Meet Blake Sanders

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