Thanks to Rachel Schurig for stopping by with a guest blog today for In Search of a Love Story blog tour with CLP Blog Tours! Please visit her tour page at CLP Blog Tours for more information and a giveaway!
Thanks for having me on the blog today! I thought I would talk a little bit about the inspiration behind my book. Here goes!
I had so much fun writing In Search of a Love Story. It’s a book that is very close to my heart, because it was inspired so much by people, places, and things that I love. My first books, the Three Girls series, take place primarily in my own hometown. I’ve lived in the metro Detroit area for most of my life and I truly love it here. I think that love is pretty clear in my writing; my characters eat in the restaurants I like, party at my favorite bars, and shop at my favorite stores. It was so much fun putting the Three Girls in those places that I decided to continue the trend in my new book, In Search of a Love Story.
But metro Detroit wasn’t the only place to influence my growing up years. As a kid, I spent a huge chunk of my time up at my family’s cabin in northern Michigan. For most of the summer my siblings and I, along with our cousins, would spend our time playing in the woods, swimming in the lake, fishing, hiking, boating, and doing all of those awesome outdoorsy things that make Michigan so special. I had always wanted to write a book about a girl who shared those experiences; Emily Donovan was that girl. While a lot of chick lit novels tend to focus on girls who live in big cities, Emily grew up in a small town in the middle of nowhere in northern Michigan. Even though she now lives in a bigger city, Emily was greatly affected by her time spent in the north woods with her family and her best friend Brooke. It was so much fun to write about her learning to embrace the things she loved from her small town upbringing; from kayaking to fishing to spending an evening sitting under the stars. Those are the things I myself loved from my childhood spent out in the woods.
Beyond location, this book was greatly inspired by my own relationships with my friends. Emily has a core group of best friends that she can always rely on. Whether it be helping her with work drama, listening to her vent about her love life, or making sure she has the perfect pair of heels to go with her new dress, Emily can always count on her friends. I’m so lucky to be able to say the same. When it comes to the sappy love stuff that Emily has so long avoided, my friends and I are much closer to Ryan and Ashley than to Emily. Where Emily is a jock who doesn’t know her Jane Austen from her John Grisham, Ryan and Ashley are obsessed with all things romance. While not quite so romantically inclined as Ryan and Ashley, my friends and I do love to read chick lit novels and watch a lot of romantic comedies. We can sit and gush about our favorite leading man for hours on end. In a lot of ways, writing about Ashley and Ryan was like writing about my own friends—and it was a blast to look at them through Emily’s eyes. Just like Ryan and Ashley, I’m sure my girlfriends and I sometimes look pretty silly to someone like Emily. But isn’t that the best part of true friends? Knowing that you can be as silly as you want around them. True friends, the kind Emily has, will love you no matter what.
**Everyone who leaves a comment on Rachel’s tour page will be entered to win a $20 Amazon gift card! Anyone who purchases their copy of In Search of a Love Story before February 11 and sends their receipt to Samantha (at) ChickLitPlus (dot) com, will get five bonus entries.**
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