAIRS.
She has also published two children’s books by author Velma Parker, EMMA COMES THROUGH and MOLLY’S MONKEYSHINES. Mary, and her husband can usually be found in Southwest Idaho or Northeast Oregon.
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Hi Mary, Thanks for being on An Indie Adventure. Time travel has always fascintated me. The questions that arise from altering the time line to falling in love and its ramifications are compelling subjects. I can't wait to see how you treat this.
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L.A.
Thank you, Leslie.
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