Author Interview – Nana Prah
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If you remember, I spotlighted Nana Prah’s new release, Midwife to Destiny earlier this month. As promised, I now have her in the hot seat and she has some grilling to look forward to.
Giveaway
If you haven’t yet had a chance to enter her giveaway, it’s still going on! Click on the link below to find out how to win a $20 gift card.
1. Hi Nana, and welcome to my blog! Since we share the same editor, I’ll start with a writing-related question before we dig into your new release. What’s did Zee obsess *cough* I mean focus on during content edits? (My Achilles Heel was excessive use of passive voice, aka “was” and “were”).
I’m happy to be here Tara. Oh my goodness I thought I was the only one with the “was” issue. Plus, Zee is adamant when it comes to the “show don’t tell” aspect of writing. If you didn’t know how to show before, you darn well will when she gets through with you. I love my whip cracking editor, she’s made me a better writer.
2. I love her too (and she even let me sneak in a few "were"s). So that was my attempt to make this a serious author interview. Let’s move on to the good stuff. A birdie told me your romance centers around a doctor and a nurse—can you tell me more about them?
I suppose you want to hear about them tearing each other’s clothes off in the doctor’s lounge when they first meet, like on ER. Didn’t happen. They are too grounded for those kinds of sexual shenanigans (I have always wanted to use that word), but the drama is high when it comes to other aspects. Ora is a fantastic ER nurse who can handle anything that comes her way, well, almost. Jason is a fine ass (I hope I can say ass, here) doctor who is laid low by an extremely stubborn woman.
3. As a devout Grey's Anatomy fan, I love it when doctors get laid low, pun intended. Okay, I'm trying to be serious here. The concepts of duty and honor tend to vary from culture to culture. What exactly was expected of Ora that prompted her to return to Ghana after meeting Jason? Are these expectations typical of Ghanaian society?
Marriage is a gigantic deal here in Ghana. It’s an integral part of the culture. In fact many people don’t think a female is a woman until she’s gotten married and given birth. Ora has fallen into the pressure of this thinking and decided to marry a man she respects, but doesn’t love. She leaves Jason to fulfill this promise. It broke my heart to write it, but the story had to be told.
4. As much as I love learning about different cultures (I really do), I tend to have a one-track mind when it comes to romances. Are you at liberty to divulge details about Jason and Ora’s first kiss?
Here’s a snippet of their first kiss *giggling*:
Moving away a little, he peered into her eyes. She gathered all of her energy to loosen her arms from around him. In a flash, his lips touched hers in an electric kiss. Their soft fullness glided over hers and when she kissed him back without hesitation, he moaned, sending a rush of heat through her.
Reality crashed in and she pulled away.
He rubbed the back of his fingers under her chin. “I’ve been waiting to do that for three years. Have a good night.”
5. Oh dear, it seems I need to read your book to find out if she did have a good night. One last question before you go – How did you get your start as an author? What was your path to publication like?
I wrote a book about five years ago and sent it out. It got shot down. I wrote another one called Love Through Time, this time letting beta readers help me strengthen it, sent it in to a query request on Savvy Authors and it got picked up by Black Opal Books. And now here I am as a multi-published author showing off my latest release with Decadent Publishing.
Since new release month is a busy time for every author, I’ll let Nana run off. For more details about the book and author, just scroll down. Comments are always much appreciated!
Midwife to Destiny (Destiny Series)
Ghanaian nurse Aurora ‘Ora’ Aikins never expected to find the love of her life while on vacation in South Africa. Engaged to another and believing that love has no place in her life, she returns to Ghana, and puts duty and honor first.
Three years later, Dr. Jason Lartey still can’t get Ora out of his mind or his heart. After learning she never married, he takes a risk and moves to Ghana hoping to rekindle what they started. His sudden appearance in Ora’s Emergency Department sends sparks flying all over again.
They’re in the same country, working in the same hospital, and together but distance creeps between them. Can they make their destined love one for the ages?
Buy Links: Amazon | Decadent | ARe | Barnes & Noble
About Nana Prah
Nana Prah was born in Ghana, West Africa, raised in the US and currently resides in Ghana where she loves her job as a writer and nurse educator. She has been writing since she can remember (in her journal) and has been an avid reader of romance novels since the eighth grade. She has finally been able to utilize the years and years of inadvertent research into writing her own romance novels where love always conquers all.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Midwife to Destiny:
Ora focused on putting one foot in front of the other as if she were a one-year-old learning how to walk. After turning the corner and seeing the back of his head, she froze. She would know that head anywhere. He’d grown his hair out a little, but his adorable, Will Smith ears gave him away. Initiating the process of pivoting and sprinting out of the ED unnoticed sprang to mind when he turned around and his gaze caught hers.
The air became charged with tension and neither of them moved. Her heart threatened to pop out of her chest with the force of each beat. The nurses stood between them, looking back and forth as if they watched a tennis match. They didn’t bother to hide their expressions of curiosity.
They’d never seen Ora behave in such a manner. Not cool as a cucumber super nurse. Like herself, they kept looking at the new doctor just because of his tall, broad-shouldered, gorgeous stature. The past three years had matured him, adding a few lines around his eyes and the new feature of a goatee with a moustache changed his countenance a little. But otherwise, the same man she’d met three years ago, at least in the physical sense, stood before her.
After an eternity, Ora snapped back to attention. “Akwaaba, Dr. Lartey. Welcome to the ward.” Madam Professional stuck out her hand for a handshake.
Her words seemed to drag him out of his own stupor. “Uh….”
She had rendered the man speechless. Ora’s gracious nature—that’s what she blamed it on, anyway—took pity on him and she touched his shoulder. The contact sent sensual awareness through her and she recoiled her hand.
“Hello, Aurora. Please forgive me. It’s just that I’m a little surprised to see you.”
“Not as much as I am,” she muttered, attempting to squash both the joy bubbling up inside of her at seeing him again and the overwhelming sadness of what she’d been missing for so long.
“Pardon me?” he asked.
“I didn’t expect to see you here. It’s a surprise to me, too.” She tried to smile, but it came out contorted, as if she’d been able to have a painful, rocky bowel movement after being constipated for seven days.
