Romancing September #RomancingSeptember – Day 27

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Welcome to Day 27 of Romancing September Across The World Tour. Today our guest is Romy Sommer. Catch up with more from Romy in a few hours with the second part of our tour when Stephanie chats to her.

To catch a star new

Where is your home town?

I live in sunny Johannesburg, South Africa where the weather is warm, the lifestyle is outdoorsy and the people are always on the go.

How long have you been writing romance?

I started writing about eight years ago, not planning to write romance (which I’d hardly read before that point!) until another writer friend told me I “had a voice for romance”. I bought a pile of romance novels from a second hand bookshop, and so began my love affair with romance.

What is your favourite sub-genre of romance?

I enjoy historicals set in unusual periods, and YA or paranormal with some romantic elements, but my favourite sub-genre is definitely contemporary romance. Flirty, modern, relatable stories.

How do Christian and Teresa meet?

The meeting between Christian and Teresa was inspired by a scene from Singin’ in the Rain. I showed the movie to my daughters and as I was watching I thought “that could so happen today!” and so I have Christian running away from his too-adoring fans and jumping into Teresa’s car to escape. She assumes he’s trying to hijack her – as I probably would if a complete stranger jumped into my moving car!

What or who are Westerwald?

Westerwald is the fictional European country I created. It lies roughly where the Rhine River lies in reality, along the border between Germany and France. It’s a country of castles and vineyards, with a river running through it, and still ruled by an Arch Duke. Teresa lives in the tiny nation’s only city of Neustadt (New Town) and Christian is a movie star there to film his latest adventure film.

Why must Teresa apply to be Christian’s PA?

After their first, not very auspicious meeting, Teresa would be happy to never lay eyes on Christian again. But her father arranges her a job as Christian’s PA with a secret ulterior mission: to find out how he came into possession of a national treasure that disappeared from Westerwald about thirty five years earlier. It turns out she makes a pretty good PA, but does she find the answer to her secret mission? You’ll need to read the book to find out!

What is the National treasure?

The national treasure is a very ancient ring, a silver dragon curled around a blue lapis lazuli stone. There are only three in existence, and they are the rings of the heirs of Westerwald, passed on to the sons of the Arch Dukes. So how did one go missing and finally end up with a Hollywood actor?

Although this is book 3 of The Westerwald series can it be easily read as a stand-alone book?

There are a few references to characters from earlier books, and the missing ring question is raised in the previous book, The Trouble with Mojitos, but yes, To Catch a Star can definitely be read as a stand-alone.

Tell us what you are working on at the moment.

At the moment (as I answer these questions) I’m working on a fun short story project for my publisher, Harper Impulse. They invited readers to write an opening first paragraph on a Christmas theme, chose one winner, and then fifteen Harper Impulse authors have been tasked to each write a short story starting with that same paragraph. All fifteen stories with be published together in an anthology for Christmas. I’m very excited to see how different each of the stories will be!

Where can readers find out more about you?

Romy 2014

I have a blog, and am on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter. I’m also on Goodreads but I have to admit I don’t hang out there much!

Website/Blog: www.romysommer.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Romy-Sommer/581103771909039?fref=ts

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/romysommer/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/romy_s

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6603454.Romy_Sommer

Buying links

To Catch a Star is published by Harper Impulse, a division of Harper Collins, and is available from the following online retailers:

Amazon Smart URL

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

iTunes

All Romance eBooks

Find out more about Romy from Stephanie Hurt’s blog and all our Romance writers http://stephanie-hurt.com/

 

14 thoughts on “Romancing September #RomancingSeptember – Day 27”

  4. HiRosie and Romy – had to read about the author from Jo’burg – where I used to live – but interesting you ‘had a voice’ for romance – and so shifted your focus … good for you – while the setting is an interesting area – lots could happen in the ‘Rhineland’ area ..

    Cheers and good luck – Hilary

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  5. Thanks for your comments, June and Carmen.

    Rae – lovely to see you here, and thanks for the support.

    Hilary – we should talk sometime! I’d love to know what brought you to Jo’burg of all places.

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  7. Hi Romy (waves frantically and jumps up and down in excitement! ) Hope you are having a great time on Rosie’s and Stephanie’s blogs. I know I did! Your Christmas short story collection sound fab. Caroline xx

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  11. This has been a fun interview to read, and your book sounds like it would be an extremely fun book to read. I haven’t read the 1st two books of this series, so it looks like I will be adding them to my TBR List, and I hope they sound just as fun as this one does.

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