Interview and Giveaway: The Texicans by Nina Vida

Today Nina Vida, author of the The Texicans, is joining us for a great interview and giveaway!

Beth: Hi! Welcome to Beth's Book Review Blog! It's great to have you here today! Thank you for taking the time to join us and answer some questions.

Congratulations on your seventh book, The Texicans, being published! Can you tell us a little bit about it?

Nina: The Texicans is a book set in Texas in the 1840’s. Joseph Kimmel, a reclusive Missouri schoolteacher has gone to San Antonio to settle his late brother’s estate. He’s an unlikely and reluctant hero, but a hero nonetheless. In Texas he can’t seem to say no to anyone in trouble. He marries Katrin, an Alsatian girl, to save her from an Indian chief, rescues Luck, a runaway slave, from the bounty hunters, and, despite his marriage, falls in love with Aurelia, a Mexican girl who some say has the power to see the future. He becomes the largest landowner in Texas, but his passion for Aurelia torments him. That passion and what it does to his life is what powers the novel.

Beth: The Texicans is quite an epic story! How did you get the idea for it?

Nina: I chose Texas as the subject for a novel because I wanted to portray the bravery of the people who left their homes in the east and, without any guarantee that where they were going was better than where they had been, forged a trail west.

Beth: I'm a huge fan of audiobooks. How amazing was it to have your book made into an audio read by George Guidall?

Nina: It was great having George Guidall record The Texicans. My novels Goodbye, Saigon and Between Sisters were recorded on audiobook, but they were abridged, which made for a certain choppiness in spots. The Texicans was recorded in its entirety, which made me extremely happy! And, of course, George Guidall’s voice is extraordinary.

Beth: I hear you're currently at work on your eighth novel already! Can you give us a sneak peek at it?

Nina: The current novel, Lilli, is the story of a Lithuanian girl who escapes Hitler’s Europe and ends up in Shanghai. From a sheltered upbringing she becomes a force to be reckoned with.

Beth: Do you have any special writing routines? Do you always write in the same place at the same time of day?

Nina: I have no writing routine. I can go days without writing, and then spend days doing nothing else but writing, even waking up in the middle of the night to climb the stairs to my office, where my desk and computer and books are always waiting.

Beth: I'm always curious about what other people are reading. What are you reading now?

Nina: Right now I’m reading a book I began a long time ago and didn’t finish. A Hundred Years of Solitude by Marquez. It’s wonderful.

Beth: And finally, do you have a favorite book of all time?

Nina: My favorite book has to be Pride and Prejudice! I never tire of the goings-on of the Bennett family and I’m in awe of Jane Austen’s wit.

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About Nina:

Nina Vida's writing career began when her children went off to college and she enrolled in the University Without Walls program at California State University Dominguez Hills to pursue a long-deferred degree in English. One of the requirements of the degree was a semester of creative writing. Nina, who had never written fiction before, decided to write a story about her 38-year-old sister's open-heart surgery. The professor said it brought her to tears. Nina's husband had been a Navy journalist in the Korean War, and when he read the story he said he thought Nina had the makings of a writer and should try her hand at a novel. That was in 1980. Since then Nina has had seven novels published. The seventh novel, The Texicans, was published by Soho Press.

She is a native born Californian, lives in Huntington Beach and is a well known collector of antique Asian porcelain.

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Thank you so much to Nina for joining us today! If you'd like to pick up a copy of her book The Texicans, click the cover image below.

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Giveaway!

Nina has generously sent me a copy of her book The Texicans, to give away to one lucky reader!

To enter see below:

Contest runs from June 25, 2009 to 11:59 PM EST July 31, 2009. Winner will be announced August 1, 2009. Open to US residents only.

To enter - earn one entry for each of the following activities (up to four entries per person):

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