Hearts Key by Marianne Evans

My guest today is Marianne Evans. Marianne is a happily married mother of two who calls metro Detroit her home. She’s Michigan born and raised, and has penned three contemporary romances for Kensington Publishing and an e-book, a contemporary romance “With This Kiss”, published by The Wild Rose Press.

Thanks so much for dropping by today, Marianne. Let’s talk writing!

Anne - Tell us about your book.

Marianne - My current release with White Rose Publishing is HEARTS KEY. Hearts Key is book 4 of my award winning Woodland Series, and I fell in love with these two characters when they were introduced in Hearts Surrender, book 2 of the series. Tyler Brock and Amy Maxwell have been through a lot to be together:

Life hasn't been kind to Amy Maxwell. Once the effervescent leader of the pack, her marriage should have been perfect. Instead, she escaped with nothing but the clothes on her back and her daughter, Pyper.

Tyler Brock is dazzling. The once shy teen has evolved into a powerhouse in Christian music, and when he returns to Woodland for a benefit concert, Amy can’t believe he is as faithful and tender as ever. He even manages to touch the heart of a doubtful Pyper.

But, Amy can’t escape her own self-doubt, and she questions the wisdom of her heart when it comes to the charismatic musician who is so different now, yet so much the same.

Can the key to their hearts unlock a lifetime of love?

Anne – What a powerful plot! Would you share an excerpt with us?

Marianne – I thought you’d never ask!

Hearts Key Excerpt:

Amy took a deep breath. It was time to move forward, and act like the friend she had always been. She made progress toward approaching Tyler, watching as he shook hands with members of his crew and received enthusiastic hugs of support. Then in came Rebecca. He saw her immediately and grinned while she made a dash for his ready embrace. She gave a happy shout as he lifted her up, and spun her in a full circle.

“You were great,” she enthused, her voice touched by the cadence of the south. “Honestly, what a show!”

“Inspired, wasn’t it, Becs? It feels so good to be home!”

Rebecca pecked both his cheeks and smiled into his eyes. Amy’s heart sank. His dynamic backup singer then greeted others around them and dissolved into the crowd of tour staffers.

In that instant, her mature, straightforward intentions vaporized. Hiking up her purse and camera strap, Amy kept a tight hold on them both as she turned to leave. She took a few steps toward the exit.

“Seriously?”

Amy froze at the sound of the smooth and deep voice that carried with it just a touch of the South. She closed her eyes, and she trembled. Bad.

“You were seriously gonna leave without sayin’ hello to me?”

She couldn’t pull in a proper breath. Her heart skittered wildly. Red-hot heat crawled up the skin of her neck and ignited her cheeks, melting and burning in one fell swoop.

Bravely she turned around, her lips pressed tight, though she fought through it all to offer a tentative smile. “Hey, Tyler.”

It was the best she could manage. His eyes were unspeakably gentle and tender. His attitude of warmth so typical of the Tyler she had known, once upon a life. Amy welcomed that fact, and at the same time, she was swept away by just looking at him.

“Hey, Amy,” he greeted softly. His smile bloomed when he took her hands. A beat later, he drew her in for a long, tight hug that left her aching. He felt so hard, and strong. So wonderful. A lump formed fast in her throat—a bit of mourning, she supposed, for all she missed.

“I, ah, didn’t want to interfere or anything.” As soon as the words crossed her lips, she realized how lame they sounded.

Tyler kissed her cheek, and Amy went a bit dizzy. A bit weak at the knees. “You couldn’t interfere if you wanted to.” He leaned back and drew a fingertip against her chin; he looked deep look into her eyes. “I’ve missed you.”

Anne – Thank you. I want to read more. J What do you enjoy most about writing?

Marianne - Those moments when the scene comes together in my heart and my head, and flows right out of my fingertips into the computer! There is truly no euphoria to match it.

Anne – Let’s visit the extreme opposite of the scale. What part do you loathe?

Marianne - The moment when I receive edits back from my editor (whom I adore beyond anything!) Once I actually dive into them, it’s not bad at all, but every “red mark” feels like I missed the mark, and I always have to move myself past that idea because that’s the devil talkin’!!!

Anne - How many rejections have you received?

Marianne - Oh, Anne, I’ve received plenty. In fact, I’ve stacked them all up, thrown a nice linen cloth over them and they make a fine little end table in my living room….  All kidding aside, rejection stings so much, and 99.9% of all authors experience it. My most memorable “rejection” came not in a letter but in a face-to-face meeting with an agent who told me, quite condescendingly, “Well, at least you’ll be able to say you wrote and completed a book. That’s something.” I held it together until I left the meeting room, then I ducked into the bathroom and burst into tears. From there, I decided there was no way I wouldn’t pursue the call on my heart, and prove her wrong. Eight books later, I think I’ve had the last word in that particular encounter.  J 

Anne – Agreed! What activity (cause, charity, or organization) consumes your time when you’re away from the keyboard?

Marianne - I enjoy volunteering my time at the Capuchin Soup Kitchen in downtown Detroit as well as Grace Centers of Hope, a homeless shelter/rehab compound in Pontiac. Both causes are very dear to my heart, and I consider it an honor to work with them.

