Interview with Dani Pettrey and a Giveaway!

Welcome to Readers Write to Know! I asked you, my readers, what questions they would ask their favorite authors if given the chance, and the authors visiting my blog answered them! I’m always thrilled when a friend is my guest, and this week I’m so excited to have Dani Pettrey with me! Dani and I are on the Romantic Suspense A-Team (join at this link) with three other fabulous romantic suspense authors, and we get to interact together and pray for each other regularly. I hope you enjoy her interview as much as I did. Read on to see how you can enter to win an E-Copy of both The Killing Tide and The Crushing Depth and a $10 Amazon gift card!

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Hi everyone! I’m so excited to be here with you today. A little about me…I’m a daughter of the King, a wife of thirty years to my sweetheart, a mom to two grown daughters, a mother-in-law to one sweet son-in-law, and a Nanny to two adorable grandsons. I may be a bit biased, but I don’t think so 🙂

I have a love affair with all things coffee, spending time outdoors, and have a dream to one day own a little shack on some remote beach.

I’ve been writing inspirational romantic suspense for Bethany House since 2012. My twelfth novel releases in July! 

Tell us about your current release. The Deadly Shallows will release in July and I’m very excited to share the thrilling conclusion to my Coastal Guardian series with my readers. 

A mass shooting. A stolen weapon capable of immense destruction. Two hearts yearning to be together, but a dark secret threatens to tear them apart.

Coast Guard Flight Medic Brooke Kesler is ecstatic to watch her friend and mentee graduate from medic A-school, but her elation turns to anguish when men in ski masks open fire on the crowd.

CGIS Agent Noah Rowley is rocked to the core when he learns of a mass shooting raging on his Coast Guard base. Still, the shock is nothing compared to the heart-wrenching fear when he learns the woman he loves is at the graduation. Fortunately, his team rapidly ends the shooting melee, and Noah discovers Brooke still is alive. Once assured she’s okay, he quickly turns to learning who is behind the attack.

Little do Brooke and Noah know that the shooting is part of a master plot and that Brooke has overheard something that holds the key to exposing the lead killer’s identity. Determined not to be caught, the cunning villain focuses on taking out Brooke and, if need be, those who would protect her. With targets on their backs, Brooke and Noah must race to find the killer before he strikes again.

It’s available for pre-order at all retailers now.

If you knew ahead of time your book would benefit only one person on their spiritual journey, would you still write it? Absolutely! I feel God has blessed me with the heart of a writer and the passion to create. What He does with the stories, who He reaches through them, is all in His hands. I like to say, though I often fall short of doing so, that I write for One and one. One being God. My heart is to write for God first and foremost. And, I write for the one He knows the story is for. I feel so humbled to be able to share stories as part of my daily life. God is so gracious.

[Tweet “THE DEADLY SHALLOWS by @DaniPettrey available for preorder now! Win the first two books of the series @halleeb #giveaway #christfic”]

With all those characters in your head screaming to get out how do you write fast enough to get it all down? I’m a horrible typist. I’ve taken classes and I flat-out stink. So, I write all my first drafts longhand. I can write far quicker than I can type. Although, sometimes my thoughts go faster than I can write fully out, so I’ve come up with my own, quirky shorthand that I use to help me get everything down on paper before it pops out of my head. I also keep notebooks and pens throughout the house so I can jot ideas down and snippets of scenes as they come to me. The old adage of keeping a notebook by your bed definitely has held true for me.

Who was your first Screen/Musical Crush? Oh. Wow. What a fun question. It took me a while to think back. I think my first Screen crush was John Schneider from Dukes of Hazzard. Yep. I just really dated myself. I loved how he and his brother slid across the hood of their car then climbed in through the window. I can remember playing that game with friends–in our parents’ safely parked cars, of course.

Who were some of your favorite authors as a child? I loved Agatha Christie. I received Murder on the Orient Express when I turned eight and I’ve been addicted to mysteries ever since. I scooped up all her books that I could, added in Nancy Drew, and any other mysteries I could find in our school library. On the TV front, my favorite show growing up was Scooby Doo. I was hooked. It came on every weekday at 4:30pm so I told my friends I’d be out to play after Scooby. Mysteries took priority. LOL!

What do you do when you hit a roadblock and have NO idea what to write? I stop. When I hit a roadblock, I know it’s God’s way of saying I’ve gotten something wrong. I take a day or two off, if possible, and don’t focus on it as I’m able. I go for walks, watch inspiring movies, meet a friend for lunch–anything that lets my mind rest. What should be my first action–praying for guidance–I often fail to do, but am working to make that my consistent first step. God always shows me what went wrong–where I took the wrong detour, how I got an aspect of my character wrong. Sometimes I have to go back and read through what I have or a portion of it, then I cut out what’s not working and start from there. It’s a tedious process but I learned long ago I can’t force it. Thankfully, I have an amazing mentor and dear friend who has guided me through this. I often run what I’m stuck on by her and she sends back a handful of ideas. For some reason seeing other options, even if I don’t go with one of them, gets me out of the box I’ve shut myself in. It opens my eyes to all the possibilities.

Here is where you can find Dani online:

Website: https://www.danipettrey.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaniPettrey

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authordanipettrey/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/DaniPettrey

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/danipettrey/

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/dani-pettrey

Dani is giving away an E-Copy of both The Killing Tide and The Crushing Depth and a $10 Amazon gift card to a reader! See below how to enter to win:

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