Good morning! It's time for the Monday Interview/Review. Today my guest is Teri Thackston. Based on some of her answers to my nosy questions, I think she would be right at home with my library. Honestly, I wondered if I was the only one who had ever read The Scarlet Pimpernel! And here are her answers...
1) If you could start over with your writing career, what if anything would you change? I would definitely spend more time studying the craft and talking to other writers. I think I spent too much time stumbling along on my own, which definitely slowed the learning process.
2) What was the best piece of advice you received regarding the life of a writer? Write every day. We all hear it but we don't all heed it. It is so important to treat our writing with the importance it deserves.
3) If you could meet anyone, living or dead, who would it be? Gene Kelly. I've always said that he's my favorite person that I never met. I smile just thinking about his talent and his grin. He was a person who worked hard at his craft and yet made it look so effortless. I can only hope that someone says the same about me some day.
4) If you could meet any fictional character, who would it be? Oh, how to pick one fictional character out of the many I've known? Don Quixote for his courage and nobility...but no! Of course it would be Sir Percival Blakeney--the Scarlet Pimpernel. He's my absolute favorite fictional hero. Did you know that it's said that he was the first "secret identity" hero? And a woman created him: the Baroness Emmuska Orczy.
5) What do you want to be when you grow up? A working writer who can earn her living doing what she loves. That would be the best.
6) In the next century, what do you hope people will remember you for? I hope to be remembered for my storytelling ability. I don't expect my works to become "classics" but I'd like people to read my books for enjoyment...again and again as I've read the works of writers like Mary Stewart, Victoria Holt and Alistair MacLean. They were real storytellers who are still widely read today. So maybe they've become the new classics. I should be so lucky.
Deadly Climb by Teri Thackston from Cerridwen Press
If you like authors like Linda Howard or Elizabeth Lowell with their thriller-chase across the country stories, then Deadly Climb is the story for you. Actually, the relationship between the hero and heroine almost reminds me of that old movie North by Northwest. Teri keeps you guessing right to the cliff hanger-ending.
The heroine, Laura is a U.S. Marshall who is recovering from a terrible work accident. Unable to face what has happened, she has more or less barricaded herself in her apartment for several months. The hero, John abducts her so that she can help him get information from his small nephew about the identity of the killer of little Ryan's parents. Laura knew Ryan well as she had guarded the family while they were waiting to testify at a trial.
As they race across country to reach Ryan, the killers are right behind them engaging in a game of smoke and mirrors. Who are the bad guys? Who are the good guys? And how do the bad guys always seem to know where they are?
I found the story to be an absorbing, exciting tale the drew me in and kept me reading to the final sentence. I heartily recommend that you pop on over to Cerridwen Press and pick up your own copy of Deadly Climb by Teri Thackston.
Anny
Don't forget to stop over at Amarinda's at http://www.amarindajones.blogspot.com/ as she says she's going to write about the seven deadly sins. This I want to read. And then pop on over to Kelly's at http://www.kkirch.blogspot.com/ as she has the Blogga Saga today. Boy what she did with it now...
Beginning tomorrow and then several times over the next two weeks, I will be interviewing reviewers. So if you want to find out about the reviewing process, please stop by tomorrow for my interview with Terrie Figueroa from Romance Reviews Today.