Interview Ani Gonzalez Author of The Christmas Countdown
Happy holidays to all! Give a big welcome to Ani Gonzales, author of The Christmas Countdown. Have a seat and grab an insulated mug. I’ve got hot chocolate, hot cider and coffee. Choose your pot, they’re labeled. Pick your choice of a Snicker-doodle, Chocolate Chip or Peanut butter cookie from the plate. Yep, I baked them myself. Lets find out a little about Ani and The Christmas Countdown. Thanks for joining us! Psst… don’t forget to enter the Rafflecopter giveaway at the bottom of this post!
Thanks for featuring my book, The Christmas Countdown, on the blog. It’s a fast-paced, hilarious and adorable sweet holiday romance which was a blast to write and I’m super excited to share it with readers.
My pleasure. Now tell us what defines you as an author? As a person? Are they one and the same?
I’m known for my funny, quirky small towns, my madcap situations, and my creative use of folklore and traditions. This new series, for example, is set in the Holiday Lake, Minnesota, a town that celebrates Christmas 365 days of the year. It takes place in December, so things are already pretty crazy. I take things up to 11, however, when my event planner heroine, Nat Quinn, is asked to arrange a perfect family Christmas in twenty-four hours. Nat is known as “The Christmas Queen,” but is she up to the job and the romance that is coming her way?
What is Christmas like where you live? Don’t be shy, tell us your secrets.
I’m originally from Puerto Rico and Christmas is a HUGE deal down there. The holiday season starts with Thanksgiving and doesn’t end until late January with the Feast of St. Sebastian. It’s one big non-stop party.
What inspired this particular story?
I lived in Minnesota for two years and spent a ton of time traveling across the Midwest. One of our road trips took us to the town of Amana in Iowa. It was settled by German immigrants and still retains its original Bavarian architecture. As soon as I saw those adorable gingerbread buildings (and the many, many shops selling Christmas ornaments) I knew I had my holiday town.
Why should we read this book/series and what sets you apart from the rest and makes your book/series unique?
Definitely the mix of humor and heart. My books are funny and lighthearted, but also heartwarming., and there’s always a little twist or a surprise at the end.
What’s your favorite part of being an author?
I get to live in the worlds I create! My readers always say that they would love to move to my little towns and I get to live there all year round. It’s fantastic.
Speed Round FOR A LITTLE ADDED FUN: (one word only answer): Yep, I know torture for a writer!<evil laugh> And she can’t do it. LOL Oh well we don’t care. It all for fun!
Favorite Christmas Movie: A Charlie Brown Christmas
Favorite Christmas Book: The Christmas Pudding by Agatha Christie
Last Christmas or Holiday Book Read:
Favorite color: Orange
Stilettos or flipflops or elf shoes: I live in the Midwest so Uggs are the preferred footwear right now.
Coffee or Tea or Hot Chocolate: Constant Comment tea from Bigelow
Ebook or audiobook or paperback: Ebook!
Pencil or pen or candy cane: Pencil, so I can erase mistakes.
Favorite Christmas Carol or song: Carol of the Bells, particularly the Lindsey Stirling version from last year. I also love Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s Sarajevo 1985.
All-time Favorite Christmas Present: A cowboy Barbie I got when I was ten. I wrote a holiday story based on her, One Night in the Chupacabras Ranch, and you can get it by signing up for my newsletter.
Favorite dessert: Strawberry pie.
Christmas Candy or Cake: Collin Street Texas Fruitcake. It’s the best.
Favorite Thing To Do to Relax During the Holidays: Watch Hallmark Movies
Champagne or gin or eggnog: I have a favorite recipe for Puerto Rican coconut eggnog. It’s delicious and it’s on my blog.
Paranormal or Historical: Both!
Wonder Woman or Top Model or Tinkerbell: Tink for the win!
Favorite Christmas or holiday TV show: The Grinch!
Hot or cold: Cold!
POV: Third person
I’d die if I don’t have: Candy Corn (that’s why my other series is all about Halloween!)
Review or Not: Review!
