Ginny,
welcome to Infinite Suspense. So glad
you could visit today. Like many of your fans, I love your books. Love the
humor, love the fun, love the suspense in them! LOL. But anyway, why don’t you
tell us a little about yourself?
I am an
alien—as my kids gleefully will tell anyone—a legal alien, since I was five and
my parents fled Castro’s Cuba. I grew up in Venezuela, where I continued the
ballet training I began at the age of three in Havana. As a total
bookworm…well, while I wasn’t on pointe, practicing hours on end, I devoured
books, and then wrote my first one at fifteen. Burned it when I got ‘smart’ at
sixteen! I went to boarding school in Switzerland after high school, and
received two university-level degrees while there. Came back to the US, went to
college, married my college sweetheart, and had four wonderful sons. When I was
pregnant with number three, however, I started writing again. Geoffrey being
the…ahem...challenging child he was, I put the stories away while I was Mommy
and freelance newspaper reporter, covering local government and the school
board. But the writing bug wouldn’t let go, and when son number four turned
eighteen months, I sold my first novel. I haven’t recovered from that bug yet,
even after surviving four sons, various moves for my husband’s work, and twenty
years in the publishing world. We currently live in Northwestern Indiana, and
have an empty nest.
Tell us a
little about your new release. Is it the first in a series or a stand alone?
For Such
a Time as This is the launch title of my new Women of Hope series for
FaithWords. This series is a group of ‘books of the heart’, and one of my
favorite writing projects so far. Each plot is lifted from Scripture, with each
heroine facing the same kind of challenges faced by the women back then, the
only difference being the external details and the setting of the tales. For
Such a Time as This is the story of Queen Esther, tweaked a bit to fit into the
American West in the 1800s.
How did
you get the inspiration for this book?
A
reviewer of one of my earlier historicals made a perceptive comment years ago.
She wrote that my book reflected the reality that Scripture remains relevant
through all time since the problems people face are, when stripped down to the
basics, the same—people are always the same. I began to ‘what if’ and The Women
of Hope Series was born.
What kind
of research did you do for this book?
This one
was a little more difficult, since I wanted to reflect issues related to a
Scriptural character. Not only did I have to do the usual mountain of
historical research (which I love! Can’t wait to dive into all those obscure
details every time I begin a new historical project) but this time, I also had
to read a lot of commentaries on the original Bible story. Trust me, there’s
been a TON written about Queen Esther, and so I absorbed all that material, let
it marinate, as my agent calls it, and then put together a story that reflects
many of the circumstances the Queen faced, and puts forth the themes in her
tale.
What do
you hope your readers will get out of the story?
I love
Scripture, and turn to it all the time, especially when I face tough times in
my life. I know the Lord will reveal Himself to me there, and the answers to my
questions are already there. I hope my readers see how eternal the truths we
see in the Bible really are. How we can trust it for our lives by seeing the
examples presented there, the good examples as well as the bad.
Anything
else about writing, yourself, or your books you’d like to add? Where can people
find you?
I love to
interact with my readers, especially on facebook! I’m also available by email at
ginnyaiken@gmail.com, and I have a new website which will
be launching in a few days. As soon as everything is finalized (should have
been a couple of weeks ago, but due to a case of stolen identity and checking
account fraud, everything related to our business accounts as well as personal
ones have had to be put on hold, awaiting the end of the investigation) I will
be making the big announcement on my facebook page. Hope to see y’all there!
And you can let me know how you liked For Such a Time as This ;-)
All right
everyone, here you have it. I read this book in one sitting! It’s fabulous. You
will be transported straight into the past and into the lives of characters you’ll
want to keep reading about. I’ll be giving away a copy to one lucky reader.
Leave a comment or ask Ginny a question and you’ll be entered to win. Thanks so
much for stopping by!
