A warm welcome to author RJ Scott joining us today to talk about her story: “The Gallows Tree”.

RJ talks about how the book came to excist and brought a wonderful giveaway with her!

Welcome RJ 🙂

There’s something to be said for actually visiting a place and setting a book there.

I was in New York this year, a trip after a signing, and I saw the very pub/bar near the Trade Towers monument that featured heavily in Love Happens Anyway (Last year’s Christmas book – and how is it nearly Christmas again I ask you!). I’d researched the bar, the interior, the history, the fact that on 9/11 it was inundated with dust and debris, the fact that people sheltered inside.

In the story my hero’s father, a retired fire fighter goes straight to the buildings and doesn’t return. To stand right near the monument looking up at the crystal tower and seeing the bar, and how close it was, that made every piece of research I’d done for the story worthwhile. Of course I got things wrong in my head. I mean, I didn’t fully realize the size of the area, or how small New York actually is, but I was pleased I’d got a good feel for what I was writing.

But every so often I will set a book in the UK, a beautiful country, where you are never that far from something historical. Hubby knew of a village, Passenham in Northamptonshire, super close to the new city of Milton Keynes, and we went out there for a drive. It isn’t very big, there isn’t even a pub in the village, but there is a manor house, a beautiful river, and more importantly, a Mill chase. It is a beautiful place, old cottages, a gorgeous manor house, and a stunning church – the church of St Guthlac which has a late 13th-century tower. In fact Passenham a typical English village (apart from the lack of a pub LOL), and is surrounded by fields.

The day we visited was a gorgeous autumn day, and I took so many photos of the church with the golds and reds of leaves on the trees and on the ground.  Thing is, I can’t go ANYWHERE without getting plot bunnies, and this was the perfect setting for a ghost story. In my mind there was a family in the manor house, and one of them fell for a visitor who was in the village for *insert reason here* (I hadn’t decided yet!).

Only when I sat down and began to sketch the idea did the character of Cody come straight to mind, as an American running to England to escape an abusive ex. The family in the manor house became the Toulson-Browns, three brothers, one of them a vicar, another was Sebastian, my hero 2, and then I created a pub, which is based on the The Falkland Arms Pub in Great Tew.

There is also a visit in the book to a library in Oxford, another place local to me where I actually worked for a few years.  And so the Gallows Tree was born, and in every step of the book, unlike other books where I have a world made up in my mind, the village, ‘Lower Ferrers’ as I named it in my book, was real to me. When I did online research for the area, I found that Passenham has it’s own ghost story, and weirdly enough it is linked to the same mill house that I was using in my book. Perfect.

This is the ghost story I found:  Passenham Mill Ghost Story – The ghost story of Nancy Webb, on the night of the October Deanshanger feast a figure in white bearing a child in her arms is supposed to head to the Passenham Mill race into which she plunged, her white dress floating on the water. She had lost her husband in the Crimean War (1853 – 1856) and her new born son shortly after. Nancy’s continued visits to the graveyard unhinged her so she threw herself in the Mill Race where she was mangled by the wheel.

The Gallows Tree

Cody runs to England after an abusive relationship destroys his trust in love. He’s inherited a cottage in a small village and needs somewhere to hide away and give himself time to heal.

What he doesn’t count on is meeting the enigmatic Sebastian, a man who may be able to show him he can stop running.

But first Cody and Sebastian have to deal with the ghosts of lost loves and destinies that weave into the story of the village water mill. A legacy twisted into the sycamore trees that stand on mill land. One of which might be the gallows tree.

Buy Link:

Amazon

RJ’s goal is to write stories with a heart of romance, a troubled road to reach happiness, and most importantly, that hint of a happily ever after.

RJ is the author of the over one hundred novels and discovered romance in books at a very young age. She realized that if there wasn’t romance on the page, she could create it in her head, and is a lifelong writer.

She lives and works out of her home in the beautiful English countryside, spends her spare time reading, watching films, and enjoying time with her family.

The last time she had a week’s break from writing she didn’t like it one little bit and has yet to meet a bottle of wine she couldn’t defeat.

She’s always thrilled to hear from readers, bloggers and other writers. Please contact via the following links below:

Email RJ (rj@rjscott.co.uk)

Goodreads Page | RJ’s Blog | RJ on Twitter | Facebook | Library Thing Page | Tumblr |Pinterest

RJ brought a wonderful giveaway for our readers. Have a chance to win an ecopy of The Gallows Tree!

a Rafflecopter giveaway