Meet Darcy Flynn

It’s Thursday and my guest is author Darcy Flynn.

Welcome, Darcy. Please tell us about yourself.

Sure. My name is Darcy Flynn and I live with my husband and son on a horse farm in Franklin, Tennessee. It’s about twenty miles south of Nashville. I raise beautiful rare breed chickens and enjoy their fresh eggs every day.

I enjoy all types of romances, but the sweet ones hold a special place in my heart. They’re my first love. I particularly like the ones where they start out hating each other. Sparing with their verbal foils until the ‘melt in your arms bliss’ kiss. <g>

Those books were my first, too. When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

I’ve always written poems, music lyrics and short magazine articles, but it wasn’t until my son went to College that I started writing romantic fiction. After he left for school, I was de-cluttering and discovered a box of vintage Harlequin and Silhouette romances in my attic. I read them again and every time I’d read one, I’d think, I could write one of these. So I seized the day and began writing.

What do you like to do when you're not writing?

I love to dance, garden and go antiquing with girl friends. I also raise rare breed chickens on my farm.

What is the most important thing you do for your career?

Write books. <g>

Good choice. LOL How many hours a day to you spend writing?

Between 2 and 4. I turn everything off and write—it’s very concentrated work for me. I don’t do well with interruptions or background noise.

If you could give the younger version of yourself advice what would it be?

Life is short. Don’t be afraid to follow your dreams. God put those dreams in your heart, not to frustrate you, but to give you something to live for.

Great advice. What do you hope readers take with them after reading your work?

Since my books are fast, fun reads with happy endings, I want to leave my readers satisfied and smiling and hopefully for days.

What two authors we would find you reading when taking a break from your own writing?

Georgette Heyer and Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

Tell us about your latest book.

Sure, I’m working on a sweet contemporary romance about a financially struggling Bed and Breakfast owner, fighting to save her livelihood against her childhood nemesis, who’s five star resort is putting her out of business. It takes place in west Texas and it’s my first cowboy romance. I’m having a ton of fun writing it! 

Here's the blurb for Darcy's first book Keeper Of My Heart

Katie McCullough doesn’t know it, but Max Sawyer, the over confident, irritatingly handsome hotel developer who outbid her for the lighthouse property, is none other, than her mystery lighthouse sailor. The one man who captured her heart five years earlier, the one man who has since been the plumb line for every other unsuspecting male who has crossed her path. Unfortunately for Max, he doesn’t measure up either.

Still reeling from losing the property she’d planned to call home, sparks fly when Katie assumes Max is turning her beloved lighthouse compound into one of his ‘Serenity Spa Resorts.” Outraged, Katie sets out on a mission to dismantle the property…and his plans.

Except Max’s plans have absolutely nothing to do with hotels and everything to do with winning Katie’s heart.

An excerpt from Keeper of My Heart:

     Bits of oyster shell spewed out from under the tires of Katie’s Jeep as it screeched to a halt. Without knocking, she stomped into the keeper’s house to find Max working on an open windowsill on the bottom floor.

     “So you’re in the hotel business.” Katie threw the sheaf of papers down on the table near where he was working.

     “Yes and good afternoon to you, too.” Max stopped for a brief moment then continued to sand the windowsill. “I see you’ve been doing some research.” His firm lips twitched.

     “If you think you are going to turn this,” she said, waving her arms through the air, “into one of your…Serenity Spa Inns, then you are dreaming Mister.”

     “Is that so?” Max straightened and his eyes locked with hers.

     “You bet. I’ll never let that happen.”

     His tawny eyes gave her a once over. “And you think you’re big enough to stop me?”

     “Yes,” she spat out, “Don’t think I can’t. I’ll rally the entire town if I have to. This is not what the council agreed to when they accepted your bid.”

     Max’s brown eyes turned glacial. “Careful Angel. That sounds like a threat. If it is, you’ll come off the worse for it.”

