About the Author

Dr. Randy Overbeck is a best-selling author of the award-winning series, The Haunted Shores Mysteries, each a cold case murder mystery wrapped in ghost story served with a side romance, set in a beautiful resort location. He is the host of a new podcast, “Great Stories about Great Storytellers,” which reveals the unusual backstories of famous authors, directors and poets. He is also a speaker in much demand, sharing his multi-media presentations, “Thanks Still Go Bump in the Night”  and “A Few Favorite Haunts” with audiences all over the country. More info about his novels, programs and podcast can be found at his website​ www.authorrandyoverbeck.com.

I'm honored to welcome Author Dawna Coutant, who recently published Evil Alice and the Borzoi. Set in Hawaii, it sounds like a tantalizing mystery! She's going to tell us about it -- and we have a great excerpt -- but first let's become better acquainted with Dawna.

Hi, Dawna! Welcome!

Hi. Thanks for having me. I’m delighted to be here.
 
1) What sort of books did you enjoy reading as a child? Did you have a favorite book or series?
My love of mysteries started young. I was a big Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden fan. I dreamed of having violet eyes like Diana Lynch (one of Trixie’s friends) But I had a cousin who introduced me to fantasy, The Hobbit and  LOTR and Dragons of Pern by Anne McCaffrey. And I was enthralled by those too.
 
2) What sort of books do you enjoy reading nowadays?
I adore all kinds of books! Mysteries of course, like Richard Osman, Thursday Murder Club Series, the Inspector Bruno series by Martin Walker, anything by Julie Mulhern (Poppy? Ellison? They are both great). But I’m also drawn to series with a paranormal approach like, The Innkeeper Chronicles by Ilona Andrews and The Daevebad Trilogy by Shannon Chakraborty. Other books I’ve read and loved in the last 6 months: Jane Smiley’s Perestroika in Paris, Jojo Moyes, Night Music, and Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel. Sorry, that is probably a longer list than you wanted, but I LOVE to read!

That's a great list!

3) Around what age did you realize that you liked to write? And when did you know that you wanted to write books?  
I enjoyed writing as a teenager. I was published in our Literary Magazine, The Luminary, at my school, Pinellas Park High School. I was Editor my senior year. I didn’t think I could write a book. It seemed overwhelming at the time. In college and graduate school, I put creative writing, and most of recreational reading aside. But once I was a professor, I craved fiction again. I returned to my escape into books, and dabbled with a notebook of ideas on stories I might write, one day. But it took another decade or two before I started writing Evil Alice and the Borzoi. The title came first, and the plot and characters followed.

4) What’s the first thing you wrote that you remember being proud of?  
A very short story in that high school literary magazine. Fifteen-year-old me was on top of the world!

That makes me smile! You must have been so excited!
 
5) Tell us about the creative force within you. What inspires you to write, to create?
My non-writing life deals with serious, sometimes tragic, situations. Writing fiction allows me to control my mental world. I can write a satisfying ending. I can make good win out over evil. And I always feel happier after I write. Somehow it refreshes and recharges me.
 
6) What’s your writing space like?
Cluttered. I have a great office that I share with my dog. But I usually end up with a lot of notebooks, dog toys, papers with story ideas, my skis, and all sorts of paraphernalia stacked everywhere. I cleared away some of my clutter for this picture, so let’s keep my messy office a secret just between us.​

It doesn't look messy to me! It's a gorgeous space. I looove that window!
​
7) Do you have a favorite time of day to write? Any habits or little rituals that put you in a writing mindset?
My favorite time of day to write is late morning. After a couple of cups of coffee and I’ve read the newspaper. Unfortunately, life usually intervenes, and some critical task needs high priority, so my writing often gets pushed to late afternoon.
 
Do I have writing rituals? Not really. I look over my outline and see which section I feel like writing that day, or if I left a section unfinished the day before I go back to finish that. If I’m really stuck I watch  or go back to notes from a writing class. I’ve taken a ton of online classes, so going back to review those usually triggers something.
 
8) Time to talk about your latest release (rubbing hands together). But first, how did you come up with the idea for the series? Are there any interesting tidbits you’d care to share with us?
I think the germ of the idea started on a visit to Guam, there was a case in the newspaper about a suspected murder. I scribbled down some ideas, but it was years later when I saw a painting in an art gallery and the ideas popped back into my head. My title came to me as I studied the painting and the rest of the plot developed from that. And no, I didn’t buy the painting, it was way out of my price range.
 
