FEATURED AUTHOR: LINDA K. SIENKIEWICZ

ABOUT THE BOOK

What makes us step back to examine the events and people that have shaped our lives? And what happens when what we discover leads to more questions?

Angelica Schirrick wonders how her life could have gotten so far off-track. With two children in tow, she begins a journey of self-discovery that leads her back home to Ohio. It pains her to remember the promise her future once held and the shattering revelations that derailed her life.

Can she face the failures and secrets of her past and move forward? Somehow she must learn to accept the violence of her beginning before she can be open to life, and a second chance at love.

PRAISE FOR IN THE CONTEXT OF LOVE

“Linda K. Sienkiewicz’s powerful and richly detailed debut novel is at once a love story, a cautionary tale, and an inspirational journey. In the Context of Love should be required reading for all wayward teenage girls—and their mothers, too.” ~Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of National Book Award Finalist, American Salvage, and critically acclaimed, Mothers, Tell Your Daughters.

“With tenderness, but without blinking, Linda K. Sienkiewicz turns her eye on the predator-prey savannah of the young and still somehow hopeful.” ~ Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller, Deep End of the Ocean

“Absorbing, heartbreaking, compulsively-readable and insightful, Linda Sienkiewicz’s In the Context of Love casts a hypnotic spell. This is storytelling at its best.” ~ Lewis Robinson, author of the critically acclaimed, Officer Friendly: and Other Stories, and Water Dogs

BOOK TRAILOR

INTERVIEW WITH LINDA K. SIENKIEWICZ

Linda, how did you get started writing?

My writing evolved from my love of stories. As Thomas Lynch said, “Writers are readers who have gone karaoke.”

I like that. What do you think is hardest aspect of writing a book?

Writing a first draft is hard. It’s cheesy, bland, boring and unfocused. It takes a lot of faith to believe that you’ll be able to massage schlock into a good story.

What’s more important – characters or plot?

Characters and their inner development, which hopefully will lead to plot.

What is your writing style?

Evocative (I hope that doesn’t sound pompous). I like to evoke feelings and emotions through description and action with well-chosen words.

What do you think makes a good story?

A good story needs conflict, either inner or external. There has to be something for the character to resolve to keep the reader turning pages.

What scares you the most?

My own clumsiness is terrifying. I move too fast without looking. I fear I’m going to knock my teeth out some day.

What’s one thing you never leave the house without (besides your phone).

Got to have lip balm.

What do you love about where you live?

Historic Rochester, Michigan is so cool that my friend from California asked “Is this a tourist town?” Eclectic shops, five star restaurants, and festivals like Fire and Ice, Arts and Apples, Rockin’ Rods of Rochester, and the Big Bright Light Show at Christmas. Everything is within a few blocks of our 1914 home.



Name one thing you’re really good at and one thing you’re really bad at.

I’m great at hands-on creative problem-solving but I suck when it comes to organization.

Where is your favorite place to visit?

Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris, France, where I visited Jim Morrison’s grave. The cemetery is stunningly beautiful and strangely peaceful.

What would you name your autobiography?

Oh, Yes, She Did.


Do you have any hidden talents?

I can wiggle my ears.

Excellent. 
Do you give your characters any of your bad traits?

Of course. Like Angelica, I went through an angry, rebellious stage in my teens, and often stretched the truth to get out of the house. I was a little too fond of my boyfriend, as well (cough, cough). I have an addictive personality like her ex, although I’ve learned to keep things in check.

Do you procrastinate?

I follow the OHIO rule: Only Handle It Once. If I don’t take care of business right away, it’ll just nag at me.

What is your most embarrassing moment?

At a reading, a well-known poet from Cleveland read a poem referring to the Cuyahoga River catching fire. As a former Clevelander, I’d heard that worn-out story so many times that I decided to tease him when I took the stage to read. In front of 100+ people, I said “Thanks, Ray, for your Cleveland poem, but, about the river catching fire: get over it.” It did not sound as funny as I thought it would. I later apologized to Ray. He was a good sport.

What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to write? 

It was difficult to write about my grown son’s suicide, even years after. Tears were rolling down my face, but I felt it was important to share my experience if the story helps another parent.

That's heartbreaking. What’s one of your favorite quotes?

“There is nothing fiercer than a failed artist. The energy remains, but, having no outlet, it implodes in a great black fart of rage, which smokes up the inner windows of the soul.” Erica Jong

Describe yourself in five words.

Impulsive. Empathetic. Naïve. Optimistic. Clumsy.



What would you do for a Klondike bar?

Roll over and beg.

What is your favorite movie?

Lars and the Real Girl with Ryan Gosling, a surprisingly tender and emotional story.

Do you have a favorite book?

Gilead by Marilynn Robinson. It was the most powerful and intimate story I ever read. Certain passages can still make me weep. In my novel In the Context of Love, I used the same perspective, where the book reads like a letter from Angelica to Joe.


What are you working on now?

The story of Angelica’s first love, the “Hungarian heartthrob, the Gypsy King,” Joe Vadas. I think he deserves his own book, don’t you?

Absolutely!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Linda K. Sienkiewicz is a published poet and fiction writer, cynical optimist, fan of corgis, tea drinker, and wine lover from Michigan. Her poetry, short stories, and art have been published in more than fifty literary journals, including Prairie Schooner, Clackamas Literary Review, Spoon River, and Permafrost.

She received a poetry chapbook award from Bottom Dog Press, and an MFA from the University of Southern Maine. Linda lives with her husband in southeast Michigan, where they spoil their grandchildren and then send them back home.

​Connect with Linda:
Website  |  
Blog  |  
Facebook  |  
Twitter  |  Goodreads  

Buy the book:
Amazon  | Barnes and Noble

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Featured Author: Pamela Fagan Hutchins

Pamela Fagan Hutchins was here last year with her novel, Saving Grace, and I'm happy to have her back with her newest book, Going for Kona, a romantic mystery published by SkipJack Publishing. She's here today for an interview, and she brought an excerpt from the book.

About the book:

When her husband is killed in a hit-and-run bicycling accident, it takes all of Michele Lopez Hanson’s strength not to burrow into their bed for the rest of her life. But their kids need her, and she promised herself she’d do the Kona Ironman Triathlon in Adrian’s honor, and someone seems to be stalking her family, so she slogs through the pain to keep herself on track. Her dangerously delirious training sessions become a link between her and Adrian, and she discovers that if she keeps moving fast enough to fly, she can hold onto her husband — even as she loses her grip on herself and faces her biggest threat yet.

