Title: With You I Am Series: Bryant Family #1 Author: Cleopatra Margot Publisher: Faith to Love Publishing Release Date: June 21, 2021 Genre: Contemporary Christian romance
Event coordinator Noelle Carter’s main priority is running the successful company her grandparents founded. After all, they’re the ones who raised her, and she’s the one they entrusted their company to after their deaths. So when a letter comes across her desk inviting her to plan the Spring Fling in her grandmother’s hometown of Balsam Falls, Nebraska, she’s faced with a choice: stay and work on maintaining Carter, Inc.’s current success, or go and take a leap of faith–outside of her comfort zone.
For contractor Wynn Bryant, helping others is the key to life’s greatest blessings. Over the past ten years, he and his brother have built homes for those who need them, creating a reputable name for themselves. Between that and helping out at the Serendipity Inn, his parents’ bed and breakfast, he’s put his other dreams on the back burner for now. Until the mayor ropes him into restoring The Gardens with a beautiful but guarded young CEO from Mississippi.
Connected by a desire to help others, Wynn and Noelle dive into restoring a neglected piece of Balsam Falls’s history while learning from, and of, their own pasts. Together they uncover past secrets, current challenges, and help each other discover healing and forgiveness in ways neither imagined. Will their discoveries lead to love, or are some things better left as they are?
When I noticed that Cleopatra Margot was coming out with a new novel this summer, I knew that I wanted to read it. This young lady happens to be from my home state of Nebraska, and that is where this next series is set as well. I have interviewed her before on this blog, and I enjoyed being able to catch up with her again.
Behind the Scenes of With You, I Am
1) This is your first book in a new series. What excites you the most about going a different
direction?
I think the most exciting part for me about starting this new series is that it’s different. My
first series was set in a town based almost down to the detail (characters aside) on my
hometown, which is small and rural and not touristy whatsoever. So in creating this series,
I’ve been able to create a different world. It’s a lake town, which is my favorite, and the
characters aren’t ranchers or farmers or things like that. I’ve got a family-owned inn, lots
of small businesses, the Bryant brothers own a construction company, etc. So my favorite
part about going in a different direction was getting to start completely from scratch and
create a world I would love to live in!
2) What has been the most challenging?
In the beginning, I struggled to allow myself to create that town because I was so used to
writing exactly what I knew. But once I got the setting and adjusted to writing it
differently, it came pretty easily to me!
3) Is there a particular theme or verse that is guiding this book?
One of the main themes in this book is forgiveness. And I think that’s something that comes
in every one of my books, but there are certain situations that are touched on in With You I
Am that require a lot of forgiveness from many parties. A quote John Bryant mentioned in
the book was “God wrecks our plans when He sees they’re going to wreck us” and I think
that goes really well with the story overall.
What is it like to be a young author?
Some people might say that are rather young (as a recent high school graduate) to be writing books for adults. But I Timothy 4:12 says that we should not let others look down on youth but instead be an example in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity.” How do you feel that your age can be an asset?
I love this question, because it’s definitely shocked people that I’m so young and writing “romance” novels. For me, I think that I try not to let my age stop me. Even though I’ve never experienced the love stories I write about (yet!), somehow it comes naturally to me to write these novels, and I feel like that’s God’s way of telling me that this is what I’m supposed to do. If He’s guiding me and giving me these stories to tell, then I’m doing it for Him and therefore hopefully helping others in the process.
Five Fast Facts about Author Cleopatra Margot
- I read the entire Boxcar Children series in the first grade.
- I was homeschooled from fifth grade through high school and just graduated in 2021.
- It was the Canadian West series by Janette Oke that led me to writing novels.
- Though the oldest sibling, I am the shortest in my family at 5’1 and sometimes get mistaken as the youngest or middle child.
- My favorite read of 2021, so far, has been All That Really Matters by Nicole Deese.
Please check out the Just Read Giveaway associated with this blog in my additional blog post, With You, I Am by Cleopatra Margot – A JustRead Giveaway – The Sacred Line
Thank you! 🙂
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