9) Now let’s hear about – Evil Alice and the Borzoi.
Evil Alice and the Borzoi is a not-too-dark, but not-too-light traditional mystery set in Hawaii. Cleo Cooper, a cross-cultural psychology professor, is living the dream on the Big Island of Hawaii. With ocean-dipping weekends, she enjoys her dog, her job, and her boyfriend Ben - until the day she’s on a research vessel and a dead body is caught in the dragline. The police determine it is murder and set their sights on a gentle former student, Kai. It doesn’t take much urging from Kai’s auntie for Cleo to investigate.  But Ben grows distant, and Cleo’s dog grows ill. A couple of accidental deaths later and someone makes an attempt on her life. What happened to Cleo’s life in paradise? Can she discover the true killer? Can she stop the killer before the killer stops her?

That sounds fabulous!
  
10) I comprehend that you’ve just recently published a book. I know what that takes. Still, I can’t help but ask – do you have anything waiting in the wings?
I do! I’ve got a finished draft and am fine-tuning revisions on Cleo’s second adventure. It will be based in Santa Fe, NM, so a completely different environment. But Cleo will stay in touch with her friends and Hawaii won’t be far from her thoughts.
 
11) Is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
Hmm, I guess that I, like my protagonist, loves dogs. I’m currently raising a 9-month Old English Sheepdog. She is a sweetie pie but is a teenager in dog years, so we are having some trials and tribulations. But she has helped with my book promotion, (see my Instagram posts:) so I cut her some slack.

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​9) Now let’s hear about Island Times Three.
Raymond Gray is a Manhattan private investigator. He was a cop and detective for several years, and he owns a small agency near the East Village. He agrees to fly to Sanibel Island off Florida’s Gulf Coast to meet his newest client, Jane Girdlestone, who is staying with her daughter in a rented cottage. He learns his client is a famous Hollywood actress, and Raymond loses no time trying to find the blackmailer. The clues point to an elusive Cuban, but everyone is suspect, including Henry, the cottage’s caretaker. Raymond soon discovers the sparsely populated and remote island is the perfect backdrop to pull off a blackmail scheme—or worse!

Wow! It sounds amazing!
 
10) I comprehend that you’ve just recently published a book. Still, I can’t help but ask – do you have anything waiting in the wings?
Yes, I’m doing research for the next Raymond Gray novel in the series, with a working title of The Numbers Runner.
 
11) Is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
I have two other books out, The Elanora and the Salt Mystery Study Guide for Teachers and Parents, and An Amazing Manatee* Journal. The Study Guide conforms to Florida Standards. Because the manatee is an important character in Elanora and the Salt Marsh Mystery, I decided to create a journal showcasing this gentle creature.

I checked these out! I will be introducing Elanora and the Salt Mystery to my grandchildren! Links are below!

Kathleen, congratulations on your new release! Thank you for sharing your time and talent with us.

​Thank you for this opportunity, Anastasia!

And now, Islands Times Three!

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Today, I’m delighted to welcome Author Randy Overbeck. Talk about suspenseful books! I have so many questions!
 
But first, welcome Randy! Thank you for sharing your time.
I really appreciate the opportunity. You know we authors are always glad to have an audience.
 
Before we get to your writing and your latest release, Scarlet at Crystal River, won’t you tell us a little about yourself?
Well, I’m a long time educator, serving children as a teacher, college professor and school leader for almost 40 years. For the past ten years, I devoted much of my time to writing , an avocation I’m finding I enjoy almost as much as I did helping children learn. My wife and I have been married for 50 years and we have three great kids (adults now) and are blessed with seven remarkable grandkids.
 
Your books are adding up! You’re working on your fourth now, aren’t you? And it hasn’t taken you very long to write them. I stand in awe.
Actually I’m shopping my fifth and I’m working on my sixth. My first published novel, LEAVE NO CHILD BEHIND, was published in 2011. It is a thriller about a terrorist cell which takes over a high school and the teacher and volunteer who battle the intruders. More recently, I’ve penned three paranormal mysteries in my Haunted Shores Mysteries series, released in 2019, 2020 and 2021. And I’m shopping my fifth, an amateur sleuth mystery, which may well be the start of a new series.
 
