1--What is the title of your latest release?
THE GIRLS IN NAVY BLUE
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
THE GIRLS IN NAVY BLUE is a dual timeline novel, moving between the WWI-era lives of three women who join the Navy as “yeomanettes” and 1968 when a young divorcee begins to uncover the secrets they kept for fifty years.
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
Norfolk VA was the perfect setting for this book; not only was it a center of naval activities during WWI with over 1000 yeomanettes stationed there, but it’s an area and a landscape I know well having grown up on the Chesapeake Bay.
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Probably not. My characters live far more interesting lives than I do. I’d probably be too boring for the likes of them.
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Viv is determined, loyal, and, in the end, courageous.
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
Everything I learned about the yeomanettes and their service was new to me. I had never heard of these women before which is tragic considering the amazing contributions they made to the war and to the struggle for women’s rights.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
I edit as I go which makes writing a slow painful process but by the end, I have a pretty clean copy that usually doesn’t require a lot of heavy lifting to get into final shape.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
That’s tough, but I’m from Maryland so it has to be crabs.
9--Describe your writing space/office!
Train wreck sums it up pretty well. My official office is currently more storage space than writing space, so you’ll most likely find me in our sunroom where I have a view of the water and a nice comfy chair where I can sit with my laptop.
10--Who is an author you admire?
That’s like asking a parent to name their favorite child, but there are four authors I return to again and again when I need a creative boost. Austen, Stewart, Pilcher, and Bujold are masters of their craft, and every reading of their books teaches me something new.
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I read this book with my mother, sitting on her lap in a big chair. She would read a page then I would read a page. It took us all winter, but it started my lifelong love of books and reading and storytelling that led me to writing my own stories.
12--Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
The first time I got “the call” I was chasing my three-year-old son around our backyard. That son is nearly twenty now, and I’ve received more than a dozen calls since that first one, but the thrill is just as exhilarating. Like all the holidays rolled into one.
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
Mysteries, science fiction, fantasy, historicals, rom-coms; I very much judge a book by its cover so if that grabs me enough to pick it up, I’ll read it—all genres welcome.
14--What’s your favorite movie?
Local Hero. It’s a small forgotten movie from the early 80s, but it’s such a beautiful gentle story with subtle humor, the amazing Scottish Highlands as a backdrop, and a gorgeous soundtrack by Mark Knopfler.
15--What is your favorite season?
Fall or spring because the landscape is constantly changing.
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
I just had a birthday; I won’t reveal which one, but I had cake, presents, a few drinks, and a visit to the dentist.
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
I’m a British Bake-Off junkie so I was thrilled to discover The Bake Down podcast which reviews each episode of the baking show with previous contestants Jane, Dan, and Howard. It’s silly and fun and the perfect accompaniment to dog walking and dishes.
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
I could eat Italian every night of the week. Pasta is my carb downfall.
19--What do you do when you have free time?
I’ve been a BBC junkie since I was a kid. More specifically, BBC mysteries so I spend far too much of my free time binging British detective shows. It’s a running joke with my kids who just roll their eyes at mom’s addiction.
20--What can readers expect from you next?
I’m currently finishing up a draft of Last Light Over Oslo which is based around the real-life story of Daisy Harriman, FDR’s US Minister to Norway, who is swept up in wartime conflict when Germany invades and has to escape alongside the royal family. It’s due to release sometime in the fall of 2023.
A Novel
A gripping and compelling dual timeline novel about three women who joined the Navy during WWI to become yeomanettes and the impact their choices have on one of their descendants in 1968.
1918 - America is at war with Germany, and, for the first time in history, the US Navy has allowed women to join up alongside the men. Ten thousand of them rush to do their part. German-American Marjory Kunwald enlists in the Navy to prove her patriotism. Suffragette Blanche Lawrence to prove that women are the equal of men. And shy preacher’s daughter Viv Weston in a desperate attempt to hide from the police.
Even as the US military pours into France and the war heats up, the three yeomanettes find friendship and sisterhood within the Navy. But all their plans for the future are thrown into chaos when Viv’s dark past finally catches up with her.
1968 - Newly divorced and reeling from a personal tragedy, Peggy Whitby unexpectedly inherits her estranged great-aunt Blanche’s beach cottage outside Norfolk Virginia. But her fragile peace is rattled when she begins to receive mysterious postcards dated from 1918 when Blanche served as a Navy yeomanette.
Curious to learn more about her mysterious aunt and uncover the truth behind the cryptic messages, Peggy is drawn deeper into the lives of the three young Navy girls. But her digging uncovers more than she bargains for, and, as past and present collide, Peggy must decide if finding out about her aunt is worth the risk of losing herself.
Women's Fiction Historical [HarperCollins Publishers, On Sale: November 1, 2022, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780063227491 / eISBN: 9780063227491]
Alix Rickloff has never been able to decide who she enjoys reading more; Austen or Tolkien. That lifelong indecision drove her to create stories of her own, combining those distinct loves. Her writing awards include a final in the Golden Heart, while Romantic Times Magazine calls her work both compelling and original.
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