DYING TO READ - Lorena McCourtney - One Free Book

Welcome, Lorena. God has really been moving in your writing life. What do you see on the horizon?

God has moved in different ways over my writing career, including one, long discouraging spell when I had nothing new published for several years. But he had things for me to learn during that time (a basic one was that life is not all about writing!) Right now I'm blessed with a three-book contract to write my Cate Kinkaid Files mystery series for Revell.

Tell us a little about your family.

I'm married – 38 years now! I have a son and a married granddaughter, plus two stepdaughters and several step-grandchildren. Plus one eccentric cat. We live in southern Oregon.

Since you’re in southern Oregon, you might enjoy my last release Mary’s Blessing which is set in southern Oregon in 1885. Has your writing changed your reading habits? If so, how?

Since I've changed my writing from romances to romantic  mystery/suspense, I read more in the mystery genre. I never thought I'd want to read on an e-book reader, but I'm fine with it now.

What are you working on right now?

I'm working on that third book in the Cate Kinkaid Files series, title not decided on yet. I'm also intending, as I have been for an embarrassingly long time now, to get another book written in my Ivy Malone Mysteries series. Readers keep asking for it, and I keep trying to find time to do it.

What outside interests do you have?

I enjoy walking, beachcombing on the Oregon coast, raising flowers. (Although that's a struggle. I see other people growing great petunias, and mine always look kind of scraggly.)  I collect antique spurs and bits, and also old pocket knives. My husband and I enjoy going to yard sales looking for something to add to those collections, or to his collection of old tools.

How do you choose your settings for each book?

I prefer to go with the "write what you know" way of doing things, so I often choose Oregon settings. Sometimes a story can only be set in a particular place – the setting is that much a part of the story. I've also chosen a setting because it's a place I'd like to visit, and the story is a good reason to go there.

If you could spend an evening with one historical person, who would it be and why?

Jesus would have to be at the top of the list, of course. But after that, I'd like to meet my Indian great-great grandmother, whose name I don't even know. But I'd really like to know about her life.

That sounds interesting. What is the one thing you wish you had known before you started writing novels?

That you don't have it "made" after having one book (or ten) published.

That is so true. What new lessons is the Lord teaching you right now?

That serving Him with my writing is important, but it is not more important than an actual relationship with Him.

What are the three best things you can tell other authors to do to be successful?

Read a lot, particularly in your chosen genre, but other types of books as well to learn about different approaches to a story, different themes, different techniques.

Be persistent. Talent is wonderful, but some of us have a limited amount of that, and need to go with persistence.

Talk to the Lord about your writing and where He wants you to go with it.

Tell us about the featured book.

DYING TO READ is Book #1 of the Cate Kinkaid Files mystery series. Cate's life is really floundering. She hasn't been able to find a steady job in almost a year, and she and her fiancé had a rather unpleasant breakup too. (Since to be known as the Cappuccino Conflict.)

So, when her uncle offers her a job as an assistant private investigator with his one-man Belmont Investigations, out of desperation she takes it. He assures her that her first assignment is easy and uncomplicated. There will be no danger, no crime, no mayhem.

Instead, Cate soon finds herself up to her elbows in Whodunit ladies, a paint-blobbed hunk, a deaf white cat – and killers.

Please give us the first page of the book.

Cate glanced at the identification card her Uncle Joe had printed out  just before she left his office. Cate Kinkaid, Assistant Private Investigator. Complete with the photo he’d snapped, which showed a spike of red hair growing out of her left ear,  and the  address and phone number of Belmont Investigations.

An identification card that made her – what? An overage Nancy Drew? An underage Jessica Fletcher? A clueless Stephanie Plum?

Whatever, she was getting desperate, and the job was only temporary, not a lifetime commitment.  She was, as Uncle Joe had put it, just dipping her toe into the world of private investigation. Just until one of the many résumés she had floating around brought results. All she had to do today was check on a woman named Willow Bishop living at an address on Meisman Street here in Eugene, Oregon, and then write up a brief report for the files.

Although Cate hadn’t expected the house to look as if it had jumped off the cover of some old Gothic novel. She parked at the bottom of the steep driveway and stared up at the unlikely old place sitting on an oversized parcel  among a subdivision of modest homes. Not dilapidated, but weathered and brooding, with oddly-shaped windows tucked into unlikely nooks, and several upper windows painted over. A witch, or maybe a vampire or vulture, wouldn’t look out of place peeking over the peaked roof of a corner turret.

How can readers find you on the Internet?

My webpage is: http://www.lorenamccourtney.com

I have two Facebook pages: One is Lorena McCourtney Author.

The other is http://www.facebook.com/lorenamccourtney  

Readers, here are links to the book. By using one when you order, you help support this blog.
Dying to Read: A Novel (The Cate Kinkaid Files) - paperback
Dying to Read: A Novel (The Cate Kinkaid Files) - Kindle


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