It all sounds amazing. You are prolific! Do you have a favorite time and place to write?
Actually, I’m very lucky. I can write almost anyplace and almost anytime. I carry my computer with me and I squeeze in time anytime and anyplace I can—waiting for my car being worked on, sitting in a doctor’s office, grabbing lunch or dinner alone. But I’m quite blessed to have a great office to work in, with a huge L-shaped wooden desk, a large monitor (my eyesight is not as good as it used to be) plenty of research documents and a beautiful view out the wide windows. I find I do some of my finest work there.
 
A perfect setup!

You have a great, bookish podcast, too. Please tell us about it.
It’s called “Great Stories about Great Storytellers” and in each episode, I share the inside story of famous authors, poets and directors. So far, I’ve profiled greats like John Grisham, Agatha Christie and Walt Disney. Maybe the best way to explain it is this. One of the reviewers called it “Paul Harvey’s The Rest of Story” for famous storytellers. But your readers would have to be a certain age to get the reference. Basically, I give the weird and unusual backstories most people don’t know about the famous storytellers they do know. The podcast is available wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, iHeart radio, Apple podcasts, etc. and I’m working hard to build my listener base.
 
And now, for your books! I’ve enjoyed getting to know you through our publisher, The Wild Rose Press. You always encourage fellow writers, cheer us on, offer help… For someone with such a positive and sunny disposition, your books seem to be, well, bone-chilling! Ghosts! Murder! Eeek! How did you come to write paranormal thrillers?
My first book in the series didn’t start off as paranormal. A few years ago, I was attending a writer’s conference and sat in on a session about ghost hunting. Skeptical at first, I was so taken in by what I learned that session (and the remarkable amount of research and scientific manner of the process), I decided I wanted to find a way to include a bit of “whoo-hoo” in my tales. Like everything else I write, I’ve done extensive research into ghosts and have included slivers of what has been documented about them in my tales.
 
I’m only afraid of the dark after I’ve read something scary. Then, I’m turning on lights before entering rooms! Clearly, you’re not so easily intimidated. But does your writing ever keep you up at night?
The writing yes, the subject no. Let me explain. My stories are a bit scary but not terrifying. I’ve worked hard to make the portrayal of ghosts as realistic as possible—which, based on the bulk of paranormal research that been done, tells us ghosts are usually not scary. (Apologies to Steven King and Dean Koontz).

However, there are many nights when I lay my head on my pillow and my mind will not stop racing through language and ideas about my latest writing project. Most times I try to fall asleep figuring I’ll remember it in the morning—if it’s important. But there have been many nights I have to get up, get down on paper (okay, computer) what’s rolling around in my brain before my mind will let me go to sleep.
 
Please tell us about your Haunted Shores Mysteries and especially about your latest release, Scarlet at Crystal River.
SCARLET is the third entry in my series and was the most fun to research and write. In this story, Darrell Henshaw, history teacher and researcher—and ghost whisperer—and his new wife Erin have arrived in Crystal River, a beautiful old Florida town on the Gulf coast at the start of the Christmas holidays. They want only to have a great honeymoon, jog on some of the scenic trails, swim with manatees and enjoy seafood at the great local restaurants. However, the ghosts of two murdered migrant children have other ideas and haunt Darrell, asking for his help to find justice for them. Darrell, a man who has dedicated his life to children, can’t ignore them and begins researching what might have happened to the two kids. His research leads him to an amazing young artist, a mega-agribusinessman and eventually to a migrant camp. However, there are those who don’t want Darrell to discover the truth and will do almost anything—including murder—to keep their secret. I’m thrilled that SCARLET, like the first two in the Haunted Shores Mysteries series, has won three national awards and garnered scores of five star reviews. Oh, and did I mention, it’s a Christmas mystery, perfect for that reader who’s looking for a Christmas tale with a great deal of suspense, a bit of romance, incredible scenery and just the right amount of whoo-hoo.
 
Before we go, would you tell us just a little bit about the book you’re working on now? We can keep a secret.
My newest writing project is one unlike anything I’ve tried before. I’m working on a historical suspense (with romantic elements, probably) set during the Revolutionary War. Without giving too much away, I’ll simply say that the heroine is a teacher (of course) and that she will make a significant contribution to helping turn the tide against the British in the war. The writing is requiring an immense amount of research—which I love—and is a major challenge for me. I’m only about a third of the way into the tale but I’m excited to see where this leads. Stay tuned.
 
