AN INTERVIEW WITH LINCOLN STEELE FROM PATRICIA BRADLEY'S NATCHEZ TRACE PARK RANGERS SERIES

Natchez, Mississippi

Today we sit down for a chat with Lincoln Steele from author Patricia Bradley’s Natchez Trace Park Rangers series.

What was your life like before your author started pulling your strings?

I was a successful FBI investigator/sniper. And I didn’t have PTSD from almost killing a ten-year-old boy. Oh, and thanks for giving me an opportunity to rat out talk about my author.

 

What’s the one trait you like most about yourself? 

That I can adapt. If I can’t be an FBI agent, then I can feed my other love—history—as an interpretive ranger for the National Park Service.

 

What do you like least about yourself? 

I hate that I can’t overcome this thing about guns. After all, I was an FBI sniper…

 

What is the strangest thing your author has had you do or had happen to you? Going back to the gun thing—I just don’t understand why she had to do that. I mean, couldn’t she have just made me afraid of alligators? There’s plenty of them in the sloughs around Natchez.

 

Do you argue with your author? If so, what do you argue about? 

All the time. It’s always about the gun thing. I mean, how can a former FBI sniper be a hero without a gun?

 

What is your greatest fear? 

That Ainsley will be in danger, and I can’t save her. I let her down once, and I never want to do that again.

 

What makes you happy? 

Having Ainsley smile that special smile at me. The one that says, “I forgive you…I love you…”

 

If you could rewrite a part of your story, what would it be? Why?

I would never hurt Ainsley like I did when we were in college. See, she had this great dream of being a country/gospel singer, and I told myself the music industry would chew her up and spit her out. I told myself I didn’t want to see her hurt, but really, I was afraid I’d lose her. I lost her anyway,

 

Of the other characters in your book, which one bugs you the most? Why?

The escaped convict bugs me the most. He’s like a chameleon and I’m afraid he’ll get to Ainsley when I’m not around. 

 

Of the other characters in your book, which one would you love to trade places with? Why? 

Actually, none of them. Because her dad was so controlling, Ainsley doesn’t let anyone get close to her emotionally, so it wouldn’t do any good to trade places with one of them. I’ll just have to prove to her I’ve changed so she’ll trust me again.

 

Tell us a little something about your author. Where can readers find her website/blog? 

Patricia Bradley and her two rescue kitties Suzy and Tux live in Northeast Mississippi just four miles from Tennessee and twenty-five from Alabama. She’s a Carol finalist and winner of an Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award in Suspense, and three anthologies that included her stories debuted on the USA Today Best Seller List. 

 

She sets most of her romantic suspense novels in the South, and they include the Logan Point series, the Memphis Cold Case Novels, and the Natchez Trace Park Ranger series. You can find links to her books at https://ptbradley.com/books/.

 

Patricia would love to connect with you on her blog—you see, on Tuesdays she writes posts with mystery questions, usually about dumb criminals. Three of the stories are true, but she makes up one of them. It’s up to the reader to guess which one she made up. Then on Fridays, she tells her readers about a book she’s read lately. And you can always connect with her at her website where you can find links to all her social media. 

What's next for you? 

Crosshairs, my third book in the Natchez Trace Park Rangers series released Monday, November 1, 2021, and I just turned in the fourth book of the series, Deception.

 

Crosshairs

Natchez Trace Park Rangers, Book 3

 

Investigative Services Branch (ISB) ranger Ainsley Beaumont arrives in her hometown of Natchez, Mississippi, to investigate the murder of a three-month-pregnant teenager. While she wishes the visit was under better circumstances, she never imagined that she would become the killer’s next target–nor that she’d have to work alongside an old flame.

 

After he almost killed a child, former FBI sniper Lincoln Steele couldn’t bring himself to fire a gun, which had deadly and unforeseen consequences for his best friend. Crushed beneath a load of guilt, Linc is working at Melrose Estate as an interpretive ranger. But as danger closes in on Ainsley during her murder investigation, Linc will have to find the courage to protect her. The only question is, will it be too little, too late?

 

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AN INTERVIEW WITH ROMANTIC SUSPENSE AUTHOR PATRICIA BRADLEY

Today we sit down for a chat with award-winning romantic suspense author Patricia Bradley. Learn more about her and her books at her website. 

