In 2011, my local RWA chapter began its first group project, Bandit Creek. I published my first book in that series, THE GHOST AND CHRISTIE MCFEE, and Brenda Sinclair published A BANDIT CREEK MIRACLE.
Last January, Brenda decided to do it again. She came up with a Bible for the Thurston Hotel series and invited local chapter authors to participate. She wanted published authors, but also some unpublished ones who wanted to be mentored.
There are eleven authors involved in the project. Published authors include Brenda Sinclair, Sheila Seabrook, Shelley Kassian, M.K. Stelmack, Alyssa Linn Palmer, Katie O’Connor and Suzanne Stengl (me 🙂 )
Debut authors in the series are Maeve Buchanan, Win Day, Ellen Jorgy and Jan O’Hara.
Brenda came up with the idea of twelve books, one for each month in 2016, to be released WEEKLY, on Thurston Thursday beginning THIS THURSDAY September 29. Brenda bookended the series, writing both the January book and the December book.
The books are standalone contemporary romances that are
connected by common settings, characters and events. There is a thread woven through all the stories about a bride who books the 100-year-old Thurston Hotel in January—for her December wedding. No one is quite sure if the wedding will actually happen . . .
Brenda Sinclair is also the author of the very successful Western Contemporary Romance series, SPIRIT CREEK so she knows a lot about doing a series. We have all thoroughly enjoyed working on the project: at our keyboards, in our “secret” Facebook group, and sitting around long tables in restaurants. Together we discussed ideas, debated covers, ironed out details and generally had a good time.
Brenda put us on a deadline for first drafts and found continuity editors who would read all the books. She also set us up with one line editor (so we all spelled Trans-Canada the same way) and one cover artist who took our rough ideas and turned them into beautiful art. You can see all the covers here. You may notice that each cover has that hotel logo on the banner—with a different room lit for each book.
I’ll tell you more about the hotel tomorrow . . .