Cara Putman Interview

I'm delighted to have Cara Putman as a guest on The Borrowed Book today. Cara lives in Indiana with her husband and four children. She’s an attorney and a teacher at her church as well as lecturer at Purdue. She has loved reading and writing from a young age and now realizes it was all training for writing books. She loves bringing history and romance to life.
 
An honors graduate of the University of Nebraska and George Mason University School of Law, Cara left small town Nebraska and headed to Washington, D.C., to launch her career in public policy. Cara is an author chasing hard after God as she lives a crazy life. She invites you to join her on that journey.

You’ve just had a new book to release. Give us a short blurb about it.

A Wedding Transpires on Mackinac Island is set on one of my favorite places to escape. Attorney Alanna Stone vowed long ago to avoid Mackinac Island. Although it may seem the perfect place to heal, for Alanna it holds too many memories of a painful past. But an exhausting high profile case and an urgent plea from her parents have brought Alanna home. Moving into the house next to Jonathan Covington doesn’t help her. Jonathan may have been her first love, but he was also her first lesson in betrayal. Now Alanna must protect her privacy and her heart. Then secrets and a murder intersect, and she’s thrust into controversy again as tragedy turns public opinion against her and potentially her family.

I love the setting on Mackinac Island, perhaps because it’s one place I’ve always wanted to visit. What made you choose this setting?

Mackinac Island is magical. It’s one of those rare places where you can step back in time without leaving this century. The first time we visited the island I wondered if the long drive could possibly be worth the destination. It’s a long 11 hours from where I live. But once we stepped on the ferry, leaving our car behind, I knew we were headed somewhere special. Boy, was I right. At that time I hadn’t started writing but when we returned in 2009 I was well on the way to writing with several books out. So this time I walked around looking for story ideas. I found them…so much so, I’m surprised the police chief let me leave after asking him how his department would handle a murder.

Your heroine Alanna Stone has returned to Mackinac even though she thought she never would. What happened in Alanna’s past to cause her to make such a decision?

Her senior year of high school, a classmate died in what seemed like an accident. But when everyone blames her younger brother for the other man’s death, Alanna takes it very personally. On such a small island, she felt she couldn’t escape the blame and questions, so she left. Only now she’s back and a mystery will force her to uncover what really happened.

How has the past affected your hero Jonathan Covington?

Jonathan spent his summers on the island as a young man. Now, he’s grown with an event planning business on the island. He and Alanna fell in love as teens, and he’s tried to forget her…would even say he’s moved on. Then she comes back to her parents’ home next to his cabin.

I think it’s interesting that you chose to make this story a mystery set in a place that brings up visions of romance. (It must be from watching that moving Somewhere in Time too much.) Why did you make that choice?

Somewhere in Time is definitely a romance. And it is so easy to walk around the island and sense the romance in the air. Yet when I plot my contemporary novels, they tend to have layers of mystery or suspense. I’m probably one of the rare visitors who makes her way to the police station to ask the police chief how he would handle a murder on his peaceful island.

What do you want readers to take away after reading A Wedding Transpires on Mackinac Island?

I hope that readers will discover with Alanna that running from the pain of the past isn’t the solution. Eventually, it’s uncovering the truth that will set us free.

What are you working on now and when will it release?

I’m working on a couple World War II proposals in between talking about A Wedding Transpires on Mackinac Island and a novella collection that releases in May (Rainbow’s End).

What words of encouragement would you like to leave with our readers who are attempting to get that first manuscript contracted?

Find the time to write even if it’s 15 minutes a day. I work off word counts, and 500 words a day over one year of disciplined writing will give you a first draft that you can then edit and polish. Thanks so much for hosting me.