Please welcome Romantic Suspense author, Trish Jackson to my blog today!
Please introduce yourself, Trish. Tell us a little about the person behind the
pen.
Peggy, let me thank you
first for having me on your blog. I've always lived in the country, and I love
animals, and my books are mostly about small country towns, the people who live
in them and their animals.
I love getting to know new
people, and I hope I can get to meet some of your followers.
Why did you decide to write romantic suspense? What is the appeal?
This is my most favorite
question. I am an incurable romantic. I love romance of any sort, and my own
story is testimony to that. I married very young to my childhood sweetheart,
one of those older, sexy, gorgeous bad boys we all love, and am still married
to him after 42 years. We still hold hands.
I grew up on Africa and I
always longed for suspense and adventure as a child. You might think growing up
in Africa would be adventure enough, but life was actually pretty mundane -- elephants
and lions did not roam the streets, and we lived in nice houses in quiet
suburbs. Then a guerilla war started in my country, Rhodesia -- now called
Zimbabwe -- and everything changed.
Every able-bodied man under
55 was drafted into the military. Bands of communist-trained insurgents attacked
homes in outlying areas where women, children and the elderly had been left alone,
brutally torturing, raping and murdering their victims without an ounce of
compassion.
I was left alone with three
small children in our country home, where my closest neighbors were about half
a mile away. I carried an Uzi around ready to fire at all times. Thankfully,
the only bit of excitement I experienced was the night an enormous Egyptian
cobra got into the dog's kennel. I had to go and shoot it, holding the
flashlight between my legs.
I couldn't move to some safer
place where my neighbors would be closer because I ran a horse riding school
and I would never have left my horses or my four Dobermans, not to mention the
chickens, pigeons, rabbits or guinea pigs.
My first novel, Way Out of Line, is about two kids from
Texas who end up in the wilds of Mozambique and have to find their way home. As
you might guess from the titles the other two, Redneck P.I. and its sequel Kick
Assitude, I also like to throw a little humor into the mix.
How much research goes into your books, and how do you tackle that?
Authors of today are so
lucky to have the Internet at their disposal. It's like a ginormous worldwide
library and the wealth of information available is infinitesimal.
What is the best comment you ever received from a reader? The worst or
weirdest?
The best comment was this: Trish! I've just finished reading your book, "Redneck P.I." and
loved it! Great story! Great mix of humor, romance, action, suspense and I
utterly adore your character, Twila. Congrats! And where do I find more?! It
ended on a "watch out for the sequel" note :-)
The
weirdest was:
You were writing it with
tongue-in-cheek, right?
Tell us a little about your writing style? Do you plan and plot your
stories, or do you just plow through them?
I've always been a pantser –
I write by the seat of my pants without plotting and the characters seem to be
inside my mind telling me what to write. However, in my new Astrology Series,
the first of which is due to be released before the end of this year, I've had
to do a lot more plotting, perhaps because it is a lot more intense than the
Redneck Series.
Can you tell us a little about your most recently released work, Kick
Assitude? Is there a story behind the story?
This is the sequel to
Redneck P.I. and this story kind of unfolded in my mind while I was writing the
first one, and I placed several references leading up to it in Redneck P.I.
What sets your heroine Twila Taunton apart from all the other women in
your hero Harland O'Connor's life? Why is she perfect for him?
She's not afraid of anything
and doesn't understand the meaning of 'politically correct', and he just loves
her free spirit—apart from the fact that she has curves in all the right places.
Have you ever had writer’s block? How do you deal with it?
I think it is something all
writers experience. I go for a long walk or hike through one of the nearby
state forest areas and think it through in my mind. When I get back, I'm
anxious and ready to get back to my computer.
Can you give us a little background on your hero, Harland that’s only
in your author notes, and not found in your story? What inspired you to create
this character?
Harland is a twin and he
often fought with his brother, Horton over girlfriends even when they were
still in primary school. Two of my children have twins, and I guess that's
probably what inspired me to put them in my books. I'm actually about to start
writing short back stories about the characters in my novels with the idea of allowing
readers to download them for free.
Describe a favorite scene in your current novel?
My most favorite scene in
Kick Assitude is when Twila and hard-drinking octogenarian Great Aunt Essie
head out on their Harleys in the dead of night to a haunted mansion known to be
patrolled by man-eating wild boars. Once
they have crawled through the fence and have almost made it through the
overgrown brush to the house, someone or something crashes through the
undergrowth from behind them. Twila pulls Aunt Essie down. "Scared me so
bad I peed in my pants. You're just lucky I didn't--" Aunt Essie screeches.
What else do you have in store for your readers?
The third book in the
redneck series is in draft form and I absolutely love it and am having too much
fun writing it. I've brought back Gasser Cunha, a character from the first
book, known for his computer hacking skills and infamous for his farting. Twila
and her friends rescue several dogs from an illegal puppy mill and I'm thrilled
to have this opportunity to help educate people about the evils of puppy mills.
Also, Capricorn Cravings is
being released by Soul Mate Publishing later this year. It's the first in my
Astrology series where each heroine will belong to a different star sign. Riley
Shaughnessy, a veterinarian in a small town in Colorado can't believe she's
falling in love with the man who could be a serial killer. The next in the
series, Aquarius Arcanum is progressing well and I should be able to finish it
within the next month.
Amazon USA
Amazon UK
You can find out more info about me and my books at my
website: http://www.trishjax.com
Please feel free to comment, and if you buy a copy of Kick
Assitude and show me the proof, I'll give you a free download of Redneck P.I.
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