BOOK INFORMATION
TITLE – The Road To Winterhill
AUTHOR – Gloria Gay
GENRE – Regency Romance
PUBLICATION DATE – January 10, 2016
LENGTH (Pages/# Words) – 214 pages
PUBLISHER – Kindle Direct
COVER ARTIST – Killion Group
BOOK SYNOPSIS
In the silence of St. George’s Cathedral, the clergyman’s voice rang out unnaturally loud: “Do you, Richard Branston, Earl of Berrington, take this woman, Belinda Presleigh, of Hunsley Manor, as your lawful wedded wife, to love and honor until death do you part?”
The few wedding guests crowding around them waited for Berrington’s response which was long in coming. Belinda saw their smirks and heard their muffled laughter.
She felt the sting of tears in her eyes at the long pause and realized she could not undo what she had done. The awful deed had come to roost in her heart.
She wished he would say no. She’d rather be jilted than that awful hesitation in which everyone looked at each other, some with smirks of “I told you so.”
Finally, Lord Berrington’s voice rang out—loud, impatient and clear: “I do.”
BUY & TBR LINKS
EXCERPT
Belinda, who had been unable to close her eyes, had during the last few minutes, started to doze off. She froze as the door opened and Lord Berrington walked into the bedroom. Her hands, lying by her sides, shook.The room shrank in size with his presence, a presence that overwhelmed Belinda with its maleness and authority.In the dim candlelight she followed his progress as he tossed his coat over a chair and placing a bottle of wine and two wineglasses he had brought with him on a small table, proceeded to fill both glasses with wine. Then he walked over to the bed where Belinda lay, her body as straight and tense as a board, and sat on a chair by the bed. He handed her one of the wineglasses. His eyes raked over her as she began to tremble from head to toe."Drink this," Berrington ordered. "It will ease the tension in you. I don’t know what you’ve been told about this night, but it’s obvious you were terrorized by their words.Forget what you’ve been told. This business is very much like learning to swim. The best thing to do is to plunge right into it. It won’t be as bad as you imagine, I assure you.“Drink all your wine, now."Belinda straightened up in the bed to a sitting position and with a shaking hand took the large heavy goblet. Then with trembling lips sipped it once and stopped, but without looking at him."All of it," he ordered. "If ever anyone needed a glass of wine to relax a little, it is you."
AUTHOR BIO
Author Gloria Gay’s love of painting and writing has always been entwined in her life. Her debut novel, First Season, earned a four-star review from Romantic Times Book Review. She recently published a new, expanded version of First Season under the title, LOVE IN A DANGEROUS SEASON.
Recently, Boroughs Publishing Group published her Regency historical romances, Scandal at Almack’s and Lovely Little Liar.
Gloria published a new edition of First Season under the title, LOVE IN A DANGEROUS SEASON, as well as ENCHANTED SUMMER, a Regency romance and A BRIDGE THROUGH TIME, a time travel romance.
Gloria and her husband Enrique, an architect, have three grown children and six grand-children and they are lucky to have them all living near them in San Diego, California.
Interview:
Where are you from?
My family’s roots in the United States go back to the early 1800s
in Laredo, Texas. One of my ancestors was named Justice of the Peace by the
first governor of Texas, Sam Houston.
My husband and I, with our three children, moved to San Diego,
California in 1974, from El Paso, Texas. My father worked for the United States
State Department and when we were transferred to Nogales, Arizona, that’s where
I met my husband to be, a young architect, Enrique Gay.
Tell us your latest news?
I recently published two books with Amazon Kindle, a time travel
romance entitled, A Bridge Through Time and
a Regency romance, which is the book on my blog tour entitled, The Road To Winterhill.
When and why did you begin writing?
I wanted to be a writer from a very early age but thought that
writers were born to be writers. Later, I realized that I didn’t have to be born a writer. I could teach myself to
be one. I read innumerable books on writing, subscribed to two writers’
magazines and read the kind of books I wanted to write, which at the time were
called gothics.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
When I wrote “The End” on the last page of my first book. It was a
great feeling! My husband and I celebrated that day and we thought that I would
just send it off and it would be published. We had a lot to learn! What
followed were enough rejections to paper the walls of my study.
What inspired you to write your first book?
Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier
inspired me immensely and I wrote to the author. I asked her if Manderley was
real or imagined. I was ecstatic when she wrote back and even included a couple
of snapshots of the house that inspired her, (one of them) and the house she
lived in, which were similar.
Do you have a specific writing style?
I have a very lean style, I think, so I have to go back and add
more description, etc.
How did you come up with the title?
The hero is trapped into marriage by the heroine’s mother. He is
resentful and he intends to take her to his estate and leave her there.
However, his estate, Winterhill, is a distance of three days travel by carriage.
They stop at three inns along the way and he consummates the marriage on the
first night. He and his new wife get to know each other during the three
passionate nights on the road. However, his resentment still runs deep.
Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
I hope readers do not blame the heroine, Belinda, for being shy
because from an early age she was her mother’s victim. Her mother preferred the
prettier, older daughter and ignored Belinda. This happened in a lot of
families, particularly long ago.
How much of the book is realistic?
Belinda’s treatment by her mother was inspired by real life. My
grandmother and my great aunt, on my mother’s side, were treated differently by
the aunt who adopted them when their parents died. That aunt favored one niece
over the other and it was tragic.
Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own
life?
As a writer I draw from the well of experience deep within myself
when I am writing. The subconscious is a vast place full of wonderful things
that surface now and then and give me ideas. I have often woken to find an idea
for the book I am writing had formed in my mind while I slept.
What books have most influenced your life?
From an early age I devoured books. The library was my favorite
place to be apart from the outdoors. I loved the smell of the books and the way
the moment I opened the book to the first page I was transported to other
lands, to meet other people. I just loved reading so much. I read Nancy Drew
and similar books, then I read gothics and countless classics like The Man In The
Iron Mask, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Old Curiosity Shop, Tess of the d’Ubervilles,
etc.
If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
Daphne DuMaurier influenced me to become the writer of my first
book, which, ironically, is as yet unpublished. In a deeper way D.H. Lawrence, Collette,
Jane Austen.
What would you like my readers to know?
That when I write, I think of them. I hope
that with my writing I make them feel anguish, expectation, curiosity, love,
regret, adventure, and all the other wonderful and countless feelings that we
as humans are privileged to experience.
AUTHOR FOLLOW LINKS
GIVEAWAY PRIZES
5 ebooks of The Road of Winterhill
This event has been organized by
Thank you for the wonderful interview and for participating in the tour. Victoria at My Family's Heart
ReplyDelete