Janet W. Ferguson on addictions
Janet W. Ferguson grew up in Mississippi and received a degree in Banking and Finance from the University of Mississippi. She has served as a children’s minister and a church youth volunteer. An avid reader, she worked as a librarian at a large public high school. She writes humorous inspirational fiction for people with real lives and real problems. Janet and her husband have two grown children, one really smart dog, and a cat that allows them to share the space.
Tell us about your newest book.
Set in St. Simons, Georgia, the novel delves into the various sides of addiction: from those ravaged by the agony of addiction, to those heartbroken over a loved one lost in addiction, to those who have been brutally scarred because of an addicted person’s actions, to those who have been healed from its clutches. Addiction was a tough issue to write about, but I believe the story offers healing through God’s grace. And I always add a fun pet along with a bit of humor where possible.
What inspired you to write The Art of Rivers?
In 2017, the year I started this novel, drug overdoses killed over 70,000 people in the United States. Drug addiction and alcoholism are devastating families and communities. I felt called to shine God’s hope into the dark places of pain and shame.
What genre do you focus on and why?
I write contemporary Christian romance because I feel led to write about issues that people are dealing with in a current setting. I write to offer the hope of Christ. And historical fiction would require way too much research, ha!
Why do you write? What drives you?
I wrote my first story Leaving Oxford to encourage other who suffer from anxiety and panic attacks like I’ve dealt with it for many years. It continued from there. I feel like God places an issue or a story in my mind.
Who is your main character, and how did you choose that name?
Funny you should ask. The heroine is named Rivers, as in The Art of Rivers. I haven’t told anyone else because I was wondering if someone would figure it out. But there are several other characters with names that are actual names of rivers: Cooper, Jordan, Savannah, Brooklyn, Pearl, James.
What is your work schedule like when you’re writing a book?
I’m so unscheduled, and it’s not funny. I wish I had one. Maybe someday.
What is the hardest part of being an author? Why?
Discipline and creativity, especially after writing several novels.
What’s the best part of your author’s life? Why?
Wearing a ponytail and yoga pants!
What’s one unusual fact about you?
I’m deaf in one ear, and I circle people trying to get them on my good ear!
What is your favorite pastime?
Just one? I have a few! I eat out as often as possible or have my son cook (I generally avoid cooking), walk outdoors and take pictures of God’s beautiful creation, Bible study with my small group, travel as much as my husband lets me, provide constant compulsory petting to my cats and dog, and hang out with my family and friends. Oh, and I love music!
Do you have other books? We’d love to know.
I do! My first book is Leaving Oxford which is currently free! There are three other books in that series, and two other novels in the Coastal Hearts series.
Kathleen E. Kovach on western romance
Kathleen E. Kovach is a Christian romance author published traditionally as well as indie. Kathleen and her husband raised two sons while living the nomadic lifestyle for over twenty years in the Air Force. Now planted in Colorado she’s a grandmother, though much too young for that. Kathleen is a longstanding member of American Christian Fiction Writers. An award-winning author, she presents spiritual truths with a giggle, proving herself as one of God’s peculiar people.
Tell us about your newest book.
Miss Adventure Brides is a 7-author romance collection from Barbour Publishing, Inc. Seven daring damsels don’t let the norms of their eras hold them back. Along the way these women attract the attention of men who admire their bravery and determination, but will they let love grow out of the adventures? My story is “Riders of the Painted Star,” a nod to Zane Grey and the singing cowboys of the 1930s. It takes place in 1936 Arizona where New York artist, Zadie Fitzpatrick, is commissioned to go on location to paint illustrations for an author of western novels and while there, she falls for the male model.
What inspired you to write Riders of the Painted Star?
I inherited a love of movies from my mother who once worked in a theater, and western movies in particular from my dad. He also had a set of hardback Zane Grey novels that I wish I had kept. Once I knew I’d be writing a story set in Arizona in the ‘30s, it wasn’t hard to imagine an art-deco heroine meeting a dusty ranch hand and falling in love.
