#HEALTHY LIVING--GUEST AUTHOR TRIXIE STILLETTO & BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Our guest today is someone who was struck with this terrible disease and through her writing is doing something to help find a cure.

A southern girl, Trixie Stilletto traveled north when she found the love of her life. Together, they enjoyed more than 20 years working as journalists. Now back home in Tennessee, she’s writing stories that range from short hot romances with a kiss of humor to southern-flavored mysteries. She lives seven miles from the neighborhood where she grew up with two cats, an aging beagle and a host of characters waiting for her to tell their stories. Learn more about Trixie and her books at her website. 

Hi Anastasia, thanks for letting me take over your blog and sharing the inspiration for my latest story, Do Grave Harm, with your readers.

Life changes can be good, bad or a combination of both. When the change comes from health issues, it can also be scary.

In 2014, during my annual mammogram, I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer called Her2+. I had no family history of breast cancer nor did I feel a lump. The diagnosis changed my life in many ways, not all of them good. Knowing I was facing a year of chemotherapy and radiation followed by the uncertainty of when or if the disease would return, threw my life out of control. For a long time, it also sent my creative energy into hibernation. That was the bad.

From that bad came the good. It was while getting radiation treatment one cold winter day that a character and story came to me. Do Grave Harm is a story I probably would have never written otherwise.

Fighting cancer is tough enough on its own. I can’t imagine having to deal with a murderer at the same time. That’s exactly what I put my character, Jennifer Atkinson, through in this story.

Jennifer is getting radiation treatment when a murder occurs outside of the lab. Though she isn’t a detective, nor an eyewitness, she feels compelled to find answers on her own. She owes it to the victim and isn’t going to give up until she finds answers.

Cancer can make you feel like a victim and out of control. Treatment and fighting to beat the disease can rule your life. Jennifer is determined not to let fear keep her from beating cancer or finding the truth.

Proceeds from this story will go to these metastatic breast cancer research charities: https://www.mshafoundation.org/what-we-do/circle-of-hope

https://www.bcrfcure.org/founders-fund

Do Grave Harm

There’s nothing normal about Jennifer Atkinson’s radiation treatment, especially when discovers the technician dead in the control room. As the gruesome scene replays itself in her mind, small details spark more questions than she’s answering for the seriously attractive Detective Ben Manteo.

Despite Ben’s warning to stay out of it, Jennifer picks up seemingly unrelated threads that weave themselves into a story of lies, deceit, and betrayal that someone will go to any length to make sure never gets told…

Read an excerpt here. 

Buy Links

paperback

ebook 

A VISIT TO PINEY BLUFFS, TN WITH TRIXIE STILLETTO'S P.I. ALLY CALHOUN

A southern girl, Trixie Stilletto traveled north when she found the love of her life, and they enjoyed more than 20 years together working as journalists. Now she's back home in Tennessee writing stories that range from short, hot romances with a kiss of humor to southern-flavored mysteries. Today Trixie lives seven miles from the neighborhood where she grew up with three adored pets and a host of characters waiting for her to tell their stories. Learn more about Trixie and her books at her website. 

An Interview with Ally Calhoun from Trixie Stilletto’s Tempest

When I first got the idea for Ally and Tempest. I did a short interview with her to learn what motivated her to pack up and leave her Boston home for a place in Tennessee she’d never seen or visited. This is the result.

You left a thriving business and life in Boston to come to Piney Bluffs, Tenn. Why?

“Weather is a big draw. Can anyone say nor’easters? My husband always talked about his childhood here, and he said he wanted to have a place in the mountains. After he passed, I found he still owned the family land and property. It seemed only fitting when I needed a change after his death, to come and take a look. I’d never been here – we were so busy getting and keeping the Agency going ….”

Sorry for your loss. He was very young …

“Yes. It wasn’t a good thing. I wish we’d never taken on that job, but there are no do-overs.”

That last job. Can you talk about it?

“I don’t want to. That wasn’t what I agreed to when you said we have to do this.”

But you uprooted your life, sold the PI business you loved and created with him. All to move down to Tennessee, a place you’d never visited, never wanted to, because of how that last job ended. Don’t you think you need to talk about it?

“Now isn’t a good time.”

Ok. I’ll let it go. But you know you’re going to have to address it at some point. What are you going to do now that you’re here? This place is a mess.

 “Only one thing came to my mind the day I first saw it. Wow. Not in a good way. I honestly didn’t know how I was going to be able to stay here.”

I can imagine. This property has belonged to the Calhoun family for two hundred years. The first settlers to come across the mountain settled here.

“Yes. I discovered that. Along with several unopened letters from the Tennessee historical society requesting that Mike either restore it or sign it over to them.”

Is that your current plan? To restore it and open it as an historical site?

“Uh, no. I just want to make it safe enough I don’t think the fire department and building inspector are going to come in and make me move.”

Who’s doing the work?

“Right now, me. I spend a lot of time Googling things. I’m a pretty quick study. That’s a good thing.”

That’s a surprise. I figured someone with your background, would hire everything done.  Contractors, subs and designers. Have you done renovations before? I believe you had a maintenance-free condo in Boston.

“Never. Being a private investigator is mostly about research. I also think it will be helpful in my new career.”

That’s right.  Your plan is to be a writer. What are you writing? Is anything published?

“Nothing published. Just polishing my first story. It’s a thriller. I’ve always been good with my hands, too. Lots of time when I was deployed, things would break or just not work like they were supposed to. I learned to adapt and overcome.”

Isn’t it one thing to jury-rig a piece of equipment for a relatively short op in the desert where you have a team to help you vs. trying to rehab a house that’s falling down around your ears?

“Maybe. But it doesn’t feel right hiring out this stuff. Mike would have fixed it himself.”

You’re not Mike. Besides, isn’t this more a money thing?

“Have you been talking to my accountant?”

More he’s been talking to me. How can you be broke? I thought your PI business was doing well?

“I did, too. Mike handled all that ….”

Tempest

Widowed ex-private eye Allison Calhoun has left behind the career of heart and her native Boston for the sleepy Tennessee town of Piney Bluffs. All she wants to do is heal and write the great American novel. Only Piney Bluffs is a hotbed of decades-long secrets and lies, all seething just under the surface of the humid summer.

Enter C.J. Lanahan. Once the best friend of Ally's husband and always a thorn in her side, journalist C.J. pushes all of Ally's buttons and not all in a good way. On top of that, his newspaper and editorials seem to be stirring up a hornets nest folks 'round here want left alone. When C.J. is a murder suspect and then almost kills, himself, things go from hot to deadly quicker than a heat-driven storm in this Tennessee valley.

Can Ally and C.J. live long enough to expose the truth, or will the long-held secrets stay buried forever?

Buy Link