Welcome to another Weekend Read post. My featured book this week is The Valentine’s Express on the Brambleberry Steam Railway by award-nominated romance author Rhoda Baxter. Rhoda has dropped by today to tell us about the inspiration behind the book. So grab yourself a cuppa, get cosy and let’s get chatting to Rhoda.
Blurb
Poppy put her career on hold when she returned home to care for her mother. Now that her mum is better, Poppy can finally leave her job at the steam railway cafe and reclaim her old life.
Scott is grieving his lost wife and needs to get away from London and all that reminds him of her. When he volunteers at the local steam railway, the last thing he expects is to meet someone like Poppy.
As they prepare the Valentine’s Day dining train to puff through the Yorkshire countryside, an unlikely friendship blossoms. Scott encourages Poppy to dream big again, while Poppy helps Scott find his footing in a world that feels far too fragile.
But the big city is calling Poppy back. Can Scott overcome the ghosts of his past to follow her there, or will their paths diverge just as they’ve finally found each other?
Buy links for the book:
Buy link Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0GHQQMFKB/
Buy link Universal: https://books2read.com/Valentinesexpress
Welcome to my blog. Rhoda. Can you tell us what inspired you to write this book?
I write romance novels that are loosely connected, so that you can read each story without having read any of the others. This is a common thing in romance. I don’t think other genres have embraced it in quite the same way. I love it!
The main reason I love it so much is because I get to be part of a community in the book. When I wrote The Valentine’s Express on the Brambleberry Steam Railway, all I knew was that I wanted to set a contemporary romance novel against the slightly romanticized backdrop of a heritage railway. Both my children have been obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine at some point in their childhood, so I have spent a lot of time visiting heritage steam railways (and going to the National Railway Museum), and I knew the look and feel of a railway yard.
The characters in the book were a mixture of people who are paid to work there and volunteers. I started off with Poppy, who works at the cafe and Scott, who is a volunteer. I wrote the rest of the gang because they were Poppy’s friends. By the time I got to the end of the book, I had fallen in love with all of them.
Found family is very important to me. As a child, I moved around a lot (Dad was an engineer and went all over the world building things – and we went with him!). So we were rarely near family as such. What we did have were friendship groups. These are the people you call when a child falls over and splits their chin open and you need a lift to the hospital (ahem) or when you need to borrow a nice pudding bowl because you’ve got guests coming over for dinner. We form these friendship based ‘families’ wherever we are.
But as we get older, we drift away from these networks too. Jobs and other life events move us across countries and continents. It’s hard to keep hold of that bond.
Writing is such a lonely profession. We sit at our keyboards and live in worlds that exist only in our own heads. All that time spent with invisible people means we’re often a little awkward when it comes to meeting real people. Most authors are, after all, introverts. But in our imaginations, we get to be part of wonderful communities. After writing a whole 80000 words about them, I felt like I was a member of the steam railway family too. I didn’t want to leave them.
So I wrote two more books in the series – The Christmas Express (about steam train engineer Dora) and The Halloween Express (about Spider, who looks after the rolling stock). In doing so, I got to see how Poppy and Scott from the first book were getting on, when they popped up in the background of their friends’ stories. I even got to see stories unfurl for other people in the village. It was like visiting old friends. I loved being able to spend time with them. Hopefully, readers will feel the same way too.
A romance set against the background of a heritage railway is a fab idea, Rhoda. And I love your words about ‘found families’. I’ve moved away from my family and friends a few times in my life and my ‘found family’ has always been very important to me. ☺️
Bio
Rhoda Baxter writes award nominated romcoms with a hint of British cynicism. She also writes multi-cultural women’s fiction and romcoms as Jeevani Charika. A former microbiologist, she is a bit of a science geek. She lives in Yorkshire, England, with her young(ish) family and an out-of-control Lego collection. You can find out more about her on her website www.rhodabaxter.com
Social media links:
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jeevanicharika.bsky.social
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jeevanicharikaauthor
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jeevanicharika/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rhoda.baxter.5/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@jeevanicharika
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RhodaBaxter https://x.com/RhodaBaxter
More of Rhoda’s Books
Karen King 