Dec 11, 2014 | Coffee With, December 2014
First, if we were meeting at a coffee shop I’d be drinking a Latte. What would you order? Half-caf skinny vanilla latte. I keep trying other drinks, but this is my go-to.
Thanks so much for taking the time to answer a few questions.
How many books in your Cross Springs Series can we expect to see? As for the Cross Springs series, the jury is out. I am working on the fourth novel and second novella now and just taking the stories as they unfold. The fourth novel features Connie’s sister-in-law, Lacey Burns, who just sort of showed up and demanded her own book. That’s how all my books happen. The characters just show up and make demands! As long as the residents of Cross Springs keep insisting I write their books, I will do so. I do have plans for a series set in the mountains of east Tennessee, though. Those people are starting to demand some attention, too.
What was it like to put out a Boxed Set with every Author from Red Door Reads? I can only imagine the planning session for that one 😉 As for the Red Door Reads box set, it was surprisingly easy to get everyone on board. Which is astonishing, considering there are 20 of us! The actual work of coordinating all of that wasn’t my responsibility, but I got secondhand accounts of how much work it was. My hat is off to the Red Doorians who made it happen. They are true heroines!
8 Tantalizing Tidbit
- A Must read book and why? Scarlett Bailey’s “Married By Christmas.” It is not strictly romance, but more of a chick lit book. It’s a Christmas book, which is why I picked it up initially, but it speaks in a very candid way about the profound importance women put on getting married, even when they know they are likely making a mistake. This book was also as much about the friendship between the heroine and her bestie as it was about the old love she left and the new one she found. It is smart, funny and heart-wrenching, with a very satisfying ending. I was very impressed with how Bailey pulled the story off and how profoundly good it was. Highly recommended!
- What is one place that I should see if I visit your hometown? Well, my hometown is Nashville, TN, and there are tons of must-see places there. That one would be a gimme. But I now live in Raleigh, NC, which is much less attractive from a tourist’s perspective. I think our shining stars, though, are our museums. We have some really splendid state museums housed in Raleigh and the NC Museum of Art is not to be missed. They have a surprisingly varied and impressive collection of art. They have wonderful docents, too, who will tell you anything and everything you could want to know about each work there. They also have fantastic special exhibits, like the Rodin statues they had a few years ago and the Porsche exhibit two years past. Amazing! They have one right now that is 66 works by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Hals and their Contemporaries. I really want to go. Wonder if I can con my husband into that one or if I need to wait for one of my daughters to get home for the holidays?
- Castles or Beaches? Castles! Especially if they are along the Rhine and I can see them while cruising down the river. Dream vacation.
- When you are traveling do you prefer to road trip it or fly it? Road trip, if possible. I love to drive. Like, really love it. I also love to listen to music really loud, sing along and keep time with the tiny maracas I keep in the car. For some reason, driving makes me insanely happy. I think a road trip across the country with my mother or one of my sisters or daughters would be the most fun ever. Any sights seen along the way are gravy!
- What is your guilty pleasure?My guilty pleasure is binge-watching, whether it’s back-to-back episodes of a TV show, all the movies in a series or simply a collection of movies that appeal to me. I recently binged on Wes Anderson movies. What a treat! Sadly, my husband doesn’t really “get” Wes Anderson movies. I needed one of my kids around to enjoy it with me!
- Binge watcher or weekly viewer? Um…I think I gave myself away in the guilty pleasure question. I have binge-watched every TV show I’ve seen in the past decade. I watch nothing when it airs, but wait for whole seasons to be available. I watched all of ‘Battlestar Galactica’ (the remake, of course) in about a week. All the shows and all the seasons!
- What’s your favorite TV show and why? ‘Sherlock.’ It’s funny, intelligent, fast and all about friends. Plus, I miss so many things I can watch each episode at least 4 times before picking up every nuance and enjoying every joke. That is the sign of a great show!
- What is your guilty pleasure?My guilty pleasure is binge-watching, whether it’s back-to-back episodes of a TV show, all the movies in a series or simply a collection of movies that appeal to me. I recently binged on Wes Anderson movies. What a treat! Sadly, my husband doesn’t really “get” Wes Anderson movies. I needed one of my kids around to enjoy it with me!
