Come Traveling with Judy Meadows –

Do you like romances set in unusual locations? Wild Rose author Judy Meadows has just published a romance set in the Middle East. Today Judy shares some of the travels and experiences in the Middle East and beyond that inspire her writing. Welcome Judy!

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I grew up in Minnesota and went to college there (Carleton) but now live in a small town in Oregon. I’m married, have two kids, two step-kids (whom I love like my own) and seven grandchildren.

It seems odd to describe my family without mentioning pets. Our two cats died last year, Simba at the age of 20 and Tinker Bell at the age of 17), so we are now petless for the first time since we married. We’re trying to stay that way, at least for a while. It might be nice to travel a bit without feeling guilty. We’ll see…

What do you do when you are not writing?

I’ll have to think back to when I was a more well rounded person, because all I’ve been doing lately is write. Hmmm…. I loved to travel to out-of-the-way places. I’ve climbed Mt. Damavand in Iran, kayaked the Mahaweli Ganga in Sri Lanka, and trekked in Nepal.

I still (in spite of the writing) manage to find time for: swimming, reading, gardening, sewing, cooking, and grandchildren.

What was the most interesting place you ever visited?

The travel mentioned above was all part of a year-long trip I took with my then partner during my hippie days in the sixties. We traveled by Landrover from England to India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal and back, sleeping and cooking in our vehicle. I returned to Iran (now a computer systems engineer, no longer a hippie) with my husband Jim ten years later to work on a project that was supposed to modernize the Iranian phone service (but which was interrupted by the revolution). My son Steve was born there.

Is anything in your book based on real life experiences or purely all imagination?

My book is set in a fictional country, Behruz, which is located between Afghanistan and Iran. The culture of Behruz is based loosely on the cultures of those two real countries as they were when I visited them, before either country was changed by political upheaval and war. I used loads of details came from my actual experience. The heroine is American, so my experience as an American woman in that culture gives life and realism to her experience.

What was your favorite chapter (or part) to write and why?

The hero and heroine escape the country during a rebellion by traveling on foot through the mountains to Iran with a group of nomads on their annual migration. (I actually spent time with nomads in the desert of Iran, so I had a real basis for this part.) I love the scene when the nomad women dress the heroine in nomad clothing for the trek. There’s lots of fun and giggling (e.g. when the nomad women see the heroine’s lacy underpants), but it turns serious and sexy when she walks across the encampment toward the hero and he sees her in her costume.

The hero and heroine had been fighting their attraction before they joined the nomads, but sharing a nomad tent night after night wears them down. That was fun to write!

What project are you working on now?

While I was writing Escape from Behruz, I kept thinking this book should have a sequel (because I loved the setting and because I know sequels and trilogies are popular) but I didn’t have the slightest idea for one. Then, on the day I finished the book and sent it off to a few publishers, an interesting female character came to mind and I knew immediately that she had a great story. She’s a midwife in the U.S., half-Behruzi and half-American, the younger sister of the hero of the first book, raised mostly in California.  It turned out she did indeed have a great story (which took her to Behruz, the country of her birth).

I’ve finished a draft and am busy editing.

I’d love to write a third book and make it a trilogy, but so far I don’t have any ideas for one. We’ll see if there’s another character waiting to grab my attention. (The hero of Escape from Behruz does have one more sister…)

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Escape from Behruz

by Judy Meadows

Rashid will help Olivia and the baby escape the violence in Behruz—he’ll escort them through the mountains to neighboring Iran—but he won’t let Olivia near his heart. Not again. Not after the way she’d trampled it two years ago.

Olivia accepts his help, but she has no interest in his heart. She’s never forgiven him for abandoning her when she needed him most. Still, she has to be careful. She must not let him learn that the baby the world thinks is heir to the Behruzi throne is actually hers. And his.

Can she make it through a week–trekking through the mountains and sharing a tent with Rashid–without opening her heart to him? Without giving in to the attraction that had always drawn them together? And without telling him the secret that could destroy her?

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Buy links

Kindle at AMAZON | Paperback at AMAZON | WILD ROSE PRESS

 

Also available through all other major e-book distributors

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Learn more about Judy Meadows

Web page:  http://www.judymeadows.com/

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Judy-Meadows-Romance-Writer-1556763401023522/

Twitter: @judymeadows44

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Judy would love to hear from you and answer your questions.

Please comment below.