Character Spotlight + Giveaway: Maude Welling from My Heart Belongs on Mackinac Island (Carrie Fancett Pagels)

Welcome book lovers! Today I’m introducing you to Maude Welling, the heroine from Carrie Fancett Pagels’ new release My Heart Belongs on Mackinac Island.

Maude Welling

Age: 21

Brief physical description: Long wavy golden-brown hair, a little above average height, pretty with a beautiful sweet smile and is average build.

Five words that describe Maude’s personality: Determined, hard-working, naïve, loyal, practical

The Grand Hotel

Inspiration for Maude: The original character for Maude was much different. I had a consultant advise me to make her “less crazy” – her words, not mine! She was a much more imaginative person, more nervous, more OCD and influenced by others. So I had to back away from her and make her a version more toned down. I’d say there is a lot of normal Yooper woman in her!

Background: Her grandmother, Jacqueline Cadotte Swaine, was from a very long line of Islanders and people from the Straits of Mackinac. But Jacqueline’s husband, Maude’s grandfather, was from the South. Their two sons fought on either side of the Civil War – one dead, one presumed dead. She created provisions in her codicil that she thought would prevent that happening to her descendants.

Is passionate about: Music! Loves music, especially the piano!

Strengths/weaknesses: She’s fantastic with numbers. Accounting comes easily to her. She’s asthmatic but doesn’t really want to “think” about it too much and consequently her father does the worrying for her.

Inspiration for the Winds of Mackinac Inn

Greatest struggle: Her mother died the previous year and she’s struggling with her father’s odd entrenched behavior and his lack of supervision over her brother – so she’s stepped in to watch Jack more.

Greatest accomplishment: She’s a high school graduate and she knows some German.

Most embarrassing moment: I can’t say, but it involves her asthma.

Regrets: She wishes she’d been honest with Greyson and with herself – on the other hand she’d not really known what mature love looked like.

Her most admirable quality: She’s generous and she helps the needy and infirm but she never talks about it.

The thing that attracts people to Maude is: She’s normally pretty wide open – honest. So that makes her subterfuge at the Grand Hotel all the harder on her.

Spends her free time: Chasing down her brother, engaged in church activities, playing piano, and reading.

Saying to live by: Live and forgive.

Favourite Bible verse:
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” ~ John 16:33

Most influential person in her life: Her mother had been.

Maude is most relaxed when… Ben is playing the piano – he’s a virtuoso.

Maude’s idea of a good time is… A picnic somewhere scenic on the island.

In a room full of strangers, Maude would… Try to make everyone else feel comfortable.

If Maude could talk to the author, she would say… thanks for bringing me to life, Mom!

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~ About the Book ~

Although the Winds of Mackinac Inn has been in her mother’s family for generations, Maude Welling’s father refuses to let her run it without the guidance of a husband. So she seeks to prove her worth and independence by working incognito as a maid at the Grand Hotel.

Undercover journalist Ben Steffans, posing as a wealthy industrialist, pursues a story about impoverished men chasing heiresses at the famed hotel.  While undercover, he becomes attracted to an intriguing maid. By an act of heroism Ben endears himself to the closed-mouthed islanders—including Maude—and he digs deep for his story.

But when scandal threatens, will the growing love between Maude and Ben be scuttled when truths are revealed?

Barbour Publishing // Amazon // Barnes & Noble // CBD // Book Depository // Goodreads

~ About the Author ~

ECPA-bestselling author Carrie Fancett Pagels, Ph.D., is the award-winning author of a dozen Christian historical romances. Twenty-five years as a psychologist didn’t “cure” her overactive imagination! A self-professed “history geek,” she resides with her family in the Historic Triangle of Virginia but grew up as a “Yooper.” Carrie loves to read, bake, bead, and travel – but not all at the same time!

Connect with Carrie
Website // Overcoming With God // Colonial Quilts
Facebook // Twitter // Pinterest // Goodreads

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~ Giveaway ~

Carrie has graciously offered to send one lucky winner a copy of My Heart Belongs on Mackinac Island. Click here to enter the Rafflecopter giveaway: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/bd61d44b4/?

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