Tell us a little about yourself and your background?
I like putting plenty of romance and suspense into my stories, including my current release, a second-chance love story about a kickass Hollywood stuntwoman and a former Navy SEAL turned bestselling thriller author. In real life, I try to have the same ‘never give up, never surrender’ attitude as my characters. It took me thirteen years of trying to finally get published. I’ve written over fifty novels since! All while moving across the Atlantic Ocean five times. I swore never to move again with a ship—and have my furniture broken because the ship got into a storm. I cope with life’s constant changes by hanging tight to those closest to me: my family, my dog Toby, coffee, and chocolate. I’m a great fan of all things sugar, which is why Threat of Danger is set on a maple syrup farm in Vermont. I love chatting with readers, so if you’re on Facebook, look me up and say hello.
How do you make time to write?
I prioritize writing over everything but family. If dishes are not done, I can live with that. Right now, the weeds are about knee-high in my garden. I’ll deal with that once my edits are done for the book I’m currently working on. Very early in my writing career, someone said, What do you want to see in your obituary? She was a New York Times bestselling author, or she was the best housekeeper ever? I decided then and there that I wanted to be a bestselling author. So I schedule my time accordingly.
Do you believe in writer’s block?
I have the opposite problem. Way more ideas than I’ll ever have the time to write. I have a giant folder of book outlines. If I’ll get to write a third of them, I’ll be happy.
Tell us a bit about the genre you write and why you love it.
I LOVE romantic suspense. I like action/adventure type of stories. There is just that extra oomph and excitement, that pulse-pounding thrill that makes you hold your breath. The stakes are high, and I believe that character is revealed in hardship. Any hero can say “I love you” to the heroine. But will he step in front of a bullet to save her?
How are you publishing your recent book and why? (*e.g. Indie, traditional or both)
I publish both as an indie author and with a publisher. My current title was released by Montlake. It’s lovely to have that larger team around me, to be able to bounce ideas off my editors.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Keep writing. Write the best book you can, then study the craft of writing and make the book even better. If you write a story that connects with people, readers will recommend it to their friends. That’s the best promotion any author can hope for. There used to be a lot of pressure to put out a book every ninety days. Then people started putting out a book a month. Now some authors put a book out every week. I didn’t have a single new release last year. I still did okay, because my readers kept recommending my older books to others. My readers are still with me. Make those connections, build those relationships. If you want writing to be a long-term career, don’t set up a schedule that will cause an early burn-out. This year is my 15th anniversary of getting my first publishing contract. Slow and steady can be a wonderful thing.
Where can readers find you on the World Wide Web?
Do you have an excerpt you’d like to share with us?
Absolutely! This is the intro to the book, the hero and heroine heading into danger.
“Hurry up!” Derek drew Jess forward on the narrow path in the woods.
Jess didn’t need urging. She couldn’t wait to be alone with him at the cabin. Her heart drummed: faster, faster, faster.
The two eighteen-year-olds dashed through the undergrowth, breathless with laughter. Winter sunshine gilded webs of branches, the sky the most innocent shade of blue, each gap between the tree trunks a stained glass window. The trees—mostly maple—reached up and up, as tall as church spires. Within the magnificent cathedral of the Vermont forest, the joy of young love sang.
The patches of shadows seemed far away. Jess barely even noticed the dark spots. Each step they took was into light, each breath of crisp air a thrill.
They jumped a log together, strong and nimble. Jess thought of nothing but the old family cabin, the two of them alone, Derek’s firm and eager body all around hers. Desire tingled through her, her fingers tightening on his as he pulled her forward.
“We’re almost there.”
Derek Daley—crush of her life, boy next door, every girl’s dream—wanted her. Finally!
Jess had pined after him all through high school and would have handed him her heart on a platter, if he’d only noticed her. He hadn’t then, but he did now, home from college on break. Nothing else mattered. He’d noticed her and he’d kissed her, and then he’d asked if she would go out to the old cabin with him.
Jess knew what boys did with girls at the derelict cabin off the abandoned logging road. That knowledge burst through her in a shower of sparkling light.
“What’s with the crows?” Derek jerked his head toward the treetops, but he didn’t slow for a second, as desperate for the cabin as Jess.
His eagerness tasted sweeter on her tongue than maple candy.
She glanced up, dazed. What? What did anything else matter beyond how fast they could be in each other’s arms? They had the rest of the day, hours and hours, just the two of them, together, but she didn’t want to waste a single moment.
She wanted his lips back on hers. She was dying for another kiss.
Derek must have felt the same, because he halted and dragged her into his arms in a wild move that almost toppled them. He kissed the breath out of her before spinning away to run again. Thank
God he was holding her hand or she would have stumbled. When it came to Derek’s kisses, Jess’s schoolgirl fantasies paled compared to reality.
The black dotting of crows watched them from the trees. They didn’t see the humans as two lovers flying to their nest, but merely prey as yet unaware of the hunter. The same small, sharp eyes that trailed Derek and Jess from above also trailed the hunter who closed in, moving faster than his prey, eager on the scent.
The birds knew the hunter. He always fed them well.
Down below, everything was movement.
Up in the trees, the crows perched still and waited for the bloody bits.
Then the story cuts to 10 years later. To escape the memories of what had happened to them in the woods, Jess had gone to Hollywood and became a top stuntwoman. Derek joined the Navy and became a SEAL. Then they suddenly both find themselves back home and have to deal with their shared past at last. They’re surprised to find that the love and attraction between them is still there. But so is the killer who is itching for a second chance at them.
The Clog Blog 