Cerian Hebert

Good Morning everyone.  I’m so pleased to have author, and fellow crit partner, Calisa Rhose, here today to tell us a little about herself and her current release with The Wild Rose Press, Home.

Ceri: Welcome to my blog, Calisa. Tell us a little about yourself.

Calisa: I live in the country with my hubby and several dogs and a horse. I love to day dream and that’s what started my writing years ago. I’m fighting getting older by refusing to acknowledge that I’m an adult. I firmly believe young at heart means young in body and mind. Lol Shh- don’t tell me it’s not so!

Ceri: Sounds like me, the daydreamer part. I sometimes think I’d be better off not doing so much of it, but what fun would that be? It’s when I get my best writing ideas. I’m always curious about writing spaces (maybe because mine is shared by my kids).  Describe your writing space.

Calisa:  It’s a mess of a desk in the corner of the living room. But I spend most of my writing time on the couch with country videos playing until granddaughter comes home and tunes in to Sponge Bob…

Ceri: Yup, sounds a lot like mine. I love listening to music when I write. And occasionally I hear Sponge Bob from the other room–my oldest is a fan. Where do you get your inspiration for your stories from?

Calisa: Everywhere. People watching, family watching. Night dreams, not to be confused with dreams as I sleep at night, but the opposite of day dreams. Talking to people, television- I actually had a story premise come to me on the way to town a couple of weeks ago while listening to the radio.

Ceri: I often get story ideas from songs.  Country music is great for that.  Sometimes I model my characters after the people singing. Well, roughly anyway. If your book was going to be made into a movie, who’d play your characters?

Calisa: For Sam Callahan I think a young Richard Gere and Poppy Tippen would have to be someone else, but I see her looking like Natalie Woods.

Ceri: Great choices! Natalie Woods was so beautiful. And Richard Gere, well, yum! What is your favorite genre to write?

Calisa: Do I have to have one? Lol I enjoy contemporary cowboys and firemen! But I also love my shapeshifting Cherokee wolves.

Ceri: Oh, I know, it’s nearly impossible to pick just one. I write a wide variety too.  How ’bout you? How many genres do you write?

Calisa: Technically I guess three since HOME is a vintage 1967 historical, but I am not a historical writer, and in some circles HOME is considered a contemporary…so maybe I write two genres currently.

Ceri: That can be a challenge. But it makes things interesting. What inspired your latest story?

Calisa: Honestly? 9/11 and the firemen and rescue workers lost in those destroyed buildings. Not just the towers, but the other three? Smaller ones around them. I was daydreaming one day and wondered whatever happened to the ones who got out alive while their friends died, how they are coping today.

Ceri: That was a day we’ll never forget, no matter where we are in this country. My brother was flying for American Airlines during that time so we had a few hours of real uncertainty. But he was flying out of Dallas so he was fine. Still, I think everyone knows someone who lost someone that day.  Tell us a little about the story.

Calisa: Sean Colby is a NYC fireman. When his unit is called in for search and rescue during a major incident, Sean is separated and trapped in a rubble collapse while fires smolder closer. He could hear his friends yelling and screaming for him while he battles fear and flames, with no means of escape and his oxygen dwindling.

He returns to work after a short medical leave of absence, but he freezes when part of a burning house collapses around him. Sean blames himself for failing to save a mother and child who perish in the fire.

Sean moves to Hope Springs in eastern Oklahoma. He puts his past behind him, rebuilding his life, with what had always been more a hobby, as a custom cabinet maker. Buying a small property he sets up shop in the middle of the town he now calls home. Nobody knows him, nobody stares at him with judgment in their eyes for murdering that woman and her ten-year-old daughter.

 When Haley Shade walks into his shop looking for a China hutch, he doesn’t see the lovely brunette and her twelve-year-old daughter as life savers. He just knows they remind him of two other lives lost because of him. He isn’t aware of just when they duo slip under his skin to begin to show him that he can be a reliable and trustworthy man. It seems sudden that Sean discovers he’s in love with the women and wants to run. How can they depend on him with his past?

 Of course my heroine has her half of this story, too, but Sean was the inspired character so I’ll leave it with him for now.