We absolutely will stay tuned!

Is there anything else you would like to share with us?
Landing my BLOOD ON THE CHESAPEAKE at Wild Rose Press has introduced me many talented young (and not so young) writers like you. I’ve enjoyed working with them and love the way we support each other. I’ve found WRP to be a great home for me, my hero Darrell and a few ghosts who came along for the ride.
 
I agree. My experience with The Wild Rose Press has been wonderful.

Randy, thank you for joining us today. Your books get such great reviews. I wish you continued success.
Thanks, Anastasia for hosting me. I’ve been thrilled and humbled by the tremendous response my books have garnered and I’m delighted to have a chance to share my stories with my readers. 

I just finished listening to the latest episode of Daily Adventures in Grace. Your podcasts feel so warm, welcoming, and honest. They’re like a cozy chat with a friend and, like the best of chats, there’s always a valuable takeaway. Do you usually plan your podcasts or are they straight off the cuff? Is there one aspect of podcasting that is more challenging for you than others? I feel sure that for your listeners, the topics can be emotional – different ones for different people. Do your podcasts ever catch you off guard emotionally?
​
Thank you so much for saying that.  I sometimes think of my episodes as a little messy, and I am never quite sure if that comes off as a good or bad thing to those who listen.  But it’s important for what I offer to come off as 100% me. 

I post every weekday, because  my book claims that if we seek out the adventure of grace every day, then God will show it to us every day.  So I felt the conviction to do just that.  I do not think I have the right to challenge others to seek out God’s grace every day if I am not doing so myself.  

I always do some sort of Bible study or devotions right before I record, but that is not always what affects the subject matter.  Sometimes the episode content comes to me after a few days of thinking things through as studying, or even as a conclusion after years of study and thought on a matter. Sometimes I read or realize something just minutes before recording, and I get so excited about what God has revealed to me that I just have to share it right then and there. Sometimes- and this sounds crazy- I will pray and begin with nothing more than a sentence or two in my head, completely unsure of where God is taking me. Those are the times I pray a little extra before I hit the record button, and I am often just as surprised as anyone else would be at what God draws out of me.  It truly is a daily adventure for me. 

​Your book, An Anointed Mess is uplifting, encouraging. How did you come up with the title? Was it the first one that came to mind? Like your podcast and blog, the tone is beautifully conversational and friendly. Please, share with us your heart’s feelings about this devotional. I ask because it’s clear your heart went into it.

You might find it interesting to know that I started the first manuscript of the book about 15 years ago.  I thought I was done six months later, but God had more to write in me, and I had much more to learn.  I thought at first I could use God’s Word to answer some of life’s tough questions.  But somewhere along the line it became more about honoring the journey itself, and rather than trying to tidy up life’s chaos, I began to appreciate the mess.  

I am not saying that we should not try to go through healing or seek out godly wisdom and understanding.  But we don’t have to wait until our life’s problems are all solved (which does not happen on this side of eternity) to enjoy the grace and favor of God, nor to be used by God as an instrument of grace in others’ lives.

The book title changed about halfway through the process.  I can remember two distinctive conversations. One friend once told me this: “We woman may be a hot mess, but at least we’re hot.”  And someone else commented that I always seemed to be going through some sort of a struggle in life.  I think that second comment was meant as an insult, but it inspired me to own my flaws. Right there something in me connected the mess with the miracle. In my mind I linked it with the original biblical concept of anointing, which literally means to pour oil all over the head of someone who has been set apart by God for a special purpose. That’s super messy.  That’s extravagantly beautiful.  That’s me!  I want the book to help other gorgeously imperfect people see themselves there too.

Wow. Bravo! It's beautiful and brave of you to share yourself and your struggles in order to lift up and encourage others. Is there another book on the burner? Do you have special blogs, podcasts, or anything else planned for the holidays?

Anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I have A LOT of words, and I use them often.   I blog about once a week. I do Youtube posts, which I convert to podcasts, about five times a week. I post daily Scripture verses, midday quotes on weekdays, and a smattering of resources, shares and just plain silly thoughts on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkIn, along with the occasional pictures on Instagram and Pinterest.