Anne - Quick. Your five favorites – author, actor, movie, song, quote. 

Marianne – Author: Karen Kingsbury, Actor: Humphrey Bogart, Movie: Casablanca and Fireproof are old and new favorites respectively, Song: Slow Fade by Casting Crowns, Quote: ‘Effort Equals Results’ – Roger Penske

Anne – Where can readers reach you online?

Marianne – On my website www.marianneevans.com, blog www.marianneevans.blogspot.com

And on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Marianne-Evans/308711716744

Anne – Thank you so much, Marianne, for dropping by and sharing your story, both Hearts Key and what makes you the writer you are! I wish you every success.

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Are you an author?

Would you like to be interviewed and promote your latest release?

Email me at annekalbert AT gmail DOT com

LET'S  TALK  WRITING!

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Defending Glory Featured on iBookBuzz.com

Imagine what your life would be without power for seven (7) days. No this isn't a "what if" situation or a fictional premise. This is real life. This week. For seven long days!

No electric lights. No computer. No blogging. No nothing. That's what happened over at iBookBuzz this past week. That's why my blog comment did not appear November 1 as planned. But now that power has been restored, the blog is up and DEFENDING GLORY, book one of the Piedmont Island Trilogy, and the iBookBuzz Inspirational Book of the Month is as it should be!

Drop by iBookBuzz, say hello, leave a comment, ask me a question, or just start a conversation. I'll be there every day.

Happy reading!

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Linda Hall's Steal Away

My guest today is Linda Hall. Linda spent the early years of her writing career as a journalist and freelance writer. Then, in 1990 she decided to do something she'd always dreamed of doing. She began working on her first novel. That book, The Josiah Files, was published in 1992. Since that time she’s written eighteen more mystery and suspense novels.

Most of her novels have something to do with the sea. Linda grew up in New Jersey and her love of the ocean was born there. In 1971, she married a Canadian who loves the water just as much as she does. She moved to Canada and has lived there ever since. One of the things she and her husband enjoy is sailing. In the summer, they move aboard their 34' sailboat aptly named Mystery.

Welcome to my little corner of cyberspace, Linda. Let’s talk writing!

Anne - When did you first realize you were destined to be a writer?

Linda - I think I was born knowing that I would write. Well, maybe not quite at birth, but certainly from an early age my real life was intertwined with the stories I made up. I was an introverted shy kid, called a crybaby by some and stories provided a safe place to escape into. Nancy Drew was my hero. I made up and wrote down stories of my own. They usually involved me doing something brave to save my school, thus turning me into the hero rather than the invisible person that I always felt I was.

After high school I studied journalism. By this time I was writing, not stories so much as poetry and nonfiction articles. For a number of years I worked as a reporter writing hard news and features. I loved it! But something constantly niggled at the back of my heart. I wanted to write a novel. Twenty years ago I began my first book. Since that time I’ve written and published eighteen novels of mystery and suspense.

And I’m still a rather introverted adult, and shy. And I could even be described as a crybaby, although at my age I prefer the word ‘emotional’ or ‘empathetic.’ I realize that my tears are a gift. They allow me to get deeply inside the minds and hearts of my characters. I think I was meant to write stories.

Anne - Tell us about your book.

Linda - I wrote Steal Away around six or seven years ago and it was published by WaterBrook Press/Random House. It was going to be the beginning of a wonderful romance, with many more mysteries featuring the sleuthing skills of my PI character Teri Blake-Addison. But after one more book, the ‘series’ was dropped. But such is the way of publishing, and soon I was on to other things and new books and new contracts, and poor Teri was forgotten.

But not by me. I always intended to bring her back, and now with the advent of ebooks, I just might be able to! In the past few months I have re-written and edited through the original Steal Away, and am proud to bring it out as a $2.99 eBook - the first in a new series.

Steal Away begins the story of PI Teri Blake-Addison. Her specialty is finding people. But Teri often finds a lot more than her clients want! In this book she is hired by a well known televangelist to find out what really happened to his wife. Five years previously she was in a sailboat accident with two friends. Their bodies were found. Her's wasn't. The minister wants to get married again yet is troubled by "ghosts of the past" and he wants to put to rest once and for all what happened to his wife.

Of course, nothing is as it seems...

Anne – Would you give us a sneek peek via an excerpt?

Linda – Yes!

It took her three days to dig the grave. Exhausting work, and made more so by the fact that it could only be done at night. She could not risk Audrey finding out. Better if she didn’t know. Better if she lived the rest of her small life not knowing.

“She is gone. She’s just gone,” is what would be said to the child.

There was no coffin, no satin lined casket, no memorial service broadcast on national television, no flowers; just a body wound in a new blanket and hidden behind the foundation stones at the back of the house. She had toyed with the idea of taking the body out to sea. There was a wooden dory pulled up on the shore below the cliff. At high tide she could heave it down to the water, place the body inside and row out as far as she was able. But that presented its own set of problems. Could she manage to slide the body out of the boat without capsizing it? And what if the body, instead of sinking and burying itself in the layers of bottom mud, washed up on some distant shore, a product of these unpredictable tides and swirling currents? There would be fingerprints, hair and cloth fibers. There were things they could do now, things they could discover. DNA. She had no idea how these things worked, but she couldn’t take the risk. There was Audrey to think about. No. Burial in the earth would be a comfort, she thought. No one deserves to die at sea.

