This week I’m hosting Kathleen Y’Barbo with Flora’s Wish, Jessica Keller with Home for Good, Deanna Klingel with Cracks in the Ice, and Joyce Magnin with Cake, Love, Chickens and a Taste of Peculiar. 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 (Feb. 17th) evening.
Interview with the hero from Flora’s Wish by Kathleen Y’Barbo:
1. Lucas McMinn, tell me the most interesting thing about you.
I’m just your average guy, so that’s a tough one. My buddy and I invent things when we’re not doing our jobs as Pinkerton agents. People might call that interesting.
2. What do you do for fun?
Guess that’d be the inventing. It’s sure fun when we come up with something that works.
3. What do you put off doing because you dread it?
I don’t much care for dealing with our patent lawyer, so I put that off. Don’t like to fill in all the paperwork the Pinkerton agency requires of us either.
4. What are you afraid of most in life?
That I’ll let the ones I love down. I’m sworn to protect but that didn’t save my sister. Now I’ve got Flora Brimm under my care. She’s about the most frustrating woman a man’s ever had the trial to endure, but I’m afraid I’m falling in love with her. And maybe that’s what I fear most.
5. What do you want out of life?
A piece of land, a family, and a glass of sweet tea while I watch the sun set from the porch sounds nice. But then so does perfecting that flying machine Kyle and I have been working on. I’d love to take Flora for a ride above the treetops. And she’s just brave enough to go. The only trouble I’d have with the woman is keeping her inside the flying machine. Fear of heights does not plague her.
6. What is the most important thing to you?
Before Flora Brimm came along, my answer would have been revenge. Now I know different. Family comes right after the Lord Jesus Christ. Then everything else. When I get that order wrong, that’s the beginning of big trouble.
7. Do you read books? If so, what is your favorite type of book?
I love to read. Adventure stories used to be my favorite when I was a boy. Now my life has plenty of adventure on its own, so I stick to the Bible mostly, or something scientific. Flora’s trying to read one of those Jane Austen books. I can safely say I won’t be joining her in that endeavor.
8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I’d probably ask the Lord to make me just a little less bullheaded. Knowing me, I’d be too stubborn to change, though.
9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?
I’ve got horses, but I don’t consider them pets. They’re well treated—the best food and lodgings of any equine in Mississippi or Louisiana, but they’re hard-working animals and deserve special treatment. Flora’s got a little fuzzy dog, but its more for the amusement of the children than for me. Oh, I do allow it to sit on my lap of an evening, and I turn my back when Flora wants to tuck it in at her feet on a cold night. Then there’s the half-dozen barn cats that I make sure have a nice meal off our leftovers each night and a warm straw place out of the way of the horses and mules. But other than that, no, I’d say I don’t have any pets.
10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?
I’d go back to the day my mama and daddy met. Seeing them young and in love would be nice. Neither lived long enough to suite me, so I’d like that.
