~ Adventures Across Time and Place ~

Do you love time travel and dragons? Meet romance author Christa Bedwin. She is here today to share her writing inspirations, her love of history, and her amazing travel experiences.

Welcome Christa…

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you write?

I’m Christa Bedwin. I wrote my first three books as a young school teacher, simple little romances rooted in the Rocky Mountain cowboy culture I grew up with. (My rancher parents built themselves a castle on a ridge far from everywhere and I was raised more by trees and rocks than people, I always say. Incredibly privileged in some ways, and missing big chunks of “normal upbringing” in others!)

Sometime later, I became a freelance chemistry textbook writer, and a single mom. I moved to a West Coast island, and, in the absence of romance in my real life, I began to dream of who my ideal hero might be. A Renaissance man, perhaps. Strong and smart and interesting and balanced, not afraid of anything, including his own feelings.

When I returned from a one-month trip to Italy with my head full of dreams, I started to write. The heroine had retreated to that same west coast island that I had retreated to… and the hero dropped in from Renaissance Venice.

Something that I was NOT expecting was that my own dragon, Scullyrubba, who came to us when his mom placed his egg in our maple tree, jumped into the story too. His wisdom and humor had helped me through the years of loneliness, so I could hardly deny him his place in the book now that I was finally writing again! And I must admit (perhaps grudgingly) that he brought a lot of good ideas to the story, including our wizardly neighbors, and readers seem to love him, and the neighbors.

I’m now working on the sequel to that book. The villainess from that book is the heroine in the second one (completely different dragon, too, and the dragon also gets his own love story with a dragon girl who’s trapped in a cave).

At the beginning, she has amnesia and is rather injured – and has gone back to early medieval Cornwall, just after the Romans left. She forgets that she was ever bad, and our hero just loves her sweetness… and she learns to love herself, the way we all know how to when we’ve forgotten the crazy things society tells us.

Will her new self-love and Eamon’s love get her through the horror when her memory comes back and she remembers the things she has done in the future? Will she be able to return to try to make amends? Wait and see. I’m writing as fast as I can, because this book, Blodwyn’s Redemption, is a finalist in the Four Seasons Romance Writers’ Contest and I want to have the manuscript finished for when they decide the winner Nov. 1! If you would like to be a beta reader or reviewer for me, please feel free to contact me.

How much research do you do for each book you write?

Tons! For me, it’s more than just books and videos. I love to visit the places that I write about, meet the people, learn the language, get my hands dirty, and spend the time to let my imagination roam. That’s something I do anyway, even without writing a book about every place I’ve been (40-odd countries so far).

Through a volunteer program called WWOOF (Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms, or Willing Workers on Organic Farms, it depends who you ask), I’ve really been able to live the life my historical characters might have lived – work on pruning centuries-old apple trees, or build stone walls with old Sicilians, or harvest olives from trees two thousand years old. Try living in caravans and tiny stone huts. Meet people whose doors are open to offer meals to strangers, who make kangaroo leather whips, who feed lambs, who make linen, who produces cheese and butter…  And be the person who offers another a hand. There are so many adventures out there to be had, even in our modern world, when you know where to look!

And then I have the privilege of sharing those adventures with my readers. My taste for travel adventure originally came from the romance novels I devoured, too! And as my grandmother told me long ago, it’s so wonderful for women who can’t get up and move, to be able to read. When readers write reviews saying that they loved every minute of my book or that they want more, I feel that what I’m doing is spreading happiness in the world and that’s so worthwhile!

I recently spent a few years travelling around Europe and homeschooling my son, so we really had the time to get into various communities and cultures from Edinburgh, Scotland to Bansko, Bulgaria, to study the languages, history, ancient cultures of Europe. You can see the post I wrote about that here: Rocket Yourself Back Into The Past.

What are some of your favorite things?

I just spent a year of my life living in a place that made me feel so happy, deep-in-my-bones, all-through-me happy: an island in France. I spent an entire “winter” feeling like every day was stuffed with my favourite things: flowers 365 days per year! Wild snacks by my daily walking trails! Tiny small island roads! Big big sky with beautiful clouds. Smiling, friendly people whose mouths form the shape of “bonjour” with almost every person they meet. A chance to make music with wonderful musicians and learn new things at university classes… in French, which added an extra layer of puzzlement and fun for us.

Every day I woke up and the air was warm (this means lot to a girl raised in the Rockies) and so I would just have to go outside, bursting with happiness that it was a “winter month” but I wasn’t freezing or trudging through snow or slipping on ice. Sometimes I even did that at night, because I had no fears there either. I could just go outside in the warm air and look up at a big, ancient, sky, surrounded by centuries-old stone houses and apple orchards and old barns. Swoon-worthy.

