Karen Swan – Twisty Holiday Romance

A publishing disaster led romance author Karen Swan into the schedule that’s made her an international bestseller, with two books a year – a summer one and a wintry snow-bound Christmas one that regularly make the UK top popular fiction lists. Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler, and in Binge Reading today Karen talks about Midnight in the Snow, her latest Christmas blockbuster, set in a ritzy Austrian ski resort, as well as her new five-book historical fiction series, launching in 2022. We’ve got three eBook copies of Midnight in the Snow to give away to three lucky readers. Make sure your name is there in the draw and be in to win, either by entering on our website www.thejoysofbingereading.com/giveaway or on our Binge Reading Facebook page. ENTER DRAW FOR KAREN BOOK As many of you already know, we have recently introduced Binge Reading on Patreon where we are offering fun and exclusive bonus content in return for a small contribution to the cost of producing the show. I’m delighted to welcome on board a new Patreon supporter, Lonneka. It means a huge amount to me, Lonneke to know you enjoy the show enough to ensure that we can continue. Your contributions pay for sound engineering, transcribing, and production costs, while my time in researching and hosting the show is all still for free. If you would like to join Lonneka and other supporters we’ve got and get exclusive bonus content, like Karen’s answers to the Getting-to-Know-You five quickfire questions, then become a Binge Reading on Patreon supporter today for as little as the cost of a cup of coffee a month. SUBSCRIBE TO BINGE READING ON PATREON Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode: The 'disaster' that became a breakthrough How Karen found her 'sweet spot' in fiction Her fascination with the Outer Hebrides The Italian writer she can't get enough of How Lance Armstrong inspired her latest book The international appetite for snowy Christmas stories Where to find Karen Swan:  Website:  https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/karen-swan/6006 Instagram: @swannywrites Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1112862.Karen_Swan What follows is a "near as" transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions. But now, here’s Karen. Introducing women's fiction author Karen Swan Jenny Wheeler: Hello there Karen, and welcome to the show. It's great to have you with us. Karen Swan - twisty romances with family secrets and deep mysteries Karen Swan: Hi Jenny. Thank you for having me today. Jenny Wheeler: You have got a lovely program that you're following, a very particular publishing program. You've got 20 books that are international best sellers, highly successful, but you do two books a year, one in the summer and one at Christmas. Tell us how that evolved. Did you start out with that right from the beginning? Karen Swan: No, definitely not. It all came about from a disaster. I had written my third book. I’d had a two-book deal for my first two books and I came up with an idea for my third book for my new contract. I was very nervous about it because it was slightly different from my first two books, but I felt strongly that for the first two books I'd been slightly copying other people in terms of what did I think was going to sell well to the market rather than telling the stories I wanted to tell. Karen Swan on finding the sweet spot - books she really wanted to write When it came to my new deal I had this story idea that was slightly different to the first two books, but I felt I had to go for it because I felt I couldn't sustain a career writing books that I didn't really want to write but felt I should. So, I took a punt and presented them with this book idea. That book became Christmas at Tiffany's and it was my first best seller. It did incredibly well,