Valentine's Day: Books with LOVE Hop Guest Post- Deanna Raybourn

Valentine's Day: Books with LOVE Hop

Here we bring you a great interview. Author Deanna Raybourn took time to answer a few of our questions today. Her recent books are Dark Road to Darjeeling and The Dead Travel Fast which she donated a copy of for the giveaway. So enjoy this post.

1. Do you believe in love at first sight? and describe your answer? 

Deanna: I don't believe in love at first sight, but I do believe in recognition--that inescapable feeling that someone belongs in your life. I have on occasion met people and known that they were going to be significant to me somehow. I always say that besides just being in love with my husband, there was something about him that felt inevitable! We were both very young--just 22--and I never expected to marry at that age, but I was mildly terrified, but I also believed in my core that we were meant to be together. So we got married, and last year we celebrated our twentieth wedding anniversary. He's still my best friend and my biggest support, so clearly my gut knows something!

2. When you are writing your books do you feel that the love elements are hard or easy? and why? 

Deanna: It's always a challenge to write about love in a way that isn't cliched or sentimental. It is such a universal subject that we've been writing about it and composing poetry about it and singing about it for centuries, so there's always a push to find something fresh. Usually that comes from the characters themselves. Love may be universal, but the love between these two people is new. I like writing men who are blocked somehow, who have walls up and have to breach those in order to express their emotions. I like the idea of breaking down someone who has been unwilling to love and changing him.

3. How do you celebrate Valentine's day? 

Deanna: We cook up a nice dinner, open a bottle of wine, and exchange love letters. We've done it for years, and we are building up a nice collection of letters! We tried going out a few times, but we never enjoyed it as much as cooking together or bringing something home. Some restaurants just try too hard and it all gets a bit contrived. I do like a nice gaudy box of chocolates, though!

4. Can you name one or two books that are your favorite love stories and why? 

Deanna: I have a background in English and history, so I am devoted to Jane Austen--Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion are my favorites. I also thought Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel was breathtaking, so rich and perfectly detailed. I haven't read it for years, but there are still scenes I can see as vividly as when I first read it. 

5. Your Favorite romance movie and why? 

Deanna: My favorite romantic movies are films like Amelie and Chocolatwhere the romance is part of a larger story. And if they're set in France, all the better! I also adore classic films, so I watch a lot of TCM for inspiration. The storylines are sometimes implausible, but the dialogue is usually divine, very snappy and witty. I also love the Austen and Bronte adaptations--anything with Colin Firth or Toby Stephens!

The Dead Travel Fast

Author: Deanna Raybourn

Pages: 309 pgs

Reading Level: Adult

Release Date: March 1st 2010

Mira 

ISBN: 0778327655

Summary: (from goodreads) A husband, a family, a comfortable life: Theodora Lestrange lives in terror of it all.

With a modest inheritance and the three gowns that comprise her entire wardrobe, Theodora leaves Edinburgh—and a disappointed suitor—far behind. She is bound for Rumania, where tales of vampires are still whispered, to visit an old friend and write the book that will bring her true independence.

She arrives at a magnificent, decaying castle in the Carpathians, replete with eccentric inhabitants: the ailing dowager; the troubled steward; her own fearful friend, Cosmina. But all are outstripped in dark glamour by the castle's master, Count Andrei Dragulescu.

Bewildering and bewitching in equal measure, the brooding nobleman ignites Theodora's imagination and awakens passions in her that she can neither deny nor conceal. His allure is superlative, his dominion over the superstitious town, absolute—Theodora may simply be one more person under his sway.

Before her sojourn is ended—or her novel completed—Theodora will have encountered things as strange and terrible as they are seductive. For obsession can prove fatal…and she is in danger of falling prey to more than desire.