     Katie inhaled sharply. “You may have been master of all you commanded but you won’t master me.”

     Max stopped working and turned toward her. Even in her anger, Katie noticed his shirt, unbuttoned and clinging to his muscular form with the sweat of his labor, his forearms glistening with perspiration mingled with tiny particles of wood shavings.  

     “Maybe we should put that to the test?” he drawled.

     “There’s no maybe about it.” Inhaling sharply, Katie gathered up her papers and stormed out of the house.

Keeper of My Heart is available at Amazon: http://amzn.com/B00775ITM2

Here’s a little more about Darcy Flynn.

Darcy was born into the rich culture of New Orleans, La., a city filled with colorful historical intrigue and broad creative energy. Darcy’s natural bent to the arts coupled with her love for one of the most romantic cities in the world has been the inspiration and anchor of her artistic, multi-dimension endeavors. Darcy was always compelled by the need to express herself and like her mother’s famous gumbo, her previous expressions included a little bit of everything—art, music, acting, and dance.

Although published in music, art, and the Christian non-fiction market under another identity, it was the empty nest that turned Darcy to writing romantic fiction. A lover of lighthouses, Darcy’s first novel, Keeper Of My Heart, unfolds in a small Maryland fishing village on the Chesapeake Bay.

Darcy, a former Mrs. Tennessee, continues to be surrounded by all things creative in Music City and when not in writing in her London flat, lives on a beautiful horse farm in historic Franklin, Tennessee, with her husband, son, two English Setters, and a calico cat.  Darcy enjoys stargazing, raising rare breed chickens, and gardening.

Visit Darcy at www.darcyflynnromances.com

Follow her on

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/darcyflynn

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Darcy-Flynn/326719660687545

Risk Takers

Yesterday, I watched a man jump out of a capsule attached to a balloon and free fall from over 127,000 feet (twenty-five miles) high. Not my usual television viewing fare. It was billed as a Mission to the Edge of Space. Felix Baumgartner made history by reaching higher in a manned balloon and falling faster than anyone ever had before. He fell so fast he broke the sound barrier (Mach 1). And survived.

   

Why? 

Why would anyone risk his life doing something so dangerous? That’s the same question I asked this summer when Nik Wallenda walked a tightrope over Niagara Falls (yep, watched that one, too). Is it the same reason given for climbing a mountain—because it’s there? To break a record? Fame and glory? Science?

At first, I thought yesterday’s jump was another daredevil stunt. I was amazed at the preparations, the huge crew involved, the amount of television time dedicated to such a risky endeavor. Of course, announcers have to keep talking so there’s no dead air and give us statistics and describe the risks. How else can they keep viewers’ eyes glued to the TV for well over two and a half hours watching a balloon rise? Blame my glued eyes on Hubs. He happened across this event while watching “Mythbusters”. Need I say more?

Actually, there were scientific reasons for this dangerous stunt, the chief of which was whether anyone could survive bailing out at ultra-high altitudes. Another was whether spacesuits would protect the bailer. The space jump proved both and more. My brain, which appears to be hardwired into taking new info and seeking a practical application, immediately thought of astronauts bailing out right before breaking through the atmosphere.

All practicality aside, I kept thinking about the risk taker’s family, which the cameras turned to repeatedly during both the space jump and the tightrope walk. What was the mother/wife thinking as she watched the death-defying feat? Forget all the scientific rationale. Forget the glory and/or money. It must be the same feeling that spouses/parents experience watching their astronaut launch into space.

As a mother, I watched my babies grow, take their first tentative steps, protected them as best I could, but short of swathing them in bubble wrap there was nothing I could do to prevent them from hurting themselves as they fell. I bit my tongue and held my breath each time they dared to do something dangerous—climbing a slide, riding a bike, getting on the kindergarten bus, going off to college. In a mother’s heart, aren’t the early risks just as dangerous as a space jump?

