Featuring Authors #24: Claire Scott author of Alone Before You + GIVEAWAY

Hi everyone! This is the twentyfourth post of my featuring authors series. Today I’m going to feature Claire Scott that has written Alone Before You (Before You #1) and Forsaken Before You (Before You #2) ! In this post there will be a bio about the author and one of her books, an interview and a giveaway!

To see other authors I featured click here! To be featured contact me here!

About Claire Scott:

First and foremost, I am a reader. I’ve been in love with reading since I was a child. Ever since I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time, when I was probably too young to even understand what it was really about. For me the true beauty of a book comes from re-discovering it. I absolutely love re-reading books and seeing if I am the same person I was when I first read them, and if I can discover some hidden secret that was previously concealed from me. My love of writing stems from this love of reading, and I would truly be nowhere without it. Every day I meet new people and rediscover old ones, I learn about cultures and societies I never knew about. And to be able to create my own ones, to write the world as I imagine it is what drives me. To have no restrictions but my imagination.

Goodreads | Instagram Email: clairescottauthor@gmail.com

35295098 About the book Alone Before You: With her past haunting her, Gwen Taylor shut herself off from every relationship she ever had. But her lonely existence comes to an end when she moves to Beauforde, a small mountain town in Colorado. And when she meets Colton Underwood, a businessman and amateur boxer. Their attraction is consuming, and soon even Gwen can’t deny her growing feelings toward Colt or the fact that their affair is anything but casual. But, even as she comes alive for the first time in years, her past threatens to destroy everything. Drowning with guilt over a something she cannot change, Gwen must face her fears before it all catches up to her. .

Goodreads | Amazon

Arvenig: Tell us a little about yourself and your background!

Claire Scott: There’s really not much to me. I’m just an ordinary woman with a passion for reading and writing. Maybe that’s why I’ve always loved romance books — so many of them are about ordinary women who do extraordinary things (even if they are the only ones who sees themselves as ordinary). Anyone who thinks it’s just about a girl who falls in love with a boy (or a girl and a girl, or a boy and a boy), is missing the mark in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong —a good romance book has to have romance in it, the sexier the better in my opinion, but it’s actually about people. Fantasy is so often reality, and vice versa. And for me, a good romance books has to have a strong and complex lead, often female because I love writing in that voice. I could talk about this for hours because, as is usually the case, I’ve loved romance books since a very young age. Probably because of this, I’ve always dreamed of having a little cottage somewhere in the English countryside. One where I could write and dream my dreams in. And maybe I’d throw in there a Mr. Darcy occasionally!

A.: When did you first realise you wanted to be a writer?

C.: That’s both a hard and easy question to answer. In some ways, I’ve always been a writer — since I can remember I’ve always created stories in my head. As a child and as a teenager (and even as an adult), I went to sleep each night thinking of plot lines and characters. I’d think of a book I’d just read and continue the story, sometimes even re-write the ending. That being said, apart from a brief moment when I was a teenager, I rarely put pen to paper. When I did, I loved it. I loved writing and making my fantasies reality. But I also didn’t think I was any good at it. I am, to this day, my harshest critic. I never thought I had something or that anyone would want to read my stories, even when a few friends expressed interest in them. Even though I loved reading and English was my favorite subject in school, I didn’t believe I could do it. A few bad experiences along the way cemented this idea. It was only till about a year ago when an in-depth conversation with a good friend taught me something different. I was complaining about how rare it was to read a book with a strong, realistic or even a consistent female character. Not matter the genre or the gender of the author. Spurred on by her agreement, right then and there, I challenged myself to do differently. And from that Gwen Taylor, the main character of the Before You trilogy, was born.

A.: Is there a message in your book that you want readers to grasp?

C.: Reading is subjective and everyone takes something different from it. If someone reads my books and just loves the romance or even the erotica aspects, well that’s fantastic. If they love the characters, either the main or the side ones, I’d be more than happy with that. If they love the suspense elements and were truly moved by the emotional scenes —I’d be beyond ecstatic. If they don’t see it as an erotic romance at all and love the personal growth aspects to it —that’s also great. For me, as a reader and as a writer, I really wanted to show that a good romance book is never just a straightforward love story. It’s complex and, in its best form, has many different layers. It’s not something that we should blush about in embarrassment when someone spots us reading it. On a side note, you wouldn’t believe it how many times someone has told me that they have been made fun of or been the recipient of quite awful behavior because of their reading habits. Because of the stereotype romance novels have. If someone has to take anything from my book, I hope it’s that those people are ignorant fools and that reading a romance book isn’t shameful. Forget ideas of high and low culture. Gwen Taylor (the main character and the main voice in the series), is a strong and independent woman who is in many ways broken. And, in a large part, the trilogy is about her embracing who she is, learning to forgive herself for the past and not allowing other people’s perceptions of who she is control her. As Colt (the male protagonist) says in Forsaken Before You, the second book in the trilogy, “The worst thing you can do is see yourself through someone else’s eyes.” This is at the very heart of my series.

A.: What are you working on at the moment?

C.: The second book in the Before You trilogy is coming out on the first of September. I’ve already written the third book, though I have yet to set a date for it. I’m hoping for late this year, or maybe early 2018. I’m currently writing a spin off series from the perspective of another character (who you meet in the second book). Her voice just captured me and I wanted to tell her story so badly. I couldn’t wait to write it. At this point I’m not sure if she’ll have a series of her own or if it will just be one book — I let the story tell me that.

A.: Any last thoughts for our readers?

C.: My debut book, Alone Before You, was self-published. Often there is a lot of stigma attached to that. Especially if you’re writing romance. People often go on about supporting self-published authors but in the same action shut the door on their faces. For me, whether a big publishing house is behind me doesn’t matter — the story is what matters. The characters I’ve created are what matters. So I’d like to encourage everyone to pick up a self-published book and give it a shot. R K Lilly and Kristen Ashley are both favorites of mine who began their writing careers by self-publishing. Who knows, you might just find a diamond in the rough.