Amber Leigh Williams will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner.
https://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2025/06/name-before-masses-madame-rebelle-by.html
Amber Leigh Williams Interview
1. How did you choose your genre? What made you write this book?
I have always loved historical fiction, especially narratives surrounding the conflicts of World War II. I’ve been reading fiction and nonfiction immersed in this era since I was thirteen so it felt natural to step into the eyes of someone who lived and struggled during that time. I find the backdrop of Champagne, France so intriguing because in 1943, the region still bore the scars of trench warfare from the First World War. The older generation had vivid memories of the German Army’s previous march on France and the trauma it left behind. Ancestral champagne houses are buckling down for another fight for their survival. Underneath it all, there’s a network of secret limestone caverns where people go to hide and that’s where Madame Rebelle really begins.
2. Writers write what they know, and must observe the world. Are you a first born, middle or last child and how does this shape your view of the world?
I am a firstborn daughter with a younger sister, and I love this question because I’ve always been fascinated by how childhood perspectives shape who we become. Coming from a home that was primarily female, I’ve also always been invested it what it means to be a women of this world, a woman’s strength, and women’s stories.
3. Where is your favorite place to write?
I have a home office, but I share it with my kids’ homeschool space. They’re so busy with extracurricular activities that I’ve learned to write pretty much anywhere – libraries, soccer fields, coffee shops, etc. The ideal place to write is outdoors when the weather’s nice, but that’s hard to come by here on the Gulf Coast where it’s blisteringly hot in the summers and rainy and gray most winters. There are a few weeks in spring and fall when the breeze picks up and the tropical climate holds the cold at bay. I live for those days.
4. How do you feel about killing your darlings, and what do you do with the remains?
The more I write, the less material I have to scrap. I normally come in under my target word count and I love trying to figure out which part of the story readers would want more of and expand on that. With Madame Rebelle, I didn’t have a target word count and this felt very freeing because it allowed the story to build on itself organically. The challenge was to keep the pace churning by placing danger, suspense, and the immediacy of wartime at the forefront of every page.
5. You are introduced to your favorite author. Who is it, and what is that one burning question you must ask them?
This is so hard because I don’t have a favorite author. There are so many I love. I would love to meet Leigh Bardugo and pick her brain. I need to know what world she plans to build next because I’m never not intrigued by the places she takes me as a reader.
6. Inquiring minds want to know…tell readers something about you that no one knows.
One of my favorite places in the world is Capulin Volcano, New Mexico. During a hike on the rim trail several years ago, I plotted an entire trilogy which has since been published with Harlequin Romantic Suspense and I cannot wait to go back to New Mexico so I can plot another. There’s something about the broad, empty landscape and the overwhelming dome of the sky that speaks to me in ways I struggle to put into words.
7. You are stranded on a deserted island with only a back pack for company. What three items are in your survival pack?
This is straight from my nightmares. I’m a pack rat and an over-packer. Just three? Good gravy. Okay, number one – a never-ending supply of Snickers bars (the big ones, not the morsels you give out to trick-or-treaters). Number two, a bottomless tin of ginger peach tea because I’m going to need something to calm me down in this situation. I’m anxious just thinking about it. Number three, a very large notebook so I can write myself stories until someone rescues me.
8. If you could have one super power in your existence, what would it be?
Teleportation. The idea of wiggling my nose and appearing anywhere I want to go at will is most intriguing.
9. Favorite snack?
I may have mentioned my Snickers obsession?
10. Indy 500 – Do you know how to get where you’re going or do you drive the speed limit?
My hands are at ten and two on the wheel, I’m panicking, I have no idea where I’m going or why everyone else is going so fast. Where is the off ramp? I need fuel and a latte.
MADAME REBELLE
Amber Leigh Williams
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GENRE: Historical Romance
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
Rebel. Smuggler. Spy.
Champagne, France 1943
Meet Madame Rebelle. Edmee Guillon is a smuggler. She hides people from the German troops surrounding her ancestral home. When a dying man in a German uniform seeks refuge at Maison Boutet, Edmee struggles to believe his claims that he is French. Her life, the maison and the people she loves are already at stake. Can she take the chance that this mysterious spy is who he says he is? And which side of this war is he really on?
Christian Vovk has been betrayed by someone inside his resistance organization. He knows asking the striking young war widow to hide him will put her in certain danger. However, Christian can help Edmee save as many refugees as she can. Falling in love with her will hinder his duty to the operation that brought him to her doorstep in the first place. When love and duty become inevitably tangled, will Christian sacrifice one for the other?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt:
“Go home, Edmée. Do not come back to this part of the woods.”
As the soldier moved away, Edmée couldn’t believe it. They were letting her go?
Just like that?
Her feet tripped over one another as she moved into the trees. That was far easier than it should have been. They hadn’t asked to search her bags. They hadn’t asked what she was doing in the woods in the dark after curfew.
They’d only asked her name.
It made no sense.
She fled, her hands locked around the handles of the suitcases.
She didn’t risk taking her usual path back to Maison Boutet. She weaved and wandered for a while through brambles that caught her clothes and mud that sucked at the bottoms of her boots.
It felt like minutes…or maybe hours before she was back at her uncle’s vineyard.
The cases dangled weightily at the ends of her arms. Her knuckles had been white around them for so long, she could no longer feel them.
The maison was so dark, she failed to distinguish it from the landscape.
She looked at her muddy shoes, her trousers soaked past the ankles. The suitcases would have to be hidden, half of the contents destroyed…
She rushed into the heart of the rows. Her beacon was now the limestone mound with its rough-hewn back to the sky, the entrance to the hidden network of caves underneath the estate.
She wedged past the rocky entrance and stumbled down the steps toward the light.
At the bottom, the barrel of a pistol greeted her.
Her heart slammed into her ribs. Her knees threatened to fold.
She gaped at the man behind the gun.
Christian’s face was red and sweat-sheened. In the lantern’s low throbbing light, his features looked harsh. Moisture cloaked his bare chest like a second skin.
She’d searched him—his clothes, his personal effects… How did he get a gun?
Her lips trembled. She lifted her chin, regardless. The words were rough against her throat. “Are you going to shoot me?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Amber Leigh Williams Bio and Links:
Amber Leigh Williams writes pulse-pounding romantic suspense, historical fiction, and contemporary romance. When she’s not writing, she enjoys traveling and being outdoors with her family and dogs. She is fluent in sarcasm and is known to hoard books like the book dragon she is. An advocate for literacy, she is an ardent supporter of libraries and the constitutional right to read.
Website: https://amberleighwilliams.com
Instagram: https://instagram.com/amberleighwilliams
Facebook: https://facebook.com/amberleighwilliamsbooks
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0030VZW2C?ccs_id=972a6661-be68-4275-b311-8f8e0b259f83
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2713894.Amber_Leigh_Williams
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/amber-leigh-williams
Madame Rebelle – Purchase Links
Amazon Ebook: https://a.co/d/b7e849S
Amazon Paperback: https://a.co/d/cIS1iOp
Amber’s Website: https://amberleighwilliams.com/madame-rebelle
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thank you so much for featuring MADAME REBELLE today.