Deborah Cooke: Author

It’s my great pleasure to introduce Miriam Minger as my guest author today at Alive & Knitting.

Once upon a time, before I had sold a romance novel, I loved to read historical romances. And one of my keepers was a medieval romance called Captive Rose by Miriam Minger, which I loved to shreds. After I sold my own medieval romance, I read less and lost track of Miriam and her work. So, I was very excited to stumble across her page on Facebook and – twenty years later – make her acquaintance online. Like me, Miriam writes many kinds of books, so you may wish to visit her website to find out more.

Please welcome today’s guest, Miriam Minger!

 

I’d like to extend a big thank you to Deborah Cooke for the lovely invitation to post on her blog as a guest author.   Since that invite I have kicked around several topics to write about, but it was a recent comment by a fellow author that I’ve written some unusual historical romances that gave me food for thought.

I don’t recall that I set out to write unusual historical romances as a goal when I began my writing career.   My first historical romance Twin Passions was a tribute to my Norwegian grandmother and my love and fascination with Norway and its history.  Nana and I visited Norway for six weeks when I was seventeen years old to reconnect with family, and I’ve considered that beautiful country as my second homeland ever since.  I even fell in love with a Norwegian sailor during that trip so I guess once a romantic, always a romantic!

At every turn I envisioned Viking dragon ships cutting across the water of those deep mysterious fjords, and with strapping blond Vikings manning the oars.  The magnificent beauty of the land with its snowcapped mountains, lush green valleys, and thunderous waterfalls enchanted me.  I’m not surprised at all after that life-changing trip that my first historical romance would be a Viking story, but I also knew it had to be different and special.

So what did I do?  Instead of one romance I packed two romances into one adventure-filled novel featuring twin sisters, Gwendolyn and Anora.  Perhaps this one twist made Twin Passions unusual from the start.  As the story opens in Saxon England, Anora is happily preparing for her wedding to her fiancé Wulfgar.  But fate soon intervenes and Anora and Gwendolyn find themselves kidnapped by Vikings and bound for Norway.  And here’s another plot twist that sets this story apart and makes it unusual.  Tomboyish Gwendolyn with her short hair and male garb is mistaken by their captors for a young man, an oversight that she intends to use to her advantage as she vows to her sister that she will somehow find a way for them to return home and Anora to her beloved Wulfgar.

I had so much fun writing Twin Passions with all of its twists and turns, high emotion, and yes, incredible passion…but I don’t want to give away any more of the story.  I love this book, my very first historical romance, for all of the reasons above and I hope you do, too.  Enjoy a copy for only 99 cents at Amazon or Barnes & Noble…and maybe you’ll be envisioning Vikings in your dreams, too!