Thank you for taking the time to chat!
BIO:
Caren Crane grew up in Nashville, TN, and as a result does not care for country music. However, she cares a great deal about family, friends and men in boots. She blames her love of reading on a childhood devoid of TV and heavy on amusing oneself. Reading books was a lot more fun than playing with Barbies and playing “library” was far superior to playing “school.”
Caren now lives in North Carolina with her tall, handsome husband and a semi-feral and very demanding rescue cat. She fills all her books with family, friends and happy-ever-after endings. Which all books should feature, in her opinion. Connect with Caren on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/CarenCraneAuthor or get the latest book news at https://www.CarenCrane.com.
Dec 9, 2014 | Blog, Coffee With, December 2014
If we were meeting at a coffee shop I’d be drinking a Latte. What would you order? Hazelnut coffee, black
Thanks so much for taking the time to answer a few questions. I LOVE your Millworth Manor books and was wondering how many books you anticipate in this series? I have no idea at this point. 🙂 I originally had tentative plots for seven books but the Millworth Manor world keeps evolving and new, interesting characters keep popping up, demanding their own stories. Plus, the next Millworth book – The Daring Exploits of a Runaway Heiress – brings back the Effington family and I honestly don’t know where that will lead. I’ll probably keep doing Millworth books as long as I’m still having fun with them.
8 Tantalizing Tidbits
1. A MUST read book and why? My must read book is allegedly for kids. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis is the most wonderful book I’ve ever read. You read it one way as a kid but see so much more in it when you reread it as an adult. It’s truly a book that can be read over and over again- no matter how old you are. 🙂
2. What is one place that I should see if I visit your hometown? My neighborhood- Dundee 🙂 Fabulous little restaurants and great old houses.
3. Castles or Beaches? Easy- a castle overlooking a beach.
4. If you had an all expenses paid tri anywhere in the world for research, where would you go? Petra
5. Hard Rock or Classical? Favorite Band? Classic Rock. 🙂 No one favorite but I love Bob Seger and Manheim Steamroller.
6. What is your guilty pleasure? Made for TV Christmas movies.
7. Binge watcher or weekly reviewer? Definitely binge but only if it’s something I’ve just discovered. Binge watched the first seasons of Downton Abbey. Other than that – I watch (or record) all my favorites every week.
8. What’s your favorite TV show and why? I love TV so it’s hard to pick just one. Right now my favorites are Sleepy Hollow, Forever, Scandal and Grimm. And of course Downton Abbey. : )
9. What’s your favorite movie of all time and why? Probably The Red Violin for any number of reasons including that it’s really a lot of different stories in one. The movie follows a violin from it’s creation through to today. It’s a fascinating movie, moving, touching and completely engrossing.
10. If you could invite FIVE people to dinner (not friends and family – that’s too easy) who would you invite? It could be anyone past or present. Stephen King, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Candice Bergen and Hillary Clinton, I think the conversation would be amazing. And hysterical.
Thank you so much for your time and the extra TWO questions!
BIO:
New York Times bestselling author Victoria Alexander was an award winning television reporter until she discovered fiction was much more fun than real life. She turned to writing full time and is still shocked it worked out.
Since the publication of her first book in 1995, she has written thirty-two full length novels and six novellas. The Perfect Wife—originally published in 1996 and reissued in March 2008—hit #1 on the New York Times list. The best selling, award winning author has books translated into more than a dozen different languages and readers around the world. Victoria credits much of her writing success to her experiences as a reporter.
Her years as a broadcast journalist were spent in two radically different areas of the country: Nebraska and West Virginia. In West Virginia, she covered both natural and manmade disasters. She was on the scene when a power plant construction accident in a small town left 52 men dead. She once spent the night on a mountain waiting to learn of the fate of coal miners trapped in a mine collapse. Victoria was producing a newscast when her husband (who worked at the same television station) and several other journalists were held hostage by a disturbed Vietnam veteran. In Nebraska, she reported on the farm crisis and watched people lose land that had been in their families for generations. She covered the story that was the basis of the movie BOYS DON’T CRY and once acted as the link between police and a gunman who had barricaded himself in his home. Her investigative work exposed the trucking of New York City garbage to a small town dump in rural Nebraska.
