A Very Retro Christmasby Pamela Spradlin Mahajan
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GENRE: Holiday Romance
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BOOK BLURB:
What if the future you always dreamed of, was actually in the past?
Social worker Cat has no intention of falling in love or getting married—much to her mother’s chagrin. While mourning her paternal grandmother’s passing, Cat opens an heirloom left by the matriarch—a coveted Christmas ornament—and finds herself transported to December 1936.
Handyman Eli spends his days doing odd jobs around town and his nights hammering away on his house—whatever it takes to keep his mind off the awful year he’s had. When a mysterious young woman drops into his life seemingly overnight and wants to rent his guest house, he is at first annoyed and then more than a little intrigued.
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EXCERPT TWO:
Eli charged across the dirt driveway, flung open the door of his truck, and slid into the driver’s seat. Hunched over the steering wheel, he pushed the key into the ignition and glanced at the closed back door of the house.
Nosy woman, wasn’t she? Asking him questions that weren’t any of her business—questions he had no intention of answering. Eli ground his back teeth together. Why did Cat have to bring up the one thing—the one person—he worked so hard not to think about every second of the day? And last night she’d asked him about the crib…A cramp pierced Eli’s chest.
It was good that Cat was staying in the detached house. Maybe her presence would expel some of the old energy and stagnant memories of what the space was supposed to be.
He turned on the truck, backed up, and hurtled down the driveway toward the main road. He took a deep breath as he pulled onto the two-lane street, vaguely aware of his fight-or-flight response receding. As his body unclenched, an image flooded his mind of the woman sitting at his kitchen table right this very minute. When she’d spoken, one of her blonde ringlets had fallen into her eyes. The way she’d flicked her head just so to get it out of her face…it did something to Eli. His mind was a rush of color—the flush of her pink cheeks, the flash of her hazel eyes, and the straw-colored hue of a bouncy ringlet.
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GUEST POST:
World-building can be the most important element of your book. What media outlets, role-models, and real-life inspirations did you draw from while writing this book?
With my new Christmas romance novella, A VERY RETRO CHRISTMAS, my world-building consisted of setting the scene, so to speak, not just for the location, but for the year as well—1936 to be exact.
I wanted my story to take place in a rural area, which is where a large amount of people resided in the 1930s. I loosely based the fictional town of Merryfall, Missouri, on my hometown of Springfield, Missouri. My female main character, Cat, traverses the back country roads I grew up driving on, where the serene fields touch the expansive sky. I spend very little time on back country roads these days and it was nice to go back, if only in my story.
My world-building in terms of decade consisted of a combination of things. One aspect was drawing on stories my grandmother told me about her childhood in the thirties. The other part was research. I was intrigued to learn that by the thirties teenagers were spending an average of four nights a week out with their friends. There were no cell phones or television. Families gathered around their radios, and teenagers spent time at cinemas and soda fountains, among other places.
Learning these bits of history always provides a bit of inspiration for the story. Two pivotal scenes were dreamed up from that research—one scene takes place at a movie theater and another takes place in a living room with the radio playing.
I listened to music from that time period as well as some radio programs. I found the radio advertisements to be the most fascinating. While we can google a company today to find out if their claims are true, audiences of the thirties could not. It led me to believe that people from that time period could be more easily misled.
Another aspect of the thirties I researched was the clothing. I learned that teenagers didn’t buy the majority of their clothing in department stores (and obviously not online). Instead most of their wardrobes were sewn by their mothers. This is an interesting tidbit that seems inconsequential but can have echoing effects, from how confident one feels in their looks to where or how often someone shops. Further inspiration was drawn from this.
I really enjoyed sharing some behind-the-scenes details of writing A VERY RETRO CHRISTMAS. Thanks so much for hosting me on your blog!
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AUTHOR BIO & LINKS:
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Pamela Spradlin Mahajan is the author of women’s fiction and romance. Her debut novel, “Skye, Revised,” was released in early 2024. Pamela has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and creative writing from Missouri State University and a Masters from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Her recent short stories have appeared in the online literary journal "They Call Us" and she has been honored in the WOW! Women on Writing Flash Fiction Contest. A native of Springfield, Mo., Pamela lives with her family in Kansas City, where in addition to writing women's fiction and romance, she also works as a copywriter, journalist, and reseller.
Website:
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Thank you so much for featuring A VERY RETRO CHRISTMAS.
ReplyDeleteI am so excited to have my book featured today. Thanks for having me!
ReplyDeleteThe blurb sounds good.
ReplyDeleteThis looks like a great read.
ReplyDelete