How did you come up with the title and how much say did you have on the cover design?
The title came quite organically from the book. Since most of it takes place in the wilds of Siberia and the main character was feeling “frozen” in her own unhappy life until she travels to Siberia, Her Frozen Wild seemed like a perfect title. By the way, I have to have a title before I can start a novel. Most of the time I’ll come up with a good title fairly quickly, but if I can’t, then I can’t write the book. My husband Mario and I got to design the cover, which was a lot of fun. I always knew I wanted a white cover. I liked the starkness of it. I got on dreamstime.com and saw this photo by Tyler Olson of polar bear tracks; I knew that photo would be a perfect cover.
Do you have a favorite line or excerpt that you would like to share from your book?
I do especially like when Ursula goes back in time and lives with the Scythians. Some scholars believe the Scythians were actually the models for the stories about Amazons. Once Ursula has lived with the Scythians for a time, she really comes into her own. When she first meets them, however, it’s a little hairy. Just before this scene, Ursula is in a cave in Siberia in the 18th century with Sergei, her lover from a couple of different periods in time. Although she doesn’t know it yet in this scene, she’s just gone back in time over 2,000 years.
Ursula hurried out of the cave and into chaos.
Was it day or night?
The air shook with — what?
Smoke. It was smoke choking out the day.
“Ahhhh!” Something raced by her so close she fell to the ground.
She could smell the black earth and the smoke.
She stood again. The smoke whirled clear for a moment and she saw — in a split second — a black horse charging toward her—about to run her down. A black horse with a red sash across its chest and gold as a faceplate. The horse stopped less than a foot from her — rearing and screaming. Ursula put up her hands to protect herself from flailing hooves.
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