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Happy New Year to everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and that Santa was very good to you and your family. I had a great time with family and navigated several airports with no trouble at all—a Christmas miracle.

Colleen Thompson from the GCC is dropping in today to help us ring in the new year and tell us about her new thriller, The Salt Maiden.

The Cover:

 

About the Book:

Colleen says, “The Salt Maiden was inspired by a place I visited a few years back, a sunburned, sand-scoured desert community in the dead center of the least populated county in the U.S. With water too briny for human consumption and land too to support any but the hardiest of desert plants, it’s an eerily daunting landscape, one that made me wonder, What on earth would bring a person out here?

Apparently my subconscious took it as a challenge, and came up with a Houston veterinarian, Dana Vanover, in search of her troubled missing sister, the birth mother of a child in desperate need of a bone-marrow transplant. In spite of her ambivalence about her sister, Dana braves heat, rattlesnakes, and hostile locals — as well as her attraction to the handsome sheriff who wants her gone.”

Collen’s Take on the RosettWrites Q & A:

Dream vacation destination? I'd love to visit Tuscany. Gorgeous place, great food and wine, fascinating people. What's not to love?

You’ve just won the lottery. What’s the first thing you do/buy? A trip to Tuscany. A long trip, where I'd rent a secluded villa where I could write in peace.

 Favorite mystery/thriller movie? Mystic River, which is also a favorite book of mine.

Favorite junk food? New York-style pizza.

What’s one food you absolutely can’t stand? Brussels sprouts - argh!

Paper or plastic? Plastic. Takes up less space and is recyclable.

What’s one talent you wish you had? I wish I were musically talented, but I'm pathetic.

M&Ms or Godiva? Godiva!

Favorite time of Day? Early evening, when I'm most creative.

Tell us a little about your book. Did an event or idea inspire the book?

THE SALT MAIDEN was inspired by a trip through a desolate stretch of West Texas desert, in a place so salty and barren its few residents have to truck in potable water. I started imagining what circumstance could possibly lure someone to such an inhospitable place.

What’s your writing style? Outline or no outline?

I'm a plotter by necessity, since I currently sell on proposal, but I often deviate from the plan.

What do you wish you’d known about either the craft of writing or the business of publishing when you first started writing?

I wish I'd understood the business of writing better, because it's critical to success.

What’s up next for you? What are you working on now?

I'm currently wrapping up TRIPLE EXPOSURE, a romantic suspense due out from Dorchester in Aug. 2008. It's about a photographer returning to her West Texas roots after being acquitted of murder Back East and the photograph of a local artist that plunges both into unexpected danger.

 

Thanks, Colleen. I'm off to try and get back into the writing routine...