Interview with Pamela Fagan Hutchins

Pamela, I've lost count of how many books you've written. How long have you been writing, and how did you start?
My third grade teacher told my parents I would be a writer, and I told them all how wrong they were. I liked to READ, but I wanted to be a veterinarian. I stubbornly insisted I had no interest in writing throughout high school, where I went on to become a UIL “Ready Writing” Champ, and into college, where I had placed out of all my English courses and left writing behind. In my third year of law school, I was hired to teach writing to the first year students. Throughout my legal and human resources careers, I wrote my fingers off, but only motions, briefs, and reports. But in my early thirties, without meaning to do it, I started writing. It was the little things at first: Christmas letters, family updates, then, when we moved to the Caribbean, weekly missives telling anecdotes about our whacky life. By my mid-thirties, I had started working in secret on my first novel. At forty, I came out of the closet. So, I guess I knew when I turned forty . . . but inside I had always known.

Tell us about your series. Is this book a standalone, or do readers need to read the series in order?
Is this a trick question?  OK, let’s see if this makes sense: Going for Kona is part of a series of series. The first series, Katie & Annalise, introduces us to Katie and some of her friends in three books. Going for Kona introduces us to another of Katie’s friends and brings Katie back for a visit. Going for Kona will become book 1 in the Michele series, and there will be two more Michele books. However, first there will be three books in the Emily series, which brings back Katie’s friend Emily from the Katie & Annalise series, as well as several other characters from those books. After the Emily series, the second book in the Michele series will be released. Then there will be another three-book series about one of Katie’s friends (I can’t decide which one will come next!!), and then we’ll get the third and final book in the Michele series. So there will be many interrelated series creating one overall series which I haven’t thought of the perfect name for yet, but at home am calling “FOK” for Friends of Katie but which sounds like a Scottish expletive if you say it like a word instead of using the letters.

With which of your characters would you most like to be stuck in a bookstore?
I’d like to spend a few days in a bookstore with Michele Lopez Hanson, my protagonist in Going for Kona. She is an editor and an author, and I think we’d have a lot to talk about it, and her accomplishments are very inspiring. Plus, I could maybe get her to edit one of my upcoming Emily series books.


Tell us about your favorite scene in the book.
Well, I can’t tell you about my very favorite scene in the book. It’s too big of a spoiler. Instead, I’ll tell you about my second favorite, although I’ll still have to be fairly circumspect. First, I need to tell you about my protagonist, Michele: Michele has lost her husband Adrian and has been the subject of a lot of negative press. She is having trouble with her teenage kids. Her mother is driving her crazy. When she was a feisty and beautiful little girl, her Mexican-American father nicknamed her Itzpa after Itzapapotl, a Aztec warrior goddess in the form of a clawed butterfly with knife-tipped wings who protects and avenges children. Adrian called her Little Butterfly, which he derived from Itza. Michele finds herself identifying more and more Itzpa.

OK, so Michele is late for an interview with ESPN about the Kona world championship triathlon and the triathlon/relationships humor book she co-wrote with Adrian. She rushes in and catches one of her nemeses unaware. This nemesis is talking to the ESPN producer, and spills the beans about a horrible thing the nemesis leaked to the press that hurt her and her whole family. Michele, who finds that her imagination has been growing wilder and more vivid with all the pressure and grief she is under, imagines her nemesis bursting into flames. Here’s the rest of this excerpt:

The fire reached for me now, and I wanted to fly away, far away, away from her and the fire and this office. That or stay and claw the bitch’s eyes out.
“What’s going on here?” Brian asked, walking up behind me.
I turned to him with my claws unsheathed. “Ask her, and find my replacement.”
My feet retraced their earlier path. I gathered speed down the hall of pain, flames chasing me faster, faster, until the edges blurred as my dark wings beat the air and my feet lifted from the ground.

You get to decide who would read your audiobook. Who would you choose?
Eva Longoria, Michele’s celebrity lookalike.


Does your family get involved with your books?
It’s a love-hate relationship for them, and by them I mean my husband, two kids and three step-kids. They enjoy the fact that I’m an author. Occasionally they’re mildly impressed when I’m on TV or when someone they know gets excited they’re related to me. I already mentioned they take turns with me on the road, including my mother, who is a voracious reader and begs to read my early first drafts (I now make her wait until I send a book in for copyediting). My college-age son likes updates on my sales numbers, and my husband reads my reviews obsessively. Not only that, but my husband helps me plot my books. He’s a chemical engineer and has a great mind for detail, what works, and what can’t work. But when I’m writing a book, I’m just the crazy lady in her pink flannel sleepy sheep PJs who hasn’t brushed her hair in days and doesn’t react to the sound of gunfire at close range. My husband can take my writing binges for only about 3-4 weeks at a time. The teenagers kind of like it that I’m less observant, but life falls apart a little without me so they’re glad when I return to normal and patch everything up.

What word best describes you, and are you an introvert or extrovert?
My friends know I am an social-introvert. People that meet me in public think I’m an extrovert, because I am outgoing and, after years of public speaking and appearances, I project confidence and a comfort with visibility. What only my friends know is that the public me drains the private me, and I need a sensory-deprivation chamber to recharge myself. I prefer to spend time with my family (and the smaller that group is, the better) or a friend rather than with a crowd. I draw energy from privacy. Public settings drain the energy back off. In the summer of 2013 I did a 60-cities-in-60-days nationwide RV book tour, where I appeared in public 3-4 hours every day. I spent the rest of the time hanging out in my RV with one of my kids (they took turns with my mother and husband escorting me around the country) and my one-eyed Boston terrier, Petey, mostly silent, mostly working, marshaling my reserves so I’d have the energy to go out and do it again. And again. And again. Times 60!

Who are your favorite authors?

I love the larger-than-life characters of Larry McMurtry, the emotion and descriptive excess of Pat Conroy, the psychological intensity of Ruth Rendell, and the hilarity of Janet Evanovich. And then there is just this incredible list of mystery/thriller authors that’s too long for publication, but let me give it a shot: P.D. James, Elizabeth George, Sara Paretsky, John Sanford, Tami Hoag, Sue Grafton, Mary Higgins Clark, etc. etc. etc. My goodness. I love them all.


I hear you. What do you love most about being an author?
I love feeling the rightness of words flowing one into another, of perfect images that bring a secret smile to a reader’s face, of crying and laughing out loud as I write a story. I love living it. I become my protagonist. My entire family prays for me to finish the book so we can all quit living out the drama of the scenes, one by one, over and over.
My second favorite thing about writing is when I anticipate writing a scene, and I experience the emotions before I can get the words out. Sometimes I sit at my laptop messy-crying, and that’s when I know it’s going to be really good.

