This week, I’m delighted to host Alana Cash, who is one of the most adventurous people I’ve had as a guest. Hi Alana, welcome to Inheritance Books. Please tell us a bit about yourself.

I grew up in a military family and I’m an adventurer.  I like to try new things and visit new places.  I love Venice and Mexican border towns.   I trekked through war-torn Serbia alone and a week later slept in a KGB Interrogation Cell which had been converted to a hostel.  All night I could hear the clack of feet on the hard floors in the hallway and the slamming of doors.  I imagined the terror those sounds invoked in the real prisoners.  I learned how to play castanets and sat in with jazz band in Austin, Texas.  Right now I’m wondering, what’s next?

Wow. You’ve traveled a lot. Which book would have you inherited from the generation above? Why is it special?

STONES FOR IBARRA by Harriet Doerr.  It’s a book of short stories put together as a novel and is about a woman and man restoring a copper mine in Mexico.  It’s so interesting and funny – many wonderful characters – and it gives a great perspective about living in a foreign country.  Harriet Doerr published this, her first book, when she was 74, and it won the National Book Award.

I hadn’t heard about this book before, I’ll have to check it out. It sounds interesting. 

Which book would you leave to later generations? Why?

BEL CANTO by Ann Patchett.  It’s a wonderfully engaging world of characters who are kidnapped in a private villa in Central America.  Somehow you come to love them all – even the kidnappers.  Creating characters that do bad things yet invoke compassion, how did she do that?

Alana, thank you for sharing your Inheritance Books. All the best with your latest book.

Alana’s latest book How You Leave Texas is available now. You can find out more about Alana by visiting her website (www.alanacash.com), Facebook or her blog.

Part of a book tour oragnised by Fiction Addiction book tours.