Author Terry Spear: Her Characters’ Library And A Giveaway

It’s always a pleasure for me to welcome award-winning, multi-talented author Terry Spear here when she tours blogdom with her latest release in the Heart of the Wolf series.

Terry’s current release is DREAMING OF THE WOLF, another intriguing installment in the series that I reviewed earlier. Thanks to Terry and Danielle at Sourcebooks, I have 2 copies of DREAMING OF THE WOLF to giveaway to 2 lucky readers who comment on this post between now and 8 p.m. (EST) on Saturday, Jan. 7. The giveaway is open to residents of the U.S. and Canada only. Be sure to leave your e-mail address with your comment if it’s not included in your profile.

With the hectic holiday season, Terry has graciously answered some unusual questions about the main characters in DREAMING OF THE WOLF and their likes.

Mason - Would your main 2 characters have a library or a collection of books?

Terry - Alicia has a few books on self-defense techniques, places to hike, and identifying Colorado wildflowers. She also loves to read up on ways to influence people using the powers of persuasion and psychology, particularly in her bounty hunter work.

 

Jake has several books on photography and enjoys learning more about taking pictures of the subject/object in unusual ways to make them really shine. He can’t wait to take lots of pictures of Alicia, as she’s the wildest flower he’s ever found in Colorado. And he loves to cook. So he’s got a few special recipe books around. He has a friend in Minnesota who just sent him a special treat, Minnesota’s state grain, an annual grass that grows wild in the lakes and rivers known as wild rice. They even grow it commercially in paddies—the only cultivated cereal grain native to North America. So he’s looking forward to fixing corn and wild rice soup with smoked sausage for his mate.

Mason - Tell us one thing about each of the 2 main characters that even their friends don't know.

Terry - First off, no one would have ever suspected Jake would fall head over heels in lust with a human. But it’s more than that. She’s on his mind 24-7 and he thinks he’s fallen in love. Alicia? Ha! No way is she EVER going to get hitched again. Two times were enough. No one would ever suspect she’d fall for another man, ever! 

Mason - How did these main 2 characters first come to you?

Terry - I always like to come up with different occupations. I’d seen some bounty hunter shows where the bounty hunters were women. And I watched a program where two women talked about their bounty hunting experience. So that started the idea of her occupation. As to the Mob…my mother’s grandfather was French and he had a half-sister who was married to another Frenchman in Fort Wayne, Indiana, who was bringing liquor illegally into Chicago from Canada and selling it during Prohibition. Al Capone had his brother taken hostage and threatened to kill him, if the Frenchman didn’t cease selling in the Mafia’s Chicago territory. So I was fascinated with the Mob, and thought to include that aspect in the story.

As to Jake, he was already in two stories, DESTINY OF THE WOLF, Book 2, brother to Darien, the pack leader, and WOLF FEVER, Book 6. So his character was already developed, but when a person is introduced to a new situation, they will often act differently than if they are in the same old rut with family and friends. In his case, he’s away from his hometown, away from the pack, away from a town that is run by a werewolf pack, and when he meets a damsel in distress, he’s taking care of her. He never goes on vacation, never stays with a human woman longer than for a quick exchange—so Alicia really does turn his world inside out from the very beginning.

 

Mason - Do you try to include some type of meaning or message (such as enjoy life) in your story or does it just develop on its own?

Terry - It always just grows on its own. For instance, when I was writing THE ANCIENT FAE, I was thinking about archeological digs and how some found such finds extraordinary to learn more about the ancient past, and how some would find it just old junk. But what if someone found your “stuff” buried under layers of earth in the far distant future? What would it mean to anyone? To you, some of what you have has a special meaning. How could it mean anything to someone in the future? Certainly not the same as it means to you.

I’ve watched a lot of archeological digs on television, and actually saw them digging woolly mammoth bones out of a site near me, so I find it all fascinating. One day while I was moving some special river stones that I had used in the garden that had been buried with mulch and blowing dirt, I thought about how someone, if I hadn’t moved the smooth stones, might have dug them up and thought a river might have existed here at one time. LOL So how much is transplanted and really not from the existing site?

And that’s what happens when I write. I see snippets of some facts—like in the case of bounty hunters and one of the men saying that he doesn’t use brute force to apprehend, but psychology most of the time. Another had said they tried to have women go in to do the apprehensions when it involved a woman to avoid sexual harassment accusations. In one case, a bounty hunter said he’d had no trouble except when he ran into a meth lab. And then, it was volatile—guns and drugs and money. So research definitely makes a difference in what I write.

 

Of course some of it is planned, like the fact that I wanted to take Jake out of his comfortable surroundings and…turn his world upside down. Sometimes, that’s what we need. An earth-shattering change in our lives to make us realize that maybe we need to go in a different direction and find the ultimate happiness that way. Or sometimes, that we need to realize just how fortunate we already are when we see others who don’t have half of what we do and not take it for granted. Jake is annoyed with his family’s intrusion into his business with Alicia because she’s human, yet he feels for her because she no longer has any family. So he’s caught in between.

For Alicia, she’s so distraught about her mother’s death, the fact she’s had two failed marriages and she really has no one to turn to any longer, I wanted to show that she has a purpose in life and that she’s not alone. That she is loved and that she is important. Even with the people at the art gallery who are annoyed with her because she’s locked herself in the bathroom and it’s closing time and they want to go home, I wanted to show that when they believe she’s ill, their attitudes change completely.

 

It’s human nature to want to help in a case like that. That at that moment, they had a new purpose in life—but not just for the moment. Alicia had impacted on their lives in a more profound way. Just as she had on the police force in Breckenridge where her mother was murdered, and at the flower shop where she and her mother would visit.

But what if the art gallery staff really knew why she had locked herself in the bathroom???

Then THEY would have had a life-altering experience, and who knows what would have happened then.

Thanks so much for having me here today, Mason! I loved your thought-provoking questions. Happy Holidays to everyone!

Terry, thanks so much for guest blogging and answering these unusual questions. It’s nice to have a look at the characters outside the book so to speak. It’s also fun learning about the Mob connection. Happy Holidays to you as well.

Now a bit of background on Terry. She has written a dozen paranormal romance novels, with over 60,000 copies sold. She received Publishers Weekly’s Best Book of the Year in 2008 for HEART OF THE WOLF. 

A retired officer of the U.S. Army Reserves, Terry is a librarian by day. She lives in Crawford, Texas. For more on Terry, her writing, and her many talents, check out her website at www.terryspear.com. 

Here’s a brief synopsis of DREAMING OF THE WOLF: A fierce hunter…
Alicia Greiston is a no-nonsense bounty hunter determined to bring a ring of mobsters to justice. Her dogged pursuit of the crime family has forced her to avoid relationships—any man would only become a target for retribution. Luckily, Jake Silver is more than a man, and his instincts are telling him to stop at nothing to protect her.

An animal passion…
However, the mob isn’t entirely human either, and soon Alicia must flee for her life. When Alicia and Jake’s passion begins to spill over into their dreams, Jake learns he will have to do more than defend her—he’ll have to show his mate the way of the wolf.

Do you enjoy learning background on the characters you read about? Thanks so much for stopping by today. Don’t forget to leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of Terry’s DREAMING OF THE WOLF.