Elaina Morrison has loved Neil McManus her whole life. She doesn’t remember a time when she didn’t love him. Through heartbreaking tragedy and years of separation, her love holds true…until life stomps all over her heart, shattering her perfect dream, teaching her how hard it is to let go.

Real life doesn’t have anything on romantic dreams though, as these two have learned over and over again. It sucks big time, leaving painful scars in its wake.

But Neil isn’t giving up. He’s a soldier who has endured years of longing and sacrifice to wait for his girl. He’s fought his way through battles before, and this is one he can’t afford to lose, on any level. Neil has a plan. He’s going in fighting, to make Elaina see what he already knows…That she will forever be his Cherry Girl…

Source: Amazon.

Tell us the story behind this novel.
Cherry Girl is a story that started out as an inclusion into an anthology for charity. The story was to be no more than 10K words, and I thought that by using side characters from my Blackstone Affair series would be a good way to entice people to buy the book. Well, I began to write the story of Elaina Morrison and Neil McManus, and how they came to be engaged as they are throughout all three books of Blackstone Affair…and quickly realized I would not be able to use Cherry Girl for the anthology. It required waaaaaaay more than 10K words to tell their story properly, so I had to use something else for the anthology, and the idea of Cherry Girl as a full length novel was born. This sort of thing has happened to me before. I am organic as I write, so ideas come to me and stories end up expanding far more than I ever imagined them to.

What genre is it?
Firstly I would say Contemporary Romance, with some New Adult elements and erotic romance, of course.

We interviewed you about The Blackstone Affair series; you say this story is connected to that?
It is a full-length, standalone/spin-off. The main characters are employees at Blackstone Security International. Neil McManus is Ethan’s Vice President of the company and Chief Operations Officer, second in command. Elaina Morrison is the receptionist/translator there and later becomes good friends with Brynne and helps her to plan her wedding to Ethan.

Yes, we remember Elaina.  Now that she’s got her own novel, tell us a little about her.
Elaina meets Neil when her older brother befriends him and brings him to their house for dinner. In her ten year old mind, Elaina claims Neil as “the boy she plans on marrying someday.” Elaina and Neil maintain a platonic friendship over the years and don’t become romantically involved until one of Neil’s leaves from the army when he is 25 and she is 18, almost 19 years old.

And what do we need to know about Neil?
He and Ethan met in the Special Forces and were fellow officers together, both holding the rank of Captain. They survived Afghanistan together and once they left the military, met up again to start Blackstone Security International together. Neil and Ethan are not only work colleagues but very close friends. Ethan says he trusts Neil with his life, and therefore can trust him with Brynne’s life as well.

We’re curious about something; you’re an American, but you write these great British male characters.
I spend as much time as I can there. I have had a lifelong love of Britain and am a self-proclaimed Anglophile…always have been, and have just accepted the fact about myself. I am a Jane Austen and Charles Dickens fanatic and collect old editions of books by those authors. I’ve been to London enough times that I felt I knew the city well enough to set my stories there and to describe the setting for the reader. One of the best compliments I receive is when a fan meets me in person and is surprised that I am an American.

We know how that fan felt; we had to double-check your bio to make sure you were American ourselves!
We’ve been reading the positive reviews for Cherry Girl – and there are many, many of them –and wondering what kind of pressure such unanimous praise puts on an author.
The glowing reviews have been a bonus for Cherry Girl, and as things in life often are, very ironic that my highest rated book is the one I wrote faster than any previous work I’ve done. Due to my father’s gravely ill health this fall, my writing schedule was severely impacted. I then had a 10 day London/Dublin trip I was committed to, and found myself with a manuscript with less than 20K complete when the plane touched down. I was left with no choice but to write over the course of the trip. On tour buses, in hotel rooms at night, and on the plane ride back to the US. When I arrived back home, I wrote the rest of the book in about 10 days—over 50K—in that short of a time. I had the support of my beta readers and phenomenal editor during that messy blur or I would have never made my deadline of November 30th. By the time I hit “publish” I was just hoping the thing made sense, and that people might buy it. I never expected to get such lovely reviews about the story. Cherry Girl has taught me that I can write well under pressure, and although I don’t relish repeating such a hellish writing schedule, I know I can write faster than I have in the past.

Tell us about yourself.
I am a former teacher in the California public school system. I taught 1st grade for over twenty years until I resigned just over a year ago to write full time. I’m married and have two teenage boys, ages 13 and 17. I am a lifelong reader but miss that most about my new job. I just don’t have the time to read like I used to. What I love most about being a writer is the freedom to create worlds for my characters. It’s as fun as reading and I do find it completely surreal that people read my books and tell me they think of the characters as real people from my words.

What’s the best way to keep in touch with you online? Do you have a website? Do you use social media?
Social Media? You mean the devil addiction of Facebook and Twitter? Why yes, I do indeed partake. Part of being an author today, whether indie or traditionally published, is that you have to do your own promo. You have to look at social media as part of your job. It has to be addressed daily and you have to be active. The more you are involved, the more new readers you can reach. Best to find me on Facebook Raine-Miller-Romance, and on Twitter @Raine_Miller. You can also follow my blog from my website http://RaineMiller.com and contact me through there.

What else are you working on? What else should we be looking forward to?
I have the 4th Blackstone Affair book coming at the end of February 2014, Rare and Precious Things which is about Ethan and Brynne. After that one, I have Priceless, the story of Ethan’s cousin, Ivan Everley, and Brynne’s roommate / bestie, Gabrielle Hargreave. The two met on the night of the Mallerton gala at the end of All In, but the reader was never privy to the circumstances of their meeting. Let’s just say it was…steamy.

After Priceless, I will be working on another historical called The Muse. This one will take us back in time to 1812 where Ivan Everley’s ancestor, Graham Everley, is the current Lord Rothvale, and mentor of Tristan Mallerton, my fictional master painter of all the paintings described in my books.

I also have a project in the works for a book about, Ian Morrison, Elaina’s brother from Cherry Girl. As I was writing CG, I was hit with the story for Ian, and thus the idea for another book was born. I’d also like to do some more with Neil and Elaina at some point too. We’ll see how it all goes. At this rate, I have material for about ten books. Yeah, I will be at this for a while.