Author Interview (and a Giveaway!): Becca Kinzer & Dear Henry, Love Edith

It’s my joy today to welcome Becca Kinzer to the blog to chat about her debut novel Dear Henry, Love Edith! It looks so good – I can’t wait to read it!!

Becca Kinzer lives in Springfield, Illinois, where she works as a critical care nurse. When she’s not taking care of sick patients or reminding her husband and two kids that frozen chicken nuggets is a gourmet meal, she enjoys making up lighthearted stories with serious laughs. She is a 2018 ACFW First Impressions Contest winner, a 2019 Genesis Contest winner, a 2021 Cascade Award winner, and an all-around champion coffee drinker. Dear Henry, Love Edith is her debut novel.

You can connect with Becca on her website, Instagram and Twitter.

DEAR HENRY, LOVE EDITH by Becca Kinzer
GENRE: Inspirational Contemporary Romance/RomCom
PUBLISHER: Tyndale House
RELEASE DATE: January 31, 2023
PAGES: 375

He thinks she’s an elderly widow. She’s convinced he’s a grumpy old man. Neither could be further from the truth.

After a short and difficult marriage, recently widowed Edith Sherman has learned her lesson. Forget love. Forget marriage. She plans to fill her thirties with adventure. As she awaits the final paperwork for a humanitarian trip to South Africa, she accepts a short-term nursing position in a small Midwestern town. The last thing she needs is a handsome local catching her eye. How inconvenient is that?

Henry Hobbes isn’t exactly thrilled to have Edith, who he assumes is an elderly widow, dumped on him as a houseguest for the summer. But he’d do almost anything for his niece, who is practically like a sister to him given how close they are in age. Especially since Edith will be working nights and Henry works most days. When he and Edith keep missing each other in person, they begin exchanging notes—short messages at first, then longer letters, sharing increasingly personal parts of their lives.

By the time Henry realizes his mistake—that Edith is actually the brown-eyed beauty he keeps bumping into around town—their hearts are so intertwined he hopes they never unravel. But with her departure date rapidly approaching, and Henry’s roots firmly planted at home, Edith must ultimately decide if the adventure of her dreams is the one right in front of her.

Reminiscent of the beloved classic You’ve Got Mail comes a delightful new romantic comedy about mistaken identities, second chances, and finding love in unexpected places.

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Hi Becca! Welcome to the blog & congrats on your debut novel!

Becca: Apples. Because you can’t dip orange slices in peanut butter or caramel. Well, I suppose you can, but . . .

Carrie: yeeeeeeeeah no. lol. I’ll stick with apples, thanks 🙂

Becca: Dogs. (But don’t tell my cat! Actually, don’t tell my dog either. She has a big enough ego as it is.)

Carrie: haha!

Becca: Music. For some reason I struggle listening to audiobooks. I guess my mind wanders too much. I’ll get to chapter 32 and think, Wait a second. When did that character die?

Carrie: riiiiiight?!? I’m the same way!

Becca: Print. I love seeing book covers in the flesh (that sounds kind of weird) and turning actual pages.

Carrie: plus, hugging your Kindle doesn’t have quite the same feel 🙂

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

Becca: Well, I don’t want to brag, but according to my kids (and let’s be honest, only my kids), I do great accents for all the Harry Potter characters when I’m reading the books out loud to them.

Carrie: aww i love that!

Q: Who is your favorite book character from childhood?

Becca: Danny from Roald Dahl’s Danny, the Champion of the World.

Carrie: oh that’s a fun one!

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

Becca: That I’m poorly prepared for any situation that requires more than a credit card or keys. My husband has teased me countless times: “Why do you carry that thing around if you never put anything useful inside it?” Which typically means he’s looking for a piece of gum, and I, of course, don’t have any.

Carrie: LOL!

Q: Did you have the whole plot outlined before you started writing Dear Henry, Love Edith, or did you let the characters dictate what came next?

Becca: I had a vague concept of what the story was about when I started, but after I set up the pieces for the initial misunderstanding, I let the characters take over as far as the plot went. And let me just say, they were very adamant about having a dance scene.

Carrie: ahhhhhh i can’t wait to read that dance scene!

Q: Some authors like to hide little things in their stories. Is there anything you have hidden in Dear Henry, Love Edith?

Becca: I’m not really sure it’s hidden, but all the movie references in the story, like Chariots of Fire or The Long, Hot Summer, were movies I watched growing up that left some sort of impression on me. I loved being able to sprinkle them in throughout the story.

Carrie: those are always fun to read, too 🙂

Q: What do you most want readers to take away from Dear Henry, Love Edith?

Becca: To never let the disappointments in life take away their hope for living out a great story, and to remember that even the most mundane activities of daily living can be an opportunity for adventure.

Carrie: i love that! yes!

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.

Becca: Thank you for inviting me! This was such a fun interview! What I have coming up next is another rom-com. This one is about a small-town music teacher so desperate to save her music program that she pairs up with a man who is her complete opposite to enter a contest that requires riding a tandem bicycle together for 500 miles.

Carrie: what could go possibly go wrong? LOL

Tyndale House is offering a print copy of Dear Henry, Love Edith by Becca Kinzer to one of my readers! (US only. Void where prohibited by law or logistics.) This giveaway is subject to Reading Is My SuperPower’s giveaway policies which can be found here. Enter via the Rafflecopter form below.

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What about you? What makes you want to read Dear Henry, Love Edith by Becca Kinzer?