Robin, welcome to BookCookCraft. Thanks for agreeing to ‘book and cook’ with us. First, the book part, then we’ll dive into that wonderful chocolate cake recipe you sent over.

(Leave a comment for a chance at winning a copy of Robin’s book Ruby Red).

Beginning, middle, or end? What part of a novel is your favorite part to write? Why?

I love writing the beginning of my books the most. It’s where my characters come alive and take on, sometimes surprising, personalities. The conflict is also revealed at this time. There is a large amount of action and reaction/talking/movement; the beat of the book begins now. Reader’s form opinions. I hope they will be drawn into the plot and care deeply about my characters—event the off-beat ones. Hopefully they will love the heroine and bond with her on many levels.  Perhaps it will be like meeting a new friend, or relative they never knew. The hardest chapter to write is also always the first one for me. I try too hard and it becomes clumsy at times.

If you could be any character in fiction, whom would you be?

I would be Winnie the Pooh. Winnie has an open heart and a mind filled with simple wisdom that speaks volumes. Such as; “If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together keep me in your heart, I’ll stay there forever” or “It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn’t use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like “What about lunch?””

Given a choice, would you go see a movie or read a book?

This is going to sound terrible, especially coming from a teacher and an author, but I would rather see a movie. I love sitting in a dark theater and being entertained … although I do love being carried away by the words in a book just as much.

If you were a type of food, what type of food would you be?

I would be a flaky dessert.

In the news story of your life, what would the headline say?

Robin Jansen Shope did her best to lighten hearts and to be a true friend.

What is the best advice you ever received?

It’s another quote…this one is about writing… “Writing isn’t like brain surgery where you have to get it right the first time.”

And of course, please share your favorite recipe.

It is Dark Chocolate Cake…thanks Martha Stewart this recipe comes from you!

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pans
• 1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa (spooned and leveled), plus more for pans
• 2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups packed light-brown sugar
• 2 large eggs plus 2 large egg yolks, room temperature
• 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup low-fat buttermilk
• Dark-Chocolate Ganache

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter two 8-inch round cake pans; dust with cocoa, tapping out excess. Line bottom of each pan with a round of parchment paper; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
2. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition; beat in chocolate and vanilla. With mixer on low, alternately add flour mixture in three parts and buttermilk in two, beginning and ending with flour mixture.
3. Divide batter between prepared pans; smooth tops. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of a cake comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes. Cool in pans 15 minutes; run a knife around edge of each pan, and invert cakes onto a wire rack to cool completely.
4. Set a rimmed baking sheet upside down on a work surface. Place one cake on sheet, and spread top with 1/3 of ganache. Place second cake on top, and spread remaining ganache over top and sides of cake. Using two wide metal spatulas, carefully transfer frosted cake to a serving platter.

Thank you so much, Robin. You’ve got me licking my lips, and wishing I hadn’t sworn off chocolate cake (and flaky desserts).

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About the Author

I am proud to say that I am an educator with five teaching certificates and twenty-five years of classroom experience. My day job is as the Special Education Coordinator at the Denton County Juvenile Justice System for at-risk kids. By night I am an avid reader and a compulsive, schizophrenic writer. My two grown children and grandson are the loves of my life, along with my cocker spaniel Cooper and Russian Blue cat, Lexie, whom I share a writing space with. A small town near Dallas, Texas is my home.

To date, my literary works include approximately two hundred articles in magazines such as Live, Lookout, Mennonite, Christian Reader, Decision, and Breakthrough. My short stories are found in book collections such as A Match Made in Heaven, Stories from the Heart, The Evolving Woman, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and in the New York Times Bestseller, In The Arms of Angels. One of these shorts, Mom’s Last Laugh, was re-enacted for a PAX-TV program: It’s a Miracle.

I co-authored three fiction novels, The Chase, The Replacement, and The Candidate. Then I  went on to write Wildcard, The Christmas Edition, The Valentine Edition, and The Easter Edition. The Christmas Edition will be released as a movie, Journey to Paradise by Salty Earth Pictures. Ruby Red is my first young adult book and first book with Sparklesoup LLC.

About the Book

Ruby Red is a fictionalized tale of a true event. Homeless children roamed the streets of New York City from the late 1800s through the 1930s. Death and disease were heaped upon poverty and overcrowding, causing thousands of children to be abandoned and left to fend for themselves. Eleven-year-old Ruby is taken in as a maid. Believing life holds more for her than washing someone s clothes, she makes a risky move by faking insanity. After being expelled from the household, Ruby sneaks onto the Orphan Train. With her best friend, a cockroach named Red, housed in a canning jar, Ruby searches for a place to call home and runs into adventure and heartbreak. Both an enigma and a young teen, she is the perfect reflection of how life once was in America. Ruby embodies goodness, and simplicity of truth; a rare gem which bespeaks her name. Softened a bit through suffering she refuses to be hardened and keeps believing that the world holds a special place for her. Written beautifully by author Robin Jansen Shope for young teens and adults, the indomitable spirit of Ruby Red triumphs and will live in your heart far beyond the pages of the book.

Read a quick blurb from Chapter 1 of Ruby Red. And please do visit Robin at http://write2robinshope.blogspot.com/ or befriend her on FaceBook.

Leave a comment for a chance to win a copy. Please include your email address. Thanks.

ps. click the book cover to visit Amazon.com. More info and endorsements there.

To this day I don’t remember the old man’s name, though I’m sure he was a distant cousin of some sort. That’s the nature of small-town life. Everyone’s related. In my little girl’s memory, the old man had lived a rickety life in an old rickety house the color of ashes down the road past Mr. Fred Springs’s store where my sisters and I bought penny candy by the ton. He meant nothing to me. But to others he had been someone, done something worthy of an honor beyond my childish comprehension. Many had come, like my parents, to huddle under that Rowson Funeral Home canopy and be sad over his passing.

Opposite the old man’s house there grew corn, high and green on the day the hearse carrying his body pulled down the dusty road to the little graveyard in the middle of that field. My oldest sister had told me that if I stared at the long black car I would die. I believed her, half expecting to drop dead that very day with all those people dressed in black all around. But I couldn’t stop staring.

There were seven men, though, that didn’t wear mourner’s black. They wore uniforms and carried long guns. Three times they raised their guns with such crisply hypnotic movements and shot high over the old man’s house. Three times, seven shots that left a thunder banging in my chest. Three times, seven shots were hurled across the unknown. Faceless, purposed, quickly growing cold. Even today, I marvel at those soldiers, keeping such emotionless faces in the midst of such sorrow. And like a small child scared of a long black car, I marvel at those twenty-one bullets, detached and duty-bound.

© 2000 Linda Leigh Hargrove,
excerpt from ‘Graveyards of My Childhood’
[a work in progress]

Here’s my recipe for Ranch Dressing. Look ma, no MSG.

• 1/2 cup mayo
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon vegetable oil
• 1/2 teaspoon dried chives
• 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon dried dill
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon black pepper.

Mix all ingredients in a two-cup container and seal with a lid. Chill for at least an hour. I like mixing the dry ingredients ahead and storing them in a zip baggie until I’m ready to mix in the wet ingredients. The dressing does store nicely in the fridge for up to three weeks, if you can keep it away from your family that long.

It’s great for dipping veges in too. Enjoy.