Holiday Lake
satisfied. That was one action item taken care of.
mahogany cabinet that served as the study’s bar and grabbed a bottle of scotch
and a glass. A perfect Christmas with his kids. This was worth celebrating.
and poured the amber liquid into the glass. The cut-glass pattern made
everything sparkle, which was rather festive. Now all he had to do was get the
kids on the plane. Everything else would be taken care of.
giving his children the perfect Christmas, there was more to his feeling of
jubilation. He smiled as he realized that the quirky holiday decorator had
improved his mood. She seemed almost entirely too Christmassy to be real, but
she also appeared to be someone you could count on, a quality that was lacking in
this world.
feeling the fiery liquid slide down this throat. That had been a good
negotiation.
forward to the next one. As Nat had said, everyone wanted the perfect Christmas
and it wasn’t all that easy. An eleventh-hour version would, he was certain,
encounter a few challenges, and he had a feeling he would enjoy maneuvering
through them with Ms. Quinn. He felt a lot more confident after talking with
her, like a weight had fallen off his back.
studio, all well-tailored slacks and glossy hair. She definitely wasn’t the
slouchy sweater and Ugg boots type.
packing,” she said, a tinge of worry in her voice. “They sound really
excited. Is she going to do it?”
Cyrus replied. “Did you have any doubts?”
exclaimed with a happy smile. “She was dead set against it. How did you
convince her?”
and bottomless margaritas,” he replied.
accurate. Ms. Quinn had given in when he’d mentioned his kids. That had been
her weak spot. It made sense that a holiday specialist would be a sucker for
kids. They were the point of her job, after all.
know about this Nat Quinn, Leah?” He asked.
fantastic,” Leah answered, eyes shining. “You know Christmas is not
my thing, so it takes quite a lot to wow me.”
Jewish, and she’d worked for some of the wealthiest families in Manhattan and
London. She was notoriously hard to impress.
hired me one week before Christmas and I was blown away. We drove up to the
lodge and it looked amazing with a ten-foot-tall tree, garlands everywhere, and
Mrs. Hagen’s favorite vintage German decorations. Ms. Quinn even found the
large old-fashioned bulbs that Mrs. Hagen wanted. She had an intact set and
everything.”
At least he wasn’t demanding rare Christmas lights and antique ornaments. Ms.
Quinn was likely relieved about that.
was divine,” Leah continued. “The main restaurant has an
all-year-round holiday buffet with a citrus cranberry chutney that is out of
this world. You can use it as a sandwich spread for the leftovers too.”
dreamy as she described the food.
makes this amazing Black Forest cake with cherry Kirsch.” Leah gave a deep
sigh of longing. “It has so much alcohol you can’t drive after you eat it,
but it is delicious. Absolutely worth being housebound afterwards.”
back for the food?” Cyrus asked, swirling the amber liquid in his glass.
by an awkward silence.
“Er, not exactly. The town is lovely and the people are, um, quite
pleasant.” She paused. “Particularly Ms. Quinn. She even gave us some
Chinese food for Christmas Eve dinner, which was very thoughtful.” Her
eyes grew dreamy again. “The kung pao chicken was delicious. I hear the
place closed though, which is a pity.”
hope Ms. Quinn can whip us something similar despite the time constraints.
Given what we’ve given her to work with, we’ll be lucky if she can find a
Christmas tree.”
Noah’s dad—”
her mouth, eyes wide.
raised a brow. “Who’s Noah?”
across her cheeks. “No one. I’ll, er, go check on the kids now.”
the room.
Leah had been working for him for almost two years now, and she’d become part
of the family. Yet he’d never seen her blush, not once.
be a lot more interesting than he’d expected.
computer. A picture of his kids popped up on the screen. It was from the last
time he’d taken Jack to the FDNY open house. His son stood in front of a fire
truck grinning widely while his sister made bunny ears behind his head.
picture, partly because he’d made it to the field trip for a change, but mostly
because Jack was wearing a t-shirt that read “Firefighters Like It
Hot”, seemingly oblivious to the double entendre.