Ceri: Sounds like an awesome and emotional story. I’m looking forward to reading it. Of course firemen are right up there in the sexy hero catagory with cowboys. What else do you like to do besides write?

Calisa: I spend time doing things with my daughters and granddaughters, hang with the hero of my real life and garden in nicer weather. I ride my horse in warmer weather too. Also when not writing I’m an editor so I have other writing related work that keeps me going. Notice I didn’t mention house work in what else I do? That’s because I don’t! I don’t have time. Lol  Ok so maybe I do, but that’s not the conducive to the glamour life of an author, right? 😉

Ceri: LOL I hear ya on the housework. I’ve managed to get my daughters to do the dishes every day which helps. Who wants to be inside when you could be out on the back of a horse? I’m hoping that one day I’ll win the lottery (or become a famous writer) so I can have a horse again.

Okay, here’s a few questions for ya-

Pick one word to describe yourself: short
Favorite animal: horses
Favorite comfort food: chocolate or mexican food
Spring, summer, autumn or winter? Spring (w/o tornadoes)
Favorite book: the Bible
Favorite movie: Hope Floats or Sweet Home Alabama
If you weren’t a writer, what would you want to do? Edit or something with kids and horses.
Best vacation ever: anything that includes my hubby.

Ceri: Okay tell us all about your book Home

Book description: 77 page vintage historical novella with The Wild Rose Press

TAGLINE:

What could a gypsy and a Vietnam veteran have in common?

BLURB:

Silvertown’s outcast, Poppy Tippen, has loved football hero Sam “The Force” Callahan forever. But he never seemed to know she was alive. Now he’s home from the war and she suddenly finds herself comforting him from the demons of “that damn war.” Is his attention merely an escape from the haunting nightmares? Or does she hold the interest of the only man she’s ever truly loved?

Sam Callahan’s only solace from the war nightmares wrecking his life comes in the unlikely form of a gypsy girl with stigmas of her own. He’s known Poppy his entire life, but there’s something different about her now. Something special he desperately wants to hold on to. Can he convince her she’s the only thing he needs to put the past behind him?

 Excerpt:

“I’ll always want you, Poppy.”

Her head shook in automatic denial. “You’ll want a girl who fits your life. Not some gypsy with no family lineage to brag about. Your momma won’t accept that, either. She’ll make you choose someone like Connie, someone who fits into your world. Not the girl everyone avoids and whispers about behind her back. You’re gonna be the town’s doctor. You need an uppity wife who will make you proud.”

When Sam laughed, his chest shuddered against her back. Deep, husky, real. He turned her in his arms and looked down at her, smiling. “Poppy, do you honestly think I give a damn what people think? Look at me! I’m the town outcast, the survivor who should have died saving the others, not be here planning a future that includes a wife, a medical practice. “I shimmy under park benches, run from my mother’s lipstick, for God’s sake. I wake up screaming and crying over nothing in the middle of the night, crawl under my bed and hide, shaking,

until morning. Hell, I can’t even be a doctor because I haven’t finished school yet.”

“I didn’t know. It must be awful for you.” No matter how it hurt Poppy to know he used her, it felt much worse to know how he hurt alone. “The only time it isn’t awful is when I’m with you. When I think of you.”

 

Get your copy of HOME at The Wild Rose Press and Amazon and B&N and other ebook retail outlets around the cyber bookstore aisle.

 Small-town country girl Calisa Rhose lives in a semi-remote area of Oklahoma with her husband, five dogs, one cat and one horse. All of her three daughters and their families live within throwing distance. She’s a member of RWA and the local chapter OKRWA. She intends to nurture and continue to grow as an author with the help of her family and supporters.

 

Find Calisa at her website/blog http://calisarhose.wordpress.com

On Twitter @Calisa_Rhose and Facebook @Calisa Rhose

She loves to hear from readers so drop her a line at calisa.rhose@gmail.com

 

Ceri: Calisa, thank you so much for stopping in and letting everyone get to know you!

Calisa: It’s been wonderful visiting, Ceri! Thank you for having me here on your beautiful cyber home.