This week I’m hosting Kit Wilkinson with Protector’s Honor and Debbie Fuller Thomas with Raising Rain. If you want to enter the drawing for the book, 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. The drawings end Sunday (Sept. 20th) evening.
Heroine interview for Raising Rain by Debbie Fuller Thomas:
Interview with the heroine:
1. Bebe, tell me the most interesting thing about you.
Three other college roommates and I raised a baby together in the early 70’s. It was pretty complicated, arranging our schedules to make sure someone was available to babysit all the time and handing her off to each other between classes. Mare was the only one of us who knew much about babies, and that was because she was the oldest of eight kids. I think poor Rain was confused about who her mother was for a while. I loved her like my own. Still do.
2. What do you do for fun?
Since we now have an empty nest, I have developed an interest in baseball, which makes my husband Neil happy. It doesn’t hurt that the Giants play in San Francisco, which is a gorgeous city with so much to do, so a game day can turn into a great weekend getaway.
3. What do you put off doing because you dread it?
It would have to be dealing with Jude. Toni, Mare and I would have all lost contact with her years ago, if it wasn’t for Rain. Jude was Rain’s real mom, although she was more interested in abortion rallies and war protests than in being a mother. So, for Rain’s sake, we stayed in there and now 30+ years later, Jude wants an end-of-life celebration. Guess who she wants to help her plan it? None of us is looking forward to it.
4. What are you afraid of most in life?
I worry about my kids’ futures – and I include Rain in that, even though she’s not technically mine. My son Dylan is attending a state college, and he’ll be facing some choices that could potentially impact the rest of his life, as I know well enough. My other son, Scotty, is in the Marine Reserves and I’m afraid his unit will be deployed. By the time his boots hit Afghan soil, I’ll have to have knee replacements from time spent on them praying. And Rain. I guess I’m afraid that she won’t find happiness, and that somehow we were all partly to blame.
5. What do you want out of life?
I want good relationships with the people I love and to have meaningful work. I enjoy being a veterinarian. I think God wired me to have an extra dose of compassion for animals. It’s incredibly rewarding.
6. What is the most important thing to you?
If you had asked me in my college years, it would have been to be recognized for my own abilities as a capable young woman (hear me roar), and especially to be respected by my own father. Now, my relationships with others are more important. God has a way of mellowing us and giving us new perspectives.
7. Do you read? If so, what is your favorite type of book to read?
I read so many veterinary journals in my spare time that I don’t have time to read for pleasure. But I’m trying a new fiction author that I found, named Rachelle DuPree. I’ll let you know if she’s any good.
8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
My freckles. I know it’s vain, but with a nickname like Bebe, you can imagine what it was like in elementary school to have thousands of dots on my face, arms, legs, etc. And my hair. Are any of us really satisfied with our hair?
9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?
We have two Golden Retrievers, Jimbo and Suzie, who were dumped outside of our veterinary clinic in the middle of the night. I have to be really careful not to adopt every stray that finds its way through our clinic for one reason or another.
10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?
Well, that’s complicated. I would go back to the early 70’s, back to my college days, but not because they were so wonderful. It was a confusing, tumultuous time in a lot of ways. If I could go back with the hindsight I have now, things might turn out differently – and not just for me. But we could all say that, couldn’t we?