During her journalism career, Victoria covered every president from Ford to Clinton. She knows firsthand what it feels like to be surrounded by rising floodwaters and inside a burning building. She’s interviewed movie stars including Kevin Costner, ridden an elephant and flown in a governor’s helicopter. She’s covered a national political convention and Pope John Paul II’s historic visit to Denver as well as small town festivals celebrating everything from walnuts to Glen Miller. Her work was honored by numerous organizations including the Associated Press who called a feature about a firefighter’s school “story telling genius”. It was the encouragement she needed to turn from news to fiction. She’s never looked back.
Victoria claims her love of romance and journalism is to due to the influence of her favorite comic book character: Lois Lane, a terrific reporter and a great heroine who pursued Superman with an unwavering determination. And why not? He was extremely well drawn.
Victoria grew up traveling the world as an Air Force brat. Today, she lives in Omaha, Nebraska with her husband and two bearded collies—Louie and Reggie. They all live happily ever after in a house under constant renovation and the accompanying parade of men in tool belts. And never ending chaos. Victoria laughs a great deal—she has to.
Dec 4, 2014 | Blog, Coffee With, December 2014, Nancy Northcott, paranormal
First, if we were meeting at a coffee shop I’d be drinking a Latte:) What would you order? A caramel Frappuccino or its equivalent. I love caramel!
Thanks so much for taking the time to answer a few questions. How many books are you planning in this Series? The Light Mage Wars continues an earlier series, The Protectors, which included two novels and a novella. The two series are part of one story arc, which has a total of seven novels in it. So there are four more novels to come. There’ll also be a couple more novellas and some short stories.
Readers who want to go through the events in the order the characters do should ignore the series labels and start with Sentinel, which is set three years before Renegade, then read Renegade, Protector, Guardian, and Warrior in that order. The books are show in reading order on my website, https://www.nancynorthcott.com/category/books .
How do you research for a series like this? I grew up in a small town, so creating Wayfarer, Georgia, was easy. Devising the magic system was also fairly easy. I wanted it to be nature-based, so I kept that in mind as I read about many different kinds of magic and energy healing. What I ended up with is an amalgamation of all of it, spun to fit my particular world.
Using the Okefenokee Swamp was more challenging. It’s not the focus of the series, but each book touches on it, some more than others. I hit upon the idea of using it because I wanted to set this series in the South but not in Atlanta, which is popping up more often as a setting now. Jana Oliver’s wonderful Demon Trapper’s Daughter series has a couple of scenes in the Okefenokee, but so far as I know, no one else has use it in any major way as a paranormal romance or fantasy setting.
I remembered visiting the Okefenokee with my family when I was in grade school, though I didn’t remember much about it other than the name and the fact that we didn’t take a boat ride because my mom was afraid a snake would fall into the boat. When I shared this with my brainstorming group, one of the members said, “The energy is different in a swamp.” That kicked off a round of ideas about how that could matter with magic, and the swamp became an integral part of the series world.
Because I hadn’t been there since childhood, I barely touched on it in the first book that sold, Renegade. Soon after that sale, I visited the Okefenokee with my family and totally fell in love with it.
This astounds my friends, who know I like my surroundings climate-controlled and my wildlife safely distant. I am seriously Not Nature Girl. But the swamp is an astounding ecosystem unlike anything else I’d ever seen. It’s a huge (about 700 square miles) blackwater peat bog, not actually a swamp. It has its share of bugs, but it doesn’t smell. When the water is undisturbed, it’s a perfect mirror, something that’s definitely going to matter in a book at some point.
I’ve taken a number of excursions with guides from Okenfenokee Adventures, the official concessionaire for the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, and talked to rangers in the refuge and at the state park on the swamp’s west side. I wanted to learn as much as possible about the swamp because you never know what’s going to spark an idea.
To flesh out the characters’ backgrounds, I reached out to a number of people who generously shared their time and expertise. Writing Warrior involved not only visiting Billy’s Island in the Okefenokee, the inspiration for Mystery Island in the book, but contacting archaeologists, a historian who has studied the swamp and its inhabitants, and a gamer.