In my concluding book of the Switched series, the hero’s mother reveals how she really felt about her son becoming an astronaut. Her fears, her anxieties. When asked why she never said anything before, she replies that she would never deny her son his dreams. 

Is that how the space jumper’s mother felt when she first learned what he planned to do? Did she say don’t go? Or, like my hero’s mother, did she keep her fears in her heart? We protect our children as best we can—then give them wings to fly to their dreams.

Meet Mara Jacobs

I am so pleased to have you meet a special person. I met Mara Jacobs several years ago when she joined my local RWA chapter. She's always been so friendly and outgoing and I'm glad she's here to tell you about her debut book—no, wait—debut books.

Please welcome Mara Jacobs.

To start off, Mara, please tell us about yourself.

After graduating from Michigan State University with a degree in advertising, I spent several years working at daily newspapers in Advertising sales and production. This certainly prepared me for the world of deadlines! Most authors say they’ve been writing forever. Not so for me. I always had the stories, but they played like movies in my head. Ten years ago I started transferring the movies to pages. Forever a Yooper (someone who hails from Michigan's glorious Upper Peninsula), I now reside in the East Lansing, Michigan, area where I’m better able to root on my Spartans.

I write contemporary romances and romantic mysteries. My indie debut is this month with 3 books out on October 1st, and 2 books on October 22nd.

I’m calling October 1^st Release Day Triple Play

1 Debut Author

2 Different Series

3 New Books

When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

Ten years ago. I always had the stories in my head, but they were like movies to me. It finally occurred to me to try and get them on paper.

How long does it take you to write a book?

Too long! I had the luxury of no day job when I first started writing and I wrote 2 books that first year. But soon after, I was back in the rat race and that average went way down. In ten years I've completed 6 books and a novella, but I'd like to get back to that 2 a year output.

I'm amazed you've written that much along with a full-time day job. Where do you get your information or ideas for your books?

     The 2 different series that are debuting came from very different places. For the Broken Wings series, several years ago I bought a used computer on ebay. When I got it, the previous owner had left all of their personal docs (résumés, pictures, business letters, etc.) on it. I couldn't believe it and mentioned it to someone at work that day. She and her husband made a side-living buying, stripping, refurbishing and reselling computers online and said that it happened all the time to her. She even told stories of the creepy things she'd found. 

     I wondered about someone who did that all day, combed through other people's personal things. Do they become immune? Do they become engrossed? Obsessed? And thus my character of Blackbird was born. I needed for her to have not much else going on in her life to be so caught up by these machines and so Blackbird has a mysterious past. (don't ya just love those mysterious pasts?)

    The impetus for the Anna Dawson's Vegas series is a much more fun story. (Vegas, Baby!) A few years ago, my retired father was playing in a major poker tournament in Las Vegas. It was a several day tournament and my mother and I were there every day to cheer him on. I was astonished at the number of kids (okay, they were at least 21, but they all looked like kids to me!) playing in this tournament that had an entry fee of $25,000. (my father played his way in, winning a tournament at a small casino in the U.P. with a buy-in of $250)

     In these situations the gallery is all kind of bunched together so you get to see the same folks everyday. My mom and I made friends with the mother of one of the players. The player was Anna and she'd just turned 21 and moved to Vegas to be a professional poker player. She was one semester shy of graduating from DePaul University. I asked her mother "How did you handle that?" She let out a sigh and said, "Not very well."

     There were a lot of stories like hers in that group, and that night I started wondering where all those Annas are going to be in 10 years.

     That's how my Anna (Dawson) was born.

That must have been really interesting. What a great way to do research. What do you like to do when you're not writing?

I follow college sports. I have a great circle of friends I hang out with. I like movies, though I find myself watching them more at home lately with the ease of On Demand.

What does your family think of your writing?

