Dear Reader,
Today's guest author, Bethany Turner, says she loves to hear from readers, and has met some of her closest friends through random conversations about books...so she anxiously awaits the next random conversation!
Drop her a line at: [email protected]
Bethany Turner is the director of administration for Rock Springs Church in Southwest Colorado. A former VP/operations manager of a commercial bank and a three-time cancer survivor (all before she turned 35). She lives with her husband and their two sons in Colorado, where she writes for a new generation of readers who crave fiction that tackles the thorny issues of life with humor and insight.
The Secret Life of Sarah Hollenbeck, Bethany's new release is a romantic comedy, that tells the story of a steamy romance writer who becomes a Christian. As if that weren't complicated enough, she also finds herself falling in love with her dreamy pastor.
Let's get right to it. Please welcome author Bethany Turner...
I think to a large extent people believe one of two things about romance authors. Either, a) the author has experienced such engrossing, kissing-in-the-rain, dancing-through-the-streets-of-Paris romance that the inspiration is overflowing, or b) the author sits alone in their cabin in the woods each night, warmed only by the quilt wrapped around them, the fire before them, the seventeen cats surrounding them, and their tattered copy of Wuthering Heights.
Of course, the romantic histories of most of us actually fall somewhere between Heathcliff and Miss Havisham.
Travel with me, if you will, back to one of the most epic and romantic of all historical periods--1998. Aerosmith topped the charts with their song about love in the time of asteroids, we were still recovering from the impact an iceberg could have on an unsinkable ship (and our hearts), and we were beginning to hear the name "Lewinsky" fairly often.
Okay, in all honesty, it was a confusing time for romantics. It certainly was for me. I was a college student in Kentucky, beginning to fall in love with some guy I'd met in a chat room. A radio DJ from Colorado. Now, if you're a movie junkie as I am, and the only films you have as reference for a love/radio combo are "Play Misty for Me," "Good Morning, Vietnam," and Dolly Parton's "Straight Talk," well...let's just say I didn't have high hopes.
But he made me laugh. I had gone to the movies on most of my dates, but all he and I could do was talk. We wrote letters and ran up astronomical long-distance bills. We'd never heard of text messages, and FaceTime was something out of an Isaac Asimov story. (What's next? Cars that drive themselves?) And then, we finally met in person, in Chicago. That January 1, 1999, was cold but lovely, but over the next two days, nearly two feet of snow fell, during one of the worst blizzards in Chicago history. (The romantic disasters of 1998 had been preparing us, I suppose.)
The entire town shut down. Apart from Denny's, where we ate pretty much every meal, and Bloomingdale's, where he patiently watched me try on every hat in stock, there was nowhere to go and nothing to do. Except talk.
I've now been married to my radio guy for more than sixteen years. We have two kids, a dog, a cat, and a mortgage. And we still spend our lives talking to each other.
That's my kind of romance.
--Bethany Turner
Looking forward to hearing from you.
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Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
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