My least favorite thing about writing is second drafts. I love first drafts and final drafts. I despise the let down of discovering how much work is ahead of me during a second draft.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?
When I’m not writing, I love to travel with my husband. In the summer of 2014, we took our RV—dubbed the Bookmobile—on a book tour in 17 states. We took a month to do it, and we picked the prettiest places we could drive to in that time frame, staying as close to state and national parks as we could, so that we had easy access to hiking and mountain biking. Our route covered the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion National Park, Crater Lake, Astoria, Mount Ranier, Mount Hood, Bellingham, Couer d’Alene, Buffalo Wyoming, Grand Rapids, and Otter Tail Lake, Minnesota. Wow. And for a complete change of pace we are going to Bora Bora for our anniversary!

Wow! You do get around. What are you working on now?
I am so excited to be working on the Emily series right now. Emily is the big-haired rodeo queen-turned-paralegal from the Katie & Annalise series. The first book in the series is called Heaven to Betsy. In Heaven, we rejoin Emily as her life implodes and she is forced to move in with her mother back in her hometown in the Panhandle of Texas. Sparks fly with her new boss, an eccentric criminal defense attorney named Jack, a name Emily suspects is short for Jack . . . well, you know. Emily is drawn to eight-year-old Elizabeth, the daughter of a doomed client, and signs on as a foster parent. When the mother’s suspicious death in prison leaves the girl an orphan, Jack calls the case closed, but Emily can’t leave it alone. Her quest for answers leads her to New Mexico — and old crush Collin Connell — but the cast of shady characters she encounters may prove to be much more than she bargained for.

The second book in the series will be Earth to Emily, and the third will be called Hell to Pay. They will come out in mid-to-late 2015.

Excerpt from Going for Kona

By Pamela Fagan Hutchins

Chapter One:
The best-looking man in the River Oaks Barnes and Noble had his hand on my thigh, and with the weight of hundreds of eyes on us, I snaked my hand under the table, laced our fingers, and slid mine up and down the length of his, enjoying the contrast of rough against soft. My index finger bumped into the warm band on his ring finger, and I let it stay there, worrying it in semicircles, first one way and then the other.

A Barbie-doll lookalike in form-fitting hot pink strutted into the spot vacated moments before by a tittering fifty-something woman. The bleach blonde brandished a plastic glass of champagne in one hand and held out a copy of our book, My Pace or Yours? Triathlon Training for Couples, in the other. Without letting go of my leg, Adrian took it from her and opened it to the title page, where a yellow sticky bore her name.

“Hi, Rhonda. I’m Adrian, and this is my wife, co-author, and editor, Michele.” He scribbled his signature and scooted the book over to me.

“I know that, silly.” Her little-girl drawl burrowed under my skin like a chigger.
I released Adrian’s fingers to sign, then held the book back out to the woman. “Hello, Rhonda. Nice to meet you.”

“I loved your talk, Adrian,” she said, ignoring me. I bristled. We had opened that night with a reading and Q&A. The book gets a little steamy at times, which is easier to write than to read aloud, so Adrian read those parts. “It’s wonderful to see you again.”

He studied her, eyes narrowed a fraction. “Thanks. Have we met?”

Maybe he didn’t remember her, but I was sure I had seen her recently. She didn’t exactly blend in here with Khaled Hosseini on her left and John Irving on her right. I set the book on the table and fought the urge to chew a fingernail. I was well trained by my mother, the one woman in Texas who could give Ms. Manners a run for her money, and Southern Women Do Not Bite Their Nails.

A slim man with a strained, too-cheerful smile stepped forward. He held up $3500 worth of Minolta. “Miss, around here for your photo.”

Rhonda swooped around the edge of the table and leaned over Adrian with her hand on the back of his neck, gripping the slice of shoulder that showed above his round-necked shirt.
The photographer held up his hand. “Look this way, please.” Adrian and I dutifully swung our faces in his direction and smiled. The flash blinded me for a few seconds, but as my vision cleared I got an eyeful of expensive cleavage. Rhonda Dale remained draped over my husband.

She dropped her voice, but I was six inches from Adrian and could hear her and smell her. I live with a teenage girl, and I’d recognize Urban Outfitters’ roll-on Skank perfume anywhere. “Of course we’ve met, Adrian, and I’ll never forget it.”

Where hot pink was before, I now saw red. Time to assert matrimonial authority. “Rhonda?”
She glanced at me, barely, and her mouth tightened. I inclined my head toward the double-door exit and smiled as big as I could.

Rhonda released Adrian’s shoulder, leaving crimson fingerprints behind, and took one step back. She bit her lip. She ran her fingers through one side of her bleached hair. She shifted her weight, cocked her right hip, and reached into the white pleather bag slung over her shoulder. I tensed. This woman tripped my switch.

“You’ll be wanting this, Adrian.” She flipped a pink business card onto the table. If Adrian were a rock star, she’d have thrown her panties and bra instead. The card sucked less. A little, anyway. She turned and walked, hips slinging and champagne sloshing, toward the ubiquitous Barnes and Noble Café and the aroma of Starbucks coffee. I could hear her heels clicking across the floor even after she disappeared from view.
Adrian turned to me and shrugged his eyebrows.

I drew mine together in return. “What just happened here?”

“No comprendo.” He drew circles with an index finger beside his temple. “La señorita está loca en la cabeza.” He took a sip of his Kona coffee—cup number six of the day, no doubt—a nod to his quest for the triathlon world championships in Hawaii.

My eyebrows lifted. “Was that even Spanish?” I reached for his hand under the dark green tablecloth again and squeezed hard enough to do minor damage. I whispered sotto voce so the next customer in line couldn’t hear, “If you promise not to talk in that horrible accent, you’ll get a nice reward later.”

He shot me a grin. “Maybe you can show me what’s under that necklace, Itzpa.” Sometimes he used my papa’s nickname for me, which was short for Itzpapalotl, a clawed butterfly with knife-tipped wings, and an Aztec goddess of war. Usually he just called me Butterfly.
I reached up to the locket suspended from a long gold chain around my neck. Adrian had given me the brilliant enameled monarch at our second “wedding,” the secret B&B family affair he threw in La Grange on our first anniversary to make up for the original quickie at city hall without our kids. When we were pronounced “still man and wife,” Adrian put the locket around my neck and told me I was his butterfly. I’d stashed a picture of us taken on that perfect day in the locket and had never changed it since.

