Ane Mulligan's Back! #Giveaway

Howdy y'all! It's me again--Crystal Barnes. Today, I've got a treat for you. Ane Mulligan is back for a visit and she brought a present. :) I always love hearing about Ane's stories and her new book Home to Chapel Springs is no different. She has a knack for making you laugh, and this interview is no exception from that rule. So let's get started with the fun. :)

Welcome back to Stitches Thru Time, Ane. For those of us who don't have the privilege of knowing you, tell us a bit about yourself.

I’ve been a lot of things in my lifetime: a pro-family lobbyist, a drama director, playwright, humor columnist, and novelist. I absotootinglutely believe coffee and chocolate are two of the four major food groups. My Hubs is an artist, who was asked by my publisher to do the artwork for my covers. We live in Sugar Hill, Georgia and are owned by a dog of Biblical proportion, named Oliver Twist.

LOL! I've seen photos of her dog, folks. No joke. :) He's huge.

Ane, congratulations on your newest release! What is Home to Chapel Springs about?

The short version is it’s about a homeless author, a theatre ghost, and a heartbroken daughter.

There’s trouble in Chapel Springs, where there’s always someone new in town either coming home or stirring up trouble. Bestselling author Carin Jardine’s latest book is a flop. Homeless and broke, she and her little boy have no choice but to retreat to the house she inherited from her nana in Chapel Springs. Only the house has been gutted. Then, a stranger knocks on her door. One that will change the course of her life.

With one of her daughters in love with the wrong boy, a theatre rumored to be haunted, and Howie Newlander and Mayor Riley going head-to-head in a hot election, Claire gets caught in the middle.

Where did you get the inspiration for your story? 

All the Chapel Springs books have come from real life. Revival came from an overheard conversation. Survival was based on our eldest son’s story of getting a 21^st Century mail order bride. Home to Chapel Springs was inspired by my own adoption reunion with my birth sisters. Your readers can find the whole story on my website under My Adoption Story, and see a photo of my sisters and me. We look so much alike. The theater thread is because my husband and I are on the board of our local community theater and it simply wormed its way into the book. What can I say?

I definitely understand how real life can influence our fiction world. :) Speaking of influence, what do you hope folks will take away from your story?

God is faithful with our dreams. He alone makes an unbreakable promise of never leaving or abandoning us. When we cling to that, anywhere can be home.

A wonderful message for sure. Do you have a favorite scene in the book? If so, can you tell us a bit about it?

There are two, really. One is fairly short, but it was such fun to pull on Claire. She is so surprised when one of her twins, Megan, reveals she’s finally in love. With Patsy’s son, Dane. They had always hoped, but didn’t really think it would happen.

The other scene is about the theater ghost. That was fun to write. There’s something fun about an old theater that is rumored to house a theater ghost. And that’s all I’ll tell you about that. You’ll have to read it to discover who it is. The rumor is that it’s Claire’s late Great-aunt Lola. 

I'm sure they're both full of laugh and intrigue. What do you plan to work on next?

I’m already a little over halfway through the last book in this series, Life in Chapel Springs. This book contains Lacey’s story and gold fever strikes Chapel Springs. Yes, there is still a lot of gold in the north Georgia mountains.  

Wow. Didn't see that topic coming. :) Can't wait to hear more about it. Where can readers connect with you? Where can readers buy your book(s)?

I can be found hanging around any one of these places: My Southern-fried Fiction website, my Amazon author page, Google+, Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter, and Pinterest. My books are available on Amazon and in some bookstores.

Last but not least, what is the quirkiest thing you've ever done?

I don’t know if it was quirky, but it sure threw my director for a loop. I had had my hair streaked to allow it to grow out. I wanted to see how much gray I had. I mean, dying your hair every month is a pain, right? Well, there wasn’t enough gray or silver to be attractive. I looked 20 years older. It wasn’t pretty.

However, at that time, I was playing the part of a Jewish grandmother in The Choice, an Easter pageant. The day of dress rehearsal, I couldn’t stand it another day, I dyed my hair red again. After all, I’d been a redhead since I was 15 years old.

When I arrived at the church for dress rehearsal, I thought the director would have apoplexy. She ranted for 30 minutes about how she now had to come up with a turban for me. I hid out in the prop room until the stage manager called me for my entrance.

LOL. Oh my! What a day that must have been. I would've love to see the director's face. Thanks so much for sharing with us today, Ane.

And speaking of sharing, folks, Ane has offered to giveaway a copy of Home to Chapel Springs to one of this post's commenters. (Print or e-book, winner’s choice, but print only in the US.) 

So tell us, do you have a funny theater experience (watched or enacted)? If not, what is something quirky you've done? Have you gotten to enjoy Ane Mulligan's books before?

Be sure to check back next week. The giveaway winner will be announced in the Weekly Windup post. Thanks for hangin' out with us today.