I would walk and see a glorious sunrise almost every morning over the ancient citadel – the sunrises and sunsets there lasted for hours because of the salt in the air, and after sunrise the clouds would dance and chase in interesting ways all day long. I was actually sort of sad when summer came and the clouds mostly gave way to blue sky, isn’t that interesting? I guess the joy of clouds is all in the context and how they’re illuminated by what’s around them… hm, now there’s an interesting philosophical point…

I was illuminated there, too, by the friendly openness of the people around me, and just like the clouds, I felt more beautiful, more alive, more… more. I wrote more than I had in years – I’m sure hoping I can keep that going now that I’m back in North America!

And one of my favorite things in the world now is the shape of peoples’ mouths when they say “bonjour” as nearly everyone does to each other, there. Sometimes, actually, the sound doesn’t even come out, there’s just the shape of the mouth… which you see, because there, each person looks each other person in the face. Takes the time. It took me months to train myself to stop, greet people, not just rush ahead to order a coffee or sit down or whatever I think I’m doing. Stop, be aware of the people around me, enjoy them.

So… people enjoying people. That’s my favorite thing of all. Seeing people greet each other, kiss each other, care for each other, quietly, at a café table; or walk, holding hands; or see each other across the street, and take time to go, say a word, touch each other before hurrying on their way.

Seeing adults spending time with teenagers always makes me really happy too.

What interesting jobs have you had? How have those jobs affected your writing?

I’m one of those people who has tried everything life would let me try! I’ve been a jilleroo in Outback Australia, a coffeeshop baker a few times, a forest logger, a laboratory chemist, a textbook and scientific editor, a school teacher, a belly dance and yoga teacher, an organic farm volunteer all over the world, and some other things. I just love the adventure.

As a reader, I love interesting books that bring me into the lives of people doing things I have never experienced before. Since I’ve done some unusual things, my characters get up to interesting things that many readers might not otherwise experience, too, both in the present and in the past.

Do your travels influence your writing?

Absolutely definitely! My books always involve a strong sense of place – I guess growing up in a castle on a cliff in a giant forest bred “place” into me. My first books roamed from the Rockies to the east of our continent, and to Australia. Now, my books wander to Renaissance Italy, to early medieval Cornwall, to the Enlightenment-Era Edinburgh of the great philosophers and scientists, and wherever I might roam. One manuscript I’m working on now has a heroine from 1790 Edinburgh come to the present time and meet a modern-day inventor/investor and travel to Provence with him. That plot came to me nearly fully hatched after seeing the opera in the ancient Roman theater in Arles. That’s how my books grow.

Certain types of soil just seem to inspire me I guess! Architectures and the ways people live and the animals they breed and languages they speak and the ideas they build their societies upon. There are a lot of wonderful things to discover out there.

Any new books?

My most recent two books are Caterina’s Renaissance (which readers seem to love! It makes me so happy to hear I made others happy) and Idelle’s Inheritance.

As you can see in the photos, Caterina’s Renaissance is a big long book and Idelle’s Inheritance is a teeny tiny book, but they’re both cozy and fun, and involve time travel and adventure.  Reading Idelle’s Inheritanceis like sitting down to tea and a scone with clotted Cornish cream.

According to the reviewers of Caterina’s Renaissance, it’s a wild and fun adventure. Some even said it’s the best book they’ve read all year. J Let me know if you like it, and If you like my writing, I’m always interested in having more ARC readers who do honest reviews on my team!

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Caterina’s Renaissance by Christa Bedwin

Caterina has finally found a small, peaceful island where she can raise sheep, illustrate children’s books, and hide away.

Then Massimo, the sexy hero she dreams of, drops out of the Renaissance into her modern-day reality. He and her seem-normal-but-turn-out-to-be-magical neighbours help her understand that there’s a dragon living on her property (preposterous and impossible), and that she herself is a key to help to save the island from a modern-day threat.

Massimo and Caterina drop through time into Renaissance Venice, trying to find the treasure they need to save the island. Travelling centuries into the past with Massimo helps Caterina find delicious solutions she did not expect!

 

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Idelle’s Inheritance (novella, 17,000 words) by Christa Bedwin

Idelle has just inherited her clan’s Georgian home in New Town Edinburgh, and her great-aunt has left her with the task of finding a lost document that she’s convinced is behind a secret panel. However, when she finds the panel, she tumbles into the past and meets a cousin, who vows to help her find what she needs in 1798 Edinburgh… and decides to find what she herself needs in 2018!

 

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Buy Links

Caterina’s Inheritance  AMAZON

Reading Idelle’s Inheritance AMAZON

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Learn more about Christa Bedwin

Web page: www.christabedwin.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/christabedwin/
Facebook: facebook.com/christa.bedwin

Twitter: @Adoralix

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