📚 A Bookish Chat with 'The Bonne Chance Bakery' Author Charlotte Rains Dixon | Author Interview | #AuthorInterview #BlogTour #Interview

Today we welcome Charlotte Rains Dixon to The Writer's Life e-Magazine! Charlotte is the author of the novel, The Bonne Chance Bakery. This interview is part of her The Bonne Chance Bakery Blog Tour by Pump Up Your Book. Enjoy!

The great-granddaughter of pioneers who walked across the Oregon Trail, Charlotte Rains Dixon considers herself a westerner through and through. Many of her stories are set in her home state of Oregon, where her characters reside in fictional versions of her favorite wine area and coast towns, as well as Portland, where she lives. She is the author of the novel Emma Jean’s Bad Behavior and the forthcoming The Bonne Chance Bakery.

When not writing fiction, Charlotte teaches writing in the south of France, England, and around the Pacific Northwest. She also coaches writers privately. She is Director Emeritus and a current mentor at the Writer’s Loft, a certificate-in-writing program at Middle Tennessee State University. She earned her MFA in creative writing from Spalding University and is the author of a dozen non-fiction books. Her fiction and articles have appeared in numerous publications.

Charlotte lives with her husband in Portland, Oregon, in a multi-generational home that is by turns boisterous and exuberant but seldom quiet. She believes no breakfast is complete without a crossword puzzle to work and no Happy Hour can actually be happy without popcorn.(Wine goes without saying.) Despite frequent stays in France, she regularly fractures the language. She is, however, fluent in Carney. Charlotte writes stories about places you long to live filled with people you’d love to know.

Learn more about Charlotte at her website, charlotterainsdixonauthor.com and be sure to sign up for her author newsletter at charlotterainsd.substack.com.

You can also connect with her on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/Wordstrumpet.

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? When did you come up with the idea to write your book?

I was teaching a writing workshop in a lovely small town in the south of France near the Spanish border. One of my students arrived on the train bearing a box of macarons from Ladurée, one of the premier macaron bakeries in Paris. I’d never had a macaron before—but I fell in love instantly. After I’d returned home, the idea for The Bonne Chance Bakery came to me nearly fully formed in the shower one morning.

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

This novel had a long journey to publication. Soon after I finished it, I submitted it to my dream agent and she took me on as a client immediately. It was every writer’s fairy tale come true! However, this part of the story did not have a happy ending. That agent was lovely, and she had a huge hand in shaping the book, but she never was able to find The Bonne Chance Bakery a home. After we parted ways, it took me a year to get up the courage to publish it myself, but I finally did. I’m delighted with the results. I learned so much along the way and accomplished things I never thought I’d be able to do.

Do you believe a book cover plays an important role in the selling process?

Yes! An appealing cover gives an author an instant boost. Readers won’t give a drab or ugly cover a second glance—and you need to pique their interest enough to get them to read your cover copy and maybe even look inside the book. A good cover does that. I was lucky enough to work with an amazing designer who took a picture I’d snapped of a bakery window in Edinburgh, Scotland, and turned it into a cover I love.

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 any kind of book is hard—and also thrilling and joyful and incredibly satisfying. For a lot of people I know, getting started is the hardest part, and I can understand why. Coming up with enough ideas to fill over 300 pages is daunting! But once you get started, momentum kicks in and hopefully will sustain you to the end. You’ll figure out what you need to learn about writing a book as you go along, and we are lucky to live in a time when access to that information is a click away. The Internet is bursting with helpful articles and posts and videos about writing. But truly the most important part is to jump in.

What other books are you working on and when will they be published?

My Christmas novella, Let There Be Snow, will be published on November 3. I am a huge fan of Christmas stories, be they in book or movie form, so I’m excited about this. It is set in the Calderwood Grove world of interconnected stories. Novels in this series will be forthcoming in 2023.

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

One of my favorite characters in the book—Tansy—was not originally planned. She walked onto the page mid-way through the writing and demanded her share of the story. I’m so glad she did!

Finally, what message are you trying to get across with your book?

As one of my blurbs said, “sometimes life’s curveballs are serendipity in disguise.” It’s worth it to navigate the crazy paths our lives sometimes take in order to find our true selves. And we can all do it—just like writing a book, you only have to take the first step.

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

Thank you so much for interviewing me!

Title: The Bonne Chance Bakery
Author: Charlotte Rains Dixon
Publisher: Independent
Pages: 333
Genre: Romantic Women’s Fiction

Blurb:

All Madeleine Miller wants is for her new Portland business, the Bonne Chance Bakery, to be a success. But things get off to a troubled start when her husband Will runs off with an employee and starts his own rival bakery, leaving her hobbled financially—and romantically. Luckily, she has the help of the bakery’s endearingly gruff accountant, Jack, and his precocious daughter Daisie. Portland foodies love the bakery’s French macarons, but alas, their passion doesn’t add up to financial success.

And then one day, world-famous entrepreneur slash actor Richard Bishop appears at the bakery and becomes smitten with Mad’s macarons—and her. His offer to franchise the bakery concept feels like selling out, and Madeleine isn’t interested. But when she learns of the shady dealings her ex-husband used to fund the bakery, she’s forced to accept Richard’s money. She also succumbs to the lure of his romantic interest. Soon she’s catapulted into a world of luxury and excitement in Los Angeles as she supervises the opening of a second Bonne Chance in Hollywood.

But in her efforts to save the bakery, will she lose herself? Set in Portland, Los Angeles, and Paris, the novel illuminates the crazy path romance can take us on—and the circuitous route that will lead the way home. With its themes of identity, self-determination and following your dreams, The Bonne Chance Bakery is a feel-good novel with a serious message at its core.