Not Your Usual Interview Questions

Today, I'm over at Tartan, Ink., a new blog by authors Sue-Ellen Welfonder and Karen Ranney. They invited me to answer some very different interview questions--the sort that make you think. I hope you'll zip over there and see my answers. And it's a fun blog. Leave a comment over there so I don't feel too lonely.

And if reading interview questions isn't your thing, you can stay here and enter my contest, or find something in the "Deals and Steals" page.

And because I feel guilty not posting anything here, even though I'm somewhere else at the same time, here's an excerpt from my 3rd Blackthorne, Inc. book, ROOTED IN DANGER. This snippet features Torie, the heroine, meeting Fozzie, the hero, for the first time.

In the stronger light of the kitchen, she got her first close look at the man. There was something disturbingly familiar about him. She tried to imagine what he'd look like dry, with his dripping wet tendrils of hair restored to their normal state. He stood there, waiting, his questioning brown eyes peeking from under bushy eyebrows.

Her grip on the gun tightened and she wrenched it free. "You! What's the deal? My father's double-teaming me now? Sends Mr. Nasty to scare me, and then you're supposed to come to my rescue? Is that it? How dare he? How dare you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. I never saw that bloke before. I told you, my car broke down. Have a heart. It's bloody cold and wet out there. You wouldn't want me to catch my death, would you?" One corner of his mouth turned up.

"Why should I care?" she shouted. Leftover grief, full-blown fury, or demonic possession, she couldn't tell. But, totally out of control, she swung the gun at his head.

That book won't come out until next April, so how about a peek at Fozzie in a scene from my new release, WHERE DANGER HIDES. Here, Dalton's the hero, and Fozzie is still in 'secondary character' status I hope you can see why I thought he needed his own book.


Fozzie adjusted his jacket and made a futile attempt to tame his unruly mop of brown hair. "You heard the valet. It's Saturday night. I, for one, intend to take his advice and have a good time. And find someone to have it with."

Dalton grunted. He shot his cuffs and followed the flow of guests up the stairs. "We look like the damn marching penguins."

"Ah, but elegant and well-hung penguins."

The two men smiled at the greeters, exchanged gold-edged invitations for dinner seating assignments, then passed through the metal detectors. Engulfed by a fog of expensive perfumes, Dalton waved off a waiter offering flutes of champagne from a silver tray.

The beginnings of a headache pinched the base of his neck. He stopped and eyed his partner. "Let's get it over with. I'll go left, you go right."

Fozzie snagged a canapé from a buffet table. "No worries, mate. I've already spotted my target for some post-party R and R."

"Let me guess. The woman in black."

"Not fair. Even odds at a black-and-white ball."

Dalton scanned the crowd for Fozzie's likely target. Red fingernails and lipstick on the women, red jackets on the wait staff spattered the room with relief from an endless sea of black and white. "The redhead, right?" Dalton motioned with his chin.

"You know my weakness."

"Yeah, well once in a while you might try to find one with an IQ bigger than her bra size."

Fozzie punched his arm. Dalton grimaced and sidestepped.

"Sorry, mate. Arm still sore?"

"Only when some idiot punches it." He dodged another hit. "I'll meet you on the west balcony in fifteen minutes."

Fozzie wrinkled his nose. "With the smokers? Don't you know secondhand smoke can kill you?" The twinkle in his eyes belied his dead serious expression.

Dalton rubbed his arm. "As opposed to bullets, right?"