Silverberry Seduction Seasoned Romance Series
Get a behind-the-scenes all-access pass to Brenda Margriet's Silverberry Seduction Seasoned Romance Series!
***Synopis***
Each book in the Silverberry Seasoned Romance Series features the members of the Silverberry Book Club.
But this isn’t your usual book club! This one goes hiking and parachuting, picks apples and takes mixology classes.
All books can be read as standalones, and all feature main characters thirty-five-years or older.
What is the sub-genre and trope? Did your characters lead you to this genre or
was that decided before the story began?
The series is contemporary later-in-life romance. I love writing happy-ever-afters for characters who have already done some living and had some rough knocks. Then the idea of a book club that’s not really a book club sprang to mind, and the rest grew from there.
In Turn the Next Page, Aubrey and Phillip are 52 and 53 years old (he’s a sexy silver fox!) and while they divorced decades ago, circumstances have brought them back together for a second chance. It is a steamy read with open-door sex, and deals with the fallout of adoption and a search for family.
Are you more character or plot driven?
I think I’m a mix of both, but lean toward character-driven.
Once I have a handle on my characters’ flaws and talents, I brainstorm plot scenarios that will really showcase their strengths and weaknesses.
With many main and secondary characters, how do you keep them separated in your mind? Do you have a story/vision board above your workspace?
I have a window above my workspace, LOL! I don’t have an office that lends itself to keeping track using physical means (it’s a desk in a corner of our living room), but I do keep lots of notes in documents and spreadsheets.
Who knew Excel would be one of my most useful tools as a writer?
I know from previous interviews that characters take on a life of their own. Were any of the characters in this series determined to take their own direction instead of where you initially wanted them to go?
I am always intrigued by how characters evolve throughout a story. Funnily enough, though, the most stubborn character in the series (so far) is the stray cat in Turn the Next Page.
Aubrey discovers him skulking around her yard, and when I wrote him I thought it would just be for one scene. But he insisted on hanging around, demanding tuna for dinner. I finally realized he was a foil for Aubrey, representing her fear of entanglement and commitment, and gave him a bigger role.
What is your favorite book in the series?
My favourite book is always the one I just finished writing. 😊 I get very invested in my characters and their lives, and while I’m working on their story I can’t imagine writing anything else.
In the case of the Silverberry Seduction Series, I recently finished Strictly by the Book (Book 4) which is scheduled to release in April 2023. It is with my beta readers and editor right now, and until I get it back it exists in a rosy glow of perfection. That won’t be the case when I start to review comments, but for now I’ll enjoy the feeling!
Series question - Who is your favorite couple and why did you decide on their dynamics?
Yeah, this is an impossible question, LOL! All my couples are favourites for one reason or another.
In the case of Turn the Next Page, though, I knew Aubrey and Phillip had to be together…even if it was three decades after they were high school sweethearts. Aubrey has an inner wild child that has been stifled by her ambitious father, and Phillip is just the right fellow to bring it out in her. Phillip needs to feel wanted, and while Aubrey is her own woman, she accepts he’s the man to help her be the best she can be. I love the push and pull between them.
How do you get inside these character’s heads to find their perfect HEA?
Before I start writing, I focus on my characters backstories. Why are they the person they are today? What do they need in their life, that they may not even know they need? Who is the wrong person for them…until they are the exactly right person?
Then it is a matter of throwing those characters into events that draw them out of themselves and toward their happy ever afters. It’s never an easy process – for me or the characters! – but it is always rewarding and exciting to see it unfold.
How did you come up with the title for your book and series?
Coming up with titles is hard!
I bounced a few around with an author friend of mine who is much better at titles than I am, and she was the one that suggested, since it is about members of a book club, that the titles have something do with reading or books.
Each title reflects the plot of the story, yet still has a play on words that I love.
How long did it take you to write this book/series? Did
you know in advance that you were going to write this as a series or did one of
the characters in book one demand their own story?
So, funny story…
I starting writing Turn the Next Page in September 2020. Yes, more than two years ago. I fully intended it to be a standalone novel.
Then in 2021, I joined a group of authors doing a seasoned romance anthology, and need an idea for a novella. By then I knew the members of the Silverberry Book Club pretty well, and I thought it would be great to give Helen, the matriarch of the club, her own story.
That novella is Secrets Under the Covers (available for free here https://books2read.com/SecretsUndertheCovers). Secrets meant I now had a two book series, which isn’t really a series at all, so I decided to go all in.