​I just wrote a short eBook devotional called “10 Healing Truths from God’s Word.”  It is a free gift that I send out weekly to all new subscribers to my “Words of Grace” newsletter.  This book forms the seeds of a longer, more in depth book I am developing called “Not Flawless, but Perfect: A Journey from Wholeness to Healing.” All of this, along with my personal contact information, can be found at my personal website, karenmariepennington.com.

It all sounds wonderful. Thank you.

​Is there anything else you’d like to share with us?

As I mentioned at the beginning of this interview, I am just so grateful for the chance to share my story and my heart.  Everybody’s story matters, and everyone’s life is an adventure, whether they know it or not.  And God has amazing plans for everyone reading this.  We just need to let God in.

Thank you for joining us today, Karen, and for the wonderful, generous work you do. May God bless you in all your endeavors.​

An Anointed Mess: Discovering the Daily Adventure of Grace
by Karen Pennington 

Whether our struggles seem big or small, life changing, or merely mildly annoying, we generally just want God to take them away. But what if we changed our mindset to instead seek God’s grace in the midst of these difficulties?
Author Karen Pennington considers grace the key to experiencing God’s victory, transformation, and peace in the everyday chaos as well as in the major life challenges. An Anointed Mess: Discovering the Daily Adventure of Grace will inspire you to not only seek God’s grace but also become a bearer of this heavenly gift, ultimately empowering you to manage life’s ups and downs with joy, faith, and integrity. 
Karen beautifully weaves personal experiences with biblical parallels and common burdens of today that intimately connect us with one another, such as anxiety, forgiveness, weakness, shame, and control. Engaging and easy to read, An Anointed Mess will benefit the reader as either a personal devotional or a group study. Each chapter includes insightful questions encouraging you to discover how God’s Word and grace intersect with your own story.
Quotes from the book: 

The Bible is the world’s largest anthology of seriously messed-up people.
 
I love that God’s Word does not merely outline a bunch of spotless, picture-perfect personalities and lifestyles that I could never attain.
 
But the landscape of life is far richer than the peaks and lows, and the Lord is the architect of it all.
 
We easily forget that the Lord has an extraordinary ability to bring about the most amazing results out of the most seemingly ordinary circumstances.
 
I believe that God can grant any of us victory and peace right within the struggle, while at the same time constantly moving us forward in grace.
 
As we learn to receive and live by God’s merciful power and plan, we become both witnesses to and bearers of heavenly grace.
 
In fact, it shatters the powers of darkness in unspeakable ways when we choose to persist as warriors praising and worshipping God even when our emotions and circumstances beg us to retreat.
 
We cannot in any way resemble God if we do not to some degree possess in our innermost core an intense yearning for what is good and right.
 
As we come to God openly and honestly with whatever we feel, God will be faithful to walk us through it all, and even to work it all for our good.
 
Sometimes it takes a total break to lead to complete healing and restoration.

Available at Amazon.

Richard Abbott’s Half Sick of Shadows: I love it and look forward to revisiting it often. It’s unique. It’s timeless and beautiful. It’s a historian’s romantic poem of the ages. It’s a classic. 
 
I’m immensely proud to introduce one of my favorite authors to my readers. Dr. Richard Abbott’s books range from historical fiction to fantasy to science fiction, and that’s when he’s not working on computer applications or walking the moors in England’s historic Lake District. Welcome, Richard.
 
Before anything else, I’d like to congratulate you on your move from London to Grasmere. You are now living in Classic Writer Land! While of course I enjoy William Wordsworth’s poetry, I’m a lifelong fan of Beatrix Potter and have read so much about the beauty of the area. I’ve also enjoyed the photos from your travels that you’ve shared online over the years. Still, it has to be a major change from London. Has the transition been tough? What made you decide to make the move? Do you feel even more inspired to write?

