Hey Grandma, Where’d You Get That Idea?

This is guest author and review week, and I am so excited to introduce my friend and fellow Clean Reads author Elaine Cantrell! Her latest release is a fun story called Fortuna. I downloaded the book as soon as it became available and made the time to read it on my phone. It was so much fun I finished it in three days (note – when I read on my phone it’s usually in short spurts when I’m waiting in a doctor’s office or killing time before I need to go somewhere, so the fact that I finished it in three days means I came up with excuses to open my Nook app and read!

Anyway, I contacted Elaine and asked her to tell us about how this book came about. Two of the main characters are former WWE wrestlers, and I wondered how a former high school social studies teacher became interested in that world. So Elaine very kindly responded to my question about her inspiration for the book. Here she is!

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Once upon a time, there was a little boy named David. He had one sister who was fourteen when he was born, and his best friend was an imaginary pink rabbit. The rabbit was not surprising if you considered that the little boy’s grandmother was a writer. The child had to get his imagination from somewhere. David was Grandma’s biggest fan, probably because he admired her book video trailers.

Time passed and David’s sister married Josh. The little boy soon idolized his new brother-in-law, mostly because Josh owned a gym and taught people how to wrestle WWE style. The boy’s sister thought she’d give wrestling a try too, but she didn’t like getting flipped around and hurt so she gave it up in a hurry.

Grandma thought wrestling was too violent for little David, but his father, a first class musician, let him watch it anyway. After one exciting match, the little boy demanded, “Grandma, write me a book about wrestlers.”

Grandma resisted. Wrestling was not her cup of tea, but like all good grandmas, she caved and said she’d do it. She consulted with Josh and soon started her first romantic comedy, which she called Fortuna. Not wishing to have all the action in a wrestling ring, Grandma had one match in chapter one, and then her wrestlers retired to West Virginia where the adventures just wouldn’t stop coming.

And that, dear friends, is where Grandma got the idea for Fortuna. Those who looked at the dedication page found that Grandma dedicated the book like this:

For Josh and David without whom there would have been no book.

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Patty’s thoughts about Fortuna:

This is a cute story about a totally mismatched couple. Aimee Sherwood is engaged to Rocky, who enters the Witness Protection Program because of his testimony against a drug dealer. Rocky buys a dilapidated shell of a house in West Virginia, close to his wrestling buddy Cade. Aimee goes to stay at Rocky’s place and begins to have doubts about her future life with Rocky, especially when Cade starts to spend more time with them.

I loved the setting and the eccentric cast of characters. The town is really involved in historical knowledge and re-enactments, which seems like it would be fascinating. I did find it odd that Aimee would become engaged to a boor like Rocky – and odder still that she would stay engaged to him despite all the things he does that irritate her. And the many shifts between references to the eighteenth and nineteenth century often had me turning back pages to find out why at one moment they were talking about Revolutionary War characters and the next page there were references to the Civil War. Other than that, this was a very pleasant read with a satisfying ending.

 

You can find Elaine at her website, her blog, and on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Fortuna can be purchased at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and Smashwords.