I scrutinized it. “This old thing?” I dropped it and stretched my shoulders, catlike. Or rather, like a cat would. There is no feline quality to my short frame. At best I am probably a Pomeranian; at worst, a Pekingese.

He laughed and mouthed, “Thanks a lot, baby,” and held his hand out toward the customer at the front of the line.

I signed the next few books on autopilot, trying not to grind my teeth over Miss Boob Job In Hot Pink strutting her stuff for my husband. I could take the Rhonda Dales of the world in stride, mostly. I’d known ever since I was assigned to edit his column for Multisport Magazine that Adrian attracted groupies. His following, and the fact that we were working together, were the reasons I’d resisted him at first. He tricked me into going out with him, though—research over a cup of Kona, my ass—and I melted like a butterscotch chip into a warm, sweet cookie.

Soon after, Adrian coaxed me to “just try” triathlon, something I had never aspired to do. Never, meaning no effing way, ever. Swim, then bike, then run? I didn’t think so. I’d rather curl up with a novel, when I had any free time at all as the single parent of a tween. Still, I was that butterscotch chip, and it turned out that I was made for triathlon, like I was made for Adrian. It spoke to the parts of me that like rigor and suffering. I signed up for one, and then another, until here we were at Barnes and Noble, at our book launch.

“I’m Connor Dunn,” a man’s voice said. Something about it made me flinch and brought me back with a bumpy reentry. A certain pitch. A heaviness of import. My gaze lifted to his face and I read the creases around his eyes like rings on a tree: forty-five-ish. Dark hair, freckled, light skin. Toned, as was to be expected at a triathlon book launch. Pressed Dockers and a collared shirt: earnestly conservative. No champagne cup.

Connor Dunn was still speaking to Adrian. “We haven’t met in person, but—”

My husband interrupted him, brightening. “Sure, I know who you are.” Adrian turned to me. “Allow me to introduce my wife, Michele. Michele, this is Connor Dunn.”

“A name I know well from Adrian’s column,” he said to me. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you look like Eva Longoria?”

I nodded. “Nearsighted people.” Eva Longoria doesn’t have the butt I got from the short, curvy Mexican women on my dad’s side. My blonde, Caucasian mother has no butt, but her genes passed me by in the looks department.

Adrian shook his head. “Not a chance. You look better à la natural on your worst day.”

“My husband is biased,” I explained to Connor.

He laughed and nodded at Adrian. “Hey, congratulations on your Kona qualification.”

“Thanks. There’s nothing like aging up to give you a boost.” Adrian was playing it cool, but he was over the moon about the Kona Ironman world championships. At forty-five, he had qualified by winning his first race as a forty-five to forty-nine age grouper, at the Longhorn Half Ironman in Austin last fall. “Will Angela be racing?”

“Yes. She qualified in thirty-five to forty.”

“That’s great.” Adrian turned to me. “Connor’s new bride is a tri-beast like us.”

Connor broke in. “I think we saw you guys last weekend at the Goatneck ride in Cleburne. I was going to introduce myself, but things got crazy.”

My skin went cold. A hit-and-run driver had killed one of the cyclists during the race.

Adrian put down his black Sharpie and sighed, sagging like a deflating balloon. “Yeah, that was horrible. Michele and I were one Brahman away from it.”

Connor’s voice and eyebrows went up. “Brahman?”

“Adrian hit a cow. It knocked him off his bike and left him with a flat tire.” I sucked in a quick breath. “I think it slowed us down just enough that we weren’t the ones hit by the car, you know?”

“Yeah, I do. It’s scarier and scarier out there on the road.”

“We were the first ones to get to him after he was hit.” Adrian’s voice grew raspy. “I ended up doing CPR on him while Michele called 911.”

It was a surreal picture: Adrian and the fallen cyclist were mirror images of each other, one upright and one prone, both covered in blood. They were dressed alike and had similar blue bikes. It freaked me out, big time. I couldn’t keep their images from returning to me over and over.

Adrian continued. “This guy had been riding maybe a quarter mile behind the leaders—he passed us when I hit the cow—and then this car just came out of nowhere off a little dirt road and smashed into him.”

“You saw it happen?” Connor leaned in, his voice a mix of dread and morbid curiosity.
I started to speak but realized both of my hands were over my mouth. I pressed my palms together and lowered them. “We heard it.”

“Oh my God,” Connor breathed.

It was a sound I would know anywhere. Adrian had hit a car head-on two years ago. I still don’t understand how he walked away from the wreck—his bike didn’t—and I will never, ever forget the sound. A thud, a wrenching of metal, a thump, then a crack as driver and bike hit the road separately. Groans. And in Adrian’s case, the squealing of brakes as the driver came to a stop. Not that time, though. Not that time. That time there was silence, except for Adrian screaming “Rider down, rider down” at the top of his lungs.

I forced myself to keep talking, to expunge the rest of the memory. “We saw the car driving away. White, a small sedan, like a Taurus or a Camry or something.” I shook my head. “We couldn’t get the license plate number, though, and we didn’t see the driver, so we were practically no help at all to the police.”

Just then, our publicist put a manicured brown hand on the table in front of Adrian. It startled me. I had forgotten we were in a bookstore, that there were other people around—worse, in line watching us, listening to us, waiting for us. Scarlett—that was both her name and her nail color—said, “Only thirty minutes to go, and you’ve still got a line out the door. I hate to break in, but we need to keep it moving.” She’d coached us on this earlier. The line must move no matter what. A moving line means book sales.

We nodded, and she backed away with her smile pointed toward the queue, a “Nothing wrong here, folks, nothing to see” smile.

To Connor, Adrian said, “Sorry, man.”

Connor pulled at his collar. “Absolutely. I understand. Um, I’m going to hang around and do some shopping. Could you spare five minutes when you’re done? I have something I need to talk to you about. It’s the reason I came, actually.”

There. That was what I’d heard in his voice. A purpose for his presence, and a threat to our plans for the evening. A post-signing tête-à-tête wasn’t on the schedule. My throat tightened. “Wound so tight, she springs when I touch her,” my ex-husband Robert had said about me. Well, not tonight. I breathed in and held it. I would not be rigid. I would roll with it and everything would be okay. I exhaled.

“Sure. I’ll meet you in the café when we’re done.”

Bam. I saw spots in front of my eyes. My internal tension meter was only about a 6 out of 10. Really, it’s no big deal, I told myself. Just five or ten minutes. We probably wouldn’t even be late for the eight thirty reservation at Oxheart I’d made two months before. My fingernail ended up in my mouth, but I snatched it away before I could bite it. This wasn’t exactly unprecedented. Adrian was a constant challenge to my need for order on his best days, just as I was to his need for flexibility. I called these opposing traits our growth opportunities when I was feeling Zen.

