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Thursday, September 12, 2019

BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--INTERVIEW WITH ROMANTIC SUSPENSE AUTHOR MICHELLE FERNANDEZ

Today we sit down for a chat with romantic suspense author Michelle Fernandez. Learn more about Michelle and her books at her website.

When did you realize you wanted to write novels?
I’ve always wanted to write ever since I got my first diary from my aunt when I was seven. I wrote in it as if I was writing a story about my life and now as an adult, I’ve got a world of people dying to get out of my head and introduce themselves.

How long did it take you to realize your dream of publication?
I am a person that has always struggled with self-confidence. Growing up, I’ve had people judge me for the wrong reasons, put me down and there was a point in my life I believed I could never be anything…until I met my husband. We met at work and immediately became office Best Buddies. He encouraged me, told me I can do and be anything if I truly believe in myself and ignore all the negativity.

Are you traditionally published, indie published, or a hybrid author?
Indie-published

Where do you write?
I write on my dining table, in bed or on the couch.

Is silence golden, or do you need music to write by? What kind?
Silence is Golden! I don’t like music or any background noise.

How much of your plots and characters are drawn from real life? From your life in particular?
My characters are bits and pieces of people I surround myself with. As for the plot…my mind is a crazy circus (my husband says) and I plot ideas from everything I interact with. My heroines are a part of me or maybe an alter-ego that I wish I could be. As for my heroes, my husband is a big part of them.

Describe your process for naming your character?
When naming my main characters, I make an inspiration board of their face and their characteristics. Then I start to throw names and see what sticks. And there are other characters that I will use my friends and family’s names (store clerk, little girl across the hall, receptionist) only because I know I can and they love to see their names in my book.

Real settings or fictional towns?
In my debut novel, it takes place in a real setting. However, there will be fictional places within the setting. For example, in the City of San Francisco, there is a pub that is fictional, The Tipsy Turtle or in the Bahamas there is a fictional club, The Atlas.

What’s the quirkiest quirk one of your characters has?
Chloe Channing, rambles and blurts out words when she’s nervous, like “Jimminy Christmas” when she was startled.

What’s your quirkiest quirk?
I can fall asleep very quickly, less than two minutes. Give me a pillow, a comfy couch, when I’m a passenger in a car, there is no doubt I will go to sleep. My husband says that I fall asleep in mid-sentence.

Everyone at some point wishes for a do-over. What’s yours?
I wish I could do high school again. I was so naïve, made friends and enemies. I had a blast just being a kid.

What’s your biggest pet peeve?
A dirty kitchen and bathroom! Yuck!

You’re stranded on a deserted island. What are your three must-haves?
A flint stone, a machete/large knife and a pot  

What was the worst job you’ve ever held?
A receptionist at a textile warehouse. My boss was a meanie!

What’s the best book you’ve ever read?
This is a hard one to answer…I guess the only way I can answer this, what book tugged at my heart strings? It was the duet, Consolation and Continuation by Corrine Michaels. I’ve read many books, emotional ones and that duet made me cry.

Ocean or mountains?
I love the ocean and the beach scene

City girl/guy or country girl/guy?
I grew up near a city and love it (sometimes). But I would like to be a country girl

What’s on the horizon for you?
My debut novel, Till I found You releases September 3rd and I am currently working on book 2, Till I Tempt You in this series and my projected date of release for Book 2 is Spring 2020. Then there is Book 3, Till I Claim You (Fall 2020) and Book 4, Till I Return to You (Winter 2020), then the final I Found You (early 2021). Then I have plans to work on another series that I’ve planted seeds throughout this series.

Anything else you’d like to tell us about yourself and/or your books?
I hope that my books give readers the ‘feels’; pulls at their heart strings, makes them laugh and angry at my characters all the same time, because if it does, I’ve done my job. And when the reader has finally read the HEA, I’d like them to drop me a note via FB, IG or my email and let me know their thoughts…and if they truly liked it, a review on GR and Amazon is greatly appreciated.

I was recently announced the finalist for the 2019 Best Blurb Contest in The Emerald City / Greatly Seattle RWA. It’s such an honor and an exciting place to be even if I don’t win the grand prize. Just this accomplishment alone proves a new author like me is capable of anything. All they need to do is just believe in themselves, see the vision and go after it. If I can do this, so can anyone else.

Till I Found You
The Broken Hero Series, Book 1
 
Julian “Booker” Cruz, former Navy SEAL, joined an elite security ops agency with one goal in mind: to forget his past. With the overload of work, there’s no time for romance, nor does he want it. His rule—don’t mix business with pleasure. Until one assignment puts that rule to the test. Chloe Channing is not to discover his undercover role as her protective detail from an unknown psychopath. But as their days pass together in tropical paradise, it becomes difficult to keep his desire from compromising everything. Including her safety.

All Chloe wants is to remember, but so much of her memory was lost after her assailant left her unconscious. On a summer trip with friends at her family’s estate in the Bahamas, she yearns for the quiet respite from a previous heartbreak and her tortured nightmares. She never expects a man like Julian to help her find emotional peace and physical healing. But as she falls deeper, her flashbacks slowly come together, and they include glimpses of one handsome, mysterious, yet all-too-familiar face: Julian’s.

Is Chloe’s mind playing tricks on her again… or has she met this man before?

Even if Julian could let go and risk it all, could he ever forgive himself enough to fall in love again?

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