So excited for this new series... The Number of Love by Roseanna M. White (Interview & #Giveaway)


This book is one of my highly anticipated books this year and I'm so looking forward
to reading it! I'm welcoming the author to my blog today to answer a few questions. It's
a really fun interview, so definitely check that out as well as the tour giveaway below...

The Number of Love
(Codebreakers #1)
By Roseanna M. White
Christian Historical Romance, Suspense
Paperback & ebook, 368 Pages
June 4th 2019 by Bethany House

Summary

Three years into the Great War, England’s greatest asset is their intelligence network—field agents risking their lives to gather information, and codebreakers able to crack every German telegram. Margot De Wilde thrives in the environment of the secretive Room 40, where she spends her days deciphering intercepted messages. But when her world is turned upside down by an unexpected loss, for the first time in her life numbers aren’t enough.

Drake Elton returns wounded from the field, followed by an enemy that just won’t give up. He’s smitten quickly by the too-intelligent Margot, but how to convince a girl who lives entirely in her mind that sometimes life’s answers lie in the heart?

Amidst biological warfare, encrypted letters, and a German spy who wants to destroy not just them, but others they love, Margot and Drake will have to work together to save them all from the very secrets that brought them together.

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Author Interview

THE NUMBER OF LOVE is the first book in your new Codebreakers series. What inspired this new series?

As I researched England of WW1 for the Shadows Over England series, I was SO intrigued by Room 40! They were England’s cryptography department, under the wing of the Admiralty’s Intelligence Division but so secretive that most of the Admiralty itself didn’t know they existed. They spent the war intercepting and decoding pretty much every German telegram. So OBVIOUSLY these people needed some novels written about them, LOL. I introduced Margot, my fictional codebreaker, as the teenage sister of the hero of A Song Unheard and knew I wanted to write her story someday. I was super excited when my publisher agreed. =)

Would you tell us a little more about the main characters?

Margot was such a fun character to write! Though young, she’s crazy, scary brilliant. Her character was actually inspired by the question of “What if the smartest person in the world was a thirteen-year-old girl?” LOL. In this story she’s eighteen in terms of years, but she gets along better with forty-year-olds. And she thinks—and prays—in numbers. Every glance at the world is seen in those terms. Streets are parallel lines, she tries to calculate the path of raindrops on the glass, one of her favorite pastimes is figuring how many bricks/stones/blocks are in each building she passes… Fun, right? Ahem. In social situations, she’s awkward at best, and romance isn’t something she has any interest in. So it’s a surprise to no one more than herself when Drake Elton comes on the scene and actually makes her take notice.

Where Margot is happiest at her desk with numbers, Drake is a man of action. He’s working for the Admiralty as a spy in Spain, where his grandfather lives, trying to counteract the moves of one of the Germans’ agents—his “opposite number.” But when a mission goes wrong, he ends up injured and sent home to England to recuperate with his sister…and her new best friend, Margot De Wilde. He’d been intrigued by Margot from the first moment they met, and all the warnings he received about her just intrigued him all the more. He quickly figures out that if he means to win her heart, there’s only one way to do it: with numbers and codes.

Was this first book in this new series more or less challenging than the start of your other series, and why or why not?

I did have some trouble getting this one started—until my critique partner pointed out that (gasp) maybe the main characters should actually like each other in the beginning, LOL. I originally had Drake intrigued from the get-go, but Margot annoyed by his attention. It worked much better when she saw something in him that she admired too. And Margot was definitely a challenging character to get right in general!

Did you find any interesting facts when researching THE NUMBER OF LOVE?

Oh my gracious, too many to count! There were so many fascinating stories connected to the intelligence division and Room 40. I put some of them into the novel—the odd ways they recovered codebooks and the anthrax threat (I had no idea that was used for biological warfare so long ago!) were just a couple.

Can you tell us a little about how the cover was picked and how it relates to the story?

I love this story!!! So, I always give them my ideas for the cover, and they always do a fabulous job…but generally not exactly what I suggested. This time, they did EXACTLY what I envisioned. My editor sent me a candid shot from the photo shoot on my birthday (how cool is that?! And he knew it was my birthday and even said, “here’s your gift from us” LOL) so I knew they were doing what I’d asked. When they sent the final a couple weeks later, though, I was just in heaven. It was exactly what I wanted. Margot, wearing the sweater her mother had knit for her, standing at a rain-spattered window tracing “18” into the fog of the glass. The number plays a huge role in the story…and is, in fact, the number of her love. 😉 It’s just utter perfection.

What is your favorite thing about this story?

I think it would have to be the way faith works in it—that Margot, as a really logical, mathematical creature, approaches God through numbers. Because whatever our language, that’s how God will communicate with us. I’ve explored this theme in a lot of different ways through my books, but this is one of my favorites. At one point in the story, she says something about not knowing what to do with feelings, and Drake points out that she’s always listened to her feelings—it’s just that she feels in numbers. I love that exchange so much.

Can you tell us what or who book two in the Codebreakers series will focus on?

Absolutely! In The Number of Love, we meet Phillip Camden—one of Drake’s old friends who gets recruited to Room 40 when a mysterious tragedy in his Royal Air Corp squadron leaves him facing possible criminal charges. He begrudgingly accepts this second chance…and is so hilariously surly about it, but also fiercely loyal to the few people who still stand beside him, like Drake. The heroine is Arabelle Denler, who we meet very briefly in Number as a nurse in the hospital that Drake is shipped home to.

Do you have any particular habits or snacks you eat when you write?

Two words: Cof. Fee. 😉 My writing time is first thing in the morning. Which is, of course, also my coffee-drinking time.

What is most rewarding to you about being an author?

I have always been one of those people who has to tell stories. More particularly, I have to write them down. I love language and how it works—when I was a kid, I kept a list of “my favorite words” with things like cascade, quagmire, and willowy written down on it. So it’s just so amazing that I get to do this thing that I love, and that God uses it to touch people’s hearts and lives. I tried, for a while, to write mainstream books, but I just couldn’t do it and never actually wanted to pursue it—because I knew that ultimately, this writing thing is me offering my gift back to Him, for His use. I want my every word and chapter and book to be to His glory.

What is one piece of advice you’d give to aspiring authors?

Respect your dream. If you want to do this, work hard at it. Don’t look for short cuts or easy answers or quick solutions. Just as an engineer or a minister study for years, we as writers have to do the same. Because our stories—and our eventual readers—deserve the best.

About the Author


Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award nominated author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she's homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself.

Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books...to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.


Tour Schedule

Follow the tour on JustRead Publicity Tours.

Tour-Wide Giveaway


Grand Prize: Shadows Over England series, The Number of Love, and the Decrypto board game, plus "Mi Alma" necklace (Necklace is 24" chain with a 1" pendant that says "Mi Alma" Spanish for "My Soul". A term of endearment used throughout the book. Handmade by Bookworm Mama)

(3) additional winners of The Number of Love.

Enter via the Rafflecopter giveaway below. Giveaway will begin at midnight June 3, 2019 and last through 11:59 pm June 17, 2019. US only. Winners will be notified within 2 weeks of close of the giveaway and given 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen.

Giveaway is subject to the policies found here.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Will you be reading this? What do you think about the interview?

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