“Perfect. Michele, a pleasure.” Connor extended his hand to me.

I shook it, and his touch jarred my nerves. We posed for the obligatory picture and he walked off toward the biographies. Nice guy, even if he was a plan-buster and a bringer of bad memories, but something else was wrong with him. I could feel it. “Do you know what he wants to talk to you about?”

“No idea.” Adrian pursed his lips for just a moment. Then his expression shifted. Big smile, maybe a little less big than before, but big enough. He greeted the next person. “Sorry about the wait. I hope you’re having a good time.”

About the author:

Pamela Fagan Hutchins writes award-winning and bestselling romantic mysteries and hilarious nonfiction, and moonlights as a workplace investigator and employment attorney. She is passionate about great writing, smart authorpreneurship, and her two household hunks, husband Eric and one-eyed Boston terrier Petey. She also leaps medium-tall buildings in a single bound, if she gets a good running start.

Connect with Pamela:
Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads
Buy Pamela's books:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble 
Going for Kona:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Other books by Pamela:

Saving Grace (Katie & Annalise #1)
Leaving Annalise (Katie & Annalise #2) 
Finding Harmony (Katie &Annalise #3)
The Katie & Annalise Series Box Set (All three full length novels) 
Hot Flashes and Half Ironmans
How to Screw Up Your Kids
And more!

Featured book: Sight Reading

About the book:

Lyrical and evocative, Sight Reading by Daphne Kalotay is an intense, literary love story.

When Hazel and Remy happen upon each other on a warm Boston spring day, their worlds immediately begin to spin. Remy, a gifted violinist, is married to composer Nicholas Elko, who was once the love of Hazel's life. Over the decades, each buried secrets, disappointments, and betrayals that now threaten to undermine their happiness.

We follow the notes of their complicated, intertwined lives from 1987 to 2007, from Europe to America, and from conservatory life to the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Sight Reading, from the author of the acclaimed debut novel Russian Winter, is an exploration of what makes a family, of the importance of art in daily life, and of the role of intuition in both the creative process and the evolution of the self.

Excerpt from Daphne Kalotay's Sight Reading

Chapter One

She arrived at rehearsal that winter evening to find behind the podium a young man in baggy slacks and a boxy tweed jacket.  This was Remy’s final semester at the conservatory; she was twenty-two years old and still one seat away from first chair.  The man said nothing as the other students trickled in, just nodded “hello” and waited for them to assemble themselves and their instruments.  The air was so dry, the clasps of Remy’s violin case shocked her fingertips.  She glanced at the man, whose face seemed to be trying to say that nothing unusual was happening, no, not at all.

     It was 1987, a Sunday.  A room full of students not quite recovered from the weekend’s parties and performances and one-night stands.  Their regular conductor, Mr. Bergman, was a short, lisping man with rolled-up pant cuffs; everyone looked at this new one in a tired, questioning way.  His skin was fair, and his dark hair flopped at a slant across his forehead.  There was something angular about his face, with its defined cheekbones and elegantly bony nose.  Remy tucked her violin up under her chin and tested the strings, enjoying the sensation of each one, with the slight turn of a peg, slipping into tune.

     Not until her stand partner, Lynn, hurried in to take the seat next to her did the man explain—not at all thoroughly—that Mr. Bergman wouldn’t be back.  “And so,” he announced in a British sort of accent that managed to sound both witty and bewildered, “I’ve been hired as his replacement.”

     He was too tall for the tweed jacket, or perhaps just too trim, too lad-ish: Remy decided he couldn’t be more than thirty.  “What did he say his name was?” whispered Lynn, who as concertmistress would surely end up on a first-name basis with him.  But no name had been mentioned.  The man had come from out of nowhere.  Remy pictured a small pile of luggage waiting just outside the practice hall.

     “Well, so, in that case, then,” the man was saying.  “I’m very excited about the selections we have.  Scheherazade is one of my favorites.”

     Mine, too, thought Remy, with slight bitterness.  Not a day went by that she didn’t wish she, and not Lynn, might be the one to portray Scheherazade’s seductive voice, with that first melodious proclamation and the passionate spirals that followed.  In private she practiced the solo bits as if they were hers.  Lynn, meanwhile, was briskly swiping rosin onto her bow, stirring up a low cloud of sticky dust, as if this man’s sudden appearance weren’t at all out of the ordinary and she might be called upon at any moment to play her cadenza.

     The man’s eyes were bright (though there were slight shadows beneath them) and his button-down shirt, open at the collar, was visibly rumpled underneath the tweed jacket.  His expression was one of bemusement.  Remy felt suddenly hopeful, though she couldn’t have quite said why.

     “Well, so,” the man announced in a cheery, English way. “Off we go.”

He had them start with the Sibelius. 

    “All right, so,” he said lightly, waving at them to stop.  Remy felt a surge of frustration.  She was just one of the many faces looking up at him; this late in the semester, what were the chances a new conductor might discover all she could do?

    “Starting at bar seventy-four, let the phrase play itself out.”  He hummed the phrase, as if from pleasure rather than in illustration.  “Let it come to rest, don’t rush into the next sequence.” He raised his baton. “Let’s start from there.”

    As they played, Remy could feel the conductor trying to hold them back, then allowing the music forward again.  Mr. Bergman hadn’t done it this way.

    “The thing to keep in mind,” the man said, tapping his baton at the podium for them to stop, “is that tempo is about more than just speed. It’s about the passage of time, really. In our lives—not just on the page. You know how sometimes everything seems to keep rushing forward, but then at other times things are peaceful and still?  How sometimes we feel stuck in time, or just plodding along day by day—and then suddenly it’s as if time’s passed us by, or we’re being hurried along, too quickly?  That’s what tempo is really about.  That’s what we’re expressing.  Not just how fast or how slowly the music moves.  It’s about how fast and slow life moves.”

    His eyes widened at the thought, and for a moment it seemed he might be about to make some personal confession.  But he just raised his baton and asked them to try the passage one more time.