I'm single with no kids, so my family in this case is my parents and siblings. I wasn't public about my writing for the first couple of years until I had a handle on whether it was something I wanted to pursue or not. I was actually "outted" by our RWA chapter newsletter that was online. (I turned up in a Google search a family member was doing on another family member!)  After the cat was out of the bag, they've been incredibly supportive. Most of my siblings and their spouses have read all my stuff. My parents have read the romantic mysteries, but not the romances as yet. (not my dad's cup of tea!) And of course my father’s been a great resource for the Vegas books. He and my mother spend the winters there.

How many books have you written? Which is your favorite?

I've completed 6 books and am currently working on my 7th. I think the second Anna Dawson book may be my favorite thus far. In it I dive a little deeper into Anna's compulsive gambling and I always find people's demons interesting. Worth The Weight was probably the "book of my heart", but I found my heart flip-flops.

What do you think makes a good story?

I like character-driven stories. What makes people tick, why they make the choices they do. I know some readers need more plot, and I like plot too, but to me it always starts with the characters.

How do you come up with ideas?

There's always a germ in there somewhere that worms it way into a character. The main character is always the start of the idea for me.

Where do you start when writing? Research, plotting, outline, or...?

Funnily enough I usually write the first scene or two, then jump ahead and write the last few paragraphs. Then I know where my characters begin and end…I just have to get them there.

What did you learn from writing your first book?

That I needed to learn a whole lot more!

Isn't that the truth! I still need to learn more. What two authors would we find you reading when taking a break from your own writing?

Definitely anything by Marian Keyes, but she doesn’t write fast enough! In romance I love a good historical – which is interesting since I’ve never had any desire to write one. Loretta Chase is my go-to for historical romance.

Tell us about your latest book.

I’m actually making my debut with 3 books in 2 different series. These 2 series definitely cross over, which is one of the reasons I’m going indie with them. I got quite a few “we want to buy it, but we don’t know where to shelf it” from editors. They’re both written in 1^st person, from the heroines’ point of view, so that breaks the romance rules. They all have a mystery in them which our heroine ends up solving, but there’s also a thriller element given our heroines’ pasts. And there’s an ongoing romance in them as well. I’m calling them romantic mystery series.

Sounds like a great mix. Tell us more about them.

Here's the blurb for Broken Wings:

Like. Comment. Kill.

Online dating? Not quite.

Forced to live in seclusion, her only contact with the outside world is with her online chat buddies. She masquerades behind different screen names with every person except with one: Confessor. To him, and only him, she is Blackbird.

Blackbird makes her living buying and selling used computers online. Though typically immune to the personal contents of the computers she buys, something on her newest acquisition stops her cold: a picture of the man who killed her father years earlier.

As she becomes more obsessed with Nick, the previous owner of the machine, she confides in Confessor. A dead body – Nick’s girlfriend – pulls Blackbird out of her nest and to Tennessee, to find the murderer, and to reclaim her life. Torn between two men, and pining for the mysterious Confessor, Blackbird’s past is revealed as she tries to solve the mystery of Nick’s dead girlfriend, and avenge her father’s murder.

Broken Wings is available:

   paperback: http://amzn.com/0786753706

   e-book: http://amzn.com/B009D18O4Q

And the blurb for Against The Odds:

Anna Dawson is a professional poker player. And she’s good. Very good.
She’s also a compulsive sports gambler. Not so good.

When Anna gets in deep to her loan shark, she becomes her alter-ego JoJo and fixes college basketball games to erase her debt. Hey, it’s better than the alternative, which is a drive into the desert with a shovel in the trunk.

When one of Anna’s friends is murdered, and another one shot at, Anna teams up with detective Jack Schiller, a man fighting his own demons.

Anna tries to juggle protecting her friends, helping Jack, and finding a murderer, all without letting anyone learn about JoJo.

Against the Odds is available

   paperback: http://amzn.com/0786753684

   e-book:  http://amzn.com/B009D18L0S

Wow. They sound like great stories. One last question, where can readers find you?

At my website - www.marajacobs.com

Author page on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/author/marajacobs

Thanks so much for being here, Mara. I'm very happy for you on the launch of your debut books.