Author Interviews

Email Larita at:
larita@laritaarnold.com    
Toll-Free:
877.355.0462     

Date	Station	Location
3/31/2007	WBER 90.5 FM	Penfield, NY
4/28/06	WHAW 980 AM	Weston, WV
4/17/2006	KRUE-FM 92.1	Waseca, MN
4/14/2006	WKLK 96.5 FM	Cloquet, MN
4/12/2006	Michelle Lee WKFM	Milan, OH
4/3/2006	Brazos Writers Talk KEOS 89.1 FM	Bryan/College Station, TX
3/31/2006	KWAY 99.3 FM The Breakfast Bunch	Waverly, IA
3/28/2006	WBTN Daybreak 1370 AM Southern Vermont College	Bennington, VT
3/21/2006	Chris Young The Breakfast Bunch Oldies 93 WMQX	Greensboro, NC
3/9/2006	Marcia Littlejohn Space and Treasure Coast Radio WGNX FM 997 WGYL 937 Soft Rock	Vero Beach, FL
3/7/2006	David Andrews Newsradio 950 WIBX	Marcy, NY
3/6/2006	Gen Timms Morning Show WBOW - 102.7 FM	Terre Haute, IN
3/1/2006	Dan Collier WDIS-AM News/Talk	Norfolk, MA
2/10/2006	Charlie Profit WXCT AM 990 Talk Radio for Women	Plantsville, CT
11/23/2005	World Talk Radio http://www.worldtalkradio.com Larita joined Cynthia Brian and Susan Jeffers on World Talk Radio, 11/23/2005! Larita Arnold and The Fastest Ship (Click to Listen to the Interview) If you love the lore of pirates, tall ships, mystery and treasure, this is a fun-filled novel for you. Larita is a creative writer who paints pictures with words so that the reader rides the waves and witnesses the action. Her book, The Fastest Ship, is a page turner of intrigue in the azure blue waters of the Caribbean, as well as the chilly parlors of England. Based in the 1860's, her story chronicles the kidnapping by pirates of a young lady, Elena, the daughter of the Governor of Jamaica and the adventures on the high seas that follow. Love, romance, and the loss of memory are weaved through a tale of a charming, debonair, yet cruel pirate and a considerate, integrity- filled English Captain both involved with the same woman. Based on real ships and real places in the Caribbean, Larita has done her homework to create a novel that is a page turner. Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me! Enjoy....	Internet Radio
10/31/2005	Global Talk Radio http://www.globaltalkradio.com	Internet Radio

●Tell us about the story.
The Fastest Ship is a fictional story set against the historical backdrop of the HMS Warrior story, England’s first ironclad warship commissioned in 1861.

But The Fastest Ship also tells the story of Elena (who later becomes Angelica), who is abducted by a notorious pirate and rescued by a British Navy frigate.  The Captain of the frigate is the man who is destined to be the Navy’s representative to the Warrior project.

●What is the origin or inspiration for this story?
My husband served in the Peace Corps in Jamaica, and we went there on our honeymoon 26 years ago.  Since then, we’ve been back many times and have learned a lot about Caribbean history and pirate lore and legend.  The characters started to develop in mind about 10 years ago.  As I researched the ships and locations, the plot line started to develop.  But when I sat down to actually write it last summer, all the flavors and sites and sounds and personalities came alive.

●Why the Warrior?  Why 1861?
I’ve always loved the tall ships, and researching them for the story was a labor of love.  Warrior literally marked the end of the Golden Age of Sail.  In one year, Warrior made every other ship of the line obsolete.  It was a “killer technology” just as we so often experience today.

The first British Governor of Jamaica came to power in 1860, and we have all the turmoil of British Colonization in the Caribbean.

The European Nations made privateering illegal at the Declaration of Paris in 1856.

The American Civil War started in 1861.

So there were a lot of events and issues in that short space of time that merge in this story.

