Title: The Traveling Man (Traveling, #1)
Author: Jane Harvey – Berrick
Release Date: January 27, 2015
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Aimee Anderson is ten when the traveling carnival first comes to her nice little town. She doesn’t expect her world to change so completely. But meeting Kestrel Donohue puts her life on a different path. Even though she only sees him for the two weeks of the year when he passes through her home town, his friendship is the most important of her life. As a child’s friendship grows to adult love, the choices become harder, and both Kes and Aimee realize that two weeks a year will never be enough.
Anytime I get a chance to review a book by Jane Harvey-Berrick, I take it. I love her work, and I wasn't disappointed with this one either. She knocked it out of the park. I fell in love with the main characters Kes and Aimee, as well as all of the ancillary characters. Well, except for maybe one or two...or three, be we really weren't supposed to be very fond of them. :) Her character development was spot on.
Jane draws you into the story quickly with Aimee and Kes at age 10 and you follow their progress to age 25. I felt their love, bliss, frustrations, heartache and pain and I wanted to have a talk with them when they didn't always make the choices I wish they would have. But, of course, I am older and have lived longer so, I guess, I would probably make different choices being as I have already lived and made my life's mistakes, now wouldn't I?
I love Jane's descriptive writing style. I saw and felt so much as I was reading. I didn't want to put the book down. I was sad the book ended where it did. Yes, there was a bit of a cliffhanger and I am waiting patiently for book two to be here in the Spring of this year, The Traveling Woman.
Bravo, Jane. Bravo! 5 Wonderful, Beautiful STARS! KC
Purchase The Traveling Man today!
AUTHOR INTERVIEW
JANE
HARVEY - BERRICK
AUTHOR INTERVIEW
- QUESTIONS
1.
In
5 words, please describe your ‘Romance Writing Style’
Characters, details, learning to love
2.
Do
your leading men come from any place in particular? Dreams? Movie stars? Your
partner? Past partners?
Real life guys plus a large dollop of
imagination.
3.
What
do you do in your down time?
What’s down time? Um, I write, a lot. I
walk my dog on the beach and hope to ogle hot surfers.
4.
When
you walk into a book store, where do you head first?
Biography.
5.
Why
did you decide to write romance novels?
I started writing FSOG fanfic. People kept
telling me to write my own stories. So I tried it, and fell in love with
writing all over again.
6.
Who,
if anyone, has influenced your writing?
Well, EL James, I guess, because her story
unlocked something inside me, making me want to write contemporary romance,
too. But for writing style, I admire the way Jane Austen could put across a
character’s personality with a few, well chosen phrases. Masterful.
7.
What
research did you have to perform to back up your story? Any research which
really opened your eyes or gave you new respect for a topic or profession?
I read a lot of blogs about people working
in carnivals – what life on the road is really like. I also downloaded lists of
carnie-speak, but I didn’t use much of that as I would have spent forever
explaining it all.
I’m doing a lot of research on stuntmen,
too, for the sequel.
8.
What
is your method for writing a book? A certain amount of hours every day? A
certain routine? Are you character/story builder or an outliner or some other
method?
The ideas come from different places, so
sometimes I have just one scene in mind, and have to work out a plot from that;
sometimes the whole story comes to me in one go.
But in terms of writing discipline, I’ll
do a minimum of four hours a day, forcing the words out, but if it’s really
flowing, I’ll be at the computer from 7am to 10pm with breaks to eat and walk
my dog. I can be very single-minded – it drives my husband to distraction.
9.
How
do you get past writers block or distractions like Facebook?
Nothing distracts me when the writing is
flowing. If I feel blocked, I got for a walk with my dog – that helps
incredibly.
10.
Favorite
book from childhood.
I used to love to read Westerns, but one
single book? Tricky … ‘The Red Badge of Courage’ had a huge effect on me. I was
about 9 when I read it.
11.
What’s
on your desk? Can you see your desk? Describe what you see when you look
around.
