Author Interview (and a Giveaway!): Meghan Gorecki

You can’t see me but I’m totally giddy with bloggerly excitement right now! Why? Because my sweet friend Meghan Gorecki is chatting with me – and you – today!!

YAY!!!

Meghan M. Gorecki is an author of inspirational fiction, a blogger, book reviewer and voracious reader. Taking her life a day at a time as God leads, she is pursuing a career in the publishing industry as an editor in training and as a member of American Christian Fiction Writers. A hopeless romantic, history and Marvel nut, she’s also a redhead (thanks to a box), who knows way too much trivia about movie musicals and the Civil War.

Along with all of that, Meghan is a dear friend. We’ve shared laughter and swoons and frustrations and prayer requests and praises – all without meeting face to face until – oh bliss! – Nashville in August when I finally got to hug her neck in person!!! Such fun that week was!

Connect on Meghan on her website, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Her newest release is a delightful contemporary Christmas novella, Wrapped in Red. You can read my review here.

A Steel City holiday romance sure to melt your heart.

The holidays haven’t been the easiest for Merry Grainger. Five years ago, she lost her grandfather and got dumped by her boyfriend right before Christmas. Each season since sees her determined to avoid getting hurt again, and so she keeps a steel-like grip on her hopeless romantic heart.

Music used to soothe Sam Shepard’s soul until the death of his biggest cheerleader broke his heart, family, and dreams into pieces. Now he’s focused on thriving in the city, and with the people, he’s grown to love—all to keep the hole in his heart from opening anew with every passing holiday season.

Thrown together by a church play and meddlesome family armed with mistletoe, will Merry and Sam unwrap their guarded hearts to let in the true hope of Christmas—and each other?

Hi Meghan, my friend! I’m so honored to have you on the blog! 🙂

Meghan: Carrie! Oh I miss you. Thank you for having me! *reaches across the states to give/receive a huge hug*

Carrie: I miss you too!!!!! Why does the USA have to be so spread out?!? *gladly accepts and gives back huge hug*

I start all of my guests out with a fast four:

Meghan: Apples. Because there is nothing better than an apple and a book. Besides chocolate or coffee or gold fish…but my first original With a Book snack was apples. Because I wanted to be Jo March.

Carrie: Oh my goodness! I can totally see you as Jo March!! 😀

Meghan: Winter. I loathe sweating. And despite the darkness and bad road conditions that winter breaks—it is magical. And so very cozy. Plus I love all the layers and scarves.

Carrie: I love winter for the same reasons… except no scarves. I don’t look good in scarves. lol.

Meghan: Cats! They are so self sufficient, easy pets. Sure, selectively lovable at times—but so very sweet. We have four. I should know. LOL

Carrie: Hmmm…. I’m just going to hide this answer from Zuzu. Because I like you, and I’m afraid if she sees it she won’t let us be friends anymore 😀

Meghan: COFFEE. And tea. I’m weird. My first go-to is coffee but I’m a nondiscriminatory hybrid. Coffee is full bodied and bold and strong. Tea is more ladylike and refined—so both appeal to me at any given time. LOL

Carrie: haha!

Around here I like to say that reading is my superpower. If YOU had a superpower, what would it be?

Meghan: Hrmm…good question. Jumping to conclusions in a single bound? A perfectionist with xray vision? LOL I kid, I kid. (Mostly). If I had a superpower, it’d be a cheerleader. LOL I love cheering people on and encouraging those in my life in whatever way they need.

Carrie: oh i know all about jumping to conclusions. I am Anxiety Girl – I jump to the worst conclusion in a single bound 😀 And YES you are such a marvelous cheerleader and encourager! Definitely your superpower!

Who is your favorite book character from childhood?

Meghan: The March Sisters from Little Women. Bar none. And yes I know those are characters—plural—but my two favorites, tied for first, are Meg and Jo, the two eldest. Meg and I somewhat share a name, and she was the eldest sister—so very much like me! But Jo is the writer, the dramatic one—and has to learn to write what she knows. A lesson I’ve learned and embraced over the years as well.

Carrie: I’m so glad you didn’t say Amy. I can’t stand Amy. LOL.

If I snuck a peek in your purse right now (which I would never do, I promise!), what would it tell me about you?

