Getting Your Read On: Climbing Heartbreak Hill by Joselyn Vaughn, Guest Post and Giveaway!

Climbing Heartbreak HIll by Joselyn Vaughn

Chick Lit

Length: 206 Pages

ISBN: 9781621351627

Professional runner, Ryan Grant, blows out his knee training for another attempt at the Boston marathon and the dreaded Heartbreak Hill. Ryan retreats home, not looking for anything more than a fast recovery, but he finds solace in the arms of his tax preparer, Tara Mansfield.

Tara’s cheerleading career ended abruptly and she faces an upward climb beating the stereotype as dumb blonde in her new calling as an accountant. Framed with defrauding the IRS during the last weeks of the tax season, Tara’s tentative confidence is shaken, but Ryan coaches her in en-snaring the true perpetrator. She cheers him on in discovering his identity as a coach rather than an athlete.

With the help of the junkyard king and a mechanical bull, can Tara and Ryan find the courage to climb Heartbreak Hill together?

I always enjoy the books Astraea Press puts out. I can depend on clean romance books and that's what I get every time. Today I have another great book- Climbing Heartbreak Hill by author Joselyn Vaughn. It's a great story that weaves in lots of topics we can all relate to ~ injury, recovery, disappointment, insecurity, attraction, cooperation and opportunity.

I liked Tara and I like Ryan. I like them together~ their interactions and their chemistry. They were a good support to each other. This book was more than fluff and I liked that a lot. Well, I like the fluff too. :) It was an enjoyable read and I'm glad I picked it up.

Lucky for us today I have a guest post written by Joselyn Vaughn. I love it when we get to enter the heads of authors and learn more about them. My thanks to Joselyn for writing this up especially for us today. And also my thanks to AP for providing for the giveaway. Awesomeness. All the way around.

Recently, my critique group and I did a presentation about inspiration in writing. Usually when I’m asked this question, my mind goes completely blank. I don’t have a muse that chats or bullies me. I can’t say that my characters wake me up at night to talk about what they want to happen.

So how do I end up with words on the page?

As I listened to my friends speak, I felt myself nodding. Yes, I people watch. Yes, music helps me fill in emotions. Yes, I love hearing about people’s experiences. Yes, reading!! But it was all a little different.

My friend listened to music while she wrote and it helped her with the character’s tone and voice. I can’t listen to music with lyrics. I sing along and lose my train of thought. (A train that is too easily derailed.) But sometimes I’ll listen to a song over and over to help me get inside a character’s head, then sit down and write. With Climbing Heartbreak Hill, two favorites were “[Kissed You] Good Night” by Gloriana and “I Hope That’s Me” by Brad Paisley.

People watching and listening is an easy way to pick up believable events and mannerisms for a story. I recently heard about a woman who threw up in her future husband’s brand new car on their first date. How can I not incorporate this into a story? There’s so much drama and conflict and backstory in that one sentence. Why did she throw up? How did he react? Did that end their date, their relationship? The possibilities are endless.

Reading anything – my genre or another – is always inspiring. Mediocre writing reminds me what I need to work on to improve. Fantastic writing show me what is possible and what I should try to achieve. Studying any writing helps me see what is missing in my stories and characters.

It looks like I finally have an answer to what inspires me.