The site she chose was a hundred feet up the hillside, protected by trees, and offered a view of the bay. She had walked the length of these, her woods, that bordered the craggy foggy cliffs, and all was sea swept and harsh, save for this one sheltered space. Flowers actually grew here in the summer, and the ground was pliable for digging.

Anne – Thank you so much! Where can readers get a copy of Steal Away?

Linda – At Amazon and at Smashwords.

Anne - What do you enjoy most about writing? What part do you loathe?

Linda - I love the beginnings of books, when everything fresh and new, and ideas flow so freely they even wake me up at night. I get up with a smile, because I can’t wait to sit down at the computer and work on that wonderful masterpiece. Endings are nice, too. Finally the marathon is over. Finally, all of the sweat and tears are worth it. I love ‘having written.’

What I find loathsome are the middles of books. I’ve spent too much time up to this point to abandon the project and yet, what I’m writing usually feels like the worse thing I’ve ever cobbled together in my life. Everyone will hate it, and if I ever get through it I promise I will never write another word for the rest of my life! It’s long, it’s hard. It’s a true marathon taking months.

But, then I get to the end, and I begin the process all over again!

Anne - Of all the characters you’ve created, does one hold a special place in your heart? Why?

Linda - One of my favorite characters is Marnie in Steal Away. She runs a B&B on Grand Manan Island. She’s feisty and strong, a gossip, and addicted to romance novels, and online shopping. Despite the fact that she offers her guests ‘breakfast’, she’s a terrible cook. Most guests find excuses to head to town for coffee which hasn’t been boiled for ten minutes and fatty bacon dripping eggs. Teri and her husband spend time at Marnie’s B&B when they are tracking down the missing person. Marnie only tells them after one night, that a ghost haunts the room they were in, and did they see it?  But her constant gossiping is a boon when Teri needs to find out information about the locals.

Anne - What activity (cause, charity, or organization) consumes your time when you’re away from the keyboard?

Linda - I volunteer once a week at a local nursing home. I call myself an ‘old folk singer’ and in spite of the fact that I’m basically an introvert, if you put a guitar in my hand I will sing for anyone! So, once a week, my and my very old Martin guitar tromp off to a local nursing home where we sit in a circle and I sing old folk songs. I love the people there, and often they join in if the song is familiar. When I was looking at ‘giving back’ to my community in terms of volunteering, I decided I wanted to do something very different than my every day writing. I wanted something more hands on, and since I basically like older folk, (Please - my worst nightmare is volunteering at a daycare! Give me older people any day!) I decided that a nursing home would be something I would love. And I do. I usually come home energized.

Anne – Where can readers reach you online?

Linda – at my website, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

Anne – Thank you so much for dropping by, Linda. I wish you and Steal Away every success. Happy writing!

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Defending Glory: iBookBuzz's Book of the Month!

Book of the month. Book. Of. The. Month!

Those four little words are guaranteed to bring a smile to an author’s face, and I’ve been smiling since Saturday when I learned DEFENDING GLORY, first book of the Piedmont Island Trilogy series, is November’s Book of the Month at iBookBuzz.

A huge thank you to everyone who voted. Your support and encouragement is truly inspiring.

A special thank you goes to my publisher, Vanilla Heart Publishing, who created this Youtube video to commemorate the occasion. What a surprise! The really cool thing is work began on it when Defending Glory was one of four finalists, not the winner. How’s that for having complete confidence in the outcome, in the story, and in the author?!

As for my smile? Well, let’s just say my cheeks HURT! :)

The fun begins online at iBookBuzz November 1. I hope to see you there. I’ll drop by daily to chat and answer your questions. In the meantime, happy reading iBookBuzz's Book of the Month: Defending Glory!

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Characters: Flower or Weed?

Authors continually strive to create memorable characters that walk off the page like Scrooge, Harry Potter, or Grandma Mazur.

Some writers complete lengthy character questionaires. Others interview their characters.

I understand the reason for this process. It's vital to give characters flaws, foibles, and bad habits. But there's just one problem. I'm a pantser. Nothing kills my creativity or desire to write quicker than a questionaire!

So, how do I tackle characterization?

I ask one (and only one) question: Is this person a flower or weed?

This short, simple query gives me a clear indication of who this character is, yet it allows me to flesh them out more fully as I write the first draft. I'm neither restrained nor confined by this technique. It's flexible, insightful, and did I mention simple?!

It's also subjective. While you may view a particular flower beautiful, I might find it repulsive. The same works with weeds. Gardeners despise dandilions, but I adore them. They signify springtime and the end of winter. They're resilient, tenacious and cheery. Even sunny! All traits than can easily be applied to a person.

Is your character a flower or weed? The answer may just be somewhere in the middle, and how fascinating is that?

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