Small-Town Sweethearts Interview

How exciting to have Emily Hazard the heroine from Small-Town Sweethearts by Jean C. Gordon a January release from Love Inspired Romance.

1. Emily, tell me the most interesting thing about you.

You might find this interesting. Everyone here in Hazardtown seems to. I’m somewhat of a jinx. Although since I left my Adirondack Mountains hometown on Paradox Lake, NY, for college and my job in New York City, I’ve been able to control this interesting thing.

2. What do you do for fun?

Between trying to handle my work as an assistant art director for an agency in New York City from here on Paradox Lake and supervising my 17-year-old niece while her father is deployed in Afghanistan, I don’t have a lot of time for fun. I do enjoy the little family tradition my niece and I have of going out for soft ice cream to celebrate our various triumphs large and small. And I love the annual Essex County Fair, although I haven’t been there since high school.

3. What do you put off doing because you dread it?

Although I love them dearly, I put off visiting my family or, more specifically, returning to Paradox Lake because of unpleasant memories I have of being a misfit there. But since my brother asked me to be my niece’s guardian while he’s out of country so she can finish her senior year of high school with her friends at Schroon Lake Central — my alma mater — I’m back here for the next few months.

4. What are you afraid of most in life?

Being pulled into the everybody-knows-everybody’s-business, small-town atmosphere of Paradox Lake and Hazardtown Community Church while I’m here with my niece and turning back into the Jinx Hazard I was growing up. That person who never fit in anywhere. A lot of people here still even call me Jinx. I’ve worked hard to develop a distanced professional persona. In fact, one of the reasons I like my church in New York is that the people in the congregation let each other worship privately. None of that touchy feely, we’re all in this together stuff that makes you feel guilty if you don’t volunteer for everything like Mom and Dad. Not that they don’t really seem to enjoy it. It’s just not for me.

5. What do you want out of life?

I thought what I wanted out of life was to become art director at a large New York City ad agency. My plan was that, once I’d achieved that, I could think about other things like marriage and kids. Now that Drew Stacey has arrived on my scene, I’m not so sure what I want, except it’s not to settle down permanently on Paradox Lake.

6. What is the most important thing to you?

I know it shouldn’t matter, but I’d like to fit in and to have people like me for myself, not for what I can do for them, like my boss and everyone else at the agency where I work do. And, don’t let this out, but I’d like to find a man who will love me just as I am, even if I slip into Jinx mode.

7. Do you read? If so, what is your favorite type of book to read?

I like coffee table books, the ones that have lots of photography. I get good ideas for work from them. But, that’s not really reading. If I had more time, I’d indulge myself in historical novels, with or without romance.

8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

To be more graceful and athletic.

9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?

I don’t have a pet. My apartment in New York is too small, and I work too many hours to give a pet the attention it should have.

10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?

I’d go back to the early nineteenth century when my ancestors were settling the hamlet of Hazardtown, here on Paradox Lake. It would be fun to see where I came from, if I maybe take after one of them since I’m so different from the rest of my family. Of course, being early settlers and loggers, they were probably all rugged outdoor types like my family.