[The Legrand 01] • Call Me Ana · A Novel

Illiterate runaway Ana Marie hides her true identity from everyone around her to preserve the stable life she’s built. She pieces together a home for herself, but life begins to pass her by one mundane day after another. She’s never been in love. She’s never even felt the excitement of a heart-aching crush. That all changes when a handsome man from out of town shows up at her work.

The chemistry between them is unmistakable. There’s just one problem: he doesn’t know who she really is, and if he finds out, it could shatter her world and put him in danger. How will she keep her new love, and keep him safe?

Caution: This book contains violence and is not meant for young readers.

* **Interview with the Author:** *

**Why did you write Call Me Ana: A Love Story?**

I didn’t intend to write a romance as I wasn’t a huge fan of the genre at the time (I have since seen the light). But the characters, especially the main character Ana Marie, were so vivid and real to me that I couldn’t possibly ignore them. The story evolved as I spent countless hours day dreaming and I soon felt a pull to write it all down. I had probably been taking myself seriously as a writer for a year or two at that point, but Call Me Ana is the story that truly made me a writer. I rewrote scenes to happen several different ways, and even if I didn’t have a place in the story for a scene, but couldn’t get it out of my head, I still wrote it. This method produced a huge amount of words, but I didn’t find any of it a waste of time. To this day, I still enjoy going back and reading some of the extra scenes that didn’t make the cut.

The decision to publish came in an epiphany when I realized if I didn’t put it out there in the world, the characters would die with me. This thought overcame any of the shyness I felt at putting such a personal story out there. And so here I am, still chipping away at finishing the series and slowly polishing it up to get it ready for publication.

**What genre is Call Me Ana?**

While it is a love story, Call Me Ana doesn’t seem to fit neatly into any romance subgenre. It has some thriller aspects to it as I wanted to write a suspenseful piece to drive the story forward. It is contemporary as it falls in modern times, although the first book could be classed as new age since it begins when Ana and Grant are young adults. There is some tragedy that Ana Marie must overcome, but ultimately, one of my goals was to write a compelling (and steamy) romance between two good, sweet characters. They both have their wild streaks, which will come out as the series progresses, but Grant, Ana’s love interest, is not a bad boy in the sense that their relationship never walks a line of abuse.

**What other books are like Call Me Ana?**

Call Me Ana fits in with other books where a character overcomes a traumatic, painful past laced with abuse and comes out stronger for it.