The Garden of Little Rose: Suzanne Snow on combining passions + Giveaway
I am delighted to welcome Suzanne Snow to discuss her romance series Welcome to Thorndale, and how she’s combined her passion for the outdoors, gardening and horses with her love of reading.
Plus, thanks to her publisher Canelo, I have a paperback copy of her most recent release The Garden of Little Rose (Book 2) to giveaway – entries open worldwide.
Disclosure: If you click a link in this post and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission.
A Life of Reading by Suzanne Snow
Growing up as a young girl in northern England, I had two passions. One was reading and the other was horses. One freed my mind to imagine I was a character in the stories I read and I was around eight years old when I began to invent my own. The second passion kept me firmly outdoors, and I quickly learned to appreciate the best of the weather when taking care of my pony in the worst of it. I will be forever grateful for both of these passions in my life as reading remains an utter joy and the landscape another (along with the horses!).
Like many others, reading Enid Blyton books opened up a world that fed into my imagination and in my mind, I could picture her stories and characters so clearly. I loved the Famous Five and Malory Towers, and many of my copies are childhood friends I would never part with. The Folk of the Faraway Tree is a firm favourite and I believe this helped shape my desire to write. I was lucky enough to meet the Australian author Kate Morton at an event and she signed her book from one Enid Blyton girl to another, which was a thrill!
I moved on to books about ponies, heroic girls, lively adventures and eventually into love stories. I’ve always been drawn to romance and eventually, I wanted to write my own. There’s just something so wonderful about two characters meeting, falling in love and hoping that a happy and hopeful ending (or new beginning) is waiting for them. It’s taken me three books to get there but finally, my love of horses has made it into my writing in A Summer of Second Chances (published on 10th June 2021). My characters have the opportunity to watch a movie that one of them has never seen and it didn’t take me long to choose The Man from Snowy River as this movie.
The landscape and rural communities are at the heart of my books, and I love to write about small villages and the people that have long lived there, perhaps down the generations, as well as those newly arrived. I find inspiration in so many places, perhaps a small cottage, a ruined garden, an old farm, an overgrown path.
For The Garden of Little Rose, I chose a Scottish Arts & Crafts garden and set it on a small fictional Hebridean island, surrounded by white sands and turquoise waters warmed by the Gulf Stream.
I’m currently planning a new series of books, and I’m heading for Cumbria and the extraordinary beauty of this incredible landscape. Renowned for fells, lakes and rivers, it’s also home to outstanding food and culture, and I have in my mind a community set around an old house with different craftspeople bringing it to life. I’m thankful to live close to the Lake District and am so looking forward to visiting again and creating new characters falling in love and finding their futures together.
The Garden of Little Rose Synopsis
Book 2, Welcome to Thorndale Series
For love to grow, Flora will have to first dig up the past.
At a hen party on the remote Scottish island of Alana, Flora is dared to ask a handsome stranger to be her plus-one for the wedding. When the gorgeous Mac accepts her invite, she assumes he’s joking and thinks nothing more of it… Until he turns up at the church on the wedding day.
But Mac has an agenda. He wants to hire her skills as a garden historian to restore the gardens at Róisín House, his home back on Alana. Flora knows she should refuse – Mac has ‘heartbreaker’ written all over him – but she can’t resist uncovering the tragic truth behind the garden at Róisín.
Transported by the beauty of the island, Flora can’t help but fall in love with Alana, and the man who brought her there.
The Garden of Little Rose is a heartwarming romance for fans of Victoria Walters, Trisha Ashley and Julie Houston.
(Canelo, February 2021)
Get your copy of The Garden of Little Rose from:
Amazon Book Depository Booktopia AU
More romantic fiction:
The Corner Shop in Cockleberry Bay by Nicola May / Two Steps Forward by Graeme Simsion & Anne Buist / Small Blessings by Martha Woodroof / The One Plus One by Jojo Moyes / Book List: Top Intelligent Romantic Comedy Novels
About the Author, Suzanne Snow
Suzanne Snow writes romantic, uplifting fiction with a strong sense of setting and community connecting the lives of her characters, finding inspiration in beautiful views, old houses and abundant gardens. The Garden of Little Rose is Suzanne’s second novel in the Welcome to Thorndale series. Her first novel, The Cottage of New Beginnings, is also published by Canelo, Her third title in this series, A Summer of Second Chances, will be published in June 2021.
After working in financial services and then spending several years as a stay-at-home mum, Suzanne was ready for a change. Her interest in horticulture led her to study for RHS qualifications at agricultural college in Yorkshire, enabling her to pursue a new career planting redesigned gardens. Suzanne has sung in a choir, trained as a worship leader and raised money for charity by making huge volumes of soup for anyone she can persuade to buy it. She is an infrequent horse rider after years competing in dressage, and a ranch holiday in Montana is top of her bucket list.
She lives in Lancashire with her family and loves to read, particularly historical crime and biographies of writers. She also enjoys walking, cooking for family and friends, and watching movies, especially if they have a happy ending. Suzanne is a member of the Romantic Novelists Association and the Society of Authors.
The Garden of Little Rose Book Giveaway
Thanks to Canelo Press we have a paperback copy of The Garden of Little Rose by Suzanne Snow to giveaway. Entries open worldwide and close midnight 16 May 2021.
See entry form below. Ensure you scroll to the bottom of this form and press submit to register your entry. You can improve your chance of winning by:
- retweeting this Tweet (+2 entries)
- sharing this Pin with your followers on Pinterest (+3 entries); and
- sharing this Facebook post (incl. link) with your Facebook followers (+4 entries)
The lucky winners will be randomly selected and announced on our Facebook Page.
SORRY, ENTRIES CLOSED – See winners announcement.
