Please Welcome Author Joselyn Vaughn

Today I have the privilege of hosting yet another Astraea Press author! Joselyn Vaughn amazes all of us who know her with her ability to write wonderful stories, run marathons, and create clever clothing items by repurposing or mending. And she does all of this while raising three active preschoolers! She's also a fellow member of the Grand Rapids Region Writers Group.

Joselyn is here to tell us about her new release, Climbing Heartbreak Hill. It's a wonderful story about two people who are chasing their dreams and how they help each other. I downloaded the book as soon as it was available and loved it! I'll let Joselyn tell you more:

When you train for a marathon, someone always asks if you are trying to qualify for Boston. Being able to achieve the times needed and run in the historic event is one of the most sought after experiences in a runner’s career.

When I trained for the Seattle Marathon, someone asked and I shrugged it off. I hadn’t run one marathon and didn’t know if I’d want to do another one after I finished. During training I was tantalizingly close to the qualifying times, but an injury before the race changed that. Ten years later, twenty pounds and three kids haven’t made the times any easier to achieve.

Since my kids were born, I’ve gotten back into regular running (those twenty pounds weren’t from them). Some days, it’s to work out frustration with our never-ending potty training struggle; others, it’s for some time to get a complete thought. But other times, it’s for something larger than myself. My whole family—brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, everyone—participated in a 5k, even my kids in strollers, to celebrate our family and my sister’s recovery from open heart surgery. My sisters and I run or walk in a Race for the Cure to celebrate my other sister’s recover from breast cancer. (Try running that one without choking up as people run with the names of mothers, sisters, aunts, and daughters written on their shirts. Impossible.)

When I wrote Climbing Heartbreak Hill, I imagined the worst thing for a runner—to leave a dream unachieved. Ryan, an elite marathoner, suffers a career-ending injury the year he was going to run at the Boston Marathon. He struggles with losing his ability to run throughout the book because his career will have this open spot that he will never be able to fill.

After I heard about the bombings I decided to donate a portion of my proceeds for Climbing Heartbreak Hill to the One Fund for Boston, so that those injured will have a chance for whatever dream lies at the edge of their grasp. 

Run on!

Blurb:

Professional runner, Ryan Grant, blows out his knee training for another attempt at the Boston marathon and the dreaded Heartbreak Hill. Ryan retreats home, not looking for anything more than a fast recovery, but he finds solace in the arms of his tax preparer, Tara Mansfield.

Tara’s cheerleading career ended abruptly and she faces an upward climb beating the stereotype as dumb blonde in her new calling as an accountant. Framed with defrauding the IRS during the last weeks of the tax season, Tara’s tentative confidence is shaken, but Ryan coaches her in ensnaring the true perpetrator. She cheers him on in discovering his identity as a coach rather than an athlete.

With the help of the junkyard king and a mechanical bull, can Tara and Ryan find the courage to climb Heartbreak Hill together?

****

Joselyn's bio:

I live in the Great Lakes state with my husband, three rambunctious children and two barking Beagles (I suppose that is redundant.) When not suffering the woes of potty training three toddler/preschoolers, I enjoy reading, running (sometimes it’s fleeing the craziness at home), reconstructing clothing, thrift store shopping and surfing Pinterest.com. (I spend way too much time there and am getting all kinds of exciting ideas for projects for my husband to do. He is less than thrilled by this.)

I love writing romance because I enjoy stories where everything works out all right in the end and the main characters have a happily ever after. My stories are set in small towns with quirky characters that take on a life of their own.

Climbing Heartbreak Hill is available at Astraea Press, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and several other ebook outlets. Download the book now to help the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing!

You can find Joselyn at her website or blog, and on Amazon, Facebook, Goodreads, and Twitter @JoselynVaughn. You can contact her by email.