Anastasia! It's a real pleasure to be chatting today, all the way from this side of the Atlantic. Thanks for welcoming me to your blog,
 
London to Grasmere - it's quite a change! In fact, there were also other transitions happening at the same time. As a place to live, there is no comparison between the two - even on a bad day, Grasmere is spectacularly more beautiful than north London. I do miss the accessibility of museums and such like in London, though of course with everything that's happened since March 2020 they would have been often out of reach, even though geographically close. But there were changes as well in my working life. I used to work as a software developer and tester as part of a team at various large firms: now I am one member of a very small family business (we run a guest house, pub, and micro-brewery). I still write software, but now I get to see the impact of it straight away, and it's great to be applying these skills at such a small level. The programs I write have so many more obvious benefits to us and our staff. But as perhaps some people reading this will know, there's always something else to do in a family business, and you have to be quite disciplined about time, just in order to do regular things like get out walking on the fells. So yes, some bits have indeed been tough... but worth it. As to what made me decide to make the change - well, there were a number of factors, some of which might well appear in disguised form in a future science fiction novel! But they are probably not suitable for today.

Do I feel inspired to write while living here? Well, yes, definitely, especially with a project I have had in mind for a while which I'll talk about in a while. There is so much history here, right outside the doorstep - for example, Cumbria has more surviving stone circles and other ancient monuments than any other English county. Every time I get out to walk one of the nearby ridges I start thinking about how the surroundings - both natural and of human origin - might be incorporated into the plot. The problem is making enough time to write in the midst of everything else. You'd have thought that this year, with so much of it closed as a business due to our three national lockdowns (mid March - early July, most of November, and late December to now), would have been an ideal time. Since March, we've been closed more than open. But in fact those months have been hugely busy for all of us, with all kinds of decorating, preparation work, and in my case programming tasks which you simply can't do when you're open. This year has to have been the hardest any of us have ever worked on the business, and writing is one of the things which has had to take a back seat for a while. Hopefully, as things get back to whatever new normal we find ourselves in, that will change again. I certainly have no shortage of subjects to write about! But right now, there's a difficult tension between the desire to write, plus the inspiration provided by the surroundings, and the available opportunities.

That is certainly understandable. I do hope that 2021 will be a good year for you and yours.

As you know, I tied myself in knots over this interview. I had so many questions I wanted to ask that it was hard to pick and choose. You write computer code, but you also have a PhD, hence the jaw-dropping Triumphal Accounts in Hebrew and Egyptian. Why don’t we begin with you telling us a little bit about yourself before we get to your fascinating body of work?

​
The PhD was studying poetry in the ancient world, and in particular how ancient Egyptian poetry might have influenced that of ancient Israel, back around about 1200BC. It sounds a bit rarefied, but it was a whole lot of fun. I originally thought I was going to work on something about the chronology of the ancient world, but once I began, I realised that poetry, and its potential cross-cultural influences, was a whole lot more exciting than the regnal dates of rulers. So I studied a lot of Biblical poetry, focusing mainly on the earliest pieces, and - to cut a long story short - concluded that those early pieces of writing were influenced by Egyptian writers and Egyptian conventions. Some of the ideas turn up in my historical fiction series, starting with In a Milk and Honeyed Land. Poetry and song are at the heart of those books. And in fact, music of one kind or another features pretty strongly in all my writing, so the experience obviously rubbed off., But not just music - in the historical books I tried to combine that with cross-cultural influences between the various people of the age. I think that interest which we share in what happens when different cultures intersect one another is what first brought us together as friends, Anastasia - it's a theme I have always enjoyed and appreciated in your own writing.
 
What else? I have moved around a lot within England over the years, starting in childhood in the south, then moving into East Anglia when I went off to university, then into county Durham in the north-east after that. Somewhere along the way I spent a year in Seatlle, USA. And now here I am in the north-west, in a part of the country that over the centuries has forged close links with both England and lowland Scotland! Indeed, it was the last British kingdom to resist the Saxon invasion back in the days after the Romans left and before the Normans arrived. Dunmail, or more properly Duwnwahl, died in 975 in his last unsuccessful attempt to stem the tide, and can reasonably be called the last authentically British king. There's a ridge just up the road from here which is named after him, and a huge cairn of stones which, according to some stories, was first raised by his soldiers before that fateful battle.
 
