I AM PLEASED TO WELCOME AUTHOR
Melora Johnson
AUTHOR BIO
Melora Johnson is a poet and novelist living in Upstate New York with her husband, daughter, a black cat, and quite a few chickens. Her most recent published work includes A Sanctuary Built of Words: Poems of Peace, Grief, and Passion, and publication in The Sexuality Poems from Foothills Publishing. She also runs a large and thriving writer's group for adults. Of course, into every life a little rain must fall as well as the occasional tornado, but you'll find that amply covered in her writing.
BANTER – STUFF ABOUT YOU
Q: Are you a morning person, or a midnight candle burner?
A: I am mostly a morning person, but have been known to stay up late too – particularly when I’m trying to get something done after getting my daughter to sleep. Ideally, I’d love a siesta in the middle of the afternoon then burn the candle at both ends of the day.
Q: Tell me one thing about each of the four seasons you like. It can be anything.
A: Winter = I love to watch snowflakes falling through the light from streetlamps. I have a very strong recollection of standing next to the wood stove in my parents house as a child looking out at the street and watching the snow sift down.
Spring = One of my favorite scents is when the earth is just thawing and the grass is turning green again in the late winter or early spring, it’s so fresh and like the earth is awakening.
Summer = I love having the windows and the doors open at night, the smell of summer night air, and watching the fireflies float over the fields, mirrored by the stars in the sky.
Fall = I grew up near lots of maple trees and that blaze of color as they change in October, then they fall and you have the smell of dry leaves and sound of the crunch as you walk through them. It’s my favorite season.
Q: Bedtime, relaxing so you can sleep sounds. Is your preference, white noise, TV, soft music, ocean waves, forest or meadow sounds, babbling brook, or something else?
A: If I’m actually trying to get to sleep, it’s white noise because there’s already so much going on in my head that I sometimes have to use a mantra to shut it down. If I’m just relaxing? I’d probably choose the babbling brook.
Q: If your life were a movie, would it be considered an action film, comedy, drama, romance, fantasy or a combination?
A: My life would probably be one of those dramas with LOTS of humor. (They’re my favorite kind.) Weird stuff has always happened to me, like the time I got on the highway at dusk in heavy traffic and this little purple taxi in front of me lost it and bounced off the wall to our right several times. I managed to get past her then pull over and call for help, but the driver just shimmied across her front seat, trotted up to my car in this wild Christmas sweater, asked if I was okay, then took off when I said yes. That went right into the story I was working on.
BOOKS – ABOUT THE CRAFT
A: For me, ideas are everywhere! Articles in newspapers, magazines, and headlines online, stories people tell me, the weird things that happen to me – it’s ALL material.
Q: How did you come to write your genre of choice?
A: I’m a librarian as well as a writer and I read just about every genre, and I love them all. I’ve written mysteries, science fiction, horror, literary pieces – supernatural is always something that has fascinated me though and shows up in most things, because my life is weird that way. I’m writing paranormal romance right now, but I’ll cycle around to other things again.
Q: When crafting the story do you go from beginning to end, or do you jump around writing the scenes that are pushing themselves forward in your brain?
A: When I am writing, I try to work from the beginning toward the end, using logic. What does the character want in this scene? Who is working against them? If they get what they want, what’s the catch? If they don’t get it, what now? How do they react to what happened, emotionally and logically? What’s the new goal? But, I do jump around whenever I get a strong image of a scene in my mind.
Q: Do you always know how a story will end when you begin writing it?
A: I rarely ever know how a story will end when I begin it. Most of the time, I’m writing to find out what happens to my characters. With Earthbound, I didn’t even know who the enemy was or what they wanted, let alone how things would work out for Ally.
BOOKS - NOW LETS PROMOTE – STRUT YOUR STUFF
Q: What are you working on now? Would you like to share anything about it?
A: I am currently working on the sequel to my novel Earthbound. It’s called Firebound and takes place about seven months down the road, from the perspective of Jennifer, who is Ally’s best friend in Earthbound. A lot of the characters from Earthbound will be returning but with some interesting additions. Jen encountered some life altering circumstances in Earthbound, and Firebound has her finding her new direction.
