This week I’m hosting Julianna Deering with Rules of Murder (US only), Davalynn Spencer with The Rancher’s Second Chance, Liz Tolsma with Snow on the Tulips (US only) and Anita Higman withWinter in Full Bloom (US only). 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 (Aug 11th) evening.
Interview with the heroine from Snow on the Tulips by Liz Tolsma:
1. Cornelia, tell me the most interesting thing about you.
I’m not a very interesting person. I want to live a quiet life until the Nazis leave my country. I have a job as a caretaker for an elderly woman, I come home and cook for my brother and keep my house tidy. Nothing out of the ordinary.
2. What do you do for fun?
My late husband Hans and I would take bike rides and have picnics. I sew and with new clothes unavailable, I do a lot of mending. Sometimes I like to knit as well, but yarn is also impossible to get, so I unraveled one of my father’s scarves and have knitted it over four or five times by now.
3. What do you put off doing because you dread it?
I’m putting off my life. I know I’m not really living, but I’ve forgotten how. And with our small town crawling with Nazis, how am I supposed to live? What if I say the wrong thing? What if I do the wrong thing? They will arrest me and I shudder when I think about those detention camps.
4. What are you afraid of most in life?
I’m afraid of loving and losing. Too many people in my life have been snatched away from me so early. To love is to feel pain and I don’t want to experience that ever again.
5. What do you want out of life?
I want a life. I want to live like I used to live – free, happy, with zest. That may be an impossible dream now.
6. What is the most important thing to you?
My brother and my sister. I’m responsible for my brother right now and I don’t want to disappoint my parents with the way I raise him. And my country is very important to me. Until the Nazis leave and the Queen returns home, nothing will be as it should be.
7. Do you read? If so, what is your favorite type of book to read?
I love to read the Bible. I listen for God’s voice in the pages. He brings me comfort and soothes my soul.
8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
My legs. I have these skinny, bony legs and they are horrible. Hans said I was beautiful, every inch of me, but these legs are hard to love. I’m so thankful my dress and stockings cover up my knees. Ugh.
9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?
I have a cat named Pepper because he’s black. Pepper found me. One day, as I was sweeping my porch step, he came slinking out of the bushes. I about had a heart attack. But he rubbed against my leg and I gave him some fresh milk from the farm. He never left. I’m so thankful to have him. He’s been company for me when the house is too quiet.
10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?
I would go back to the day Hans and I went to the Eisinga Planetarium in Franeker in the Netherlands, not far from where I now live. We spent the longest time staring up at the working model of the solar system on the bright blue ceiling of this house. The models of the planets are to scale and they revolve around the sun in real time. Imagine that, Saturn hasn’t yet made one course around since I’ve been born. We went up stairs to see the amazing mechanisms that make this model work.
After we finished there, we began the bike ride home, stopping for a picnic. We laid on blankets and watched the clouds float by. That day was perfect.
