AWAKENING - Tracy Higley - One Free Book

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

I’ve been having a great time branching out a little bit, writing a contemporary suspense after so many historical novels. In the upcoming year, I’m hoping to do some of both. I’ve got a historical novel I’m working on right now, plus an idea for a time-travel series.

Tell us a little about your family.

I have one great husband and four great kids! My children range from 11 to 21 years old, so we’re parenting at all different levels—middle school, high school, college, and beyond (my 21 year old is already finished with college and out on her own!). Here at home these days, it’s just me, hubby, and two boys, now that the older two girls are out of the house. It’s a whole new world being the only female in the house!

My husband was always the only male in a house with three females. Has your writing changed your reading habits? If so, how?

Hmmm, I think I’d say my writing has made me a bit more critical when I read. If I see what I know are glaring flaws that are distracting in a novel (not typos, but things like characterization and plot structure), I’m likely to set it aside. Life’s too short to read books that are less than wonderful. I also don’t read as much fiction as I used to, perhaps because I’m writing it.

What are you working on right now?

Currently in focus is a historical novel set around the magi who came to visit Jesus at his birth. These aren’t your grandmother’s magi, however. Lots of spiritual darkness set in an epic quest across the desert.

What outside interests do you have?

I never like this question, since I don’t have any good answers! Does chocolate count? Besides writing and the business-side of it, and reading, I love movies and good TV drama, and I love to travel.

How do you choose your settings for each book?

Settings just speak to me; they really do. The setting for my books is typically the first thing to draw me to an idea, before characters or plot. There are so many amazing and fascinating places and times to write about. I’ve written about ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Pompeii, Jordan, Israel, and Ephesus. I just keep returning to these wonderful places that draw me!

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

I’m a huge history buff, so this is an impossible question—impossible to choose only one! But I’ll give you one of my choices—Caesar Augustus. Weird, I know. But he was an amazing emperor, ruling at an unbelievably critical time in Rome’s history. I’d love to hear about the ancient world from his perspective.

What is the one thing you wish you had known before you started writing novels?

I wish I’d known that the best way to go about it doing it well is to write the books you want to read, the books you love, and love to write, and to ignore anyone telling you otherwise.

Very good advice. What new lessons is the Lord teaching you right now?

I think God is expanding my worldview the past few years. I’ve been working on a Master’s Degree in Ancient History, which is giving me a broader scope of human history and God’s work in the world, and I’ve done more contemplating of ideas outside those that have been part of the “standard” world of my upbringing. I’m realizing that God and His plan are much bigger than I previously understood.

It’s wonderful when we finally realize that. What are the three best things you can tell other authors to do to be successful?

Chase your adventure—there is a unique calling on your life that only you can fulfill. Figure it out and go for it.

Discipline and focus—in your writing and your personal life—will get you farther than raw talent.

Love your work—always and foremost love the writing you’re doing, or don’t do it.

Tell us about the featured book.

Awakening is a contemporary suspense, set in exotic locations around the globe, including Greece, Egypt, and Venice.

Kallie Andreas is a mystery, even to herself.

Seven years ago Kallie woke up in a New York City museum, injured and traumatized. Alone and unclaimed. When a mysterious billionaire invites her to scour the black market with him for a lost treasure, Kallie can't resist. Dimitri is wealthy, charming, and good-looking, but she's not interested—not in someone who's clearly hiding secrets of his own.

Please give us the first page of the book.

The world outside Kallie’s apartment was unreal—a hazy fairy tale sucking her into itself as she dashed from her building into the gray morning chill and descended rain-slicked concrete steps to the city street.

Not a happily-ever-after fairy tale.

Kallie hesitated on the sidewalk, turned, and eyed the massive door to her apartment building, then ran a hand through the dark waves of her hair, flattening quickly in the damp. Should she bolt back upstairs for an umbrella?

Overhung with scudding clouds and wrapped in an evil mist, the murky streets had all the feel of the Brothers Grimm about them—tales of stepsisters who cut off parts of their feet to fit the glass slipper and wicked queens forced to dance in fiery iron shoes until they dropped dead.

But she was late already for her Yearly Ritual. And the portal to the underground labyrinth of subway tunnels yawned only three blocks east. If she hustled, she could descend into their protection before the clouds fractured and soaked her through. Better to push forward and attempt repairs to her hair when she reached the museum.

She flipped the collar of her white trench coat upward and soldiered on. She clutched her soft-sided laptop case to her body, kept her head down, and wove through sluggish pedestrians, dodging wayward umbrellas and stepping over puddles. The wind was strangely warm for March, with a hint of salt impossible this far from the sea. The kind of peculiar wind that dampened the soul and whispered of longings unfulfilled, of desires just out of reach.

The three blocks stretched, and the metallic-rimmed eyes of a hundred windows seemed to watch her rush to the subway. The streets smelled of rotting leaves and garbage in corners and sausages cooked by street vendors braving the elements—a combination of ordinary odors trapped by weighted air and the city fermenting, composting around her.

Such black thoughts.

But it was always this way—on this day.

March twenty-first. Vernal equinox. Her birthday, as Judith called it. And if so, only her seventh birthday, with the rest lost in mist thicker than the New York air.

Wow. I can’t wait to read this one. How can readers find you on the Internet?

I’d love to have readers join me on my website, www.TracyHigley.com, or on Facebook/tracyhigley or on Twitter @TLHigley.

Thank you, Tracy, for sharing this new book with us.

Readers, here are links to the book. By using one when you order, you help support this blog.
Awakening - Amazon.com
Awakening - Kindle

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