Guest Post with Author Claire Baxter and Giveaway

Meet Claire Baxter, author of Down Among the Dead Men.

Claire Baxter writes contemporary romantic fiction of all lengths. Her short stories have been published in commercial women's magazines around the world, while her novels have been translated into 20 languages and have been nominated in the Romance Writers of Australia's Romantic Book of the Year Award, the RT Book Reviews Reviewers' Choice Awards, and the Cataromance Reviewers' Choice Awards (Winner, Best Harlequin Romance).

Before following her passion to write full-time, Claire was an award-winning corporate communications manager. Earlier, she worked as a translator and a PA.

Claire grew up in Warwickshire, England, but for more than 20 years has called Australia home. She considers herself lucky to live near one of Adelaide's beautiful metropolitan beaches where she loves to walk and think up stories.

Places to find Claire:

| Site | Facebook | Twitter | 

What do you think shapes certain people into readers, and others into non-readers?

I’ve been thinking about this since I had an odd conversation with people who claimed that they never read fiction, and had zero desire to do so.

I’m not talking about people who can’t read due to learning difficulties or a lack of opportunity, but people who choose not to read fiction.

I read because it engages me in a way nothing else does, and if you’re here at this blog, it’s a fairly safe bet that you’re a reader too.

Reading does take some work, but it’s not difficult work, it’s enormously enjoyable. At least, it is for me.

Unlike when we watch television, images don’t enter our minds directly through sight and sound. Written words have to be filtered and interpreted, so a reader participates actively in a novel. The story world doesn’t exist until it’s created by the reader in her own mind. And those images created by a novel are a collaboration between writer and reader, a combination of the experiences of two people.

It takes an imagination.

Do people who don’t enjoy reading lack imagination?

I don’t believe it’s the result of nurturing since I have two adult sons, one of each – an avid reader and a non-reader – and they were both encouraged to read as children.

Can you imagine a life without reading as a very important part of it?

When Caitlyn ventures into the rough, tough world of the South Australian opal fields on a mission to find her estranged father she instead discovers a half-sister she knew nothing about and learns that her father is missing and suspected of a crime.

Dale is a former city lawyer-turned-lapidary hiding out in Minagoona after death threats endanger him and his daughter. When Caitlyn approaches him for help finding her father, he’s reluctant, but attracted by her determination to right the wrongs dealt to her family. His sense of justice is very much like hers, but when his daughter’s life was threatened by men who wanted him to break the law for them, he fled to protect the child he loves.

Still the more Dale gets to know Caitlyn, the more he realizes he can’t let her go up against organized crime on her own—which is exactly what she proposes when she sets out to clear her father’s name. No matter what, he’ll do his damnedest to keep her safe—even if it means exposing himself and his daughter to the men who want to kill them…

Purchase: | Amazon | B&N |

Check out what's up for grabs.

Up For Grabs:

• 1 $25 Amazon Gift Card
• 1 eBook copy of Flirting With Danger

To Enter: 

• Please leave a comment or question for Claire.
• Please fill out the Rafflecopter form.

Good Luck! 

Special thanks to Claire Baxter for sponsoring this tour-wide giveaway.

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