Spotlight on Amalie Berlin and Giveaway!

We have writer Amalie Berlin under the spotlight and she's got a giveaway for one commenter. Yes, a signed and print copy of her CRAVING HER ROUGH DIAMOND DOC.

Amalie on Facebook and Twitter.

Now the questions:

Who is Amalie Berlin?

She’s this weird chick I know. Since I’m in the business of writing, I’ll throw around some descriptors in a handy bullet list:

·         Supremely stubborn

·         Tenderhearted and temperamental

·         Geeky, creative, and shamelessly weird

·         Romantic and a chocoholic

·         Obsessed with:

o   Documentaries

o   Writing

o   Crafts

o   Giggling

o   The Vampire Diaries

o   The Originals now too on account of I <3 Klaus the psycho killer with a tender wounded heart… OMG I’m such a cliché :D

 

How did you choose your genre?

            This one is a little more round about to answer. My reading interests are all over the board, but when I decided I wanted to write, I knew it would be romance. I figured that since there was so much MORE to writing Paranormal, Historical or any other Not-Contemporary genre, that I would start with just leaning to write a good solid romance without world building and other flashy stuff I could get distracted by.

            I’ve always loved category, so that was a no brainer. But like many readers, I had my Home Series, and when I wanted to read a category romance, I always went straight for my Home Line to see what struck my fancy. I didn’t look anywhere else, I knew that my Home Line would satisfy.

            That change in 2010, As a relative newbie to the Harlequin online writing community, I saw a thread announcing a Fast-Track for medical romances. Fast turnaround. I’d know if my voice was too quirky for category(which was a very real fear for me back then), and if I was hopeless, I could come up with a new writing game plan. I’d never read a Medical, but no matter how good the opportunity, I wasn’t interested in it if I didn’t like the line.

            So I went looking, bought one, devoured it. Then I bought another. And then several more. I saw grittier subjects than other lines, angst(which I do love), and the medical bits didn’t even really factor in that heavily—at least not as I’d thought they would. Medical romances were just good romances with naturally heroic protagonists I could rely on people allowing more room for mistakes and for me to really mess them up.

            I still have interest in other genres. I don’t think that you can be a well-rounded storyteller without having some diversity in your interests, but I have a great deal of medical ideas in line which want to be written, so I’m happy to run with them until a story idea in another genre(like straight contemporary?) demands my attention.

 

What made you tell this story and why did you write this book?

            This is a harder question. I’m always looking for different ideas, hooks and settings, and if I don’t have them, then I make them up. I have tons of mind maps where I’ve been sifting through random sparks of interest to try and build a skeleton of a story that I’d like to tell.

This story idea didn’t come to me in a flash. The inspiration hit, but it was just a tiny bit of a large puzzle. And there’s a scene in this book where Imogen asks Wyatt why he has housed his medical practice on a bus, and the answer he gave is true the initial spark that ignited this story for me.

 “… she told me about a doctor who used to make rounds through the hills in his own bus when she was a girl. How good it was for the old folks and kids, everyone was in better shape when they were on his route.”

 

I wondered what it would be like to take that snippet of info, a doctor who travelled the area on a bus during the Depression, and bring it into the 21^st century.

Other than that, I wanted to use the area and culture I’d grown up with. I’d never read a Harlequin, or any romance, set in Appalachia(and I’d really never seen a Presents—which used to be my Home Line—set in an area like this), so it would definitely be different.

Plus, I have this serious crush on Joe Manganiello, and can’t you just picture him shirtless on a mountain, building a cabin in the woods while brooding and being all tortured-sexy?

Okay, all that other stuff I said? Ignore it. This was pretty much about letting me daydream about JOE shirtless… Mmmm shirtless Joe (http://www.pinterest.com/pin/407223991277132914/)… YOU’RE WELCOME.

 Craving Her Rough Diamond Doc

 

How did you come up with the title?

I didn’t. I titled it Mountain Man: MD, which was what it was up in Harlequin’s So You Think You Can Write(2012) writing contest as. But when it sold, the publisher gave it a title that better fit the line and meshed with the other titles. I confess though, I do still think of and refer to Wyatt as MountainMan. J

 

Do you have a celebrity crush you like to mentally cast in your reads? Be honest! You know you do! (Who is it?)

 

Please click on this link to enter the Goodreads Giveaway for Amalie's book. And Amalie would be giving a signed print copy to one commenter as well.