As is often the case with writers and research, much of what I learned will never appear on a page. But having it in my head helps me immerse myself–and, I hope, the reader–in the world these characters inhabit.
I always ask every question I can think of, and I can only hope I don’t trip over the question that never occurred me!
**Here is a photo of the Okefenokee, showing what a perfect mirror the water is**
Nancy, this is so fascinating! I’m not a nature girl myself but would probably dive in for the safe of research 😉 I hope your readers are as excited as I am to read this too! Thank you for the insight into your series and reading order. For some, the only way the read a series is in sequential order!
8 Tantalizing Tidbits:
1. A MUST read book and why? To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s my all-time ever favorite book. The family relationships and the friendships are beautifully drawn. It also depicts most of its characters as nuanced, caught between the social imperatives of their time and their senses of what is right. It’s a also a brilliant portrait of small-town life in the South during the Depression.
2. What is one place that I should see if I visit your hometown? I’m from Davidson, North Carolina, a college town about 20 miles north of Charlotte. It has burgeoned in size but still has it’s old-fashioned Main Street, with various shops and eateries, so I’d pick that. Though parking might be a challenge.
3. Castles or Beaches? Oooh, toughie! I love both. Since it’s easier for me to get to a beach than to a castle though, I’ll go with castles. I love the history that reverberates from the walls.
4. One thing readers would be surprised to know about you. I eaerned an FCC third-class radio operator license. When I was in college, I worked at the campus radio station, and the station manager arranged for a bunch of us to take the test. I think it was so we could be unsupervised in the control room or sign our own logs or something, but I’ve forgotten the exact reason now.
5. If you had an all expenses paid trip anywhere in the world for research, where would you go? Hawaii. I’ve always wanted to go there, and I would be more than happy to set many stories there to justify the trip. Nature-based magic, which my mages use, would have a lot of fuel there. I sent one of my mage couples to Hawaii for their honeymoon. Too bad I couldn’t check locations for them ahead of time!
6. Organized or Free Floating? That depends on what day of the week you ask me. Some days, when I have a lot that has to be done at a specific time, I’m very organized. That’s the only way I can check off the entire list. Other days, I tend to go at a slower pace and am open to sudden ideas like going to the bookstore to see what came in.
7. What’s your favorite TV show and why? I love NCIS-LA. The plots are usually interesting, often with unpredictable twists, and I enjoy the banter among the characters. The evolving Kensi/Deeks relationship (#Densi on Twitter) intrigues me. I’m rooting hard for them to get together. On top of that, the explosive action element feeds my need for boom, as we call it in the Romance Bandit’s Lair.
8. If you could invite 5 people to dinner (not friends and family- that’s too easy) who would you invite? It could be anyone past or present.
Hmmm. There are so many people I’d like to interrogate–uh, talk to! This list might be different on a different day, but for now, let’s go with these:
I would invite Richard III of England because I’d like to know the truth about how he came to the throne in 1483. I don’t subscribe to the traditionalist view, but I don’t think the man was purer than the driven snow, either. So I have lots of questions he could answer. Assuming a king would condescend to do so.
Next would be whoever carved the word Croatoan on a tree on Roanoke Island, North Carolina, in the late 1500s. The mystery of Sir Walter Raleigh’s Lost Colony has intrigued me since childhood. There are many theories about the colonists’ fate, and it would be great to learn what actually happened to them.
Elizabeth I would round out the historical contingent. I’d like to know how she managed the delicate dance that kept her both unmarried and on the throne for 70 + years. Queen or not, she might welcome a chance to brag after all this time.
Nathan Fillion would be welcome because I adore both Firefly and Castle. I think he would add a lighter note to balance the weightiness of the historical figures.
Finally, I would have Amanda Tapping of Stargate: SGI and Sanctuary to round out the table. She’s a terrific actress and is funny and quick enough to keep up with Fillion as well as helping to lighten the atmosphere. Her character on SGI, Captain (and then Major and then Colonel) Samantha Carter was an action heroine when they weren’t so common. She was also the science geek of the team, an unusual role for an attractive woman on TV in the series’ early days.
