An Interview with Erin Nicholas and a Giveaway

August 23, 2016
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Author Interview with RJ, Excerpt, Giveaway

Erin Nicholas was fourteen when she first fell in love with love stories. Not long after that she started writing romances of her own, often spending family vacations in the backseat filling notebooks with stories. Now the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Sapphire Falls series writes about women getting their happily ever after with humor, heart, and hope.

An Interview with Erin Nicholas, author of Twisted Up. I am so glad you could join us here at Romance Junkies, Erin. To start, will you please tell us a little bit about your current projects?

Thanks so much for having me! I’d love to tell you about what’s going on! Taking Chances is a new small-town contemporary series about the farming community of Chance, Nebraska. The town has been hit by EF4 level tornadoes two years in a row and, as people are coming home for their high school class reunion, the winds are picking up again. When yet another tornado hits, three couples are trapped together in different places around town and the close confines rekindle old feelings! A lot of old feelings! ☺ After the storm blows over, they all work together to rebuild the town… and maybe get a second chance at love. Twisted Up is book one and emergency management specialist Jake Mitchell is trapped in a shed with fire chief Avery Sparks when the tornado hits. But a lot more than debris is stirred up by the storm!

When was the moment that you knew you had to be a writer?

From the moment I first heard my first story I think! ☺ I don’t remember one specific moment. I read avidly as a kid in a home of readers and full of books. Writing was just always something I did—poems, songs, short stories that gradually got longer and longer. I always preferred a book or a notebook and pen to any other activity. Still do! ☺ I wrote part-time even through college, grad school, working full-time with two little kids. It’s just always been a part of my life.

Who gave you the one piece of writing advice that sticks with you to this day?

One thing I keep posted by my computer is a quote from Nora Roberts: “The most important thing in writing is to have written. I can always fix a bad page. I can’t fix a blank one.” The other is a quote that one of my very good writing friends, P.G. Forte, once sent me. I don’t know who said it but the quote is also right by my computer. “You can be the juiciest, most delicious peach in the world and someone’s still going to always hate peaches.”

I’m not sure those count as advice, but they are things I look at every day!

Describe the “perfect” hero. What about the “perfect” hero for you?

What a great question. I think the perfect hero isn’t perfect at all. He need to have some heartbreak in his past to make him empathetic, some loss or disappointment to make him human, and a deep love—for a brother, his mom, a dog, something—to keep him just this side of totally cynical. He needs to be sure of what he wants and why. He needs to have compassion, protectiveness, a strong sense of right and wrong, and humor. Maybe above all else, he has to have a sense of humor. And dark hair and big hands and look a lot like Chris Pratt 😉

For me personally, the perfect hero is a guy who can laugh at himself. Who can tease me but knows when not to do that. Someone who’s organized and practical—because I’m not—and has a high tolerance for someone who is silly and spontaneous—because I am! Someone who lets me keep my head in the clouds, but keeps me grounded. The guy who can say “Congrats on the USA Today list! Oh, and don’t forget the guy’s coming to look at the washing machine today.” (and yes, I did find this guy ☺ )

What are some of your favorite pastimes? Do you have any hobbies or collections?

Other than reading and writing, I love to travel. I’m very blessed to be able to do a lot of that with people I love. I’m a movie and TV ADDICT. Big time. I love high school basketball, college football and professional baseball. And really, my specialty, is hanging out! Lol! I can do it almost anywhere, anytime with anyone. Great friends, great laughs, great food, great drink and I can be happy for days. I’m really a very good hanger-outer. Oh, and I collect words. ☺ I love sayings and quotes. Wall décor, pillows, coasters, magnets, calendars… whatever. I have them all over my house.

What has been your biggest adventure to date?

Like literal adventure? We travel a lot but I’m not super adventurous. I don’t like to be scared and I don’t like to sweat! Lol! The helicopter ride we took into the Grand Canyon and the one over the volcanoes in Hawaii come to mind —I’m claustrophobic and afraid of heights and get motion sickness… so yeah, those were pretty adventurous for me ☺ But honestly, parenting is the biggest adventure of my life. You never know what to expect, you have to be constantly prepared for anything, you have to be brave and tough and you have to keep going no matter what! But, like any great adventure, the reward is certainly worth it all!

If your fairy godmother waved her wand and whisked you away to the location of your choice, which place would you choose, and why?

My favorite city is New Orleans. In the spring or fall. I love it there. But if we’re talking a place I’ve never been, then Italy. Why? Pasta. Wine. Cannoli. Cappuccino. History. Gorgeous countryside. A beautiful language. And did I mention the wine and cannoli?

What project are you working on next?

I’m working on a super fun project called Finding Chris Evans, with Erin McCarthy, Jennifer Bernard, Lizzie Shane, Jenn Stark and Elizabeth Bemis. Six stories about a woman searching for true love with a man named Chris Evans, thanks to a fortune teller’s prediction at a carnival! That will be out in October. Book two in the Taking Chances series is coming in January. And I’m starting another new series this year! The Opposites Attract series is the Big Bang Theory in reverse… geeky girls and hot guys! Book one, Completely Yours, comes out in December.

♥

Twisted Up

by: Erin Nicholas

Release Date: August 23, 2016

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Publisher: Montlake Romance

Summary

Avery Sparks is a master at controlling chaos—and she gets plenty of opportunities as fire chief and head of emergency management in her hometown of Chance, Nebraska. The only thing she can’t seem to control are her feelings when she’s around Jake Mitchell, the man who was her first everything the night of their high school graduation. But Jake was so quick to leave Chance—and Avery—behind that she swore she’d move on.

While Avery’s job is to minimize drama, Jake embraces the chaos of an emergency. After enlisting in the Army National Guard, Jake became a nationally recognized leader in disaster recovery. Yet a life on the road has left him restless. So when a class-four tornado wreaks havoc on Chance, he’s eager to return home—and to the woman never far from his mind.

Now, Avery and Jake must team up to help their hometown weather a siege of violent storms. But it’s clear to them both that nature isn’t the only force they’ll have to reckon with. Will Avery and Jake’s whirlwind love affair be an all-new disaster—or can they recover from their stormy past to build a future together?