My name is Robyn Echols. Zina Abbott is the pen name I use for my American historical romance novels. I’m a member of Women Writing the West, Western Writers of America, and American Night Writers Association. I currently live with my husband in California’s central valley near the “Gateway to Yosemite.”
I love to read, quilt, work with digital images on my photo editing program, and work on my own family history.
I am a blogger. In addition to my own blog, I blog for several group blogs including the Sweet Americana Sweethearts blog, which I started and administer.
I love to read, quilt, work with digital images on my photo editing program, and work on my own family history.
I am a blogger. In addition to my own blog, I blog for several group blogs including the Sweet Americana Sweethearts blog, which I started and administer.
Kendrick Denham left his family farm back east, fought in the war with Mexico, then answered gold’s call after it was discovered in California. In late 1852, when he reached Columbia, known as “The Gem of the Southern Mines,” he realized the easy-to-find placer gold was no longer that easy to find. He decided he would do better providing fresh meat to the townspeople. With extremely few women in the region, and most of the respectable ones already married, Kendrick entertains no ambitions for a wife and family. Then the county sheriff rides over from Sonora. With a cryptic expression, he hands Kendrick a six-month-old baby girl. “The mother named you as the father.”Now her late husband’s stepson, whom she finished raising, is of age to inherit the farm left to him by his birth father, Lydia Meyer and her two young sons have been forced out of her home of over ten years. She leaves Pennsylvania headed for the wild gold fields of Columbia, California. She dreads living off the charity of her older sister who is just as disagreeable and overbearing as their late mother had been. Warned that most of the miners in California, many of whom left families back east to seek their fortunes, tend to be unsettled, uncouth, and prone to drinking and gambling, she worries it may be impossible to find a good father for her children. Even if she weds again, will it be another loveless marriage like her first?
Then there is baby Madeline, who is cast adrift in the world, all alone, with no one to love her. What will become of her?
KENDRICK is a stand-alone sweet American historical romance that is part of the multi-author series, Bachelors & Babies. Under the sub-title, “Too Old for Babies,” it is also part of the author’s own series, Too Old in Columbia."
Q&A With the Author:
1. Why do you choose to write romance? Do you write any other genres?
I write romance because I like writing about what makes people tick, relationships, and I like happily ever after endings. I also like reading and writing women’s fiction with romance elements, but it does not sell as well as romance. Romance sells. I only write sweet American historical romance under this pen name. Under my real name, I have written some contemporary women’s fiction and some new adult time travel.
2. How long does it take you to write a book, typically?
How long it takes depends on how much research is involved and the length of the book. My first book at 86K words took a year, but two months of that was research. I now usually need between five weeks to three months to write a 30K to 50K word book, especially if it is part of series, and I can use the same research and setting for more than one novel. Longer books that need more original research take me, well, longer.
3. Since a lot of romance books show both male and female perspectives, share with us the most difficult thing about writing the perspective of the opposite gender?
I do not find writing from the perspective of the opposite gender difficult. I rather enjoy it. I reflect on some of my husband’s reactions to certain situations I’ve witnessed and draw from that as opposed to writing how I would react. Perhaps the most difficult thing is, I do not know exactly how men think or feel. I take a stab at describing a male character’s feelings toward someone or something based on words or actions. I hope I am close, if not one hundred percent correct.
4. What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I do most of my writing on a laptop while seated on my living room couch. When deadlines are looming and things get down to the wire, I take my laptop to the loveseat in my bedroom and write there. For some reason, the change of location speeds up the writing process.
5. Tell us a bit about a future project you are working on? Do you have any little sneak peeks you can share?
The book I featured for the Christmas Countdown is part of my “Train Wreck in Jubilee Springs” trilogy within the multi-author “Sweethearts of Jubilee Springs” series. I’ve written two of the three books, and plan to write the third before the Christmas romance season in 2020….. The book I am featuring this month is a Bachelors & Babies book, but it is also subtitled Too Old for Babies as part of my own “Too Old in Columbia” series. I plan to write more books for that series….. I also have signed up to write two short novellas for a multi-author mail order brides series….. I will also publish another short novel in the multi-author “Lockets & Lace” series.
For my long-term project, I wrote a 65K book about three years ago which is part of a duet (two book series). My proofreader for the first book thinks I’m crazy because I have not published it yet. Due to its weak HEA ending, I want to finish the second book first so I can publish them close together. My goal is to finish writing the second book and to publish the first book before the end of the year….. Other than that, I have nothing going.
6. What is the most romantic date you have ever been on? Or, what is your idea of the perfect Valentine Date?
My idea of a perfect Valentine Date is to be able to get into a nice restaurant without waiting in line for hours with a hoard of other people to get a table and then, after eating, go to a movie. Short of that, I like being able to drive in the mountains (Visiting Yosemite National Park any time of the year is a favorite with me.) with my honey and sharing a pound of See’s Candies Nuts and Chews.
I write romance because I like writing about what makes people tick, relationships, and I like happily ever after endings. I also like reading and writing women’s fiction with romance elements, but it does not sell as well as romance. Romance sells. I only write sweet American historical romance under this pen name. Under my real name, I have written some contemporary women’s fiction and some new adult time travel.
2. How long does it take you to write a book, typically?
How long it takes depends on how much research is involved and the length of the book. My first book at 86K words took a year, but two months of that was research. I now usually need between five weeks to three months to write a 30K to 50K word book, especially if it is part of series, and I can use the same research and setting for more than one novel. Longer books that need more original research take me, well, longer.
3. Since a lot of romance books show both male and female perspectives, share with us the most difficult thing about writing the perspective of the opposite gender?
I do not find writing from the perspective of the opposite gender difficult. I rather enjoy it. I reflect on some of my husband’s reactions to certain situations I’ve witnessed and draw from that as opposed to writing how I would react. Perhaps the most difficult thing is, I do not know exactly how men think or feel. I take a stab at describing a male character’s feelings toward someone or something based on words or actions. I hope I am close, if not one hundred percent correct.
4. What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I do most of my writing on a laptop while seated on my living room couch. When deadlines are looming and things get down to the wire, I take my laptop to the loveseat in my bedroom and write there. For some reason, the change of location speeds up the writing process.
5. Tell us a bit about a future project you are working on? Do you have any little sneak peeks you can share?
The book I featured for the Christmas Countdown is part of my “Train Wreck in Jubilee Springs” trilogy within the multi-author “Sweethearts of Jubilee Springs” series. I’ve written two of the three books, and plan to write the third before the Christmas romance season in 2020….. The book I am featuring this month is a Bachelors & Babies book, but it is also subtitled Too Old for Babies as part of my own “Too Old in Columbia” series. I plan to write more books for that series….. I also have signed up to write two short novellas for a multi-author mail order brides series….. I will also publish another short novel in the multi-author “Lockets & Lace” series.
For my long-term project, I wrote a 65K book about three years ago which is part of a duet (two book series). My proofreader for the first book thinks I’m crazy because I have not published it yet. Due to its weak HEA ending, I want to finish the second book first so I can publish them close together. My goal is to finish writing the second book and to publish the first book before the end of the year….. Other than that, I have nothing going.
6. What is the most romantic date you have ever been on? Or, what is your idea of the perfect Valentine Date?
My idea of a perfect Valentine Date is to be able to get into a nice restaurant without waiting in line for hours with a hoard of other people to get a table and then, after eating, go to a movie. Short of that, I like being able to drive in the mountains (Visiting Yosemite National Park any time of the year is a favorite with me.) with my honey and sharing a pound of See’s Candies Nuts and Chews.
