Readers let give a welcome to author Heather Blanton!

Thank you Heather for ttaking the time to answer a few questions today.

Lets start with some writing related questions. What is your latest release? 

A Promise in Defiance, book 3 in the best-selling, highly acclaimed Romance in the Rockies series.

  I just read about this series and wow I am doing some book shopping tonight. Lol. Defiance sounds like a place I want to visit. What is coming up in the near future?

I am currently working on a World War 2 Christmas Romcom set in Cheyenne, WY, working title Love, Lies, & Typewriters. I am also outlining a novella about a male mail order bride. Yes, you read that right. 

I love mail order bride stories; what an awesome twist with a male mail order bride!. I am sure your readers are excitedly looking forward to both upcoming books. Are any of your characters based on someone you know in real life?

My character of Hannah in my Romance in the Rockies books is inspired directly by my sister Susan. I lost her to breast cancer in 1999, but she lived an amazing, meaningful life before her death. An unwed teenage mother, she got her GED, RN, and then a license to ministry. She worked home health care in some remote mountain “hollers,” as we call those isolated places, served as a chaplain at the local hospital, and led many people to Christ before her death. She was and always will be my hero.

She sounds like a woman I would have loved to met. I am sure she touched many lives and blessed them. What a great tribute to her. I am sure she is proud of how you have channelled your feelings about her death into a positive. Have you won any awards for your writing? 

No one has convinced me yet that winning a contest would be all that beneficial to my career, so I haven’t entered any. Then again, I could just have a great big case of Fear of Rejection.

Maybe someday one will catch your eye and be worth entering until then bask in your other acheviements in life! Ok let’s switch directions to a few personal and kind of silly questions. If we asked your friends to name 3 personality traits about you what do you think they would say?

Intense, funny, joyful.

Hmm, interesting choices. What is something about you that people would be surprised to know?
Though I write Western romances, my favorite hero of all time is Capt. Kirk. Honor, duty, loyalty, courage–he is the biggest, baddest Boy Scout of them all. And while I will always love William Shatner, Chris Pine rocks.

Lol. That’s so cool!.Do you have any Pet Peeves?
 People who try to argue politics with me on facebook. Really? You have that much time on your hands? I’m a little too busy to attempt to save the world from my keyboard. Good thing they’re there watching over humanity, telling us all how wrong we are.

 I so agree Facebook and Politcs do NOT go well together. Tecnology has made us both more intelligent and very stupid at the same time..Lol. If you could time travel to any era which one would you choose and why?
I’d love to go back to the 1880’s. I’d have to take a survival cooking class first, though, otherwise we’ll all starve to death. I can’t cook now. We’d be dead in a week back then. But I digress. Why that era? Men were men, women were women, you knew which bathroom to use, and email didn’t exist. Life was simpler.

Yes. I always wanted to live in Walnut Grove with Laura Ingalls Wilder. If you need a traveling companion just hollar my way. What are some of your hobbies?

Besides writing and researching??? Blink, blink … I got nothin’. No wait, I kayak every now and then. 

Lol nothing wrong with simple things. Ok here is a silly question. If you were an ice cream flavor what one would you be and why?

Vanilla. It’s sweet and simple. I don’t operate on shades of gray.

Great answer! Last silly question. If you were marooned on an island what 5 things would you bring with you?
Let’s see … books, wine, paper and pencils … oh, and I suppose some freeze-dried food. But I’d rather have more books

Interesting choices. Last few questions. What motto do you have that you say over and over when/if things get tough for you?

Two things: never give in, never back down, never lose faith. And Romans 8:28–And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His  purpose.

Love it.Great uplifting verse. Finally Where can readers find you? 
My Romance in the Rockies books (A Lady in Defiance, Hearts in Defiance, A Promise in Defiance) are available at bookstores and Amazon. My other books are currently available only through Amazon (http://amzn.to/2arFfwp)

Thank you so much for spending time with us and answering our pesky questions. Wishing you much luck and success. Our fingers are also crossed for hearing  good news on your script for A Lady in Defiance which you tell us  is in Brian Bird’s hands. He is Michael Landon Jr’s partner, if you don’t know the name, and the the executive producer of When Calls the Heart on Hallmark, and has written/produced several well-respected, and award-winning movies. Please keep us posted!.