Shannon Stults stopped by to talk all about the third book in her Willow Creek series, Risking It All!
Your story takes place at an equestrian center. Do you have a love for horses? What inspired you to choose this setting?
Just like Darby, I grew up on a farm with horses, and when I was a kid my family and I would go on trail rides all the time together. A few years ago while staying in a cabin in Tennessee, my sister and I went to an equestrian center and did a trail ride for the first time since we were little. It made me miss riding my own horses and the kind of strength and freedom that comes with it so much that I wanted to capture that in a book. Plus, there really is something sexy about a hero who can ride.
This is a gorgeous second chance romance. What drew you to this trope?
I actually didn’t used to like second chance romances very much because I always felt like you came into it with half the story already told. I wanted to write one where readers could see how the characters fell in love from the start instead of just being told that they were in love and watching them remember that love years later. That’s why I ended up using the flashbacks in each of the books in this series, so that readers could see and feel firsthand how it all started, not just the second take.
Where do you like to get most of your writing done?
I write all over the place. My living room sofa, my bed, even at work if I’ve got a spare minute. Doesn’t really matter where I am as long as it’s quiet and I’m in the zone. My dream is to one day have a space with a desk and a view that is dedicated solely to the writing like this one I found on Pinterest, but if I’m honest I’d probably still be writing wherever I felt like it.
If Caleb cooked Darby a romantic meal, what would it be?
Caleb is the kind to go all out to show someone he cares. So I think Caleb would try to impress her with something like a homemade, romantic candlelit dinner of parmesan and herb crusted beef tenderloin with a red wine sauce.
What are you currently reading?
I just got a bunch of cute romances for Christmas (Would Like To Meet by Rachel Winters, The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez, etc.), but I’m also trying to tackle some of the classics I already own and have yet to read. So I’m currently doing this thing where I have to read one classic before I can start another romance. I just finished Helen Hoang’s The Bride Test and am in the middle of Moby Dick right now. The back and forth between genres has been an interesting experience, to say the least.
About the Author
A small-town Georgia girl, Shannon finds no greater joy than stepping into the lives and worlds created by the written word. Despite a severe aversion to reading as a child, Shannon has since found a passion for literature that she’s nurtured with incessant reading and a Bachelor’s degree in English. It’s this passion that lets her bring her own imagination to life. Living in Athens, Ga with her sister and their four-legged furry friends, she is almost always in the middle of a book, working on her own stories, or traveling to seek inspiration in the world around her.
