I was tagged
by the lovely and talented L.J. Sellers to participate in a blog tour/hop about
the main character of my thriller series. L.J. recently posted hers, and you
should check it out.
L.J. Sellers writes the
bestselling Detective Jackson Mysteries—a two-time Readers Favorite Award
winner—as well as the Agent Dallas series and provocative standalone thrillers.
L.J. resides in Eugene, Oregon where many of her 16 novels are set and is an
award-winning journalist and the founder of Housing Help. When not plotting
murders or doing charity work, she enjoys standup comedy, cycling, and social
networking. She's also been known to jump out of airplanes. You can find her
any one of these places online:
Website:
http://ljsellers.com
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/LJSellers
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/ljsellers
FB Group, Jackson Junkies & Dallas Diehards: https://www.facebook.com/groups/JacksonJunkies
Here we go.
1) What is the name of your character? Is
he/she fictional or a historic person?
My adult
thriller series character’s name is Blake Sanders. Night Drop is Blake’s third outing. I introduced Blake in Night Blind, a story in which in the
space of a few months, he’s lost his job, his only son to suicide, and his
marriage. Mired in depression and grief, he can only face the world at night, washing
dishes and delivering newspapers.
A year later, on
a cold November night, Blake’s world is turned upside down again when an
elderly woman on his newspaper route is brutally stabbed to death and Blake is
charged with her murder.
In a desperate
attempt to find the real killer, he learns that his friend had stumbled onto
secrets that have been buried beneath Seattle’s Capitol Hill for 150 years.
Secrets that are now being disturbed by digging for the new light rail tunnel.
Secrets that will shake the city’s government. Secrets that foreign agents will
kill for.
On the run from the police and murderers,
Blake finds a chance to heal his grief and reclaim his life. But only if he can
stay alive long enough to unearth the truth.
2) When and where is the story set?
Night
Drop, like the first two
books in the series, is set in and around Seattle, and takes place in present
day. And, like the others, it also includes multiple points of view. Night Drop
brings back naval intelligence officer Reyna Chase, but also introduces a
secondary protagonist, Trip Macready, a former Navy SEAL.
Because of the multiple POVs I’m able to
take readers farther afield than Seattle, and in Night Drop that includes Baja,
Mexico, and the waters in and around the San Juan Islands from Canada south to
Puget Sound.
3) What should we know about him?
Blake’s two distinguishing
characteristics are that he’s very tall, a former college basketball star at
6’9”, and he suffers from ADHD. The former makes him both a large target and
formidable foe, and the latter gives him a different perspective and motivation
than most people. He often approaches problems laterally instead of linearly,
making intuitive leaps of logic that most people find illogical. And he tends
to leap before he looks, another tendency of people with ADHD.
4) What is the main conflict? What messes
up his life?
ADHD gets Blake into hot water lot
because he tends to be impulsive, speaking or acting before he thinks. He’s
also still grieving for his dead son and his lost marriage.
In Night Drop, the main conflict is that
more than a year after Blake’s life fell apart he’s finally starting to pick up
the pieces and put it all back together. But his ex-wife Molly is abducted, and
he vows not to lose her, too. Her high-profile law firm calls in the FBI, which
treats the case as a run-of-the-mill kidnap-for-ransom. To Blake, it’s
personal. When the kidnappers demand that he deliver the ransom, he knows it
is.
With Molly’s
life hanging in the balance, Blake does the unexpected, setting off a chain
reaction and a game of cat-and-mouse with the mastermind behind the abduction.
The deeper Blake digs for answers, the more apparent it becomes that money is
lowest on the kidnappers’ list of demands.
One of Molly’s
clients is an ex-Navy SEAL, an expert dolphin trainer turned animal rights
activist. When he disappears the stakes suddenly go up, and Blake asks naval
intelligence officer Reyna Chase for help. As soon as Reyna gets wind of what’s
happening, the game changes from saving Molly to saving Seattle from a
terrorist threat that could wreak havoc on the city and kill thousands. The
only way Blake can stop it is to pay the ransom—not with cash, but with his
life.
And one of the
biggest conflicts messing up Blake’s life in Night Drop is that he’s falling in love with Reyna, but still loves
Molly, and he has to make a choice.
5) What is the personal goal of the
character?
Obviously, Blake’s primary goal in Night Drop is to get Molly back from the
kidnappers alive. But as with many
of us his personal goals are finding happiness and trying to become a better
person.
6) Can we read more about it?
ARCs are available on NetGalley (for
those who are members), and from me.
7) When can we expect the book to be
published?
Night
Drop is slated for
publication on September 8, 2014, and will be available on Kindle and in print.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MOVF9KO
Authors I tagged include the lovely Jo
Chumas, author of The Hidden (http://www.jochumas.com/blog); Paul D.
Marks, author of the Shamus Award-winning White
Heat (http://www.pauldmarks.blogspot.com);
Eyre Price, author of the Crossroads thriller series (http://www.eyreprice.net/Eyre_Time.html);
and Becky Masterman, author of Rage
Against The Dying (http://beckymasterman.com).
They’ll be blogging about their characters next week, on August 29.
Also, don’t miss
Teresa Burrell’s blog post next Monday. Teresa has dedicated
her life to helping children and their families, as a schoolteacher for twelve
years and then as a lawyer. She focused her solo practice in juvenile court
where she worked primarily with abused minors. She also received several awards
from the San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Program for her countless hours of pro bono
work with children and families.
Burrell writes legal suspense mysteries incorporating many of her
experiences. Her “Advocate Series” consists of five books starting with The Advocate to the most recent, The
Advocate’s Ex Parte. She can be found online at www.teresaburrell.com, http://www.facebook.com/theadvocateseries
I love it that your character is tall! My husband is 6'5'' and his best friend is 6'7" so I'm used to looking up at the Steves. And getting to travel as research for a series is a nice bonus.
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