About the author:

A citizen of both Canada and the U.S., Daphne Kalotay grew up in New Jersey and graduated from Vassar College before moving to Massachusetts to attend Boston University’s Creative Writing Program. There her stories went on to win the school’s Florence Engel Randall Fiction Prize and a Transatlantic Review Award from The Henfield Foundation. She remained at BU to complete a PhD in Modern and Contemporary Literature and, with Saul Bellow as her advisor, wrote her doctoral dissertation on the works of Mavis Gallant. (Her interviews with Mavis Gallant can be read in The Paris Review‘s Writers-At-Work series.) A MacDowell Fellow, Daphne has received fellowships from the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, the Bogliasco Foundation, and Yaddo. Her fiction collection, Calamity and Other Stories (Doubleday), was short listed for the 2005 Story Prize, and her debut novel, Russian Winter (HarperCollins), won the 2011 Writers’ League of Texas Fiction Prize, made the long list for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and has been published in 21 foreign editions.  Her newest novel is Sight Reading (Harper, 2013). Currently co-president of the Boston chapter of the Women’s National Book Association, Daphne lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.   

Connect with Daphne:
Website | HaperCollins Publishers | Facebook

Buy the book:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Talking With Candace George Thompson

 
I'm happy to have Candace George Thompson here today to talk about her new biography, Still Having Fun, A Portrait of the Military Marriage of Rex and Bettie George, 1941 - 2007.

About the book:

This biography of a military marriage which lasted from 1941 until 2007 includes everything from letters written in war zones to photographs that chronicle the lives and romance of Rex and Bettie George. Written after their deaths, Still Having Fun is a moving testament to the character and resilience of American military families, with 55 photos and illustrations.


Welcome, Candace. Tell me how long you've been writing, and how did you start?

I’ve written articles for employee newsletters – or “house organs,” as they were called. (That term always amuses me.) I wrote an e-zine for my clients when I had an executive coaching practice.

Until after my parents died and I was re-reading my mother’s letters from Okinawa, I had never even considered writing a book.

How did you come up with the title of your book?

When Alzheimer’s disease began to steal my mother’s independence, my father became her sole caretaker. He shopped, cooked, cleaned, and did the laundry. He dressed her, fixed her hair, and applied her make-up. He wore himself out. Whenever we expressed concern about how he was holding up, he always replied, “We’re still having fun.” I considered lots of other possible titles, but “Still Having Fun” seemed to be the best description of how my parents chose to live their lives.

That is so beautiful. I know firsthand that being the caretaker of someone with dementia can be brutal. I love the pictures on your cover. Tell me how you came up with the cover art.
On my Facebook author page, I had used a 1950 photo of my parents, taken at the original Knotts Berry Farm in southern California - when it really was a farm, not an amusement park. They are posing behind cardboard old-fashioned wedding clothes. To me, the shot shows that Rex and Bettie had always liked to have fun.

When my publisher asked me what I wanted on the cover, I told her I liked that snapshot, but was concerned because it was black and white. “I’ve got some ideas,” she said, “let me play with it.” She came back with the title in gold script, which fit with the old-fashioned tone of the photo, and she photo-shopped a picture of me into the cameo frame in the background. Very clever, I think. Then she put color photos on the back cover.

I worked with Mary Catharine Nelson at Published by Westview. She was terrific. When I first looked at their website I noted that they had an artist available, with one caveat: She wouldn’t do cows! What a hoot! I was tempted to test that, but never did. No cows in my book. That did help me make my decision about Westview, though. A little sense of humor can go a long way in making a person comfortable.

Are you like your mother and father at all?

I sure am. I inherited my mother’s love of rhyming and singing, and, like her, I pop out of bed in the morning, eagerly anticipating the new day. She taught me to treat all people with respect and kindness, and I hope I’m living up to her standards.

My father ingrained in me the value of self-sufficiency. I can’t say that I even come close to having all the life-skills that he developed, but I can thank him for insisting I learn to type, drive, and cook. Despite his military background and sometimes gruff demeanor, he enjoyed being silly and loved a good joke. When he was deployed to Okinawa right before Mother was due to deliver my sister Jennifer, he sent Mother a photo of himself doing a headstand. He was the first to put on a pig nose for a family portrait. “Silly” is one of my core values.

What song would you pick to go with your book?

Oh, this is a hard one. Songs and song-cues were part of my family’s fiber. I guess I would pick “Far Away Places.” The lyrics personify my parents’ adventuresome spirit and their desire to get to know people from different backgrounds. “I’m going to China or maybe Siam. I wanna see for myself, those far away places with the strange sounding names, calling, calling me.”

Lucky for you, Amy, that this interview isn’t being recorded, because I’m now singing that song. (Written in 1948 by Joan Whiting and Alex Kramer and covered by just about every singer of the period.)

Who are your favorite authors?

Having been a Spanish Lit major in college and lived in Venezuela and Mexico, I try to read everything put out by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Julia Alvarez, and Isabel Allende. I used to be able to read them in Spanish, but I’m a bit rusty at this point. Luis Urrea, author of The Hummingbird’s Daughter is also on my read pile.


What are your favorite books or favorite authors?
I still have one of my very early books, Geraldine Belinda, by Marguerite Henry.  Published in 1942, it was given to me for Christmas in 1947 by my Aunt Annetta when we were stationed in occupied Okinawa Japan.
   
Geraldine Belinda Marybel Scott saved her pennies and now has 25. “And what a lot of things twenty-five pennies could buy!” She makes a list and goes shopping at Mr. Tweedle’s notion shop. Feeling quite the grown-up with her purchases wrapped in a brown paper horn, she ignores her friends as she walks home “with her nose in the air.” Her toys fall out of the package as she hurries past them, but her friends find her purchases and return them to her.

The moral of the story – which I remember to this day – is, “Don’t put on airs when you have pennies to spend – for you never can tell how the story will end.”


What book are you currently reading and in what format (e-book/paperback/hardcover)?

Much of my reading of late has been works of fellow members of writers groups I belong to. Some are in e-book form, others are paperback. I’m about halfway through the e-book edition of a beautiful story by a fellow Military Writers Society of America member, Bonnie Latino, called Your Gift to Me. And I just finished a delightful paperback mystery you might be familiar with: Murder and Mayhem in Goose Pimple Junction.

I have heard of that one! I hear the author is brilliant. How do you handle criticism of your work?

I use it. A couple of my early readers, a history prof and an editor I’ve never met, gave me invaluable feedback that definitely improved and enriched Still Having Fun.

Where’s home for you?

I live in a high-rise in Chicago. I love city living.

I was just in Chicago last summer. It's a fun town. Want to see my vacation pictures? Just kidding. I'll only bore you with one. Tell us one weird thing, one nice thing, and one fact about where you live.

Hmmm. Well, it’s pretty weird to have beavers in the landlocked, man-made pond near us, but somehow they find the place! Usually they are quickly removed before they take down too many trees, but a couple times they’ve stayed, built lodges and had young.

