This week I’m hosting Christine Johnson with Love’s Rescue (US only) and Mary Manners with Blackberry Ridge (2 print US only). If you want to enter the drawings for the books, please leave a comment on your post 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 (June 14th) evening.
Interview with the hero from Love’s Rescue by Christine Johnson
1. Rourke O’Malley, tell me the most interesting thing about you.
Most people would think I’d tell you about wrecking, but here in Key West, every man with a dinghy thinks he can wreck. I’d rather tell you about how I learned to play piano. I grew up poor back on Harbour Island. That’s in the Bahamas. We sure didn’t have something as grand as a piano in our house. Until I was a lad, only the church had one. One day a ship wrecked offshore and my father brought the passengers to safety. One was a lady—Mrs. Rivolo—who turned out to be a pianist. Until she left on another ship, she taught me how to let the music in my soul flow out through the piano keys.
2. What do you do for fun?
Aside from playing the piano, I’ve always liked to fish. I used to have to fish if I wanted to eat. Now, it’s for enjoyment.
3. What do you put off doing because you dread it?
Dressing up, especially if I have to wear shoes. I hate shoes.
4. What are you afraid of most in life?
Drowning. I’ve seen too many men drown in my years at sea. My father drowned. I don’t want to think about it.
5. What do you want out of life?
Respect, same as any man. It would mean a lot for a man like Charles Benjamin to shake my hand. Maybe if I can make a big enough stake, he’d respect me enough to let me court his daughter, Elizabeth.
6. What is the most important thing to you?
That every man be treated fairly, without consideration of his birth or past. Take my first mate, John. He’s worked with me and my father before me for many years after being emancipated, but some men just dismiss him as a fool darkie. He’s as much a man as you and me.
7. Do you read books? If so, what is your favorite type of book?
I read the Bible. Sundays on my ship, the men gather round while I read from the Good Book. That’s the only book I need.
8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Better able to control anger. The Lord has changed me from the sinner I once was, but when I see someone being treated poorly, my temper boils over.
9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?
Naw. Not now. It’s tough to have a pet aboard ship. I once kept a tern with a broken wing. Poor thing couldn’t fly. Don’t know why, but I couldn’t leave it to starve. But it disappeared in the hurricane. Maybe I didn’t do it any favors by keeping it alive.
10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?
I’d go back two years to when my father died. Maybe if I’d been there, he wouldn’t have drowned.
