Hannah Alexander and Free Books!

When Dr. Joy Gilbert rejects the advances of her employer he fires her, forcing her to return to another state to seek employment with her former fiancé, unaware that his teenaged daughter has hitched a ride in the back of Joy’s car.

Before we visit today's author, I want to announce that the winner of the signed copy of Wynn in the Willows, by Robin Shope, is:

texaggs2000@ . . .

Congratulations! I'll email you today to get your mailing address, and we'll get your book to you right away. I encourage readers to keep commenting and/or subscribe at right (above my list of books) in order to participate in future book give-aways! Subscribers are entered a second time when they comment.

And now let's revisit with novelist Hannah Alexander, author of Hallowed Halls (H.A. Publishing under the imprint of Jerry Jenkins Select, May 2014).

Hannah Alexander’s works include 28 published novels, two of which are being released back-to-back, one in May and one in June. They are, respectively, Hallowed Halls and Collateral Damage.

Hannah has won multiple awards, including the Christy, three Holt Medallions, the Reader’s Choice, and has been named as one of top five Christian novelists of the year by Library Journal.

Her books always include romance, some sort of medical drama, suspense, small-town charm, and often animals and teenagers of the loveable variety. She always prefers happy endings, both in her reading and her writing, but she was often praised by one of her editors for finding the most interesting ways to kill a victim…so beware.

Please tell us three random things we might not know about you.

--After being a dog lover all my life, I am now a cat person. Go figure!

--I have been known to “recognize” a character from one of my books while walking down the street. Freaky.

--This novel is my first self-published novel, but I’m not working on it alone. The other novelists also publishing under the imprint of Jerry Jenkins Select are Angela Hunt, Brandilyn Collins, Bill Myers and Sammy Tippit.

I'd be very interested (as many of my writing readers would, I'm sure) to hear how the affiliation with Jerry Jenkins works out!

Please tell us a bit more about the plot of Hallowed Halls.

Dr. Joy Gilbert has discovered she hates working in a busy practice in a crowded big city, after being raised by her single mother in the small town of Juliet. She left last year, broken-hearted, after her fiancé, Zack, ended their engagement without explanation. Now that she’s back, she needs a job, and as director of the emergency department in Juliet, Zack needs help, so he hires her.

What Joy did not expect was for Tressa, the teenaged daughter of her angry former employer, to sneak into the back of her car and hitch a ride over the state line. While Zack and Joy are working through a tangle of past anger and hurt feelings, Joy must work things out with Tressa’s divorced parents while staying in the home of her mother, who takes in stray animals—she has 27 cats, a miniature horse, three dogs, a goat…need I go on?

When Tressa begins to have increasingly dangerous blackouts, just like her brother before he died, Joy and Zack must try to put their differences aside and figure out what’s happening with Tressa before she loses her life, as well.

What is it about Joy that will make your readers care about her?

Joy Gilbert is passionate about caring for her patients, and one of the reasons she was fired by her employer, besides her resistance to his physical charms, was her tendency to take on pro bono cases—treating patients without charging them when they can’t afford to pay. Like her mother, she takes in the unwanted, the lost, the hurting.

If you were the casting director for the film version of your novel, who would play your lead roles?

I believe I would like to cast Criminal Minds’ Spencer Reid, genius extraordinaire, as Zack, though I’d have to fix his hair to fit the part. Zack is a genius.



If you’ve ever watched NCIS and seen Ziva David in action, I think you would see some of the fire and passion I see in Joy Gilbert, though Joy has a more tender touch.

What kind of brainstorming do you do for your stories, and whose help do you incorporate?

I used to attend brainstorming retreats at least once or twice a year in the early years of publication, but I’ve found in the past few years that I have my own story to tell, and others can confuse me. Even my husband, who works with me on the stories, can’t see my vision when I first see my story, so I have to go it alone.

I have to say I identify with that, Hannah. My right hemisphere seems to be a loner, too. But when brainstorming has happened rather casually, it's helped a bit.

What is the last novel you read that you would recommend?

I’m presently reading Insight by Deborah Raney, and I feel as if I’m reading it for the second time because I was with a brainstorming team when she developed that novel. It has an excellent flow and a beautiful love story, but she does what a great novelist is supposed to do, and makes her characters suffer.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on the sequel to Hallowed Halls, tentatively titled Divine Appointment, about a therapist who arrives in Juliet in a fugue state, and is forced to unravel the mystery of why she is there.

Where else can readers find you online?

www.HannahAlexander.com.

The book can be purchased in fine book stores and online via the following buttons:




CBD.com


Finally, what question would you like to ask my readers?

What situations in your life have made you depend more fully on God’s provision?

Thanks, Hannah, for visiting with us and telling us about your novel. Readers, Hannah has offered to give a signed copy of her book to the winner of our drawing on Thursday, June 12. To enter, leave a comment below in answer to Hannah's question, above. "Please enter me" won't get you entered. Leave your email address, in case you win, like so: trish[at]trishperry[dot]com.

Be sure to check out my interviews with Liz Tolsma and Sandra Orchard, below. Leave an appropriate comment at the bottom of the post to enter the drawing for a signed copy of the book.

Also, I'd love it if you'd connect with me on Facebook. Just click on my name at the right of today's post.

Annoying legal disclaimer: drawings void where prohibited; open only to U.S. residents; the odds of winning depend upon the number of participants. See full disclaimer HERE.