Every authorโs writing process is different, and every story is different even
for a particular author, at least thatโs true with me. My latest release,
TUNDRA THREAT, started with
a full-of-personality character and a setting I love.
When McKenna Clark, my law-enforcement-heroine, first took shape in my mind, the
first thing I did was try to think about what kind of guy it would take to make
sparks fly. And not just romantic sparks. Conflict sparks. Because who likes a
happily-ever-after that comes too easily? In the book, McKenna is a stubborn,
red-headed wildlife trooper, so I paired her with an equally stubborn (because
thatโs always fun, right?) hunting guide.
Thatโs right. She protects animals. He takes people out to hunt them. And thatโs
just the beginning of the obstacles in their way.
If thereโs anything thatโs true of both McKenna and Will, itโs that theyโre risk
takers. Even when a tragedy in Willโs past makes him life more cautiously for a
few years, he comes back to this way of living life fully with no regrets when
heโs reunited with McKenna. As far as the setting fitting the characters, there
was no better place to set their love story than Alaska, a land of extremes
itself, where beauty and danger are too intertwined to separate them.
Alaska stories are growing in popularity as more people want to โvisitโ the Last
Frontier and choose to do so in fiction. This works for me because it was my
home for almost a decade and itโs still a place I dream about returning to every
time Iโm away. Besides, I donโt feel like an author or a reader could ask for a
better place for a romantic suspense story. What could be more romantic than
standing at the top of the world with someone you love, ready to take on
adventures together? Yet what could be more spine chilling than knowing just
from looking around you at the breathtaking vastness of such an untamed land
that danger is oh-so-close?
I loved writing McKenna and Willโs love story amidst the danger facing them, and
I had fun setting it in such a rugged state that always captivates my attention.
Alaska and itโs way of life factors so deeply into the story that itโs almost a
character itself. So I guess you could say the story started with two charactersโฆ
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