Guest Blog

A Conversation With Dawn V. Cahill

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Author Dawn V. Cahill pens “stories of victorious faith for the 21st century,” nearly always with a crossword puzzle, sudoku or dark chocolate nearby. She has written newspaper articles, three Christian contemporary novels and more limericks than she can count. She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers.

How do you pick the location/setting of your romantic suspense novels?
Dawn: First of all, the setting needs to be familiar to me. I live on the West Coast, so I wouldn’t be inclined to set a story in, say, Cutter Gap, West Virginia.

For my Seattle Trilogy, I chose that setting because I lived outside Seattle for about five years and know it well enough to write about it. (Saves on research time!) Plus, there’s something about Seattle’s rain-soaked grayness and its high stark fir trees that lends a spooky quality to the story.

What did you want to be as a child (and did that dream come true)?
Dawn: I always wanted to be an author from the time I could read! I was an early reader, loved books and stories, and as I read I would wonder, Could I write something this good? Sure enough, in my fifties, I published my debut novel, Sapphire Secrets, and from the raving reviews, apparently my readers think I wrote something “that good.”

What is one of your favorite ways to connect with readers?
Dawn: I love when a reader “discovers” me and sends me an email to tell me about it! It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, it’s a real day-brightener.

Current book: Moonstone Secrets
One missing boyfriend…one dead ex-wife. If DeeDee pursues their secrets, will she put herself in danger, too?

Connect W/Dawn
Website: dawnvcahill.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Dawn-V-Cahill-Author-581290478668884/
Twitter: @dvcahill
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/dawnvcahillauth/pins/

A Conversation With Sandra Glahn

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Sandra Glahn teaches in the Media Arts and Worship Department at Dallas Theological Seminary. She’s authored more than 20 books, including the Christy fiction finalist Lethal Harvest. She loves storytelling, mostly medical suspense.

How do you pick the location/setting of your romantic suspense novels?
Sandra: I learned from reading the Bible that “place” can have meaning apart from the event that happens in it. For example, when Peter denies Christ, he’s standing by a charcoal fire. But later, when Jesus gives him three opportunities to declare his love, he does so by—you guessed it—a charcoal fire. Or after Queen Jezebel plots to have a man in Jezreel stoned to death because she wants his vineyard, she gets eaten by dogs about seventeen years later in—you guessed it—Jezreel. That said, I sometimes create settings that communicate something other than mere “place” in my stories. For example, an important scene relating to abortion happened in one of my stories on the steps of the Dallas Courthouse because that is where the Roe v. Wade decision happened.

What did you want to be as a child (and did that dream come true)?
Sandra: I wanted to be the singer Diana Ross. I loved to sing. My siblings would even mock me by chanting, “Sing it, Diana!” But that did not deter me.

What’s the weirdest way someone has died or been killed in your novels?
Sandra: A scientist trying to eliminate a hereditary disease that killed one of his family members creates what he hopes will serve as something of a vaccine to save the rest of his family. When he injects himself first, uh, suffice it say his “cure” didn’t work.

Current book: Informed Consent
A celebrated medical researcher accidentally causes his son’s life-threatening illness, but to save the child—and his marriage—this doctor must violate another patient’s rights.

Connect W/Sandra
Website: http://aspire2.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aspire2/

Twitter: @sandraglahn

Google Plus: Sandra Glahn

A Conversation With Janet Chester Bly

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Janet Chester Bly has written and co-authored with late husband Stephen Bly of 40 fiction and nonfiction book for adults and kids (tween and young teen). Her newest releases are Wind in the Wires and Down Squash Blossom Road, both part of the contemporary western mystery Trails of Reba Cahill series.

What is your favorite spot for reading or reflecting on your current work-in-progress?
Janet: After an especially long winter at my mountain top home in north Idaho, on pleasant days I like sitting on the deck outside my second story bunkhouse (above the garage) or at a picnic bench at Broken Arrow Crossing, the 1880s false front town in my yard. Just being outside clears the mind and stirs creativity. Of course, a walk to the post office and back or out to the lake dock does much the same. As long as I bring a notebook for recording those fly-away thoughts.

Why do you like writing romantic suspense?
Janet: Love the double tension of romance happening in a dangerous situation. Like when friends-only Reba Cahill and Jace McKane get locked in an empty, cement floor, small basement room together. She’s bruised from falling down stairs. He’s been stabbed in the midriff. In the outer room, their captor terrorizes a boy he kidnapped and threatens to burn the place down. In the midst of it all, a few sparks smolder as they tend to wounds, open up with each other, and try to figure out how to survive.