I keep it pretty tidy. I have my diary, a
dictionary, to-do list, phone, handcream and throat sweets (I’m getting over a
cold).
12.
What's the weirdest thing you've Googled?
I worry about that. I imagine the CIA
keeping tags on me because of my schizophrenic googling, but really it’s all
for characters in books – honest! Okay, um, here goes: how to rob a bank, how
to make lead look like gold bullion, boys talk in locker rooms, how to get rid
of a boner during a sports massage (for guys, obviously)
13.
What is your favorite line from any of your books?
“I love you, I have always loved you, and
wherever I go after this world, I will always love you. Sempre e per sempre”
Sebastian in ‘The Education of Caroline’
14.
Do
you believe in love at first sight?
Yes.
15.
What do you do when you are not
writing?
Read, walk,
swim, surf.
16.
What has been the toughest criticism
given to you as an author? What has been the best compliment?
I was told I was
a child abuser. Isn’t that horrible? Because in ‘The Education of Sebastian’
the relationship is between a 17 year old who’s nearly 18, and a 30 year old
woman. What you don’t get until you read it is that emotionally, it’s the
teenaged Sebastian who teaches Caro about love. That comment made me feel ill,
then I decided to ignore it.
The best
compliment – someone had a quote from my book ‘Lifers’ tattooed on them. That
will be with them for the rest of their life. Wow!
And another was
that a woman decided to call her son ‘Sebastian’ because she loved the
character in my books. That moved me to tears.
17.
Is there any particular author or book
that influenced you in any way either growing up or as an adult?
Jane Austen.
Always. Still does.
18.
Is
there a certain type of scene that's harder for you to write than others? Love?
Action? Racy?
I work hard to make sure that love scenes
don’t sound repetitive, but I don’t find them hard to write. I thought I would,
but I don’t!
19.
How
important are names to you in your books? Do you choose the names based on
liking the way it sounds or the meaning?
Really important. I can change them
several times before they sound right. Usually not the main characters, it’s
usually minor characters.
20.
What was the hardest part of writing your book?
Not having enough time to write everything
that I want to write.
21.
What did you want to be when you
grow up?
A journalist,
but I found out I preferred making things up!
22.
Did you learn anything from writing your book and what was it?
I like to learn new things when I’m
researching a book – that’s part of what makes it interesting for me. I loved
reading about life as a carnie, and I read up all the details of how to breathe
fire and eat fire – that’s a real science to it, which isn’t very unsurprising!
23.
What made you decide to sit down and actually start something?
Well, I started writing fanfiction because
I wanted to rewrite FSOG from Jason Taylor’s pov. Ever since then, stories
won’t leave me alone. I have a list of 30 or 40 stories that I could start
writing tomorrow if I had the time.
24.
Which actor/actress would you like to see playing the lead
character from your most recent book?
An unknown. I want to be immersed in the
story, not the actor playing them.
25.
Do you work to an outline or plot or do you prefer just see
where an idea takes you?
99% I have the outline nailed down before
I start. I often write the ending first.
26.
For your own reading, do you prefer ebooks or traditional
paper/hard back books?
Ebooks. Love LOVE my Kindle.
27.
What book/s are you reading at present?
‘Sempre’ by JM Darhower
28.
If you could have been the original author of any book, what
would it have been and why?
‘Persuasion’ by Jane Austen, because it’s
the perfect story of love second time around. But she never got to polish the
way she usually did because she became ill and died before she was truly happy
with it. All the more reason to treasure it.
29.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
Relax, it’ll happen. And that hot surfer
guy who flirted with you and told you about building his dream home, don’t let
him leave without your phone number!
30.
How do you think you’ve evolved creatively?
I’m still evolving. I don’t ever want to
stop learning.
I lived in London for over 10 years and have a love affair with New York. It's only since I have moved to the countryside, that the words have really begun to flow.
I live in a small village by the ocean and walk my little dog, Pip, every day. It’s on those beachside walks that I have all my best ideas.
Writing has become a way of life – and one that I love to share.
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