Featured Interview With Victoria Benchley
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
Victoria Benchley lives with her husband of over twenty years and their two children on the West Coast of the United States. She grew up reading the classics and counts Dickens and the Bronte Sisters as her favorite authors. After a career in corporate America spanning public accounting, cash management, and real estate investments, at national and international firms, she chose to become a stay-at-home mom and full time taxi cab driver for her children. She is a Christian and enjoys quilting, cooking, and traveling (road trips included!), as well as reading and writing. Victoria is the proud owner of a quirky mutt who inspired the Mr. Lincoln character in the Duncan Dewar Mysteries. Come football season, she can be found most Sunday afternoons enjoying an NFL game.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I read the classics, with my mother, from an early age. She devised a scheme to get me interested in books by volunteering to do my chores if I would read to her while she worked in my stead. Guess what? She chose Vanity Fair as our first endeavor and it worked! She did the dishes while I stumbled over words in British literature. Thankfully, she possessed enough patience to endure through countless novels and my lifelong love of reading and writing began.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I still enjoy the classics most of all. Right now, I’m in the middle of The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins and I’ve tried to pass on my love of Dickens to my two boys. In addition to the Brontes and Jane Austen, I’m a fan of Carlos Ruiz Zafon and David McCullough. I like just about any genre, including non-fiction, as long as the story in entertaining and unique. I gather my inspiration from many places. Recently, unusual antiques have given me ideas and they play an important role in the book I am now writing.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest book is The Christmas Contest. Fifth in the Duncan Dewar Mystery series, this novel proves a departure as it is more of a romantic comedy than straight up mystery. A crime still needs solving, but the focus is on the escapades of the Dewars and their friends during Christmas and Hogmanay in a small Scottish village. Ancient traditions and fun abound in this humorous tale. I began writing the Christmas Contest immediately after finishing The Laird’s Labyrinth, and it continues where that title leaves off.
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