{{{ AUTHOR INTERVIEW }}} Evy Journey, author of 'Hello, My Love'

Evy Journey, 2015 SPR (Self Publishing Review) Independent Woman Author awardee, is a writer, a wannabe artist (since she was nine years old), and a flâneuse (feminine form of flâneur). Her pretensions to being a flâneuse means she wishes she lives in Paris where people have perfected the art of aimless roaming. She’s visited Paris, even lived there a few times as a transient; that is, she stayed from two to six months.

She's a writer because beautiful prose seduces her and existential angst continues to plague her even though such preoccupations have gone out of fashion. She takes occasional refuge by invoking the spirit of Jane Austen and spinning tales of love, loss, and finding one’s way—stories into which she weaves mystery or intrigue and sets in various locales.

In a previous life, armed with a Ph.D. and fascinated by the psyche, she researched and shepherded the development of mental health programs. And wrote like an academic. Not a good thing if you want to sound like a normal person. So, she began to write fiction (mostly happy fiction) as an antidote.

Evy’s latest book is the contemporary women’s fiction, Hello, My Love.

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About the Book:

Title: HELLO, MY LOVE
Author: Evy Journey
Publisher: Sojourner Books
Pages: 317
Genre: Contemporary Women’s Fiction

BOOK BLURB:

In this modern-day tale inspired by Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, bright, beautiful law student Elise Halverson looks forward to a promising career. Falling in love is low in her priorities.

Well-known playboy Greg Thorpe is engaged to be married when he meets Elise. He finds her so unlike the women he used to date and he’s deeply intrigued. Distrusting the image she has of him, Elise avoids him.

But Elise’s parents invite Greg to their frequent dinner parties. There, Greg and Elise butt heads. She’s surprised to find that, behind his rich playboy persona, he’s intelligent and engaging.

The night before his wedding, they give in to their mutual attraction. Although Elise expects nothing more from that night, Greg is in for trouble. His jilted fiancée strikes back, intent on revenge.

Two years later Greg and Elise get a second chance but they find that the way to their happy-ever-after is not so easy.

At the core of this women’s fiction is a literary and realistic romance spiced with a twist of mystery. Hello My Love is Book 1 in the series Between Two Worlds, a family saga about three strong women.

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Q: Welcome to The Writer's Life! Now that your book has been published, we’d love to find out more about the process. Can we begin by having you take us at the beginning? Where did you come up with the idea to write your book?

I like reading the works of long-dead masters—a few of them so much that I play this game in my mind. I reimagine the story as it could happen in our time. Assuming characters’ personalities remain the same, how would they express themselves? What modern problems or issues would interest or affect them? I seldom turn my reimagined stories into novels, though.

Pride and Prejudice is one book I’ve read enough times to compel me to morph it into Hello, My Love. P&P shaped my reading habits, gave me many pleasant hours, and taught me a certain kind of subtle humor. I had to pay homage to it and since I love to write, a book seemed just the thing.

Q: How hard was it to write a book like this and do you have any tips that you could pass on which would make the journey easier for other writers?

Writing a draft of Hello, My Love was relatively easy since I have years of experience writing, and plot and characterization were fairly clear in my mind. But I’m a compulsive tweaker so every book takes some pain to write. I always find something that I think could have been written better. Having said that, I think practice does improve your work and makes it easier. So does reading great books by great writers.

Anyway, I think writing is a very personal journey. If you’re sincere and true to what you know when you write—in spite of all the advice you get on how you should do it—I believe you will produce something that resonates with someone.

Q: Who is your publisher and how did you find them or did you self-publish?

I self-published under my own imprint, Sojourner Books

Q: Is there anything that surprised you about getting your first book published?

No surprises. What I found remarkable is the freedom self-publishing gives a writer. But that freedom also imposes a bigger responsibility on her to make sure her end product is the best it can be. If, besides being creative or imaginative, you’re also unafraid of grunt work, you’re likely to have fun self-publishing.

Q: What other books (if any) are you working on and when will they be published?

Hello, My Love is, in fact, Book 1 in my series, Between Two Worlds. The other two books in the series (Hello Agnieszka and Welcome, Reluctant Stranger) have been written and published. I’ve just finished a self-edited draft of my fifth novel (my sixth book actually—I also have a book of short stories, Brief Encounters with Solitary Souls) and I’ve contacted someone to do a professional edit. I can’t tell how long it will take for that edit, so a publication date hasn’t been set.

Q: What’s one fact about your book that would surprise people?

According to a number of readers, the realism in Hello, My Love is something they didn’t expect. One reviewer cautioned readers that the heroine is written from a feminist perspective so if they want a “damsel in distress looking to be rescued,” they should look elsewhere. A book publicist also told me the “emotional angst” in the book will turn off romance readers. But I didn’t write Hello, My Love as a romance. I wrote it as women’s fiction, at the center of which is a love story.

Q: Finally, what message (if any) are you trying to get across with your book?

I didn’t write this story with a message in mind but I know that throughout this book and other books I’ve written, my main characters often engage with an “inner life” Maybe because my training is in psychology, I believe that looking inward and assessing your actions is necessary for growth.

Q: Thank you again for this interview! Do you have any final words?