Gwyn Cready | Inspiration for my Stories

Hi. I'm Gwyn Cready, author of Seducing Mr. Darcy and Tumbling Through Time. I write sexy, funny time travel romances—stories that sparkle. I’ve been writing with the intent to publish for eleven years, but it took me forEVER to sell my first book, which just came out earlier this year. I’m deep at work on my third, but Fresh Fiction has kindly offered me the chance to talk to you and, quite frankly, I’m happy to ditch the ol’ manuscript and relax. As Springsteen once said, “I’m sick of sitting ‘round here trying to write this book.”

I’m a big movie buff, and I think the inspiration for my stories comes from a cross between my love for time-twisting movies like Back to the Future, Groundhog Day, Sliding Doors, and Kate and Leopold with my absolute addition to any sort of romantic comedy. If it’s gotten more than one star in the last twenty-five years, I’ve dragged my unwilling husband to see it.

Tumbling Through Time (Pocket Books, $6.99), my debut, is the story of a woman who tries on a pair of magic sandals at the Nine West store in the Pittsburgh airport and ends up getting transported back in time to the deck of a privateer ship in 1705. Seducing Mr. Darcy (Pocket Books, $6.99) is the story of a woman who goes to a masseuse where you can imagine yourself in a story and ends up not just in Pride and Prejudice, but in the arms of Mr. Darcy himself, a very good thing until she realizes her little adventure with him changes everything about the book. Oops. Do you have to be a Jane Austen fan to enjoy it? Absolutely not. But if you’ve ever imagined what it might be like to have a fling with your favorite literary hero—Jamie Fraser, are you listening?—I promise you’ll love it.

One of the things I like to do is show readers the things that have served as inspiration for my stories—sort of the story behind the story. I usually do this with pictures. I’m quite famous for whipping my cell phone out and taking a snap at things I think I can use in the book. You can view the stuff that inspired/appear in both stories by going to my picture page at cready.com.

I’m hard at work on my third book, which is due January 15 (eek!) In this one, a dead painter comes back to Earth to settle the hash of the author of The Girl With the Coral Earring, whose series of sexy, tell-all biographies are driving the dead art world nuts. Any fans of The Girl With the Pearl Earring out there? You’ll love it.

Whenever I blog I try to deliver some gifties. Today I’ve got three. First, here’s a link to a great online jigsaw puzzle using the cover of Tumbling Through Time. I did it in four minutes and 28 seconds. I want to hear from anyone who can do it faster. Next, from Seducing Mr. Darcy, I can offer a link to a very sexy excerpt. Trust me; you’ll never look at Scrabble the same way. Third—and this one is really cool—is going to be catnip for readers out there who ever played with paper dolls.

To mark the launch of Seducing Mr. Darcy, DesignHerGals.com created a great free gift for Gwyn Cready fans -- the opportunity to pair up with the hero, Mr. Darcy, forever!

If you've never been to DesignHerGals.com, go. I just adore it. You get to design an illustration of you or a friend selecting hair color, hair style, eye color, clothes and other "fun stuff." It's all free, and when your digital "gal" is complete, you can send her in ecards to your friends. If you love you gal that much, you can also buy stationery, note cards and mugs, etc.

To have a gorgeous and very Colin-Firth-like Mr. Darcy standing next to your gal just like the one standing next to me below, just select "Outfits," and he's near the bottom, alongside a beautiful Regency dress for your gal to wear! You can also go to "Fun Stuff" and have your gal hold a copy of Seducing Mr. Darcy. The first person to send me an ecard to me at gwyn@cready.com with a gal holding Seducing Mr. Darcy wins free autographed copies of my books.

The DesignHerGals Foundation was set up to help women with Stage IV breast cancer. A portion of all their sales go to this worthy cause. I lost two very close friends to breast cancer so this means a lot to me.

Finally, I run a survey every month on my site that’s grown hugely popular. This month I’m asking visitors to vote on their favorite romantic famous couple. Vote and find out who’s currently in the lead. I think you may be surprised.

Thanks so much for letting me join you for a day. I'm open for questions and eager to hear your thoughts.

Best,

Gwyn
www.cready.com