How would you describe this book to someone in a 30-second blurb?
Artist Zadie Fitzpatrick is infatuated with western movies and longs to meet a real cowboy, but she lives in New York. When she’s offered the opportunity to paint the book cover and illustrations for her favorite western novelist, she jumps at the chance to stay on his dude ranch in Arizona. While there, she meets Royce Rutger, one of the hands on the ranch. A real cowboy! He agrees to model the book cover, but something seems off. Royce is less than thrilled to become a model—again. New Jersey born and raised, he’s only at the dude ranch to learn how to become a cowboy in order to land a choice roll in a movie. Forced by the studio to keep up the façade, even with Zadie, he is guilt-ridden. Will Zadie forgive when she learns the truth? Will Royce cowboy-up and release his chance at stardom to be with the spunky lady he loves?
What genre do you focus on and why?
I cut my teeth on Harlequin romances, back when they were sweet and clean. I guess I’m a romantic at heart. I’ve written both contemporary and historical romances. Love is the same whether via text message or carrier pigeon.
Why do you write? What drives you?
It’s always hard to answer that question. I’m one of those who always knew what I wanted to do. I was born with a pen clutched in my tiny fist and told stories before I could talk. Growing up, I would try to relate something that happened to my mom and she would have to ask if it was a true story or one I made up. I still have problems not embellishing. I don’t lie, I just make the tale more interesting. lol
Who is your main character, and how did you choose that name?
I have two main characters as this is 50/50 romance. The heroine is Zadie Fitzpatrick. I usually try to find names with certain meanings, but this time I simply scrolled down the list of baby names on the social security website of popular names per decade, and Zadie popped out at me, maybe because it sounds like Zany. I did the same with a surname site and quickly found one that rolled off the tongue. Zadie Fitzpatrick sounds like a spitfire, a go-getter, someone who knows what she wants. Royce Rutger needed to have a cowboy name but a good one for an actor, too. I see RR and think Roy Rogers.
What is your work schedule like when you’re writing a book?
I try to dedicate at least four hours of writing a day, more if I’m on a deadline. I’ll usually start around ten in the morning, stop for lunch (or eat while I’m working,) and go until 2:30 when I have to pick the grandkids up at school.
What is the hardest part of being an author? Why?
Probably the marketing. As with other writers, I’m an introvert and prefer to write my little stories and let someone else get them out to the public. But it doesn’t work that way anymore.
What’s the best part of your author’s life? Why?
I can set my own schedule. Be my own boss. I play in my pajamas all day with my imaginary friends. What could be better than that? However, the downside is that I’m not a very good employee and I sometimes have to hold staff meetings with myself to get me back on track.
What’s one unusual fact about you?
I’m a ventriloquist. Bet you didn’t see that coming. Lol I haven’t done it in a while, but I’ve always had a fascination with puppets. The good kind. Not the ones named Chucky.
How have you changed or grown as a writer?
I’ve studied the craft intensely for the last two decades. When I first started, I wrote seat-of-the-pants style, not knowing where the story was going to take me. I’ve now learned plotting and feel I know a little more about structure and flow.
What is your favorite pastime?
I love movies. As an AMC Stubs member, I can see them for $5 on Tuesdays. Reading is also a favorite. I guess anything involving story. I’ve created a blog called Craft Cinema (www.craftcinema.blogspot.com) I discuss the writing craft as it relates to movies I’ve seen.
Do you have other books? We’d love to know.
Miss Adventure Brides is my ninth book. The same year it was published, I was in another romance collection, A Bouquet of Brides. My story is “Periwinkle in the Park.” I also self-published a book with my bestie Paula Moldenhauer, Titanic: Legacy of Betrayal. A 100-year-old secret could either sink or save a woman’s life. And I wrote a series based in Oregon. All can be found at my website or directly on Amazon.
What are you working on now?
A mystery. True to form, there’s a romance in it. It’s a series, tentatively titled Sisters Grimm RV Mysteries. Two sisters, believed to be descendants of the Brothers Grimm, use their unique knowledge of fairytales to solve mysteries. The first is Big Bad Wolfe. A girl in a red hoodie goes missing and the sisters believe a chef named Wolfe is responsible.
