Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Meet Wendy Ely, author of Jesse's Brother


Today I'm interviewing my friend Wendy Ely on her blog tour, for the release of her book, Jesse's Brother, on September 21, 2009, from Lyrical Press.

One woman, two men: a single summer to choose between them.
Sacrificing a summer to fix her relationship with her mother and find out what’s troubling her father isn’t so bad...right? Wrong. Or so Samantha learns upon her return to Portland.
As if family drama wasn’t bad enough, first comes Noah. Then comes Jesse. Samantha is torn between the way her heart skips a beat each time Noah looks at her, and the way Jesse’s touch make her yearn for more.

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Wendy, how did you come up with the idea for Jesse’s Brother?

This is sort of funny. I was dating two guys at the time. One night I was out having dinner with one of them. He’d gone to the bathroom and the other called on my cell. I answered but kept the call quick even though they knew about each other. After the call ended I started thinking about the ‘what ifs’ and now we have Jesse’s Brother.

What research did you do for your novel?

I’m a city girl through and through! It was hard trying to get the farm/ ranch scenes correct so it took a lot of research on my part. I did everything I could which includes reading farm blogs!

Why that location?

Jesse’s Brother takes place in a fictional town outside of Portland, Oregon. I’m from that area and miss it sometimes. I enjoyed writing Jesse’s Brother because it let me revisit my favorite places.

What was the hardest part to write?

Not knowing who Samantha would choose. I really didn’t know until the very end. Both of the men were really lovable in the first draft and neither were the villain. One of them had to take on that role.
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Thank you, Wendy, and good luck with Jesse's Brother.
Great cover, too.
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Vijaya Schartz
Award-winning Sci-Fi, Girls with Guns, Romance with a Kick

2 comments:

Linda Andrews said...

Hi Wendy,

That was a great interview. I love starting books with 'What if' questions. What is the funniest thing you learned about farms/ranching that you included in Jesse's Brother?

Laurie Schnebly Campbell said...

I love the idea of learning about the lifestyle by reading farm blogs -- who ever would've guessed such a thing existed!

Wendy, how did you come up with that idea for research?