The fictional timeline between Secrets and Turn was more than five years, and that was too big a gap, so I wrote Loving Between the Lines (available here https://books2read.com/LovingBetweentheLines) which became Book Two. Somewhere in there I also wrote Strictly by the Book (Book Four). And I am in the planning stages of Too Good for Words (Book Five), expected to release fall of 2023.
But…it is finally time for Turn the Next Page to make its debut on December 1! The story that started it all if finally getting it’s due! (Order it here https://books2read.com/TurnTheNextPage)
Everyday lives. Unexpected love.
Brenda Margriet writes savvy, slow burn, contemporary romances with ordinarily amazing characters. In her own ordinarily amazing life, she had a successful career in radio and television production before deciding to pilfer from her retirement plan to support her writing compulsion.
Readers have called her stories “poignant,” “explicit and steamy,” “interesting, intriguing and entertaining,” and “unlike any romance you’ve read before” (she assumes the latter was meant in a good way).
Subscribe to Brenda’s newsletter and you’ll immediately receive a free read. You’ll also tag along with her dog-walking adventures, find out what she’s reading when she should be working, and other randomness…along with all her writing news, of course! Find the sign up form on her website.
The peace Helen Mansfield struggled to achieve after the death of her husband is threatened when she discovers a lump in her breast. Determined to keep the alarming news to herself until the biopsy results are revealed, she sets out to wring every drop of delight from her days.
Nathan Spieth stood by his wife while she fought and ultimately lost her battle with cancer. Since then, he’s devoted his energy to rebuilding the career that he neglected during her final years, and all his hard work is about to pay off.
As neighbours and friends, Helen and Nathan’s lives have been woven together for more than twenty years. One impetuous, impassioned night might destroy everything they share—or prove to this fiercely independent woman and determinedly solitary man that love is always worth the risk.
(Helen and Nathan are both 55)
She wanted a final fling before choosing science to make her a single mom. He needed an escape from the regret grinding him into dust. Her baby isn’t his…but maybe family is more than DNA.
After a childhood being dragged around the continent by her musician parents, Lynn Kolmyn has stretched her roots deep into her chosen hometown. When her absconding fiancé screws up her careful plans, she decides to become a mother at almost forty, realizing the only person she can rely on is herself.
Benjamin Whitestone was the hometown hockey hero until a spectacular mistake led to failure and condemnation. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t seem to make it up to his parents, his teammates, or his fans. In a final bid to prove himself, he accepts a job coaching the junior team where he used to be a star, determined to rewrite history.
When Lynn and Benjamin collide—literally—they are both shocked to see the stranger from a single sensual night two years ago. Now the past tangles with the future…a future neither of them was expecting.
(Lynn is 40, Benjamin is 35)
(This story mentions the loss of a child through Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and deals with the search for another child given up for adoption decades ago. I hope I have treated these subjects with the care and compassion they deserve.)
Natalie Minton’s cheerful exterior hides desperation. She’s been out of work for months when her estranged sister appears on her doorstep pleading for help. An offer to write the biography of a local political legend couldn’t come at a better time.
Rafe Talbot rejected family tradition and chose medicine over politics. When he stumbles upon evidence of a hidden scandal, his only recourse is to work alongside—and stay one step ahead of—the vivacious scholar hired to chronicle his mother’s career.
Natalie’s exuberance strikes sparks off Rafe’s steely severity, luring them to ignore the secrets shadowing their pasts…until the glare of the present exposes intolerable truths.
(Natalie 36, Rafe 42)
A phony friendship between an ex-con biker haunted by his past and a suburban mom with an uncertain future shifts gears with startling consequences.
After more than two decades as a stay-at-home mom, Penta Potter’s life is at a crossroads, her future stretching emptily ahead. When her youngest son vandalizes a local motorcycle mechanic’s garage, confronting the forbidding yet compelling owner sparks deliciously wicked longings.
Since his release from prison twelve years ago, Cash Rylance keeps his head down and his nose clean. He has no business aching for a fiercely protective, sweet-lipped, divorced mother of four. If he promises to keep his hands to himself, maybe she will help him be the dad his estranged daughter deserves.
A fake relationship between these two restless hearts seems the perfect route to take…until their improbable plan detours toward a totally different destination.
(Penta 44, Cash 48)
Thanks so much for this, Deb!
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