Of course, these people might not care to talk to each other, or even be able to, seeing as how pronunciation changes over the centuries, but I would find a way to talk to all of them! If we were having imaginary people, the DC Comics universe would come into play, and that would make choosing even harder. But I figured you wanted me to stick to actual people.
Thanks for having me, Rae, and for taking the time to review my books.
BIO:
Nancy Northcott’s childhood ambition was to grow up and become Wonder Woman. Around fourth grade, she realized it was too late to acquire Amazon genes, but she still loved comic books, science fiction, fantasy and YA romance. A sucker for fast action and wrenching emotion, Nancy combines the romance and high stakes she loves in the books she writes.
Her debut novel, Renegade, received a starred review from Library Journal. The reviewer called it “genre writing at its best.” Nancy is a three-time RWA Golden Heart finalist and has won the Maggie, the Molly, the Emerald City Opener, and Put Your Heart in a Book.
Married since 1987, Nancy and her husband have one son, a bossy dog, and a house full of books.
Dec 2, 2014 | Blog, Coffee With, December 2014, Vicki Lewis Thompson
Thank you for your interest! This is going to be great! Years ago before I started my blog I read your Nerd Series books and that is how I discovered you :). Aw, that’s great to hear. Bless Kelly Ripa for giving me so much publicity!
That must have been so much fun to research! Did you have a favorite book in the series?
Probably the first one, Nerd in Shining Armor, because I wrote that without a contract, which was a very freeing experience, but The Nerd Who Loved Me is my second favorite. Oh, wait, I loved Nerd Gone Wild, set in Alaska. That was my Northern Exposure book, LOL. It’s hard to choose. They were a blast to write and I had nerds emailing me giving me tips and research advice. It was a great run.
First, if we were meeting at a coffee shop I’d be drinking a Latte 🙂 What would you order?
Pumpkin Spice Latte if they have it! I love flavored lattes and get them whenever I stop in a coffee shop. Peppermint is great, too!
Thanks so much for taking the time to answer a few questions. Your books vary from Cowboys to Sexy Nerds to Werewolves and so much more, do you have a favorite?
Thanks for asking me to do this! Well, you’re asking me to choose my favorite child, LOL. I can’t choose. Each type of story has a different appeal for me, and I love writing them all. I fall in love with the hero every time, whether he’s a nerd, a cowboy, or a werewolf!
8 Tantalizing Tidbits:
1. A Must read book and why? Huckleberry Finn, if you haven’t. Nobody nails dialogue like Mark Twain. I heart his work.
2. What is one place that I should see if I visit your hometown? Saguaro National Monument. We have two parks on either side of town where the roads wind through majestic stands of these amazing cacti. Saguaros only grow in the Sonoran Desert and it takes a least 60 years for them to sprout that first arm. Some of the huge, multi-armed ones have been around for more than 200 years.
3. One thing readers would be surprised to know about you. I don’t watch TV. I have no cable or dish service. When I hear of a great show that I need to watch, I’ll buy the season of it, like Big Bang Theory, which I adore. But a lot of the time, my TV screen is blank because I’m writing, writing, writing!
4. If you had an all expenses paid trip anywhere in the world for research, where would you go? Antartica! It’s a pricey trip but I desperately want to see the wildlife that abounds there. It might be the last untouched place on Earth.
5. What is your guilty pleasure? Browsing in Michael’s Craft Store! I’m not crafty, but I love decorating my house, which is my major hobby. I go crazy with garlands and wreaths, changing them out for each season. I have a closet full of seasonal decorations from Michael’s.
6. What are you afraid of? Getting lost! I now have a GPS on my phone, thank God, and recently I used it to find an Ace Hardware store I’d never been to. This is in my town, mind you, but I still get confused. We have a huge shopping mall with a Penny’s in the middle and multiple doors out into the mall. I can’t go in Penny’s I’ll take the wrong door and wander in the mall for days.
7. Would you rather see a movie in the theatre or at home on DVD? Why? In the theater, hands down! I have a fairly large flat screen at home, but nothing beats the total immersion of that giant screen and surround sound. I dive into the story and don’t come out until the end. At home there can be interruptions.
