Christina Sinisi talks Christmas Confusion

Today I welcome Christina Sinisi to my blog to talk about her novella, Christmas Confusion. Such a cute cover!

Q: Where is your novella, Christmas Confusion set?  What made you want to have your story play out at Christmas time?

Christina: Christmas Confusion is set in a made-up town, Summer Creek, which is a suburb of Charleston, South Carolina. This story was inspired by the publisher’s call for Christmas novellas–don’t get me wrong, Christmas is my favorite holiday, but the challenge was in writing something based on a call.

Q: What is your favorite part about Christmas and does it show up in the novella?

Christina: My favorite part about Christmas is the birth of our Savior, followed by all the special times with family. In the novella, the hero and heroine share a lot of Christmas traditions–the children’s program at church, the local decorations–and recapture the closeness they had known before.

Q: What was the hardest scene to write in the book? 

Christina: There are several places in the book where the characters revisit hard times and conflict from their past. The most difficult scene was where Tiffany, the heroine, finds out all the things her younger sister had done. I kept wanting to let her forgive too easily and my editor pushed me to get deeper. Sometimes, forgiveness is hard.

 Q: Tell me about your main characters.

Christina: Tiffany Marano is a 25-year-old first-grade teacher with a heart of gold and feet of clay. She babysits her niece on weekends and owns a rabbit named Bunny Foo Foo. Fear has dominated her life, and she’s learning to trust in God rather than her own weakness.

Nick Walsh was Tiffany’s high school sweetheart until he joined the Marines and disappeared from her life. Now, he’s back, a widower with an almost-five year old daughter in tow. He wants Tiffany back in his life, but his daughter comes first.

Q: What is the oddest or most fun gift you have ever received?

Christina: I honestly don’t remember any odd or fun gifts, but I will share that my daughter and I have a tradition going back to her preschool years. Every year, I give her a snow globe or a special Christmas ornament and she gives me a Willow Tree that corresponds to our lives. Now, the mother-daughter pair are the same height.

Q: What is your Christmas décor color theme this year?

Christina: I always do the same–a tree in almost every room, decorations of some kind in each and every room including towels and candles in the bathrooms. I love Christmas and traditions!

Q: If you have cats or dogs, tell us how they react to the putting up of the Christmas tree. I have cats and they bat the ornaments off. Every. Day.

Christina: My cat, Chessie like the railroad, doesn’t bother the decorations at all (now, I’m afraid we’ve jinxed us).

Q: What are you working on now?

Christina: Shelby, the middle sister in Tiffany’s family, is barely mentioned in Christmas Confusion. Yet, somehow, by the epilogue of the Christmas novella, I wanted to know why she wasn’t a bigger part of her family’s life and why she was on the outskirts looking in–now, we’re going to find out. I hope to have Sweet Summer out by, well, next summer.

Thank you so much, Melony, for hosting me!

You are very welcome Christina and I can’t wait to read this story!

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ABOUT THE BOOK

When Tiffany Marano’s high school sweetheart drove off to join the Marines and never looked back, she swore off men. Now, she’s content to teach at Summer Creek, South Carolina’s local elementary school, lead a Sunday school class, and spend weekends with her niece—until Nick Walsh suddenly reappears wearing a wedding ring and with a daughter in tow. Everything about Tiffany’s calm, quiet life is now one disordered mess.

Nick Walsh comes face to face with Tiffany after all these years, and sparks fly. But not the happy glittering kind, because each of them thinks the other responsible for their estrangement. Before they can work it out, though, Tiffany’s sister disappears. Left with custody of her niece and forced to work with new police detective Nick to find her sister, old feelings begin to resurface. As they start to unravel the truths that left them confused and apart for too long, Nick must learn to let go of his past. But can Tiffany let go of her fear and learn to trust that God isn’t the only one who won’t abandon her?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A member of American Christian Fiction Writers, Christina Sinisi writes stories about families, both the broken and blessed. Her works include a semi-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest and the American Title IV Contest where she appeared in the top ten in the Romantic Times magazine. By day, she is a psychology professor and lives in the Lowcountry of South Carolina with her husband and two children and loves a good cooking challenge.

 CONNECT WITH THE AUTHOR:

Facebook: Christina Sinisi

Twitter: www.twitter.com/ChristinaSinisi 

Website: http://www.ChristinaSinisi.com

Instagram: csinisi123

Melony Teague is a freelance writer who believes everyone has a story to tell. As co-author of As the Ink Flows, she loves to inspire and motivate others through her written words. With foamy lattes in-hand, she writes Contemporary Romance with a dash of humor. Watch for her debut,  A Promise to Keep out Jan 2020. Though she has no hobbies outside of reading, writing, and eating chocolate, she is a member of ACFW and teaches seniors in her community to write their memoirs. She confesses with no shame that she has a strong belief that pumpkin pie is an acceptable breakfast food since it’s mostly vegetables. Melony was born in South Africa and now lives in the melting pot that is Toronto with her husband, their two teenagers, and two cats who think they’re humans.