Back at university I studied math, and really enjoyed it - long ago I used to be a bit embarrassed to admit to that, but I've got more confident about it over the years. My working life as a computer programmer was heavily involved with AI in one form or another. One of my favourite projects from that time of life was working with the UK airports authority and Met Office on an AI program to estimate cloud and weather conditions at airports based on regular and infra-red pictures. Eventually I moved into writing programs for Amazon Alexa (called "skills" in their parlance), and I still try to find time for that every now and again. Some of these experiences have been recycled into parts of the background for my science fiction books - a major theme in the plot is how humans and AI individuals which I call personas form working partnerships and relationships. Right now in the real world we are not at the point where an AI could be a meaningful work partner to a person, though of course some people seem to treat their mobile phones as frustratingly sentient. But I reckon that within the next fifty to one hundred years we could be at that stage of development.

​Your first published book, In a Milk and Honeyed Land, remains one of my favorite pieces of historical fiction. Your subsequent works, Scenes from a Life, The Flame Before Us, Man in the Cistern, and The Lady of the Lions are all set in the same area but not necessarily during the same time. Despite the truly ancient setting, you’ve brought the characters to life in ways that make it easy for us to relate to them. Your writing conveys a timelessness that I especially appreciate, as well as a strong, cross-cultural emphasis. What inspired you to write fiction set in such long-ago times? Please tell us about the books and your process – both research and writing.

Well, I've talked a bit about the research process from a poetry and history point of view, but there was a lot of other stuff of an everyday nature. What kind of houses did people live in? What was their social and family structure like? And so on. The book is set in the period when, according to the Hebrew Bible, the Israelites arrived into Canaan from Egypt. But I wanted to write the story not from the viewpoint which the Bible presents. but rather from the perspective of those who lived in that land - those who chose to associate themselves with these newcomers. But we know very little about how these people actually lived, outside of some rather ambiguous archaeological records. So I felt free to borrow something from other ancient world societies in order to put flesh on the bones, and chose to make that society a matrilineal one rather than patriarchal. So households belong to, and are maintained by, the women in a family and not the men. A man marries into a woman's family, rather than the woman leaving her household and going to the man. The woman of the house has the power to invite people in or shut them out. A number of cultures in the ancient world worked like this, but over the years, this pattern of society vanished. So as well as imagining what such a society might be like, those stories also explore how old values and habits of life are eroded, as newcomers and new ideas arrive and become dominant.​

There's not very much of Quarry written as yet, though the overall shape of the book is becoming clear in my mind. If all goes well, and if not too many other things intrude, I am hoping to finish it this year. We shall see!
 
Quarry sounds amazing! In the meantime, it’s comforting to know that your books are available on many platforms. The links follow, as well as an excerpt from Quarry.  ​

“Danger. Threat. Mate.”

What a great addition to the Rabbit River Saga! Lone Wolf is intense from the very beginning, even before the main characters meet, and that intensity grows throughout the story. 

Jesse Wayne is a sexy sweetheart of a man. Throughout the series, his skills, loyalty, and honor, to say nothing of his sense of humor, have heightened every scene he’s in. He’s also achingly vulnerable, but that doesn’t stop him from doing whatever it takes to protect those he cares about. 

When the story opens, Jesse is in Mexico, on a mission to save his younger cousin Annabelle. He ends up saving Melissa, more than once. In fact, they save each other. Melissa is American, a down-to-earth, hard-working farmer – something I personally appreciate – who had eagerly seized an opportunity to improve a good friend’s family farm in Mexico. She’s totally unprepared for drug lords, human trafficking, kidnapping, and murder. 

It’s a good thing that Jesse is prepared. And he wants Melissa, needs her. From the first, he recognizes her as his mate. But unless they’re mated, he can’t tell her the truth about himself, about the People – and she has questions. How in the world will he convince her to accept him when she knows he’s holding back? 

These two have a lot to deal with. There is a sweet tension between them through much of the story. Melissa, especially, struggles with both fear and longing.  Jesse, for his part, is battling the Sickness. Even though he knows that being with his true mate can save him, he doesn't want to force the bond. He loves Melissa. But time is running out.  

It’s not just the two of them, either. They have to save Annabelle, and they are dealing with very dangerous men. Lone Wolf is packed with action. 

The setting -- Elyce de Reefe’s descriptions of the area – makes everything easy to visualize. We, the readers, are there in the Chiapas. 

The slow-burn romance is well-paced and satisfying, culminating in an absolutely delicious Moonrise ceremony. 

The heartwarming homecoming is a generous bonus.

This story made me smile and sigh. I look forward to spending more time with the Rabbit River pack and hope the next book comes out soon!