Website:
www.kathleenekovach.com
Link to book: https://www.amazon.com/MISSadventure-Brides-Collection-Daring-Damsels-ebook/dp/B07D8D27HD/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Kathleen+E.+Kovach&qid=1565628484&s=books&sr=1-1
Social media links:
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/kathleenekovach
Twitter – @KathleenEKovach
Pinterest – https://www.pinterest.com/kathykovach
Melanie Dobson on WWII
Writing fiction is Melanie Dobson’s excuse to explore abandoned houses, travel to unusual places, and spend hours reading old books and journals. The award-winning author of twenty books, Melanie enjoys stitching together both time-slip and historical fiction including Catching the Wind, Hidden Among the Stars, and Chateau of Secrets. Melanie’s novels have won four Carol Awards, the 2018 Audie Award, and the ForeWord Book of the Year.
Tell us about your newest book.
Memories of Glass is a time-slip novel inspired by the Dutch men and women who rescued more than six hundred Jewish children from a deportation center in Amsterdam during World War II. Almost eighty years later, Ava Drake, the director of the Kingston Foundation, begins to uncover the devastating story about her family’s role in financing Hitler. As she and a child advocate named Landon West dig into the past, Ava discovers that her story is intertwined with the West family and an elderly Dutch woman who has spent a lifetime remembering a boy who was lost during the war. A boy she never expected to find.
What genre do you focus on and why?
I love to research and learn stories from the past, especially stories about ordinary people who did extraordinary things to fight against evil. In time-slip fiction, I can write a past story alongside a contemporary one to show the repercussions of something that happened long ago. I like peeling back the layers of a family secret to discover the reality of what really happened and how it continues to impact people today.
Why do you write? What drives you?
When I was a girl, I would peddle my bike to the bookmobile that visited the farmlands of Ohio each week. When I finished reading the stack that I’d crammed into my basket, I began creating adventures of my own and soon discovered that not only could I travel around the world on paper, I could process my own emotions and struggles through a story. Forty years later, I still process my own world through story, and I enjoy weaving together a number of different ideas into a plot. Also writing is a form of worship for me, a humbling and awe-inspiring partnership with the ultimate storyteller.
Who is your main character, and how did you choose that name?
My main historical character is Josie van Rees, a Dutch name that I thought fit her personality. Facebook readers helped me brainstorm the name for Ava Drake, my contemporary protagonist.
What does a day in your writing world look like?
It all depends where I am in the editorial/marketing process. An ideal writing day is heading to my favorite coffee shop after our girls head to school, ordering a green tea, and editing my words from the prior day so I’m instantly back into the story. Then my goal is to write two thousand new words. In the midst of writing, I’m also researching, creating new characters, working on marketing, and then helping my girls with homework and activities after school.
What is the hardest part of being an author? Why?
Probably getting lost in my story and then trying to return my brain to real life. My characters often start talking to me at the most inopportune times or I get caught up thinking strange things like: “How can I creatively kill off my bad guy?” or “What am I going to cook on the hearth tonight?” Or I’m struck with a great twist right in the middle of an important conversation and have to scribble it down. Writing fiction is an impossible job to keep between the hours of nine to five.
What’s the best part of your author’s life? Why?
I really enjoy learning new things so writing historical fiction is pure joy for me. Before I begin a new novel, I spend about a month researching by reading old books and oral histories and often traveling to the location where my story is set so I can experience what my characters see, taste, smell and hear.
What is your favorite pastime?
Dancing is my happy place along with exploring new places and family game nights where we make pizza and play Settlers of Catan.
Do you have other books? We’d love to know.
I’ve published twenty books and a handful of novellas. My latest novels are Hidden Among the Stars, Catching the Wind, and Enchanted Isle.
What are you working on now?