But I don’t want to give the impression that this is a predominately political and military history novel.  This is predominately a love story, “a story of unconditional love under tremendous strain,” as one reviewer said.

●What makes this book unique as compared to other romance novels?
Probably the most unique thing about this book is that men enjoy the story as much as women do, women being the traditional audience for romance novels.  Besides the strong romance themes, there are also strong action and adventure elements in the story.

Men usually comment on Jack, and they usually like him very much.  Women focus on Angelica, relating to her. 

My book, although it has its steamy moments, reflects the values of the Victorian era.  The characters act on their ideas about exclusivity and propriety.

This story is a historical romance story in the sense that Cold Mountain is a historical romance story.

●What do you want readers to take away from this story?
There are several strong themes in this book.  I would say the two major themes are:  finding contentment in marriage and family, and letting love and hope overtake sorrow and loss.  I would hope the story would speak to readers with many, many positive messages about those issues.

The characters in this story seem to be archetypes.  People seem to understand them and like them, perhaps because all of them are part of all of us at least to some extent.

●Tell us more about the characters.
Jack, a British Navy Captain, is accustomed to having the lives of hundreds of men hang in the balance of his words and actions.  He is the kindest, gentlest and wisest of souls, and his men love him for his fairness.  He is a tall, powerful man with great personal power, and inspires good behavior in everyone, just with his presence and expressions.  He is someone you can trust with your life and with your heart.

Angelica is a young girl who has been lost at sea.  Jack’s crew found her adrift in a longboat suffering from a head injury.  She has amnesia and cannot remember anything before she regained consciousness aboard Jack’s ship. 

She is the personification of a theory I’ve had about young women for a long time, that their psyches are something like a blank slate.  At about 16 years old, people start to ascribe traits, abilities, talents on the blank slate of a young girl’s heart.  We come to believe those things about ourselves and begin to act as though everything written on our heart’s slate is absolutely true.

Jack protects Angelica and tries to help her remember, having her take her meals with him in the great cabin and spending a lot of time with her.  He begins to write on her heart, and gives her a new name, Angelica, because she can’t remember her name.  He calls her Angelica, because she is his angel, and he ascribes to her all the best traits in women, which she accepts as true and begins to act out. 

Jack doesn’t realize he is actually programming this woman to love him and be his wife.  Of course he loves her, how can you not love someone who is everything you admire about the opposite sex? 

There is only one little difficulty: Angelica is pregnant.

McGwyer is the antagonist, the pirate.  He has so many great traits, and most readers really like this character.  But he has one serious flaw: he has no moral compass, no conscience.  He lives entirely in the base human nature, with never a higher thought of good and evil, right and wrong.  The choices he made in life brought him to circumstances where he can easily make the wrong moral choices, and eventually he does fall into that trap.

He meets Christine and is attracted to her because she has the one thing he lacks, moral virtue.  As their relationship develops, Christine gives him what he needs most, and it’s what we all need most:  acceptance, tolerance and forgiveness.  But those are costly gifts, and they cost her everything.

And when Christine is taken away, McGwyer loses the forgiveness that could have helped him find his moral path.  Without that, he is truly lost, both morally and spiritually, and he does his worst. 

Whitworth is a tragic lover, who tends toward obsession and dark romance.  He is a Colonel in the Jamaican Royal Guard, the British Governor’s personal band of guards, and he is Justice’s servant in all things, even if it means there will be an unbearable personal cost.  He is truly a moral man.  That is his great strength and also his greatest weakness.  He tends to see everything through a filter of morality, looking for justice in every situation, and always trying to take the “just” path. 

Whitworth was engaged to Christine before she met McGwyer, and he was engaged to Angelica before she was abducted by McGwyer.  McGwyer has taken away every happiness in Whitworth’s life.

And Whitworth took Christine away from McGwyer.

●Where can readers learn more about you and the book?
At http://www.laritaarnold.com, my website.