Rachel McMillan is a Canadian treasure! Clever, romantic, and well travelled, Rachel adores writing about cities she loves and her latest novel is a such a treat as you walk with her along with streets of Vienna. Get to know this talented writer a little more and be sure to enter the giveaway below for her novella, Love in Three Quarter Time. If you need any convincing (although I’m not sure why when the story has Vienna, torte, romance and her very own Professor Bhaer in it), read my review here.

The Writer

Why do you tell stories?

Because I want to see the world a different way

Your favourite place to read

In bed with a million pillows. But I also love a favourite corner of a coffee shop or pub. And I love to read on planes. You’re stuck in the air! With time to spare! Reading!

Best meal of the day

Dinner

Most beloved childhood book

Vienna Prelude (read it first when I was 10. Read it to shreds)

Rachel McMillan

If your life was a TV show, what would it be?

Crazy Ex Girlfriend: only because I view life as a musical

Whose music inspires you?

Billy Joel –he is so playful with storytelling and words

What ice-cream flavour would you be?

Maple walnut

The most recent novel you read

The Morning Gift by Eva Ibbotson! I LOOOOOVED IT (there’s a gush about it on my blog)

What’s your current book recommendation?

I recently did a re-read of the Price of Privilege trilogy by Jessica Dotta. Every time I lose myself in that world, I find something new— something new about myself, something new about the characters. I think that trilogy is a modern masterpiece.

Name a book character you can’t forget

Because Jessica Dotta is close in my mind, I am going to have to say Lord Isaac Dalry. I am pummelled over by him every time I revisit the series.

Dream travel destination

Egypt!

The Book

A romantic waltz through a city filled with music, passion and coffee. 

Evelyn Watt fell in love with Austrian marketing director Rudy Moser the moment he stepped into their Boston firm. With his ice blue eyes and chocolate-melting accent, he is as refined as she imagines his home country to be. When Evelyn finds herself unexpectedly unemployed right before Christmas, she is left with an unknown future until Rudy steps in with a job appraising, assessing and cataloging heirlooms, lending her American vernacular to the translated descriptions to give each item international appeal. Evelyn will live in Vienna for the months leading up to a grand auction at a party held in conjunction with the Opera Ball—on Valentine’s Day.

Vienna is a magical blend of waltzing, antiques, and bottomless cups of Einspanner coffee at the Café Mozart. When a secret from Rudy’s family’s past blows in with the winter chill, Evelyn is forced to confront how well she knows the object of her affection. Her café tablemate, the gruff and enigmatic Klaus Bauner might be the only person who holds the key to Rudy’s past. But could that key also unlock her future? In the days leading up to the Opera Ball, Evelyn finds herself in the middle of the greatest romance of her life…as long as she doesn’t trip over her two left feet.

What was the working title?

It was the same. I had the title since I wrote it down in my Precious Moments journal when I was a kid. I was just waiting for the story to match.

Describe your book in 5 adjectives

Romantic! Bookish! Vulnerable. Longing. Viennese.

Which character did you enjoy writing most?

Klaus Bauner. Klaus is a composite of several romantic leads I grew up crushing on— including Prof Bhaer in Little Women and Paul Emanuel in Villette (Charlotte Bronte). He is just the epitome of chivalry and the quintessential Viennese gentleman. I always joke I finally got to write my dream man…. And I did. I love all the heroes I write; but Klaus is so special to me because he is my romantic ideal.

Which character gave you the most grief?

Rudy. Rudy Moser is a catalyst—a representation of the ideas we have about romance –rather than true romance and I knew I had to paint this boringly perfect chiselled specimen so that Evelyn would stop out of her world and life and find the life and romance she was meant to live: both with the RIGHT man for her, but also with a renewed perspective of romance in its many facets and forms.  Rudy, thus, was just a plot device and those are never as fun as the characters that snag your heart and keep you.

What emotions do you think your story will generate in readers? 

I truly think of this as my treatise to romance: not just romantic love between a man and a woman, but romance in all of its tenets.  As well as signifying a relationship, Romance is a movement, an art form.  I want people to consider falling in love with travel and experience and books and music.  This love letter to Vienna is borne of time spent (fictionally and in real life) in a city that I consider to be one of the true loves of my life.  I want people to find romance in the everyday.  Married or single, ensure you are living a romantic life. Life is full of it! (and I, like Evelyn, was born on Valentine’s Day, so I should know 😉 )

Cafe Mozart – a pivotal location in Love in Three Quarter Time

What emotions did you experience while writing this story?

I was giddy writing this book. I got to take all of my Viennese love and dollop it onto these characters and this world. I was able to pull out language and all of the romantic stops. As much as I adored the other book I wrote this year (Hamish DeLuca’s first historical mystery, which also has quite a bit of romance in it), this was just me parading my nature for all to see.  It was also a bit of a lifesaver. There was a big health scare in my family in the Fall that really rattled me and writing Love in Three Quarter Time became the safest imaginative space. It was where I was finding my truest happiness.

How do you choose your characters names? 

Klaus is named for a young man I met on my first trip to Vienna. I was wandering around lost after reaching the city from the airport and he gently and chivalrously approached me and said he would help. He ended up taking my suitcase and helping me navigate the streetcar on the Ringstrasse. He went beyond his own stop to ensure I found mine.  He opened my little notebook and wrote a half dozen of his favourite coffee shops.   My heart was like: “someday, I will memorialize you in fiction” and so I did.  Rudy works with Habsburg era antiques, so I thought it best to name him Rudolf for the Crown Prince just at the demise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  Evelyn is a personal favourite name. There’s a musicality about it.

Thank you Rach!

Rachel McMillan is a keen history enthusiast and a lifelong bibliophile. When not writing or reading, she can most often be found drinking tea and watching British miniseries. Rachel lives in bustling Toronto, where she works in educational publishing and pursues her passion for art, literature, music, and theater.

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