The really nice thing is that we can walk to shops, restaurants and theatres. And, Lincoln Park, which goes along the shoreline of Lake Michigan for several miles north of the city center, is across the street, so I can enjoy birds and squirrels on my morning walks.

Chicago is the best live theatre city in the country.

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

I’m planning on staying right here in Chicago. It’s an excellent place to age – good public transportation, hospitals, and you can get anything delivered to your door. A few weeks in Mexico during February makes the winter more bearable.

I'm a fan of quotes. What’s one of your favorites?

“Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity,” by Horace Mann, first president of my alma mater, Antioch College, in his commencement address to the 1859 graduating class. This is now the college motto and has been repeated to every graduating class since.

What three books have you read recently and would recommend?
   
You mean besides Murder and Mayhem in Goose Pimple Junction?

Oh yes, besides GPJ. Which, by the way is still just ninety-nine cents for Kindle. (She says with a cheesy grin.)

Gated Grief - The Daughter of a GI Concentration Camp Liberator Discovers a Legacy of Trauma, by Leila Levinson.

How Can You Mend This Purple Heart, by T.L. Gould, a moving story of severely wounded Vietnam Vets.

Lead Us Not into Temptation, Volume I of The Lord’s Prayer mystery series, by Richard Davidson. I find it amazing how much history one can learn from a good mystery writer. I’ve just purchased the next 3 volumes in the series.

Last question. What are you working on now?

I’m mostly in the marketing mode right now, but I’ve been writing articles and essays hoping to be able to place them in newspapers and magazines. An essay about my father, “Devotion,” is in the recently published Military Writers Society of America’s themed anthology titled, Silent Battlefields, and a piece about the gracious and generous Mexican people, based on my 45+ years of visiting their fair country, was accepted for inclusion in Coast Lines 2, a judged anthology produced by the Puerto Vallarta Writers Group.

Congratulations! And thanks for being here, Candace.



About the author:

I'm the daughter of a 30-year career Air Force officer whose first mission as a B-24 navigator was on D-Day. I was born in Kentucky, as were both my parents and like most service families, ours moved frequently. (My guess is that I “lived” in Kentucky only a week or two.) By the time I started 10th grade, I had changed schools 13 times.
After college graduation with a B.A. in Spanish Lit from Antioch College, I served in Venezuela as a Peace Corps volunteer. My rootless way of life continued upon my return - Vermont, San Francisco, Portland, Oregon, and New Jersey.

My husband and I have now lived in Chicago for over 30 years - eight times longer than any other place. I'm happy to have finally found a home. I love Chicago!
My interests include reading, writing, sharing a good meal with friends, laughing, early morning walks, rock and roll, squirrels and penguins, Mexico, weird tidbits of information, and last but not least, my wonderful, supportive husband.

Connect with Candace:

Website (under construction)

Facebook page

Amazon Paperback and Kindle versions, both with 55 photos and illustrations.

Book Excerpt: Broken Build by Rachelle Ayala

She drove down Trimble and turned left on Zanker. She had to install the new fileserver today. A single car sat in the Shopahol parking lot. Jen pulled next to it and smashed the curb with a sickening crunch. Damn. She reversed it and cut the engine.

A gust blew dried leaves in a circle on the sidewalk. Jen locked her car and bent to examine the damage—a cracked air dam on her brand new Eclipse. She dropped her keys and spit on her finger to rub out the black scratch.

The neighboring car’s bumper stretched over the sidewalk. That’s why she had misjudged. Her eyes widened. Dried brownish streaks flaked off the bumper and grill, and a tuft of black hair was pinched to the license plate holder.

Jen stood and backed from the car—a white Camry! She must not scream. Drive away. Pretend she didn’t see it. Whose car was this? Her breath came in sharp puffs, and she doubled over, trying not to hyperventilate or faint. She quickly retrieved her keys from the sidewalk. A pair of trousered legs met her on the way up. The scream erupted from her throat, and strong hands clamped her wrists.

Steel-grey eyes bore into hers. “Calm down. Are you okay?”

Words scattered from her throat. She tried to pull away, but the man, the CEO, the delectable Dave Jewell, held her tight. He picked up her backpack and pulled her toward the building.

“I-I ah…” Jen gasped, but she followed him through the door.

“Let’s get you some water.” He handed her the backpack and steered her through the lobby toward his office. “It’s only a little front end damage. I’m sure your insurance will take care of it.”

He appeared calm, too calm to have blood on his car. Jen’s brain burst with silent screams. She forced herself to breathe evenly. A CEO wouldn’t be driving a Camry, would he?

There had to be an innocent explanation, and she sure as hell didn’t want to get involved. She’d pretend nothing was wrong. Consciously relaxing, she disengaged from his hold and accepted the bottle of water. “Sure. I’ll be down in the server room. I hope Bruce unpacked the boxes and racked the filer. Is that his car parked next to mine?”

Dave looked up from his Blackberry. “Huh? I have to go. I came to grab a file. Let me know if you need anything else.”

He jingled his keys, one with a Toyota emblem, and he patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry about your car. I’ll pay for the damage. I should have had parking blocks installed, especially where the curb’s too high. Let’s go check it out. I know a body shop that’ll do you good.”

Jen fought for her breath again. How could he be so light-hearted and casual? But wasn’t that the case with psychopaths? Especially charming, handsome, successful ones? The last one anyone suspected. He acted as if he didn’t remember meeting her last night at the pizza place. Oh, yes. Stupid. Of course. He was the boss, and this was work. Well, she’d pretend she never shared a video game with him, either.

“No… no, I have to go to the lab.”

“Okay, I’ll take a look on the way out and call someone to fix it. You just worry about the filer. Promise me you won’t break anything?” He smiled and pantomimed tipping his nonexistent hat.

Was he a loon on top of being a murderer? Jen shuddered and backed out of his office. When she saw him exit, she ran to a window near her cubicle.

Dave squatted in front of her car. He traced the crack and pulled on the broken air dam. He glanced at the white car and froze. Slowly he eased himself to his feet and looked at the office building. Their gazes locked.


About the author

Rachelle Ayala was a software engineer until she discovered storytelling works better in fiction than real code. She has over thirty years of writing experience and has always lived in a multi-cultural environment.

Rachelle is an active member of online critique group, Critique Circle, and a volunteer for the World Literary Cafe. She is a very happy woman and lives in California with her husband. She has three children and has taught violin and made mountain dulcimers.
Scroll down for an interview with Rachelle!
 