I’m in the midst of writing a biblical fiction story for Guideposts called An Eternal Love, based on the life of Tabitha. Then I’ll be diving into another time-slip novel—this one set in Nuremberg during World War II.
Website: www.melaniedobson.com
Link to book:
Social media links:
https://www.facebook.com/MelanieDobsonFiction/
https://twitter.com/melbdobson
https://www.pinterest.com/melaniebdobson/
https://www.bookbub.com/authors/melanie-dobson
Kimberly Rose Johnson writes romantic suspense
Award winning author Kimberly Rose Johnson married her college sweetheart and lives in the Pacific Northwest. From a young child Kimberly has been an avid reader. That love of reading fostered a creative mind and led to her passion for writing. She especially loves romance and writes contemporary romance that warms the heart and feeds the soul.
Tell us about your newest book.
Edge Of Truth is my first romantic suspense and for the most part it takes place in Central Oregon. Here’s the back cover description. Two DEA agents. One undercover mission. Lives changed forever.
The DEA sends two of its best agents, Kara Nelson and Jeff Clark, to Central Oregon, to shut down a major drug ring. Kara and Jeff usually work alone, but Operation Trail Ride throws them undercover together in a way neither of them expected. A notorious Miami drug lord wants Kara dead. Can these agents pull off the greatest acting job of their lives—and manage the sparks flying between them? Or will they die trying?
Edge of Truth is the first book in the Law Enforcement Heroes series. A romantic suspense series with nail biting suspense and a splash of romance.
How would you describe this book to someone in a 30-second blurb?
Edge Of Truth is a heartwarming romantic suspense that will have you holding your breath at times and sighing with happiness at other times. Think NCIS. There is suspense, but the relationships are just as important.
What genre do you focus on and why?
I write contemporary romance, but I’ve branched into romantic mystery and romantic suspense in the past year. I love contemporary romance and I think adding mystery or suspense makes a story even more exciting to read and to write.
Why do you write? What drives you?
I write because I love it. It’s funny, the last time I took a break from writing I started dreaming in writer speak—he said/she said. LOL. I knew at that point my break was over and I needed to start writing again. As far as what drives me, besides my need to write, is my readers. They want more to read, and I like to make them happy.
Who is your main character, and how did you choose that name?
There are two main characters. Their names are Kara and Jeff. I don’t recall how I came up with their names, but my usual way to choose a name is to Google baby names from the decade my character would have been born. I either take the name from a list of popular baby names or from the social security list of baby names from those years. As I go down the list I use the one that grabs me.
What is your work schedule like when you’re writing a book?
When I’m actively writing, I start my day with social media, then I spend some time with my Bible, and then I begin to write. I write until eleven and take a short lunch break and then I get back to writing. I usually write until one o’clockish. At that point my writing is done for the day and I move on to exercising and online workshops, seminars, or classes. I am studying the craft of screenwriting, so I like to work on that after my writing for the day is finished.
How have you changed or grown as a writer?
When I first started writing I was pretty closed up emotionally. Specifically, I was uncomfortable talking about God. Anyone who has read my books might find this funny because I got over it before I wrote my first published novel.
Now it’s so easy for me to talk about Him that He’s become a natural part of my writing and my conversations too when appropriate.
What is your favorite pastime?
I enjoy reading when my eyes aren’t too tired, but I think my absolute favorite thing to do is walk.
Do you have other books? We’d love to know. Yes!
I have twenty-one other books. You can find them on the books page of my website. https://kimberlyrjohnson.com/books/
My books are all contemporary romance, and I have one romantic mystery series. Many of my books have an element of mystery or suspense—my Wildflower B&B Romance series and my Sunriver Dreams series both have some mystery in them.
What are you working on now?
I have an idea for a book that I’m chewing on. I’ve only written the first chapter. The plan is to write the book then adapt it to screenplay. I also have a Christmas novella that will be part of a series with several other others. My book in the series is called Sara’s Gift. It will release in October.
