Thursday's Interview - Renee Simons

Today;s interview is with a long time critique partner. We won't say how long, but Renee writes some very tense suspense and some really great romances.

1. What's your genre or do you write in more than one?
I write Romances, but always with an undertone of mystery or intrigue. No matter how hard I try, the dark side creeps in. Must be acharacter flaw.

2. Did you choose your genre or did it choose you?
I think it chose me (see above). I seem to beentranced by the battles between guilt and innocence and the need for my characters to gain justice ina sometimes unjust world.

3. Is there any genre you'd like to try? Or is there one you wouldn't?
I wouldn't like to try paranormal,vampires, fantasy or futuristic. My brain just doesn't work along those lines, unlike some of my friends,
like you, who write them so well.

4. What fiction do you read for pleasure?
Mysteries, some spy stuff and factual books, especially about Native American history and lore.

5. Tell me a bit about yourself and how long you've been writing,
I started writing when I was in high school, mostly essays and short stories. By college-age, I'd been reading popular historical fiction
by Yerby, Slaughter, et al and tried to write one of my own -- a Bronx, New York kid's version of GWTW. Did loads of research and wrote an outline on index cards. It's at the bottom of a cartonsomewhere. Eventually, I read Rosemary Rogers and wrote a sexy love scene a la her and that
started me on my present road.

6. Which of your characters is your favorite?
That's hard. They're all my babies, my fantasies and myalter egos. I'd say Jordan VanDien from Safe Haven, a woman who battles to overcome a dark past tomake room for love:

7. Are there villains in your books and how were they created?
Every book contains a villain, created to further the plot, create or increase the shared danger and/or conflict for hero and heroine, bringing
them together for the romantic spark to ignite. Besides, villains are fun.

8. What are you working on now?
A cross-cultural love story that takes place in a New Mexico ghost
town and after that, the story of a writer who finds the man of her dreams in a locket which hashung from a chain around her neck since her sixteenth birthday. And I'm happy to say the Books WeLove, Ltd. is about to publish Eye of the Storm, wherein Michael Stormwalker must prove his innocence as a traitor, despite the desire of Alexandra Mclaren to send him to prison for her fiance's death.

9. What's your latest release and how did the idea arrive?
Safe Haven grew from a news story about a construction collapse at a hotel in the Midwest where a walkway failed, injuring and killing many. I changed the locale to Boston, told the story through the eyes of the architect and the womanhired to prove the fault lay with dishonest businessmen.

10. Tell me about your latest book and how it came about. Enclose the opening of the book around 400 words.

"A voice behind Jordan VanDien spoke softly; but with some urgency. At the waming that seemed more like a gentle caress, she turned and watched a tall man with sandy hair approach.

He prodded the soggy ground between them with a long metal rod. 'I told you to move away from the edge.'

'I heard you' she said. 'Mind telling me why?'

'We have a problem with erosion after heavy rain.'

On the beach below, a turbulent surf pounded the shore, legacy of the storm that had swept across Cape Cod Bay during the night.

'Looks solid to me.'

He reached out and stabbed at the ground behind and a little to her left. The pole sank into the earth, breaking off a piece and tumbling it over the edge of the bluff. His brilliant blue eyes turned frosty. 'Satisfied?'

'Yes.' She stepped back. 'Now.'

'Blood galah,' he muttered, and continued to test the ground, though with less disastrous results.

'Just what is a...what did you call it...?'

He turned to her. 'Back home in Australia, we have a bird called a gah-Iah, g-a-I-a-h. It's got pretty feathers and very little common sense.'

'Rudeness is inexcusable.'

'So is stupidity.'

Dolt, she thought."