8. Do you love to cook or go out to eat? Out to eat!! Cooking doesn’t work for me. I get distracted by the story I’m writing and forget something’s on the stove until it boils over or the smoke alarm goes off. I’d rather write than cook any old day. And I’m not a picky eater, so if someone puts food in front of me, I’ll eat it. I wouldn’t mind having a live-in cook, come to think of it.
THANK YOU SO MUCH for your time.
Thanks for inviting me to do the interview, Rae! If we ever do get to grab coffee together, I’m buying. 🙂
BIO:
A passion for travel has taken New York Times bestseller Vicki Lewis Thompson to Europe, Great Britain, the Greek Isles, Australia and New Zealand. She’s visited most of North America and has her eye on South America’s rainforests. Africa, India, and China beckon. But her first love is her home state of Arizona with its deserts, mountains, sunsets, and – last but not least – cowboys! The wide open spaces and heroes on horseback influence everything she writes. Connect with her at VickiLewisThompson.com, facebook.com/vickilewisthompson, and twitter.com/vickilthompson.
Nov 25, 2014 | Blog, Coffee With, Jennifer Probst, November 2014
Rae: First, if we were meeting at a coffee shop I’d be drinking a Latte 🙂 What would you order?
Jennifer: I’d order a cafe mocha please. I do adore my chocolate!
Rae: I have read your Marriage to a Billionaire series and thought it was great. I know you have a spinoff and I look forward to reading that too! Congrats on your newest novella, Searching for You in the Baby, It’s Cold Outside Collection! Thanks again for stopping by and taking the time to chat!
8 Tantalizing Tidbits
1. A MUST read book and why? The art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
It’s my all time favorite book. I’m a HUGE animal lover and this is written in the
POV of a dog named Enzo. It’s a book I always think about,
absolutely extraordinary.
2. What is one place that I should see if I visit your hometown?Hmm, we’re close to Manhattan here but I’d show you the gorgeous Mohonk Mountain House, with acres of gorgeous land, mountains, and a lake that will take your breath away. We’ll do some hiking, boating, and then feast on a gourmet lunch at the inn!
3. Castles or Beaches? Beaches always.
4. Hard Rock or Classical? Favorite Band? Hard Rock. But I love all genres of music
like books. My fave band is Matchbox 20 and Maroon 5.
5. If you had an all expenses paid trip anywhere in the world for research, where would
you go? Always one place I’d visit over and over. Italy.
6. What are you afraid of? Big fat hairy spiders. Oh, God, just thinking about them
makes me cringe.
7. Tats or no Tats? If tats, how many and why did you choose the first one? Yes! I got
one for my thirtieth birthday to celebrate!
8. What’s your favorite TV show and why? The Bachelor/Bachelorette. Don’t judge me. It’s trashy, dramatic, romantic, and exciting. And the men are hot.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
BIO:
Jennifer Probst wrote her first book at twelve years old. She bound it in a folder, read it to her classmates, and hasn’t stopped writing since. She took a short hiatus to get married, get pregnant, buy a house, get pregnant again, pursue a master’s in English Literature, and rescue two shelter dogs. Now she is writing again.
She makes her home in Upstate New York with the whole crew. Her sons keep her active, stressed, joyous, and sad her house will never be truly clean.
She is the New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of sexy and erotic contemporary romance. She was thrilled her book, The Marriage Bargain, was ranked #6 on Amazon’s Best Books for 2012, and spent 26 weeks on the New York Times. Her work has been translated in over a dozen countries, sold over a million copies, and was dubbed a “romance phenom” by Kirkus Reviews.She loves hearing from readers. Visit her website for updates on new releases and her street team at www.jenniferprobst.com.
Sign up for her newsletter at www.jenniferprobst.com/newsletter for a chance to win a gift card each month and receive exclusive material and giveaways.
Nov 20, 2014 | Blog, Coffee With, November 2014, Suzanne Ferrell
First, if we were meeting at a coffee shop I’d be drinking a Latte 🙂
What would you order? If it’s cold outside, hot chocolate. Coffee gives me panic attacks so I steer clear of it. Now a good hot chocolate with lots of whipped cream…oh yeah!