Rachelle's website
Buy Broken Build 

Talking With Rachelle Ayala

Rachelle Ayala's book, Broken Build, was published in September by Amiga Books, and she's here today to tell us a little about it.

Book blurb:
Jen Jones hides a horrible secret behind her new degree, toned body, and exciting job at Silicon Valley’s hottest startup—until a man is killed in a hit-and-run at her work.

CEO and founder Dave Jewell is about to land a huge deal. What he doesn’t need is blood on his car, threatening phone calls, and Jen wrapped in broken code and blackmail.

A gang of thugs hunts Jen, and she takes refuge in Dave’s protective arms. Together, they must thwart a killer and rescue an innocent victim from their past. Love blossoms, but a damaging revelation points straight at Jen, threatening to tear them apart forever.


Hello, Rachelle, I’m happy to have you here today to talk about your work. You’ve published three books. Do you outline, write by the seat of your pants, or let your characters tell you what to write?
I daydream the big moments in advance so I know who the villain is and what the setup of the climax would be. Other than that, I write by the seat of my skirt (I don’t wear pants since I outgrew my jeans.) When I write, a movie is playing in my mind. I record everything, and oftentimes it goes with what the characters are thinking and feeling. They don’t necessarily tell me what to write, but if they won’t go a certain way and I’ve tried to nudge them that way a few times, I give up. If I keep dictating to them to do this or do that, they go on strike, and I get blocked, and no writer likes to get blocked.

I’m constantly on the lookout for new names. How do you name your characters?
Names pop into my head. I don’t really give it much thought. I suppose it is free association. I try to keep the names very common so that no one can say it is about them, hence Jones, Walker, Williams, Cruz, Jewell, Mathews are used as surnames. I live in a multi-cultural environment so Indian, Spanish, and Chinese names pop into my mind frequently.

What would Jen, your main character, say about you?
She doesn’t like me very much. I’m too mean to her, expose all her secret fears and weaknesses and make her go through lots of trauma, physical and emotional. I gave her a broken man, one she broke with her past misdeeds, and had her fall in love with him while fearing he’d reject her when he finds out what she’d done.

Are you like any of your characters? How so?
My female characters have tender hearts. They may have their own problems, but they’re all nurturers and melt at the sight of small children and baby animals. They tend to be impulsive in love like I am. This means I need to write a different character next time, but I find it tough to relate to a hard-as-nails independent woman with a chip on her shoulder. Perhaps that is why I never finished my book, Kyra’s Shield, about a woman who grew up as a man in ancient Philistia.

With which of your characters would you most like to be stuck on a deserted island?
Well, gosh, this is hard. I have such hot male characters. There’s King David, Prince Ittai, Michal’s second husband, Phalti the scribe, CEO Dave Jewell and my latest sweetie, triathlete Lucas Knight.

Tell us about your favorite scene in the book.
This one is from Broken Build. I loved to play pinball back in the 1980’s. There was a game called William’s Time Warp with yellow banana shaped paddles. I must have been in the zone one evening at UCLA. Usually, I’m pretty bad and my friend, Kathy Curry, would whip me, but that night, with Time Warp, I scored one high score after another. I didn’t even notice that everyone around me had stopped playing and that a crowd had gathered.

So I relived this pinball game in Dave’s garage at his Tahoe cabin. Only, he was playing with a hot female sitting on the table facing him. Uhmmm… my favorite scene was actually deleted. Instead, he tells her what he’d do to her on the table without actually doing it. My characters were both too emotionally damaged to go through with the hot scene I’d written.

What book are you currently reading?
Scent of Triumph by Jan Moran, I’m fascinated by women who struggle through cataclysmic times to survive, gain love and reunite their family. The heroine in Scent of Triumph reminds me of my protagonist, Michal, in Michal’s Window who loses her husband, King David, to her father’s murderous rage, only to go on an epic journey to reunite with him, sidetracked by lovers and rivals, wartime destitution and queenly duties, death and sacrifice, but ultimate triumph.

How do you handle criticism of your work?
I don’t expect every reader to like my writing, so it is fine if they criticize it. I generally absorb it to see if there is anything I can improve, but I do not struggle to change my vision to suit critics. For example, my first book, Michal’s Window, has too much sex for its genre. I have my fair share of one-star reviews to prove it. But I truly believe I could not have captured the depth of Michal’s obsessive love for David and the distraction by her lover if I did not include the scenes. And honestly, they were not that explicit. It’s just that the ordinary reader of Biblical fiction is not used to on-scene sex.

Do you ever get writer’s block? What do you do when it happens?
I rarely get blocked, but as I said earlier, when I do, it’s because I’m not being true to myself—I’m trying to live up to someone else’s expectation of how my book should be structured. Here’s an example. My current WIP, Hidden Under Her Heart, is about abortion. In order to not offend any potential Christian readers, I decided that my two lovers would not have pre-marital sex. I’m writing along and get to the 2/3rds mark where they’re reunited after a long estrangement of 10 weeks. These two have talked it out, they’ve averted sex three times already, but they insist on escaping the party to go camping in a tent. At this point my readers are likely to be just as frustrated as my characters. The situation borders on unrealistic. So my characters simply went on strike until they got what they wanted. Of course, sex complicates their relationship, but hey, complications are good. And unbeknownst to them, the “Delete” key is always available.

What are you working on now?
I’m working on a novel with abortion as the main topic. I read a post on the taboos of romance. [URL: http://shewandapugh.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-unspoken-rules-of-romance-part-i.html] Abortion was mentioned as the #1 no-no. I’m an indie author, no one tells me what I can and cannot write about. As I started asking myself the “what-if’s” the story gelled. My main character, Maryanne Torres, is a nurse, not a pregnant teenager. I wanted her to be completely knowledgeable and responsible for her own choices. There will be obvious complications and a series of decisions to make. I don’t want to give too much of the story away, but I’m excited about the concept and hope it will make for an emotional story, no matter which side of the debate you are on. 

I'm sure it will. Thank you, Rachelle, for stopping by to chat about Broken Build. Good luck with it and your WIP. I hope you'll come back when it's published.

About Rachelle:
Rachelle Ayala was a software engineer until she discovered storytelling works better in fiction than real code. She has over thirty years of writing experience and has always lived in a multi-cultural environment.

Rachelle is an active member of online critique group, Critique Circle, and a volunteer for the World Literary Cafe. She is a very happy woman and lives in California with her husband. She has three children and has taught violin and made mountain dulcimers.
Follow Rachelle:
Website/blog
Facebook page
Goodreads author page
Twitter
Amazon