📚 A Bookish Chat with 'Cinder Bella' Kathleen Shoop #AuthorInterview
Bestselling author Kathleen Shoop, PhD writes historical fiction, women’s fiction, and romance. Shoop’s novels have garnered awards in the Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY), Eric Hoffer Book Awards, Next Generation Indie Book Awards, and more. You can find Kathleen in person at various venues. She’s on the board of the Kerr Memorial Museum, teaches at writing/reader conferences, co-coordinates Mindful Writers Retreats and writing conferences, and gives talks at various book clubs, libraries, and historical societies.
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Cinder Bella is available at Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble & Kobo.
Can you tell us a little about yourself? Are you a full time author?
I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was kid, but I didn’t write my first novel until I had finished my PhD dissertation and my mind was freed up for a bit of fun! That was around 1998 and I’ve been writing novels ever since. Having kids, being diagnosed with MS, and my husband, Bill’s, travel for work schedule shifted my professional life from academia to writing from home. My first book, The Last Letter, launched in 2011 and 20+ books have followed. I do write full time but I also teach workshops, classes, have co-coordinated the PennWriters Conference and Mindful Writers Retreats, and more. I try to keep writing at the center of my work life but it’s important to layer in other aspects of the creative world for lots of reasons!
Can you tell us about Cinder Bella?
Cinder Bella is the third holiday book I wrote and it is such a fun one. Set in 1893 during the bank collapses, financial panic, and eight month Gilded Age Depression (okay, that set up isn’t “fun”…) this novel brings to life the goodness that emerges at the holidays even when people are at their lowest. It features found family, a sweet romance, and draws from some real life oddities that were common in America at the time. It evolved from a tiny story about a young woman who saves a man’s life and he repays her by letting her live in his barn. He owns an estate and Bella Darling is ecstatic to take him up on his offer. Once I’d written the little version showing how Bella rescued Mr. Westminster, the characters kept returning to my mind, demanding to have their story more fully told.
Can you tell us a little about the characters?
Here’s a little insight into the two main characters:
Bella Darling never had anything.
Bartholomew Baines lost everything.
Together they create a Christmas to remember.
While Bartholomew’s character is drawn from a bit of a Scrooge archetype, he develops into so much more. Likewise, though there are threads of the classic Cinderella in Bella’s character, she does not require a man to rescue her. Both are wounded but resilient and each brings something to the larger group of people who end up staying at the estate during the Christmas holidays. All of the squatters are down on their luck in one way or another and as ensemble casts do, each brings limitations and gifts that create conflict, a little chaos, and loads of magic.
Where is this book set and why did you choose that location?
Cinder Bella is set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in an area called Shadyside. At one point Pittsburgh had more millionaires that anywhere in the country including New York. With the steel, iron, glass, and engineering industries centered in Pittsburgh, money was found and lost daily. In 1893 there weren’t banking and stock market guardrails built into our financial systems and people could lose everything they owned easily. And there weren’t credit cards or insured checking and savings accounts to count on when things turned bad. Most people could not sustain their lifestyle if a crisis occured. So, this story, is perfectly set within the opulance of a Shadyside estate (Maple Grove) where a millionaire and his family live. Though, for most of the story they are overseas running from their financial difficulties and so the empty house is homebase for Bella and the crew who end up staying there when their boarding house burns down. For Bella, she has a knack for getting spent hens to lay eggs that make the most wonderful foods people have ever tasted, even mending struggling marriages. Everyone in town has to have them and she sells them at market. Drawing from one of the odd things I dug up about that time period, Bella writes messages, empties some eggs, and puts messages into the shells, hoping to draw the attention of the perfect person to create a life with.
People did this — sent messages across the country in eggs! One girl did this and asked for a dolly for Christmas and the reciever of the special egg sent her one! So fun little things like this play into the story and the magic the characters make while living together. So while there are elements of Bella that call to mind the classic Cinderella, she is a commanding force in her life, looking for love, but not necessarily a life of luxury.
How can people benefit from reading Cinder Bella?
It’s a warm, humorous, story that brings all the best of the holiday season to the page. There are trials and sad points of course, but it’s a reminder that building a life is so much more than aquiring money — though resources are important — the magic of the Christmas season goes far beyond material gifts.
Is Cinder Bella your only book?
Cinder Bella is book 3 in the ’Tis the Season Collection (a mix of contemporary and historical fiction and all are standalones). I’ve written over 20 books and some are embeded in larger series but I always try to write them so they can be read in any order. Boxing Day is also a Christmas story that is set in the town of Donora which is the thread that ties the Donora Story Collection together (can be read in any order). And there’s a collection of tiny holiday stories in a book called Holly and the Christmas Tree — perfect for reading a little bit each night while sipping wine or hot chocolate.
Thank you so much for this interview, Kathleen. What’s next for you?
My latest big book (weedy historical fiction to savor!) is at the copy editor so when January hits, I’ll be back at that one. It’s called Imperial Girl and it’s set in St. Petersburg, Russia 1909–1917. Mila is studying ballet at the Imperial Ballet School and she’s tremendously talented, but of course that’s not enough to pave an easy path through life.
Where to purchase the book:
https://books.apple.com/us/author/kathleen-shoop/id550901410
Where to find Kathleen:
http://kshoop.com (newsletter sign up!)
She never had anything.
He lost everything.
Together they create a Christmas to remember.
December, 1893–Shadyside, Pennsylvania
Bella Darling lives in a cozy barn at Maple Grove, an estate owned by industrialist Archibald Westminster. The Westminster family is stranded overseas and have sent word to relieve all employees of their duties except Margaret, the pregnant maid, James the butler, and Bella. Content with borrowed books and a toasty home festooned with pine boughs and cinnamon sticks, she coaxes the old hens to lay eggs–extraordinary eggs. Bella yearns for just one thing—someone to share her life with. Always inventive, she has a plan for that. She just needs the right egg into the hands of the right man.
Bartholomew Baines, a Harvard-educated banker, is reeling in the aftermath of his bank’s collapse. With his friends and fiancé ostracizing him for what he thought was an act of generosity, he is penniless and alone. A kind woman welcomes him into her boarding house under conditions that he reluctantly accepts. Completely undone by his current, lowly position, and by the motley crew of fellow boarders who view him as one of them, Bartholomew wrestles with how to rebuild.
With the special eggs as the impetus, the first meeting between Bella and Bartholomew gives each the wrong idea about the other. And when the boarding house burns down a week before Christmas it’s Bella who is there to lend a hand. She, Margaret, and James invite the homeless group to stay at the estate through the holidays. But as Christmas draws closer, eviction papers arrive. Maple Grove is being foreclosed upon. Can Bella work her magic and save their Christmas? Is the growing attraction between Bella and Bartholomew enough for them to see past their differences?
Read a sample.
Cinder Bella is available at Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble & Kobo.
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