Have you ever regretted killing off a character? Why?
Janet: Alas, yes. But he wasn’t human. The biggest complaint from readers lamented the death of a black quarterhorse named Johnny Poe. I couldn’t help it. The antagonist insisted on riding him in a getaway scene in the Nevada desert near a cliff, although he was warned not to. I didn’t realize until that moment the main character’s favorite horse she trained as a teenager would not survive the first book. I miss that pesky horse! And so does Reba Cahill. She spends time in the next two books trying to find a worthy replacement, including in my WIP, Book 3, Beneath a Camperdown Elm (scheduled for early summer 2018 release).

Current book: Down Squash Blossom Road Book 2, Trails of Reba Cahill
Reba Cahill’s schedule full. Save family’s ranch. Free mom from mental institute. Solve murder and kidnapping. Evade stalker. Can she also squeeze in romance?

Connect W/Janet
Website: www.BlyBooks.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BlyBooks
Twitter: https://twitter.com/blybooks/
Google Plus: https://plus.google.com/u/0/110901558845337068257
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janetchesterbly/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/janetcbly/  
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/269265.Janet_Chester_Bly  
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/janetchesterbly

A Conversation With Julie B Cosgrove

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Award-winning author, public speaker and freelance writer, Julie has also become a new kind of missionary- over cyberspace. People from all over the world text, Skype and email mentors to discuss issues they face, confidentially and anonymously. Julie edits and writes devotional and inspirational articles to spur these conversations.

When do you find time to write?
Julie: I carve out time. I work outside the home on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, which leaves all day on Tuesdays and Fridays to write for my ministry. Often, God grants me the time to work on my novels as well. When I am not speaking on weekends, I often have a PJ day and write then as well.

Threes Sixes and Thieves is my tenth book, and it launches this summer. I have two suspense romances―Hush n the Storm and Legitmate Lies―published, three clean romance novellas, two contemporary women’s novels, and now am writing cozies. Four more cozy mysteries are under contract. One more for the Bunco Biddies and a new series set in the early 1970s called the Case Files of Jack Manson. They will be released in 2018-19.

What’s your go-to when you need a pick-me-up to keep writing?
Julie: Vegging out with a bowl of popcorn on my lap watching murder mysteries on Netflix, especially the older British ones like “Midsommer Murders,” “Father Brown” and “Morse.” And yes, I watch “Murder She Wrote” and “Columbo” as well. They are so cheesy, I love them! Did we really wear wide-shoulder clothes and big hair like that in the eighties?

What’s the weirdest way someone has died or been killed in your novels?
Julie: The newest resident of Sunset Acres, the Bunco Biddie’s retirement community, is found chopped up in a dumpster in Book #1, Dumpster Dicing. Yes, they are humorous reads. In Legitimate Lies, the villain is crushed by a toppled an ancestral marble statue in an English mansion. Pretty classic.

Current book: Three Sixes and Thieves
When only homes with threes and sixes in the house numbers are robbed, the Biddies want to find out why. Third in the Bunco Biddies Mysteries.

Connect W/Julie
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/juliebcosgrove
Twitter: @JulieBCosgrove
Blog: http://wheredidyoufindgodtoday.com

A Conversation With Renee Blare

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Nestled in the foothills of the Wind River Mountains, Renee Blare lives in Wyoming with her husband, crazy dogs, and ornery cat. She serves her beautiful small town as a pharmacist while penning her stories about struggling Christians as they travel along the journeys of their lives. She loves to interact with readers and invites you check out her website, blog, and social media.

When do you find time to write?
Renee: I work full-time as a pharmacy manager, so I write whenever I can. I guess that means whenever I can squeeze it in! I used to work part time, so it was a lot easier, but now I find time is a bit harder to manage. LOL But God is good.

How do you connect with your characters?
Renee: My characters are real to me and I love them so much! I put so much of me and those who I know in them that I can’t help but connect to them. Their struggles are much the same way. Physical, spiritual, or mental…I or someone I know has walked in their shoes. It makes it very easy to connect with them.

Why do you like writing romantic suspense?
Renee: I guess I like the flow of it. Suspense always keeps me wanting to know where the story is going to go next and romance keeps my heart warm and fuzzy! LOL. What can I say? I guess I love having people fall in love. God loves me, and I want people to be happy.

Current book: Racing Hearts
A young couple sets off on an adventure, but challenges arise in their newfound paradise. Soon, their love faces a trial. Placing the fate of their unborn child in the hands of God seems rather easy, but trusting each other? That may prove to be the largest challenge of all.

Connect W/Renee
Website: http://www.reneeblare.com/
Blog: https://reneeblare.blogspot.com/
Group Blog: http://diamondsinfiction.blogspot.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/474728079355449/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blarerenee/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ReneeBlare
Google Plus: https://plus.google.com/u/0/113410151904056563997

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