Authors Interviewing Characters: Sierra Godfrey

THE SECOND CHANCE HOTEL

It’s all fun and games until you accidentally marry a stranger in Greece and inherit a hotel.

Amelia Lang’s life is kind of a mess. She’s stuck living at home with her narcissistic mother. Her tech bro ex-boyfriend deliberately sabotages her at work, and she gets fired after throwing a mug at his head (it’s okay! She missed.) Then she has a major falling out with her best friend. So Amelia does what Amelia does best: She runs away.

After traveling around Europe for three months, she settles on a small Greek island to reset her life and figure out what’s next. But after too much retsina, she gets tricked into marrying James, another guest at the hotel, who is perfectly nice―but perfectly boring. To top it off, they are gifted the very hotel they’re staying in―a hotel they don’t want that is in desperate need of some TLC. They agree to keep the hotel open through the busy summer season for the sake of the island’s quirky but well-meaning residents, after which Amelia plans to return home to start rebuilding her disastrous life.

Amelia and James must work together to determine how to get out of their situation―easier said than done for Amelia, who’s started to feel a strong spark of attraction for James. But Amelia is sure her real life is waiting for her back in San Francisco. Is it time for Amelia to return home or could this be the second chance at a new life she didn’t know she wanted?

Sierra

Today I’m interviewing two women who live on the Greek island of Asteri, who became friends with our Amelia and James in The Second Chance Hotel. Welcome, Birgitte and Alexandra!

Birgitte: Yes, yes. You’re welcome. When I got your email I thought, “Of course, it is very natural that you want to interview me.” I am the best interview.

Alexandra: [rolls her eyes] Ignore her. We’re thrilled to talk about Amelia and James. 

Sierra: Tell us a bit about who you are. 

Birgitte: Well, obviously I am Birgitte. I’m originally from Sweden but I fell in love with a lucky Greek and married him and we moved to Asteri. Unfortunately, he died several years ago. Of course, they love me here, so I have stayed.

Alexandra: We’re friends of James and Amelia’s. I dabble in matchmaking. I knew from the moment I saw James and Amelia that I’d match them. They don’t know that—don’t tell them.

Sierra: Are these the two people who got drunk one night and accidentally got married?

Alexandra: YES. Can you believe that?!

Birgitte: AND they inherited the Ria Hotel that night. Idiots.

Sierra: I want to hear more about that.

Birgitte: The way I heard it, they only just met at the Ria Hotel. They didn’t even know each other before. 

Alexandra: They were backpacking through Europe before they got here. Amelia had some issues she was running away from at home.

Birgitte: Such drama with her! She kind of left her best friend behind right before her wedding—I have always privately thought Amelia was a bit rude for that—although I think she felt very bad about it. And I have a strong suspicion that making amends is a priority. 

Alexandra: [Nods] And Takis, who had owned the Ria Hotel for fifty years, always knew true love when he saw it. 

Birgitte: That was a huge headache, too. With the way he died.

Sierra: How?

Alexandra: Takis’s only heir was a niece, but she didn’t want it—she had no interest in running a hotel. But she needed money to pay for her uncle’s burial and naturally she asked Amelia and James to pay. It’s very expensive in Greece.

Birgitte: There is only so much burial space on islands, and in Greece if you want to keep your loved ones buried, you have to pay quite a lot of money. Otherwise you have to exhume their bones after three years. You hope they’re bones by then, anyway.

Sierra: So Amelia and James had to run the Ria Hotel in order to pay for that?

Alexandra: Yeah. I think that was why they decided to try and make it work.

 Sierra: Would YOU make it work? If you’d married a stranger by accident?

Birgitte: I never make mistakes, so that is irrelevant.

Alexandra: My fingers are crossed for them. 

Sierra: Tell me about Asteri. 

Birgitte: The island of Asteri is wonderful, but it’s a bit smaller and off the beaten trail of the bigger tourist destinations like Santorini or Mykonos or Naxos. It’s similar to the other islands in that it grows sweet white grapes, pistachios, and olives. There aren’t a lot of visitors and as a result, the Ria Hotel is one of the few hotels on the island. Although…it seems like Amelia and James might bring the passion and skills to change that.

Alexandra: I live in Athens part of the year, but I always love coming home to Asteri and looking up at that huge, wide sky at night and watching the stars. It’s a wide, gorgeous world and it always feels like you can see it all from Asteri. The wind smells like lemon and earth. It doesn’t get any better than some of our small, secluded beaches and those plunging cliffs. 

Sierra: Why do you think Amelia and James ended up on Asteri?

Birgitte: [Sniffs] I think they were both looking for something they hadn’t found at home.

Alexandra: Well, Amelia threw a mug at her ex-boyfriend’s head—I guess they worked together. She missed, but they fired her for it. So she wanted to get away.

Sierra:  So what did Amelia and James think when they found out they’d gotten themselves into that mess?

Birgitte: [laughs] I think they were horrified. Rightly so. They barely knew each other! 

Alexandra: My brother Kostas said there’s a developer who’s interested in buying the hotel from them. 

Birgitte: That would be disastrous. Even for those two. Better to stay, have good meals with friends, enjoy life. Did I mention I taught Amelia to cook? She was hopeless before. Still a little hopeless now, but I am teaching her. (I’m a very good teacher.)

Sierra: What have you taught her to make?

Birgitte: Potato moussaka. Delicious. I don’t use eggplant in mine because eggplant is repellant. We’ve done tzatziki, Greek chickpeas, avgolemono soup, a salad that I call Santorini Salad, which is a cucumber filled with cheese and tomato and capers, and a yogurt marinade that I use on everything. Delicious. 

Sierra: It does sound delicious. Thank you so much for talking with me today, ladies. 

Alexandra: My pleasure! Fingers crossed for Amelia and James, of course!

Birgitte: [harrumphs] If you say so. 

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Sierra Godfrey is the author of A Very Typical Family and The Second Chance Hotel (Sourcebooks). She was born in Santa Cruz, California and has lived many places, including Santorini, Greece. She loves hiking, watching soothing British farmland shows, and thinking of stories about messy families. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family, which includes a dog, two cats, and a turtle, all of which seemed like a good idea at the time. 

Find out more about Sierra here: https://sierragodfrey.com/

And on Instagram @sierragodfrey

 

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Interviews, On Writing