Thanks so much for taking the time to answer a few questions. But first I have to ask, how many books are you writing for the Westen Series? As many as I can. Right now I have a novella I’m planning to have out in December titled…CLOSE TO CHRISTMAS, which revolves around the wedding of Gage and Bobby from CLOSE TO THE EDGE. Then I’ll be taking a break to go back to the Edgars Family novels for a novella and a big book. When those are done, I’ll be coming back to Westen, where Wes Strong gets his big story titled CLOSE TO DANGER. And I have at least one or two more planned after that, but who knows?
8 Tantalizing Tidbits
- A Must read book and why? SAVING GRACE by Julie Garwood. I’ve read it almost 30 times. It’s my feel good book. It makes me laugh, makes me cry, makes me cheer on the hero and heroine. I’ve hooked many non-romance readers on reading romance by loaning one of my two copies. 🙂
- What is one place that I should see if I visit your hometown? Wow. There is more to see and do in Columbus than most people think. It’s the state capitol and in downtown there is the Ohio Theater, a movie house built in 1928 that has been restored and is a National Historic Landmark. There’s COSI, (the Center of Science and Industry) where you can take kids and spend the whole day investigating science on every level. The Ohio State University is in the North end of Columbus and a great place to visit, especially the Horse Shoe, where the Buckeyes play ball. But if I had to give one place everyone should visit it’s the Columbus Zoo, where Jack Hannah was the director, is director emeritus and where he really helped form it into a wonderful habitat based zoo.
- One thing readers would be surprised to know about you. Some already know it, but I’m a retired L&D nurse. I’ve caught more than 200 babies without a doctor in the room and worked 25 years on the night shift.
- Hard Rock or Classical? Favorite Band? Hard Rock. I’m not a one band kind of person. If the song speaks to me, makes me move and keeps me awake…it’s on the play list!
- If you had an all expenses paid trip anywhere in the world for research, where would you go? I‘d go with Scotland. Would love to tromp around the moors and pubs, listen to the locals so much I’d come home with an accent.
- Favorite TV show and why? NCIS. Gibbs
- What are you afraid of? Driving over bridges and super high overpasses. Don’t mind riding over them with someone else driving, but me at the wheel? No thank you.
- If you could invite 5 people to dinner, who would they be? Hmmm…. Benjamin Franklin, he had so many instruments and knew how to have a good time at a party. Lauren Bacall, because I think she’d be fascinating to talk to and get all the old Hollywood dirt. Clara Barton, I’d love to talk nursing and the Civil War with her. Peyton Manning, he’s one of the smartest, most articulate football players and I’m sure he and old Ben could have a good time. Billy Graham, he’s the one preacher who makes sense to me, and I’ve often wanted to pick his brain about religion and the bible.
Thanks for letting me hang out with you, Rae!
BIO:Suzanne discovered romance novels in her aunt’s hidden stash one summer as a teenager. From that moment on she knew two things: she loved romance stories and someday she’d be writing her own. Her love for romances has only grown over the years. It took her a number of years and a secondary career as a nurse to finally start writing her own stories.
Currently there are two main series she’s actively writing in: The Westen Series, a contemporary small town series based in a fictional Ohio town where “things aren’t always what they seem”, and features Close To Home, Close To The Edge and Close To The Fire. The second series is the Romantic Suspense books KIDNAPPED, HUNTED, SEIZED and VANISHED, featuring the Edgars family as they fight for justice, even if it means stepping slightly outside the rulebook.
KIDNAPPED and HUNTED were both Golden Heart finalist, and SEIZED, book #3 in the Edgars Family Novels, was a finalist in the novella category of the OKRWA’s National Reader’s Choice Awards contest.
Suzanne’s sexy stories, whether they be her on the edge of your seat romantic suspense or the small town romantic suspense stories they’ll keep you thinking about her characters long after their Happy Ever After is achieved.
You can Find Suz at:
Website: https://suzanneferrell.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/suzanneferrell.author
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuzFerrell
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/suzferrell/
Blog: https://romancebandits.com/
