A Conversation With Author Cristine Eastin

Cover of the book Love Inherited by Cristine Eastin.Hi there, friends.  I have something fun and a little different for you today.  Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with talented fiction author Cristine Eastin who, like me, has a deep and profound love for Scotland.  Her most recent novel, Love Inherited, is set in the Scottish Highlands.  Although relatively new on the literary stage, Cristine is a skilled and creative storyteller.  She describes herself as an “author of contemporary fiction spiced with romance, faith, and hope.”  I am so delighted to introduce her to you today!  So without further adieu…

Wendy:  Welcome, Cris.  Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me.

Cristine Eastin:  Thanks so much for the privilege of getting to do this!

Wendy:  It’s my pleasure.  Let’s just jump right in, shall we?

 

Wendy:  What was the inspiration behind Love Inherited?

Cristine Eastin:  Hmm…a gorgeous American woman inherits a huge Highland estate and tons of money and gets the drop-dead gorgeous laird…I didn’t have to go very subconscious to get to…wouldn’t that be fun?  But seriously, having been an American young woman transplanted to England for two years, I know the outlander experience.  And I wanted to write a story that, when the reader came to the end, would count for something.  So I gave the main characters deep wounding or hurts they had to struggle with.


Wendy:  The story of Love Inherited takes place in the beautiful Highlands of Scotland. Why did you choose this location as the setting for your book?

Cristine Eastin:  Because I love, love, love Scotland.  It’s where I’d love to live if they didn’t drive on the left.  Living there in my writer’s head was second best.  Having made eight trips to Scotland, I know it fairly well and I thought I could convey the setting to the reader.

The actual location of Love Inherited, Fionnloch, is a fictionalized Gairloch in Wester Ross in the northwest Highlands.  My husband and I stayed at Shieldaig Lodge a few years ago and I was so captivated by the area that I set my book there.

 

Shieldaig Lodge in Gairloch, Wester Ross, Scotland.
Shieldaig Lodge, Gairloch, Wester Ross…inspiration for Craggan Mhor in Love Inherited. When we stayed here in 2014, it was still operating as a hunting lodge and was all cozy and homey. (It’s since been done up.) -Cristine

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