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Saturday, May 09, 2015

From Paradise to…Pregnant! - Kandy Shepherd

People often ask me where I get my ideas for my stories. The answer is from anywhere and everywhere—I’ve even dreamed the start of a book!

But I have a very clear memory of what inspired my June release for Harlequin Romance From Paradise to…Pregnant!


US cover for From Paradise to...Pregnant!

 My initial inspiration for heroine, feisty Zoe Summers and international soccer star Mitch Bailey’s story was a couple I noticed in a hotel where I was staying. (Bewarewriters are always people-watching and taking notes!)

The man was drop-dead handsome, and confident and charming with it. Maybe he was someone famous that I didn’t recognise—who knows? His wife was very plain and reserved though elegantly dressed. He obviously adored her and couldn’t keep his eyes off her. She positively glowed with the aura of a well-loved woman. Just looking at them together made this romance writer smile!

It made me want to write a story about two people who seem to be total opposites with the odds stacked against them—and Zoe and Mitch came to life.

UK cover for From Paradise to...Pregnant!

 Then I thought about how interesting it might be if they had met before—say at school—but were never likely to meet again as their lives had gone in such very different directions. And then what if they were thrown together by a natural disaster—trapped in an earthquake, for instance? To make it more interesting, what if there had been unfinished business from the past between them?

So I put Zoe and Mitch on the tropical island of Bali, unbeknown to each other staying in the same resort. Then an earth tremor hits…  Maybe they seek comfort in each other’s arms—and maybe that adds a whole lot of complications they weren’t expecting that take them from one side of the world to the other!

I thoroughly enjoyed getting these seeming misfits together. 

Have you ever had a disaster happen on your vacation? Or something surprising?

I’m giving away two signed, paperback copies of From Paradise to…Pregnant! Make a comment to be in the draw. Please include your email address if you want to be included in the draw.

 From Paradise to…Pregnant! will be released on June 02, 2015 and is available for pre-order now.


Kandy Shepherd is an award-winning author of contemporary romance and women’s fiction. She lives on a small farm in the
Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her family and a menagerie of four-legged friends.


Visit Kandy at her website



Connect with Kandy on Facebook and Twitter


17 comments:

Unknown said...

Traveling for a vacation is always a mini-disaster so I prefer to vacation at home.

alysap AT yahoo DOT com

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Well when 9/11 happened I was on the way to the airport to fly home from visiting family and the airport had just shutdown, needless to say I did not get home till 4 days later. And another time I was visiting family again when Hurricane Ivan was due to hit Florida where live. Again I was flying home on the last flight in and once I got there, helped my husband finish getting all our essentials and evacuate! Never a dull moment.
cinthiacinful1@aol.com

Mary Kirkland said...

I've never had a bad disaster happen while I was on vacation. One time going into Arizona when I was a kid there was a thunderstorm that had hail and it broke our windshield.

miztik_rose@yahoo.com

Di said...

I was in Yosemite when Mt. St. Helens erupted years ago and felt the earth quake, was on the Outer Banks of NC when Hurricane Bob blew thru - was apprehensive but ok during both experiences.
sallans d at yahoo dot com

dstoutholcomb said...

lol I won a trip to Knott's Berry Farm. Problem started at the airport--our comped tickets were missing. Nearly missed the flight. then we were flagged by security at every single connecting flight to/from. The ground transportation wasn't arranged as promised. The first hotel room had no a/c. The morning after we arrived, the second hotel room had water coming from the sprinkers in the room above us--to original room was flooded (small miracle for the broken a/c). The hotel was evacuated. One of the kids was freaked out by the characters at the theme park, the other threw up in a restaurant. But, in the end, we made the best of it and had some fun, too.

Mary Preston said...

I always like to know what inspires a particular story, so thank you.

Happily all my vacations have been without any major disasters.

marypres(AT)gmail(DOT)com

Laurie G said...

After we were married, we were going out to visit one of my husband's friends in Tucson. We left Milwaukee in a snowstorm which turned into a blizzard . We ended up circling Chicago, above the storm, for over an hour. This delay caused us to miss our connecting flight. We had to stay at O'hare overnight. They got us on a plane the next day but we had to fly into Phoenix. We had to rent a car and drive down to Tucson.
3 years ago, our brake line rusted through just after we exited the freeway. Luckily it was around 6 AM and as I coasted through the intersection I didn't hit anybody else. Scary!

uniquecus said...

uniquecus@yahoo.com

Kandy Shepherd said...

There's a lot to be said for a "staycation" isn't there jcp smith!

Kandy Shepherd said...

Goodness, Cindy, those were really major vacation disasters!

Kandy Shepherd said...

So glad to hear you haven't had any bad vacation disasters, Mary, but a a broken windshield in a hailstorm must have been pretty scary!

Kandy Shepherd said...

Wow, those were big disasters to happen on vacation, Di!

Kandy Shepherd said...

That sounds dreadful! Thank heavens it all turned out okay in the end...

Kandy Shepherd said...

I'm happy to hear your vacations have been disaster free, Mary!

Kandy Shepherd said...

That rusted brake line episode truly sounds like it was scary Laurie, you were lucky!

Laney4 said...

My husband was asleep in the backseat. I had my kids (then 13 and 11) in the front with me. 11 pm. Nobody on the highway in either direction (in Northern Ontario, Canada). Dark as dark can be. Felt electricity in the air. Figured we were in for a doozy of a rainstorm. Stopped. Woke my husband up. Asked him to drive so kids and I could go to backseat (as I knew they would be petrified). It started to pour. He asked why I didn't turn on the radio for a distraction. I said because he was sleeping. He turned on the radio. In a very very clear voice we heard, "If you can hear my voice, you are in a tornado watch area." OMG. No wonder there weren't others on the open highway!!! It poured like crazy and amazingly the kids and I went to sleep, with me trusting that my husband couldn't fall asleep (without his usual co-pilot - me) in that weather. We came to a small town at 1 am where police officers were directing us to drive over downed hydro wires. Scary stuff. Still vivid in all of our memories....
seytype at hotmail dot com