Interview with author Caroline E. Zani

Tell us a little bit about your book.

Waiting for Grace is a modern story of regret, redemption, and rebuilding your life after being blindsided with lessons you didn’t know you should have studied for. Eli Cranston is a very successful lawyer in Los Angeles and though, as a husband, he isn’t quite as adept, he has a good heart. When everything he knows and loves is stripped away, what remains is who he is at his core: a healer. What he doesn’t realize is that in his new landscape, in Bar Harbor, Maine, he is the answer to many people’s  mysteries. All it takes is two rescue ponies, Ink and Smudge, to get the ball rolling and bringing to Eli all the people he needs to help and be healed by.

Have you published before?

Yes. Piper, Once & Again (July 2016, Wyatt-Mackenzie Publishing) is the first book in this series. Waiting for Grace is the second and the third, Hope Rising can be expected a year from now.

Are you currently working on anything else? Yes, Hope Rising. I do most of my writing in the summer, so as much as I know the direction of the story, I need a solid block of time to get it from my heart to the laptop!

What is your favorite writing snack? Blue Moon. Does that count?

What gets you in the mood to write? When I wake up with a line or an image in my head that my subconscious dreamt up the night before, I need to get it out onto the laptop or at least my phone so I don’t forget. Luckily, this happens each morning of my first draft. For this book, that was 33 consecutive mornings!

Who is your favorite character and why? That’s tough but I’m going to say Hope. I was very much her in terms of the need to be in a barn, with horses and have a nurturing role from a very early age. My family life was, thankfully, not Hope’s experience even if my father’s alcoholism was a formative force.

Favorite book of all time? Such a hard question. I think I will have to say, Lord of the Flies by William Golding. I read it in high school and it just changed all the rules for me in terms of allowing my imagination to do what it does. Like Piggy, I have “ass-mar” and I could relate to his constant anxiety about it. I kept thinking that if the poor kid just had an inhaler, he’d be fine. I often wonder at what age I would have died without mine. I was a horse girl through and through and being allergic to hay was never going to keep me out of the barn so the inhaler was a workaround, even if it was probably a false sense of security.

I think breakfast says a lot about a person, what is your perfect breakfast? A ham and cheese omelet and espresso at a cafe in Paris.

Do you have a favorite period of time that you like to write about or would like to live? I am not sure about living in 14th century Europe but there’s something about the history that fascinates me. I think that if I could be there with a secret stash of antibiotics and four thieves vinegar to help survive the bubonic plague, I’d be fine.

Please tell us in one sentence why we should read your book!

To appreciate your life for all of its successes and near misses, this book will show you that gratitude, family (however it shows up in your experience) and persistence are the cornerstones of creating a life you can be proud of.