This week I’m hosting Pamela Meyers with Love Will Find a Way (soon to be released) and Thyme for Love (give this book away), Sharon Souza with Unraveled and Irene Brand with Taking a Risk on Love. If you want to enter the drawings for the 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. The drawings end Sunday (November 25th) evening.
Interview with the heroine from Unraveled by Sharon Souza:
1. Aria Winters, tell me the most interesting thing about you.
I grew up on what some would call one the finest walnut, almond and pistachio ranches in all of California, owned by my parents and grandparents—the originally hippies of the San Joaquin valley—where we all live in uncomfortably close proximity. Me, I call it The Compound. And after I graduated from college I couldn’t wait to get off the nut farm. Literally. So I took my degree to Moldova in eastern Europe to teach English at a missions school—where I messed up. Royally. I couldn’t wait to get back to all the nuts, including the plant variety.
2. What do you do for fun?
One thing about where I live in northern California, there’s so much to do. In the winter I ski at Tahoe. My goal is to someday be as sleek on the slopes as my younger sister Johnnie. She’s better than me in almost everything, and I don’t mind a bit. She’s my best friend; well, she and Kari Zalasky. But we do love to compete. I was always better in jacks than Johnnie, and Kari too, and everyone else for that matter. I know what you’re thinking, who plays jacks anymore? Or you might be thinking, jacks? I played only because Mam taught me, and when she told me where to find the best jacks ball in all the world it gave me an advantage I couldn’t resist.
In the summer, we water ski on the delta, and for a weekend getaway we’re only a couple hours from the beach.
But if I had to say definitively what my favorite thing is, it’s to sit in my bedroom late at night with my window open and listen to Opa play his prayers on his guitar. He’ll be the lead guitar player in Heaven’s worship band one of these days. Trust me. He’s that good. Andy’s that good too, though I’d never tell him, but Andy’s, well, he’s another story.
3. What do you put off doing because you dread it?
At the moment I’m putting off making a phone call that I know I have to make. My heart is going nuts—that’s a bit of Shunk-Winters humor—and I can’t make my finger dial the number that I found against all odds, just my luck. But I know I won’t have any peace until I call. I won’t have any peace afterwards either, I’m pretty sure. Lord, what are you doing? What. Are. You. Doing?
4. What are you afraid of most in life?
That my family will learn my most awful secret; the one that could cost me a seat in the audience of Heaven’s worship band, if you get my drift. No one knows, not even Kari. Well, okay, God knows, but so far he hasn’t told on me. I’m not sure what I’ll do if he does.
5. What do you want out of life?
I’d like to know love like Dad and Celie’s love, and Mam and Opa’s, and Johnnie and Matt’s. Honestly, though, not gonna happen. Not for me. That kind of love is a gift, and surely you have to be worthy of it to some small degree. Right? That’s how I see it.
6. What is the most important thing to you?
Family, for sure. I’d just like a little distance once in a while, you know? I mean, I’m afraid to wander outside at night for fear Mam and Opa are skinny dipping in the common pool we share on The Compound.
7. Do you read? If so, what is your favorite type of book to read?
I do read, constantly. My favorite type of novel has nothing to do with genre. To qualify it has to move me, either to laughter, tears, fear, surprise. Any or all of those. I just need to be moved. King David moves me, you know, in the Psalms? If I’d been Michal, I never would have scolded him for dancing. It would have made my heart race, watching. I’m sure of it.
8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
If I had to choose one thing only—and believe me, once I started a list there would be no end to it—I’d want to find a way to be content. I’m so not. In any aspect of my life. I’m the odd nut in our family in that regard. You’d think it would be in my genes, or rub off at the very least. But no. I’m the unsettled one.
I know this is breaking your rules, but something else I would change is to make myself into someone Andy would notice. But you didn’t hear that from me.
9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?
Celie has had a Lhasa Apso named Snickers for years. I don’t think he likes me. And Opa has Wolf. Wolf is a pug. When I asked Opa why on earth he’d give a pug such a ridiculous name, he said, “Baby girl, God calls things that are not as though they were. That’s all I’m doin’, darlin’.”
I had a turtle once, in a little fishbowl in my bedroom. The thing with pets is you have to feed them.
10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?
That’s easy. I’d go back to that day and do things differently.
