This week I’m hosting Bonnie Leon with Enduring Love and Linda Hall with Shadows on the River. If you want to enter the drawings for either or both of these books, please leave a comment on one of the post during the week with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com and let me know which books. The drawings end Sunday (April 19th) evening.
Heroine’s interview from Linda Hall’s Shadows on the River:
1. Ally Roarke, tell me the most interesting thing about you.
I design boats, which is sort of unusual for a woman, I guess. I’ve got a Masters degree in Marine Engineering Technology from Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada. When I graduated more than ten years ago, there were only three of us female types in my class. There are more women are studying engineering now, and particularly Marine Engineering, and I’m pleased with that.
2.What do you do for fun?
I wish I could say that I get out there and race small sailboats in my spare time, but with my daughter (I’m a single mom), my time is pretty much spent with her. Plus, she is profoundly deaf. There has been a very steep learning curve since I found that out. I studied ASL (sign language), and that’s how we communicate. Plus, I’m always monitoring her school work. Deaf children are often behind in their literacy skills, so I’m constantly reading up on that, and working with her and making sure she’s caught up. She attends a regular classroom, with a full-time interpreter. See? The question was – ‘what do I do for fun?’ and I’ve ended up talking about my daughter.
3.What do you put off doing because you dread it?
Paying bills. Ugh. There’s never enough money. With my degree – a Masters in Engineering – I could be working in some big company and plenty, but when Maddie was born and I discovered she was deaf, I sort of put all that on hold. For the past ten years I’ve worked out of my home taking boat design contracts – which are hit and miss, but at least I’ve been there for my daughter.
So, yeah – bills are a challenge. I’m constantly juggling stuff.
4.What are you afraid of most in life?
When I was just a little bit older than my daughter is now, I witnessed a horrific crime. I watched someone push my best friend off a bridge to her death. I would do anything to save my own daughter from all the hurt that has caused me – all the fear, and lack of trust that I have – the bitterness I have kept inside me for so many years.
5.What do you want out of life?
Since university I have been designing a small, fast sailboat. I want to develop this boat and get it into production, but there’s a part of me that doesn’t think it’s good enough, that people won’t like it, that this whole business venture of mine will crash. I have the whole thing on paper and on computer, and I want to get it out there but I’m just afraid.
6.What is the most important thing to you?
That’s easy. My daughter.
7.Do you read? If so, what is your favorite type of book to read?
I love books about people’s sailing adventures – autobiographies about sailing around the world. I read old ones, I read modern ones. If anyone writes a memoir about being out on the water, I’m sure to be first at the bookstore to buy it.
8.If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
That I wouldn’t be so fearful. That I would trust more. I’ve met a nice man, Mark Bishop. He’s helping me trust and not be afraid. SHADOWS ON THE RIVER is our story. I hope you enjoy reading it.
9.Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?
What an interesting question! Maddie and I don’t have any pets, but maybe a dog would be good for her. I’ll look into it. I’m sure she’ll love a pet!
10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?
Oh, that’s an easy one. I’d go back and sail tall ships and square – riggers in the swashbuckling days when they regularly traveled the trade routes from the Caribbean to Newfoundland and back again.
