We have another interview today of a Top Five Finalist for the Best Indie Book of 2012 Award from the New Kindle Book Review.

Today’s genre is Romance, and our guest is Laurie Kellogg,  author of The Memory of You.

What inspired you to write this story?

While I was in high school, I wore a MIA/POW bracelet engraved with the name of a soldier who was missing in action. I was broken hearted that my soldier never came home and profoundly moved when the POWs returned in 1973 during Operation Homecoming. My heart went out to those brave men, some of whom were captive and abused for almost nine years. Some fathers were strangers to their children and had missed watching them grow. Many came home to discover their wives and sweethearts had moved on to other relationships. In all these years since, I’ve never forgotten the sacrifice these men and their families made, and I felt compelled to give one of these couples, although fictional, a happy ending.

The Memory of You is the prequel to my Return to Redemption series.

You’ve explored a sensitive topic in your novel. Were certain parts of the book difficult to write?  

This book of my heart made me very uncomfortable at times, and I soaked a lot of tissues. I kept the flashbacks to the hero’s years as a prisoner to a minimum because, after all, the book is a romance. However, I still couldn’t help sharing in the horror of his experiences and in the heroine’s heartbreak during the time she believed she’d lost him. (Although, it was only a taste of the agony I’m sure the real men and families must have felt. Writing The Memory of You gave me a greater appreciation for our soldiers and all they do for our country.

 

What specific themes did you emphasize in the novel?

The story stars an emotionally wounded hero with no past and a heartbroken single mother with a lonely future. This couple gets a second chance when they fall in love all over again, so the most obvious theme of this book is the healing power of unforgettable love. There are two other messages imparted through the story, though. The first is that it doesn’t take genetics to make a person a parent. And, since this was a romance, the second take-away lesson had to lead to a happy ending, so that message is if we let the injustices in our past tarnish our future with bitterness, then in the end we give our oppressors the ability to continue torturing us and we let them win.

Your bio indicates some of your books won writing awards. Is this novel one of them?

Yes. The Memory of You was nominated twice for the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart award. The first time, another of my books, A Little Bit of Déjà Vu (my upcoming release this spring) was also a nominee and pitted against The Memory of You (then titled Something Worth Remembering) and ALBDV ultimately won. I couldn’t stand wondering how my underdog would’ve fared in the contest without competition from my other book, so I reentered it under its present title and it also won. While the novel had its original title, it was also a Romantic Times American Title finalist.

Laurie Kellogg is a two-time winner and seven-time nominee for the Romance Writers of America® Golden Heart® award, the winner of Pacific Northwest Writers Association® Zola award, and a Romantic Times® American Title I finalist. She began writing to avoid housework and has since resorted to naming the dust-bunnies multiplying as fast as real rabbits while she plots love stories that are Steamy, Heartwarming, Romantic Fun! Laurie also writes red-hot romantic comedies under L.L. Kellogg, which she’s branded as A Little Naughty and a lot of Fun!

THE MEMORY OF YOU

KINDLE  $3.99 http://amzn.to/IrABbo

Paperback  $7.99 http://amzn.to/wDuB1I

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Thanks so much for the interview, Laurie.

Please take a  moment, while you’re at it,  to check out another  Top Five Finalist book in the thriller genre.  Last One Chosen, by yours truly.