Skip to main content

Author Highlight: Connor Royce Discusses his New Novel ‘Don Roberto's Daughter: Natasha’ and Stories from his Life

We are delighted to welcome a very promising novelist Connor Royce for a brief Q & A session at our website about his recent novel ‘Don Roberto's Daughter: Natasha’.

In this Q & A session, he will be talking about his writing aspirations, inclination towards contemporary romance fiction, and the route to getting his novel published. Stay on...while we chat with him.

Would you mind telling a bit about your novel – maybe in two or three sentences?

This novel is closely based on a true story. It is the love story that I lived while watching my beautiful young wife fighting for her life against the ravages of brutal disease.

What inspired you to write this novel? Any tales...

I was often asked about how I met my wife, and when I told the story I kept hearing, "It sounds like a romance novel." I finally decided they were right and abandoned my other writing project to focus on this one.

Do you think that cross-border rules cause trouble for common folks, especially people in love?

Relationships are difficult, and long-distance relationships are harder, but I certainly don't expect countries to change their border crossing laws to accommodate my love life.

Did you do any research for the novel?

I lived in Mexico for over a year in the town I write about. I know the supporting characters in this book well, and I love them dearly.

What was your biggest learning experience throughout the publishing process?

Writing the book was easier and more fun.

How do you handle the response of this book, especially from your friends and relatives and readers?

It's not at all what most people think. It isn't the first pumping, high five, look what I did reaction you see from athletes. I poured my soul into this story for years with many sleepless nights agonizing over scenes, sentences, and individual words. The genuine and sincere praise I sometimes get goes deep into me. It's like hearing that your son has grown into a good man, and knowing that you weren't the best father despite your best intentions, but he turned out well anyway. It's humbling.

Who is your favourite character from the novel – why?

That's easy. Natasha is my favourite character. That's why I married her. I loved her father dearly, too. That's why I named the book after him. Out of respect, it's a tribute to as fine a man as I have ever met.

What are you working on next?

I'm working on the sequel which takes Sean and Natasha to the second Gulf War in Iraq. It's also based on true, and sometimes tragic, events in our lives.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Poem Summary: Where The Mind Is Without Fear by Rabindranath Tagore

Poem by Rabindranath Tagore: Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is free Where the world has not been broken up into fragments By narrow domestic walls Where words come out from the depth of truth Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit Where the mind is led forward by thee Into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. Short Summary: This poem is written by Rabindranath Tagore during pre-independence days, when India was a colony of the British. The underlying theme of the poem is absolute freedom; the poet wants the citizens of his country to be living in a free state. According to the poem, we see that the poet is expressing his views there should be a country, like where people live without any sort of fear and with pure dignity…they should

Book Review: The Blue Umbrella by Ruskin Bond

Among all Ruskin Bond books, The Blue Umbrella has, so far, gathered immense applaud from readers and critics alike.  This is a short novel, but the kind of moral lessons it teaches to us are simply overwhelming. This is a story of Binya, a poor little girl living with her mother and an elder brother, Bijju, in a small hilly village of Garhwal. One day while herding her two cows back home, she stumbles upon some city people enjoying the picnic in the valley. She is enthralled to see them well-groomed and rich. She craves to be one like them and among many other things of their, a blue frilly umbrella catches her attention. She begins craving for it. On the other hand, the city people get attracted by her innocent beauty and the pendant in her neck. The pendant consists of leopard’s claw – which is considered a mascot widely in the hills. Binya trades her pendant off with the blue umbrella. The blue umbrella is so much beautiful that soon it becomes a topic of conversation fo

Poem Summary: Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ozymandias is a short poem of fourteen lines written by Percy Bysshe Shelley. The concurrent theme of the poem is that nothing remains intact and same forever in this world. Even the brightest of metal, one day decays with passage of time. The throne name of Egyptian King Ramesses is Ozymandias. It was his dearest desire to preserve himself forever by building a huge statue that he thought would never tumble down. Stanza 1: I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; Summary: The poet narrates the poem through the eyes of a traveler who seems to have come back from a remote and far-away land, referring to Egypt. The traveler r