When did you realize you wanted to write novels? 

I never thought about writing until I turned thirty-five. I was always a reader. But I went through a stretch of time where I couldn’t fall asleep at night and one night as I lay there staring at the ceiling, a man appeared. He stood at a window with smokestacks billowing in the background. Then he turned to me and said, “My life wasn’t supposed to turn out like this.” 

 

I started telling myself his story and then other people came to live in my head, and they wouldn’t go away until I started writing about them. And that’s how I came to realize I wanted to write novels. 

 

How long did it take you to realize your dream of publication? 

One year to be published in Woman’s World… thirty something years before my first novel was published. Since that novel, I’ve had thirteen novels published.

 

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

I’m mostly traditionally, but I’ve been included in several indie anthologies that have hit the USA Today Bestseller list.

 

Where do you write?

I turned a bedroom into an office. When it’s warm enough, but not too warm, I write on my deck. 

 

Is silence golden, or do you need music to write by? What kind?

If I think about it, I’ll play classical music…but no words. 

 

How much of your plots and characters are drawn from real life? From your life in particular?

Parts of me are in all of my characters, even the villains…I mean, which of us hasn’t had an urge to kill a back-stabbing best friend?

 

Describe your process for naming your character?

Most of my main characters appear fully named. If they don’t, I can’t get started until I find the perfect name. The first place I start is the Social Security Baby Name site. 

 

Real settings or fictional towns? 

I’ve written both. The series I’m working on now is set in Natchez, Mississippi and the Natchez Trace Parkway. My next series is set near the Mississippi coast in the Pearl River basin—I got tired of trying make sure I got the street names and businesses correct. 

 

What’s the quirkiest quirk one of your characters has?

My characters don’t have a lot of quirks, but in Obsession, the heroine, Emma, doesn’t like chocolate chip cookies. I’ve had a few comments about that.

 

What’s your quirkiest quirk? 

I’ve been dating the same guy for 23 years.

 

If you could have written any book (one that someone else has already written,) which one would it be? Why? 

There are so many, but I’ll settle on one The Eye of The Needle by Ken Follett. I don’t know why, just that I still remember it after, what is it, 43 years? I’d love to write something that a reader would remember like that. 

 

Everyone at some point wishes for a do-over. What’s yours?

That’s a hard one. There are a lot of things I’ve done that I regret, but if I did a do-over, it would change my whole life from that point on. And I might not be where I am now…a place I like very much.

 

What’s your biggest pet peeve?

Negative people. I try to steer clear of them, but it’s hard sometimes when they in your family. 

 

You’re stranded on a deserted island. What are your three must-haves? 

My Bible. Unlimited supply of eyebrow pencils (almost no eyebrows lol), Chocolate.

 

What was the worst job you’ve ever held? 

A waitress. I dropped a plate of food on a customer…

 

What’s the best book you’ve ever read? 

So many…Exodus by Leon Uris. 

 

Ocean or mountains?

Both

 

City girl/guy or country girl/guy? 

Country girl…unless it’s a small town.

 

What’s on the horizon for you?

I’ll start writing a new series about a female sheriff in Mississippi—we don’t have one, and I think it’s high time we did.

 

Anything else you’d like to tell us about yourself and/or your books?

I love writing and was published rather late in life, so I want to encourage anyone out there who thinks they’re too old to start writing, they’re not. You’re never too old to tell a story.

 

Obsession 

Natchez Trace Park Rangers Series, Book 2

 

Natchez Trace Ranger and historian Emma Winters hoped never to see Sam Ryker again after she broke off her engagement to him. But when shots are fired at her at a historical landmark just off the Natchez Trace, she's forced to work alongside Sam as the Natchez Trace law enforcement district ranger in the ensuing investigation. To complicate matters, Emma has acquired a delusional secret admirer who is determined to have her as his own. Sam is merely an obstruction, one which must be removed.

 

Sam knows that he has failed Emma in the past and he doesn't intend to let her down again. Especially since her life is on the line. As the threads of the investigation cross and tangle with their own personal history, Sam and Emma have a chance to discover the truth, not only about the victim but about what went wrong in their relationship.

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