Today’s author interview guest is Suzy Krause, author of Valencia and Valentine.

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For readers of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, debut author Suzy Krause delivers a quirky, colorful story about love, loss, second chances, and what it means to truly live.

Valencia, a timid debt collector with crippling OCD, is afraid of many things, but the two that scare her most are flying and turning thirty-five. To confront those fears, Valencia’s therapist suggests that she fly somewhere—anywhere—before her upcoming birthday. And as Valencia begins a telephone romance with a man from New York, she suddenly has a destination in mind. There’s only one problem—he might not actually exist.

Mrs. Valentine is an eccentric old woman desperate for company, be it from neighbors, telemarketers, or even the funeral director (when you’re her age, you go to a lot of funerals). So she’s thrilled when the new cleaning girl provides a listening ear for her life’s story—a tale of storybook love and incredible adventures around the world with her husband before his mysterious and sudden disappearance.

The stories of Valencia and Mrs. Valentine may at first appear to have nothing in common…but then again, nothing in life is as straightforward as it seems.

Suzy grew up in the village of Frontier, Saskatchewan, two hours from the nearest McDonald’s, one hour from the nearest movie theatre, half an hour from the nearest swimming pool. She now lives in Regina—the Queen City!—and it has all of those things and she doesn’t really use any of them. It’s small compared to New York, but compared to Frontier, it’s basically a megalopolis.

Suzy Krause is a writer and a music lover. She’s been blogging (here and elsewhere) for over a decade, but she also writes, from time to time, on various arts, entertainment, and lifestyle websites. Valencia and Valentine is her first novel, inspired by her time working as a debt collector in Saskatoon (she received a lot of death threats that summer).

Writing a book has been on her to-do list since she was six-ish, so it’s good that she did it. You’ll be able to read V&V in June 2019, and a second is on its way for July 2020—please hold your horses; these things take time.