We are thrilled to introduce you to long-time WU contributor Jan O’Hara’s debut novel Opposite of Frozen, made available to readers on October 3rd. For those of you who don’t know Jan, she is, according to her bio, “a former family doctor who once prided herself on delivering birth-to-death healthcare, Jan now spends her days torturing people on paper. She lives in Alberta, Canada with her husband (aka the ToolMaster) and two children.”
Jan joins us today for an interview about Opposite of Frozen.
“Trapped in a small mountain town with a busload of feisty retirees and a commitment-phobic stowaway, a retired athlete realizes that he’s become more frail and fossilized than his charges.”
Q1: What is the premise of your new book?
Jan: Shepherd fifty-one seniors on a multinational bus tour, including a ninety-five-year-old with a lethal cane?
To preserve his sick brother’s travel business, retired pro athlete, Oliver Pike, would do far more. But then weather intervenes, forcing the tour bus off-route into the small mountain town of Harmony, Alberta.
In the hold of the bus, amid the walkers and luggage, lies a half-frozen stowaway. Page Maddux is commitment-averse and obviously lacking in common sense. Once revived, she’s also the person Oliver must depend upon to help him keep the “oldsters,” as she calls them, out of harm’s way.
When their week together is over, will Harmony recovery from the group’s escapades? And what of Oliver’s heart?
Q2: What would you like people to know about the story itself?
Jan: It’s a love story, featuring a large cast and an over-the-top tone, like a Katharine Hepburn/Cary Grant movie.
It’s also a story about healing, in that it follows two damaged people as they reconnect to the world. (That mixture of humor and pathos probably won’t surprise anyone who has read my Writer Unboxed posts.)
Lastly, while it is a standalone contemporary romance, it can also be read as part of a 12-book multi-author series.
In short, the Thurston Hotel series is the brainchild of romance writer, Brenda Sinclair. She invented the fictional town of Harmony, populated it with citizens, then offered to share that world with ten other writers. We each claimed one month in the town’s year for our own primary romance. At the same time, we layered our books with foreshadowing and clues for future plotlines. (For more on the series, go to www.ThurstonHotelBooks.com.)
Q3: What do your characters have to overcome in the story?