Meghan: It would tell you that I have quite a thing for red lipsticks. Of all types and shades. It’s my favorite. I still have yet to find the highest ideal of super-stay lip color but I have some pretty great ones in there.

Carrie: Red lipstick has always scared me but you totally rock it!

Your hero in Wrapped in Red is “a scruffy, chocolate-crinkle eyed architect”. Umm… yes please!! Do tell us more! 😀

Meghan: My pleasure. Haha! Sam Shepard is a Mr. Steady—or he has become one to redeem the time he wasted when he was younger. He loves people, likes coffee well enough—but really likes hot chocolate. He’s a delightful nerd, endearingly awkward and totally aware of it—but has just the biggest, warmest heart.

Carrie: He won me over at “hot chocolate” 🙂

How did you come up with the idea for this Christmas novella?

Meghan: Well, funnily enough it started a year ago after reading a literal slew of Christmas novellas when I was laid up due to a surprising health issue that cropped up. I wanted to write something easy and funny and just, me and my family during the holidays. I needed the distraction. Fifty pages in I let it be around February, and dusted it off again this past October. After quite a year of multiple heart-lessons I had to go through. And inspiration just utterly snowballed and overwhelmed me but I hadn’t had such a certainty that this was what I needed to write in quite some time. And so, I wrote it. In this story are my hometown of Pittsburgh in all its red and green (and black and gold!) glory, my family traditions (and cookies!), and, not gonna lie—in a lot of ways, awkward, hopeless romantic occasionally jaded Merry Grainger—is me.

Can I share a bonus little behind the scenes story?

So Wrapped in Red opens with Merry being enormously frustrated (and let down) over a casual coffee date that ended practically before it even began because of a guy who cut it short claiming he had laundry to do. I hope many readers get a laugh out of it, because I certainly am. That same thing literally happened to me and, after about a day of kicking myself and feeling much the same as Merry—I was able to laugh it off.

Carrie: I remember our facebook chat after that guy!! I was so ready to go purse whomp him for you! But also… laughing a little … because laundry? really?? And then I had to smile fondly when I saw it show up in Merry’s story 🙂 P.S. – I totally saw you in Merry!

What do you most want readers to take away from Wrapped in Red?

Meghan: I hope and pray readers take away the fact that there is only one thing, one Person we can place our hope in. That, though He may allow disappointments and heartaches and hardships in and out of our lives—He is constant and remains the same. And that He never stops pursuing us with His perfect love. It’s a lesson I myself will relearn over the course of my whole life, one I wrote just a snippet of into this little Christmas tale of mine—but it is important.

That, and for my fellow single lady readers—to never settle for someone who doesn’t take you exactly as you are, and actually kind of enjoys all your little quirks and idiosyncrasies. I’m here to say that, while my Sam Shepard hasn’t shown his face yet—I’m believing that it’s worth the wait.

Carrie: Amen.

Meghan, thank you so much for taking time to talk with me! 🙂 Before we say goodbye for today, tell us what‘s coming up next for you.

Meghan: Oh gosh—recovery from this crazy holiday season? LOL But really though. 2017 will be a quieter year on the bookish front but it will nonetheless be a full, and productive one. So this novella is an unofficial first in a contemporary romance “imprint” of my Northern Belle Publishing called Three Rivers Romance. The series is still very much in the works, but suffice it to say the series will stay true to a trademark of mine—the importance of family—and have an “All roads lead back home to Pittsburgh” feel. My main focus this upcoming year will be working on a book for my historical line, The Keystone Legacy Series entitled A Rose Long Awaited. A full-length historical romance that is the sequel in a Civil War trilogy set in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. A trilogy that’s been reshaped and has grown as much as I have since when I first began writing it in 2012 (with book one, Amongst the Roses.) Think Little Women meets Pride and Prejudice meets Gone with the Wind (okay, kind of…) in a style similar to Lynn Austin’s Refiner’s Fire Series and Jocelyn Green’s Heroines Behind the Lines series. Or so I hope. 🙂

Carrie thank you SO very much for having me—I miss you and love you! Merry, merry Christmas, ya’ll!

I am giving away an ebook of Wrapped in Red!!

Comment on this interview by answering the question below and then head over to my review of Wrapped in Red to claim 5 extra entries on the Rafflecopter form!

**Comments only count as entries if you claim them on the Rafflecopter form!**

Question to answer:

What’s your oddest dating moment?