Website: https://kimberlyrjohnson.com
Link to book: https://amzn.to/2J9s28T
Social media links:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Adam Blumer on meaningful suspense
Adam Blumer is the author of three Christian suspense novels: Fatal Illusions (Meaningful Suspense Press); its sequel, The Tenth Plague (Kirkdale Press); and the upcoming Kill Order (Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas). A print journalism major in college, he works full-time from home as a book editor after serving in editorial roles for more than twenty years. He lives in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with his wife, Kim, and his daughters, Laura and Julia.
Tell us about your newest book.
Adam’s newest suspense thriller is called Kill Order. Grammy Award-winning pianist Landon Jeffers is at the height of his career when doctors discover a malignant brain tumor and give him only a few years to live. Desperate, he turns to a so-called miracle worker and agrees to the insertion of a medicinal brain implant. He feels better than he has in years…until he wakes one morning with blood on his clothes but no memory of what happened. On the run for a crime he doesn’t remember committing, Landon, with his mom and his high school sweetheart, uncovers a mind-blowing conspiracy and begins remembering details of a crime he has long forgotten. As his brain unlocks repressed boyhood memories of a school shooting, he realizes his past holds the key to his future survival in a deadly cat-and-mouse game that threatens everything—and everyone—he holds dear.
What inspired you to write Kill Order?
Adam’s dad passed away from brain cancer in 2011, and several aspects of his cancer journey kicked off the initial idea, which grew from there. One key detail involved a medical procedure; the doctors agreed to remove as much of his dad’s brain tumor as possible and replace it with medicinal wafers intended to fight the existing cancer. Adam began playing the what-if game. What if the doctor implanted something else, something that could monitor or even control his dad’s life?
How would you describe this book to someone in a 30-second blurb?
Landon Jeffers discovers a crime network is controlling his life through his brain implant. How can he escape and keep his loved ones safe?
What genre do you focus on and why?
Adam writes “meaningful suspense.” He has enjoyed suspenseful novels since he was a kid, and there are several successful authors who have inspired him along the way. They include Frank Peretti, Terri Blackstock, Mary Higgins Clark, Brandilyn Collins, Ted Dekker, and Steven James. He also likes to include a redemptive message that will inspire or encourage readers. Like most novelists, he enjoys writing what he likes to read.
Why do you write? What drives you?
Since Adam was a kid, God has hardwired him to come up with story ideas and a yearning to get them down on paper. If publishers and readers want his offerings, that’s even better.
Who is your main character, and how did you choose that name?
Landon Jeffers is a celebrity pianist in his forties. Adam has always liked the name Landon and never used it in a previous story. Adam believes he came up with the last name Jeffers by looking through a phone book and finding something unusual that had a nice sound to it.
What is your work schedule like when you’re writing a book?
Adam writes mostly in the evenings and on the weekends, after his regular day job and household chores are out of the way so he can focus.
What is the hardest part of being an author? Why?
The hardest part of the writing life for Adam is finding adequate time after his day job and other commitments to actually write and free his mind enough to be creative. If he is under too much life pressure, he has difficulty producing. Perhaps someday his schedule will be freer so he can focus more on the writing.
What’s the best part of your author’s life? Why?
Adam loves hearing from readers who went to work tired because they stayed up too late finishing one of his novels. If Adam kept them immersed in his story, that’s a score in his book.
What’s one unusual fact about you?
When he was a kid, Adam had too many interests and struggled to focus. For a while he wanted to be a ventriloquist and had a “dummy” named Andy. But then Adam got braces and could no longer talk through his teeth like he used to. Andy sadly went into storage.
Do you have other books? We’d love to know.
Adam’s first novel, Fatal Illusions, was originally published by Kregel; he now self-publishes it through Meaningful Suspense Press. Kirkdale Press (Logos) published its sequel, The Tenth Plague.
What are you working on now?
Adam is currently working on the sequel to Kill Order, which he hopes is only the first book in a series.
Website: https://www.adamblumerbooks.com/
Social media links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AdamBlumerNovelist
Twitter: https://twitter.com/adamblumer
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2315682.Adam_Blumer
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/adamblumer/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adamblumer/
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