With me today is Beth Henderson, chatting about writing, books, and a little about what she does in her free time. Please give a warm welcome to Beth, and don't forget to check out her book UNTIL. There's an excerpt below you won't want to me.
Let's jump right into the interview...
What are you working on now?
Actually, I’m finishing up on a romantic suspense where the hero has been in hiding for ten years after nearly being killed by a stalker. The heroine is the PI who was hired by the stalker (though she didn’t know it at first) to find him. Instead, when she does, she is more determined to keep him safe and prove that the stalker is responsible for the death of the woman who was in the car with the hero a decade ago. Oh, and to give him back his career as he was poised to be a superstar in the music world, idolized for his arrangements of songs into soft jazz tunes. She’d been one of his fans and still has his CDs.
What is your favorite genre and why?
Actually, as I jump around in the genres I write, the things that are constants are mystery and comedy, sometimes together. But I also like magic and I have a degree to prove I’m a historian. About the only genres I don’t read in are medievalish fantasy and futuristic sci-fi. Oh, and I hate anything labeled “literary”. I’m a dyed in the Tweed genre girl.
My followers love to learn a little about their favorite writers. Can you tell us what you do when you’re not writing?
I am such a boring person. When not writing I’m reading or re-watching movies from the screwball comedies of the 1930s on through the latest Avengers’ movie (I like either to laugh or have things blow up in movies). Probably the most re-watched movies the past few years are Sherlock Holmes with Downey and Law, and Thor: Ragnarok. Let’s face it. I like gazing at Chris Hemsworth. Who doesn’t?
Blurb
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Excerpt
Although the men dragged the half-clad woman along, their grips tight and threatening, she wasn’t fighting or resisting them physically or verbally. She looked beaten, not in body but in spirit. And yet, when she stumbled, the toe of her wear-marred but neatly laced-up boot catching in the cloying mud, pitching her forward out of the men’s custody, the crowd gasped. Some stepped farther back to avoid physical contact. The carrion seekers in the mob pressed nearer, set to rend her vulnerability.
They hurled insults at her. She suffered the name calling, if it could be called such. The style of her clothing—or lack of it—and the building itself proclaimed the truth of her profession. She was the whore they called her.
Then he heard the new word, the word that was at first only whispered before it gained a more daring voice: murderess.
One of the men yanked her upright, uncaring whether he hurt her or not. It was only then, when she raised her head, her chin, in a manner any grand dame reared in the top tier of Eastern society would recognize, that he knew her.
It couldn’t be.
And yet, when she swept the gathered crowd, the gaze she turned on them was the one she had learned at her mother’s knee. At her grandmother’s table and at enumerable dinners, balls, and afternoon teas in Boston.
Tal watched in stunned amazement as the once Honorable Miss Noletta Kittridge shrugged free of the man’s hand and with a back straightened by years of deportment, stepped from the meager shelter of the porch, moved beyond the hungry, insult-hurling crowd, and strode on her own toward the camp jail.
She looked at no one, met no eye, taking comfort in the inborn dignity of the class into which she had been born.
Her class, Tal thought, heart sore. He’d never been a true part of it, merely a hanger-on, a climber. A friend to her brother.
And that friend had called him a traitor to his country.
But Letty… What was she doing in Idaho Territory? She should be enjoying the comforts of Boston, being fêted by the officers who managed to make it home and the wealthy industrialists who paid other men to take their place in the infantry lines.
If she hadn’t stridden down the sorry muddy excuse of a street with her blueblood holding her above the rabble, he might have doubted his eyes. Even so, it was difficult to believe Letty Kittridge and the prostitute with blood and mud drying on her scant clothing were one and the same.
The show over, the crowd dispersed around him. Before they could all disappear, Tal tapped a blurry-eyed man in a threadbare suit coat on the shoulder.
“Pardon, friend,” he said. “Could you tell me what that was all about?”
“Gal shot her man, from the looks of it,” the fellow said. “Not surprised it happened, just that it took Pearl this long to do it.”
“Pearl?”
“The dove they arrested.”
“You sure she’s the one that did it?” Tal pressed.
“Wearing Rosser’s blood, isn’t she? Why the interest, mister?”
Tal gave the man what he hoped passed for a harmless grin. “Just making sure no other gal or man’s like to shoot my fool head off while I’m here.”
“Gold brought you, then?”
“Brought everyone else in town, too, I’d say,” Tal observed, his smile widening.
“You’re right,” the man agreed and chuckled. He offered his hand. “Ebner Melton, mayor of this little burg.”
“Adam Cain,” Tal said easily and pumped the mayor’s paw. He’d been using the alias for too long now to ever stumble over offering it. It was more difficult to remember his life as Talmadge Hammond back in Boston.
Did Letty feel the same?
“Where do you hail from, Mr. Cain?” the mayor asked.
“Anymore, the last gold field that called to me,” Tal admitted. “’Fore that, Canada and points beyond.”
“And might I ask what you did before you came down with gold fever?’
The mayor was treading on dangerous ground now, wanting to know what sort of man he’d been back East. But considering events at this gold strike, Tal decided the truth needed to be let out at least one last time.
“I was a lawyer, Mr. Mayor. One with a knack for defending the innocent.”
Nice to meet you. Best of luck with the book.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a great story!
ReplyDeleteA great interview and an intriguing book. Thanks to both of you.
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by. :)
ReplyDelete