Guest Blog

A Conversation With Denise Weimer

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Denise Weimer holds a journalism degree with a minor in history from Asbury University. A former magazine writer, she is a substantive editor for Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas as well as the author of The Georgia Gold Series, The Restoration Trilogy and a number of romantic novellas due for release in upcoming months.

How do you pick the location/setting of your romantic suspense novels?
Denise: So far my novels and novellas have all been set in my home state of Georgia. I’ll probably soon push past these geographical boundaries, but so far, following the advice of “write what you know” has worked well for me. Having kids at home while building a career has meant it makes more sense to choose locations I am already familiar with not just physically, but culturally as well. Besides, Georgia is a state of great variety, from the gorgeous mountains, to the rolling Piedmont, to the historical coast. It’s a place rife with both Hallmark-worthy and intriguing backdrops for romantic suspense!

What is one of your favorite ways to connect with readers?
Denise: I enjoy Facebook parties so much! It’s fun to set a theme around your story, prepare a line-up of relevant giveaways, and chat with readers with similar interests from all over the nation.

Why do you like writing romantic suspense?
Denise: Because we don’t live life focusing on just one thing at a time, and we often face huge challenges as we seek the life we want, I love the depth of interweaving more than one plot line together. A bit of suspense or mystery heightens emotions and reveals character more quickly. I also enjoy writing stories where an unsolved mystery or threat from the past forces its way to center stage. There’s something in our nature that craves answers and resolution. Achieving those often goes hand in hand with character development and readiness for wholeness and love.

Current book: The Restoration Trilogy
When Jennifer Rushmore accepts a bachelor’s job offer to coordinate the restoration of his family’s historic doctor’s house (WHITE), apothecary (WIDOW) and log cabin (WITCH) in a rural Georgia community, little does she know it’s her own heart that will undergo the greatest renovation.

Connect W/Denise
Website: deniseweimerbooks.webs.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/denise.weimer1
Twitter: twitter.com/denise_weimer

A Conversation With Donna Schlachter

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Donna lives in Denver with husband Patrick, her first-line editor and biggest fan. She writes historical suspense under her own name, and contemporary suspense under her alter ego of Leeann Betts. Donna is proud to be represented by Terrie Wolf of AKA Literary Management.

What’s the hardest part of writing romantic suspense?
Donna: The hardest part is always making sure there is a balance between the romance and the suspense. There is a reader expectation that both will be about equal, and I like to charge ahead with writing the suspense part, then find I have to go back and weave in the romance.

When do you find time to write?
Donna: I am blessed to have a husband who supports my calling to write, so I don’t work outside the home. That doesn’t mean I don’t work, though. I don’t find time to write—I MAKE time to write. I impose deadlines for myself for books I’m writing, and even when I’m not under contract, I write. I independently publish two cozy mysteries a year under my pen name, Leeann Betts, and always have several stories percolating in my head.

What is your favorite spot for reading or reflecting on your current work-in-progress?
Donna: Well, that’s going to take two answers. For reading, anywhere works—I once missed my bus stop and ended up about 10 miles from where I lived when I was only seven because my nose was stuck in a book! For reflecting on my current WIP, I love museums or libraries. Both are filled with fodder for not only this story, but the next one, and the next one and. . . you get the picture.

Current book: Echoes of the Heart
A mail order bride. A crippled stationmaster. No way out for either of them—except with each other. Can they surrender their hearts and find true love?

Connect w/Donna
Website www.HiStoryThruTheAges.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/donna.schlachterauthor
Twitter: twitter.com/donnaschlachter

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

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