Blooms of War by Suzanne Tierney
As part of today's spotlight on the newly published novel, Blooms of War, I asked the author, Suzanne Tierney, five questions. Here they are along with her answers.
Q.
We're currently in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. What five
things are helping to improve your quality of life at this difficult
time?
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I have the luxury of living near the beach. So I walk as much as I can. Sometimes it’s just a half-hour. Sometimes it’s hours. The fresh air, the drama of the sea and sky, the motion of the water, the striking of sunlight on sand, all of it is healing and inspiring and grounding.
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Since I can’t see most of my friends, we make an effort to Zoom or do text chats. Sometimes, there are things you are willing to admit or share on a text chat that you’d be embarrassed to say aloud to a group. And on text chat, your friends come together and buoy you up with encouragement and no judgment. It’s rather lovely. That said, I still look forward to seeing them in person and sharing a bottle of wine.
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Reading poetry. The world is very noisy right now. We’re constantly interrupted by news and the news is never positive. Everything is in flux. It’s hard to make decisions – do I send the children to school? Do I let my in-laws visit or make them quarantine for two weeks? Do I take my dog to the park? Do I have enough paper towels? Am I prepared for the worst case scenario? Is this the worst case scenario? Is it going to get worse?
But in all that noise, there are words and
poetry is sharply written, short, digestible, utterly gorgeous. It
hits all the emotions and inspires me.
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Cooking. Who isn’t cooking right now? The Covid Fifteen is a real phenomenon and I am certainly living proof of the extra weight. But cooking is an act of nurturing and in preparing food, we nurture ourselves and those we are close to. I am lucky to have an active household of children, husband, and pets. And everyone (even the dog—he’s an excellent food tester and thief) has gotten into trying new recipes, working together in the kitchen, debating whether something needs more salt or if we should make strawberry ice cream or lemon sorbet (the answer is always lemon sorbet).
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Write. All of that anxiety and emotion has to go somewhere, right? Why not on the page?
Q.
Do you have pets, if so, what?
We have a gorgeous, lazy, vain, loving
goldendoodle. His name is Total. He was named after a polar bear
detective in the children’s series Timmy
Failure. I sometimes dress him in
hats and put him on Instagram. I worship this dog.
Q.
Who in the writing world is your greatest influence?
Gosh,
that is an incredibly hard question! Just one???? I think I will go
with Jane Austen. You cant’ go wrong with Austen can you? She was
keenly observant. She noticed and wrote about the tiny details that
reflected so much about a person. She was a romantic. Who doesn’t
melt at Captain Wentworth’s “You pierce my soul. I am half
agony…” Doesn’t the line just make your heart hurt? And while
there are scoundrels aplenty in her books, no one is truly evil.
People are flawed. But they are also often kind.
Q.
Describe your perfect day.
A
perfect day would start with 8 hours of solid sleep. This, however,
is rarely possible, so I will amend to say, a perfect day would start
with a cup of coffee.
The
day would continue to be perfect if there was time to walk in brisk
air that smelled of autumn (can someone please make an air freshener
that smells like golden leaves and foggy days?).
From
there, a chat with a friend, some laughs with my family, the
discovery of a good song, a few hours writing, a small moment that
makes me pause and remember something beautiful from childhood, an
act or ten of kindness towards others (even if it’s reaching on my
tiptoes to grab that roll of paper towels the elderly woman next to
me cant’t quite get to). Ending the day feeling like there is good
in the world, feeling connected, feeling that I have made the place a
tiny bit better, that I have lived up to my potential, that I have
given love and made others feel happy and connected…
Rinse.
Repeat. Pretty please.
Q.
What project are you working on currently?
I
am writing the second book in Blooms of War, which will tell the
story of EyePatch (the hero’s brother) and Charles (Dorothy
Charles) as they try to capture the leader of the espionage ring
while trying not to fall in love.
After
that, I’m planning a three book series about three English sisters
who are exiled to Taiwan after WW2. I hope that it requires some
travel research. I hope the world has opened up so that we may again
travel without fear.
Thank
you so much for hosting me on Ellesea Loves Reading! I enjoyed
sharing the oddities of my life and I hope that you and your blog
followers stay healthy, happy, and connected during Covid-19. We will
get through this.
In war, she
fell in love.
Vera Betts
shouldn’t be falling in love with the enigmatic doctor she suspects
of espionage. Reeling from her family’s betrayal, she’s
faked her nursing credentials, invented a new name, and run away to
the frontlines of the French battlefield. Four years into the Great
War and she knows who she is and what she’s meant for—to save the
living and sit vigil by the dying. When the cagey-yet-earnest Dr.
Nicholas Wallace arrives, so do mysterious explosions destroying
hospitals. Even as Nick raises her suspicions, he lowers her
defenses. He wants the war to end. Are his acts of sabotage
politically motivated or a desperate attempt at peace?
In peace, she fell apart.
In peace, she fell apart.
A year later,
Vera is back with her oppressive family, living under her real name,
and Nick is on trial for murder. Trapped in grief and guilt, she
cannot speak about the past and does not believe in the future. With
Nick refusing to defend himself, she ventures to London to understand
why he is so willing to embrace the hangman’s noose. Who is he
trying to protect? What secrets does he plan to carry to his grave?
And why does Nick insist upon hiding her true identity? To save the
man she loves, Vera must tear open the past and confront the tragic
price for peace.
Writer of lush,
historical happily-ever-after tales, Suzanne Tierney believes in true
love. But she takes delicious pleasure in making her characters
fight, flutter, and find their way to each other. Her books have won
numerous awards and she has twice been a Golden Heart Finalist® with
the Romance Writers of America.
Suzanne grew up
in Oregon, adulted in the San Francisco Bay Area, and somehow ended
up in Florida, where she is very much a cold-water fish learning to
navigate humid, salty seas. She loves chatting with readers.
Instagram:
@notajaxgirl
Twitter: @notajaxgirl
Website:
suzannetierney.com
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