Q: Do you have a new book coming out soon? Tell us about it.
A: Earthbound was actually just released in January. It’s a paranormal romance. Ally is a veterinarian and a raptor rehabilitator with an extra spark for healing in her hands, but the reason for that spark has put her on the hit list of some very dangerous beings. Enter Matt. He has some secrets of his own and some of them are about Ally.
Q: How can we find you? Do you have a web page, FaceBook page or any buy links?
A: Absolutely, all of the above!
Buy Links:
Kindle US, Kindle UK
Kindle CA, Kindle AU
Smashwords
Apple, Kobo, Nook
Q: Are you currently participating in a blog tour? If you are let’s tell everyone where you’re going to be so they can catch up with you again.
A: Indeed, we are in the midst of a blog tour. There’s even a little raffle that goes along with it. 17th February https://locglin.blogspot.com/
18th February http://elizabethcoldwell.wordpress.com/
19th February http://kdgrace.co.uk
20th February https://booksaplentybookreviews.blogspot.com/
21st February https://pickagenrealready.wordpress.com/
24th February http://www.valerieullmer.com/
25th February http://nomadauthors.com/blog
26th February http://celiaandersonauthor.co.uk
27th February https://nanasbookreviews.blogspot.com/
28th February https://6feetunderbooksblog.wordpress.com/
Blurb:
Ally Reynolds is a veterinarian specializing in raptor rehabilitation in New Hampshire. Other than one horrific incident in her childhood and a little extra “spark” for healing in her hands, both of which she has kept secret from even her best friend, her life has been singularly boring. It has also been extremely lonely. Ally longs for someone to share her life with, but how can she trust anyone with her secret?
Matthew Blake, an ornithologist at Cornell University, calls Ally, asking for her help with an injured raptor. Matthew grew up in New Zealand and has lived around the world. He has read about Ally’s high success rates in raptor rehabilitation and suspects there is more to it than is generally known.
Matthew has some secrets of his own; he is a demon hunter. He suspects Ally’s healing powers could benefit him. He wants her to join him and thinks they’d make a great team.
Can Ally trust him or is he just using her? Matthew definitely has more secrets, and some of them are about Ally.
Excerpt:
I ended up dropping Jen home before heading back up my “mountain.” It’s really more of a hill well outside of town. My parents had always warned me to hide my… differences after the incident; no one ever questioned my father’s story about what happened.
I simply couldn’t run the risk of people finding out. It made getting close to people very difficult, if not downright impossible. Luckily, I’d always been predisposed to work with animals. They didn’t care how I was different, were even grateful for it at times.
But meeting someone new? A guy? Someone I would want to connect with, open up to? Shit. I had to force myself to stick to the speed limit.
When I walked in the door, the message light blinked on the phone base. “Son of a…” My stomach clenched. I wasn’t ready for this. She couldn’t have already called some guy to set me up, could she? She had practically been passed out when I left her place. A horrifying thought occurred to me - had she drunk dialed someone? I considered leaving the message until morning, but I had to know what it said. I dialed into my voicemail with sincere misgivings.
The male voice which came across the line did not speak with a North American accent; however, I couldn’t place where it was from. The tone reminded me of good coffee, rich and just as warm. “Hello, my name is Matthew Scott Blake.”
I blinked. Who introduced themselves with three names? Didn’t they reserve that for serial killers or assassins?
“I’m from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. I’m trying to contact Doctor Allyson Reynolds. We have a pair of nesting eagles here; the male has been badly hurt. We were hoping Doctor Reynolds could help us out. Please, could she give me a call at her earliest convenience?”
The phone number followed. I replayed it a couple times to make sure I got it written down correctly. Thank God. Cornell was a premier veterinarian school. Dad had brought me there to visit when I was considering colleges. They also had a wonderful ornithology lab we had visited. I would go to Ithaca to help with the eagle. At least that would get me away from anyone Jen wanted to throw at me for a bit. Maybe she’d forget about it in the meantime.
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Thanks so much for hosting me! The questions were a lot of fun.
ReplyDeleteIt was my pleasure!
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