Internet browser icon and waited for the program to load. An e-mail came as he
waited. The sender was Nat Queen at TheChristmasQueen-dot-com and the subject
line read “Contract for Immediate Signature.” The words were
punctuated with a dozen exclamation marks.
was quite efficient, a woman after his own heart.
opened, he typed in “Nat Quinn Holiday Lake Minnesota.” A
surprisingly large number of sites popped up, most of them featuring the
Christmas Queen motto and a mistletoe crown logo.
was a busy gal. She’d appeared on various morning shows, giving holiday
decorating tips. She wrote a column on how to plan the perfect holiday. She had
authored numerous magazine articles on virtually every challenge one could
encounter during the holidays, and at least three of the articles dealt with
gravy consistency. She had done sets for holiday movies.
a beach holiday. The poor woman must be exhausted. She even had a sponsorship
agreement with a candle company. The ads boasted that her Citrus Cranberry
Christmas Delight Candle was their all-time best-seller.
things one could be remembered for.
TheChristmasQueen.com, and was immediately assaulted by loud music, The
Carol of the Bells, if he was not mistaken.
admirable Ms. Quinn had one serious character flaw: She was one of those people
who had pop-up music on her website.
scrolled down. There was another mistletoe crown logo, a recipe section, and
several pictures of lavishly decorated houses.
Ms. Quinn could put on a show. She’d even done a party with a real sleigh and
live reindeer. He peered at the computer screen, jaw dropping in disbelief as
he counted the animals. Eight reindeer, all suitably labeled. She’d done a
holiday party with eight reindeer.
Christmas in a day.
site. She had social media accounts with current pictures of the town. It had
snowed recently and Holiday Lake could rightfully claim that it would be a
white Christmas. The bakery that Leah loved was shaped like a Swiss chalet with
twinkling lights and a giant Black Forest cake replica in front.
it turned out, was re-opening. Leah would no doubt be overjoyed. The Bavarian
Brathaus sounded intriguing and the Holiday Lake Inn would be sponsoring a
Christmas carol concert tomorrow night. The kids would enjoy that.
have a fetish for measuring things. All their statistics were carefully noted
on the various websites. They’d received sixteen inches of snow last week. The
Holiday Lake Inn’s all-you-can-eat turkey buffet had served seventeen gallons
of citrus-cranberry chutney on December 26 of last year. Year-to-date, the tree
farm had sold eight hundred and twenty-two trees.
social media accounts and checked all the friends lists, but try as he might he
could not find what he was looking for.
Leah’s mysterious Noah.
pictures of Nat Quinn. The Christmas Queen seemed surprisingly shy. No pictures
of herself on her website. No selfies on her social media. Nothing.
images search tab and found that the local Christmas tree vendors had a picture
of her. The image was blurry, so all he could make out was a slender woman
standing next to an enormous Christmas tree, but clicking on the picture took
him to the tree seller’s website.
Quinn had filmed a television segment with Northstar Tree Farm, which had aired
on the Minneapolis public television station. The tree farm had the video on
its website.
back to watch.
woman with bright red hair, green eyes, and a loud cheerful laugh. She knew
more than any human being should about decorative conifers, and she could make
a Christmas wreath in five minutes flat. She liked Balsam firs because they
looked shaggy and natural, but she admired the Fraser fir’s longevity. She
wielded a chainsaw like a pro and she did not like artificial trees. As far as
she was concerned, they were an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. She owned
thirty-seven ugly Christmas sweaters and her favorite featured an
unhappy-looking antlered Chihuahua. And she was single.
smiling. Nat Quinn was adorable.
about Christmas.
choice for this job. Even the single part. Not that he cared, of course, not personally.
It just left her free to concentrate on the job.
consideration here, the job.
He scrolled up. He could swear he’d seen—
the top of the website. There it was in all its glory—The Northstar Tree Farm’s
Christmas tree counter.
“zero.”
Zero balsams. Zero Frasers.
he pulled up Nat’s email, opened the contract, and affixed his electronic
signature.
what the Christmas Queen would do.
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Posted in Authors' Secrets Blog and tagged Ani Gonzales, Contemporary Romance, Romantic Comedy, The Christmas Countdown by Tena Stetler with comments disabled.
