Goddess Fish Party Pavilion

DREAM HUNTRESS by Michelle Sharp

Find DREAM HUNTRESS here: http://amzn.to/1qexMy5

Hi. I'm author Michelle Sharp. Welcome to my Goddess Fish Party Pavilion blog post about DREAM HUNTRESS. Today, I thought I'd share a short interview and excerpt. If you find you'd like to try a free copy of DREAM HUNTRESS, I will be gifting 5 e-copies to five people who e-mail me at MichelleSharpBooks@charter.net

Just put Goddess Fish Party in the subject line and a name, e-mail address, and whether you'd like a Kindle or Nook version in the body. Thanks for checking out DREAM HUNTRESS and I hope you enjoy today's blog. Scroll through todays posts for excerpt and interview.

Could you please tell us a little about your book?

Jordan Delany is a St. Louis detective with the gift of seeing the dead in her dreams. Spirits come to her looking for closure and justice when traditional investigations have failed them. Her isolated life as a drug cop is perfect for hiding the freakish ability and also gives her a way to make a difference instead of merely enduring the dreams.

Her latest undercover takes her to small-town, Missouri where she poses as a cocktail waitress in hopes of busting up a drug ring operating out of the down-and-dirty strip club. Complications arise when she encounters the one thing she has never come up against before: a man she doesn’t seem to be able to turn away from, even though he is the head bouncer for the corrupt night club she is trying to take down.

Not only does Tyler McGee spark her long-dead libido, but the dreams that haunt her nights kick into high drive when he is around as well.

What cause are you most passionate about and why?

This is an easy question for me because I have a son with Down Syndrome. Any cause that supports contributing to the happy and successful lives of people with disabilities is one I would support whole-heartedly.

In the last year have you learned or improved on any skills?

Gee, I’d really like to think I have. My critique group and I have spent many hours away from our families, critiquing, going on retreats, attending workshops, really struggling to make our craft better. Just this February, we flew to Colorado to work with Margie Lawson in a deep immersion class, which is an incredible learning experience for any writer to have. But honestly, I look at writing like I think an artist would look at their paintings over the years. An artist may paint the same scene completely different at fifty-years-old verses when he was twenty. Practice, technique, layering of the elements will only get better with experience. I hope every year makes me a better writer, so if I’m not better this year than last, I’ve screwed up somewhere.

What are you currently working on?

(She rubs her hands together with a cackling laugh) Authors are so easy with this question. It’s like asking a new mom what things her newborn has done recently. LOL. Twelve hours later you will still be sitting there with drool running down your chin. But here we go:

I have just completed a Dream Seeker Novella. It is the story of Jordan and Ty moving in together and the mystery that surrounds the big, old horse ranch and estate they are considering buying. Ty has always dreamed of living in this house, but the crime committed there years ago spurs Jordan’s dreams and has them both questioning whether or not they can live there peacefully.

And I’m in the middle of writing the second Dream Seeker book where Jordan will pursue the truth about her father and Ty catches a case that has him paired up with an old flame. And no, Jordan is not happy about it.

What do you feel sets this book apart from others in the same genre?

Perhaps it’s the fact that my heroine is a little untraditional. I had an agent once tell me that she flat out loved the characters and chemistry, but because Jordan was a cop with a psychic gift, the storyline didn’t fit easily into romantic suspense or paranormal and that would make it more difficult to sell. But Jordan nor I have ever done anything easily in our lives, so what the hell, we are who we are. Jordan can swear with the best of them and has a bucket full of emotional barriers and self-doubt, but her badge means everything, and she has a fierce compassion for the dead who appear in her dreams and need help to find justice.

If you could go back and change one day, what would it be?

Probably the day my son with Down Syndrome was born. We had no prior knowledge that anything was wrong. All at once, doctors were throwing terms and statistics at us, calling in heart specialists, scaring us to death, basically. I feel a little robbed of the euphoric moment you hold your child for the first time and just fall in love. I was so scared and unprepared. And no one ever said, “relax and enjoy your child, he’ll be the greatest gift you’re ever given.” I really wish I had known then, what I know now.

Are you a different person now than you were 5 years ago? In what way/s?

Yes. I have more weight to lose and my coffee habit has become ridiculous.

What is the most important lesson you have learned from life so far?

Okay, I find this a completely ironic question because my response has always been, “don’t judge a book by its cover.” After having Cody in my life it has become my mantra. I don’t want people to look at him and see Down Syndrome. I want them to see the loving, unique, funny boy he is.

BUT, when you look at Dream Huntress, you can totally judge my book by its cover. LOLOLOL. Because it’s as hot on the inside as the fabulous, hot cover Fiona Jayde gave it on the outside.

Find me here: michellesharpbooks.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MSharpBooks

Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1nrnyul

SHORT EXCERPT:

           She walked out of the bathroom feeling caught and cornered. He deserved some explanation. He deserved a normal woman who could be truthful and honest, but her truth just wasn’t an option. She’d never risk looking into his eyes and having him look back as if she were crazy. History told her that’s exactly what would happen. It had happened.
 

After her family’s murder, she’d trusted the people who claimed they only wanted to help. She’d told the police and the social workers about her dreams. Then she’d spent the next few years paying for it. Admitting to nightmares and conversations with the dead didn’t get her help—it had gotten her labels. PTSD, psychological trauma, severe anxiety, nightmares.

It had also gotten her forced visits with a shrink who believed all of her sleep issues could be fixed in the form of a pill. As an adolescent she may have been trapped in the system; as an adult she had a choice.

That choice included happily eating a bullet from her own gun before spending a single second of her adult life in the same antidepressant haze she’d spent a good portion of her childhood.

Ty was a good man, but it didn’t mean he’d understand her dreams.

“I started a pot of coffee,” he said. “Come sit down.”

When she didn’t move, he stepped closer and slipped his hands around her waist. His lips brushed her forehead, and the hot jolt of need was nearly painful. Melting against him, she trembled at the feel of his warm body holding her.

“Oh, God.” The plea ripped from her throat. She’d made it almost thirty years without getting into this kind of mess. Her entire adult life she’d avoided this kind of intimacy to escape this exact moment. She’d done the one thing she promised herself she’d never do: let a lover in. Now she had to push him away.

“I can’t do this, Ty. I’m sorry.” Looking at him wasn’t an option. Turning away, she stepped toward the one small window in the apartment.

He walked up behind her and settled his hands on her hips. “You seemed to do fine last night.”

“It’s not a joke. I’m not ready for what this feels like it’s turning into.”

His hands dropped. In the silence, his breathing went faster, deeper, and, she was quite sure, angrier.

 

Forcing herself to face him, she prepared for the fight. “I tried to tell you from the beginning I don’t do this. My job, my life, it’s just too...” Her throat swelled, and she blinked, determined to hold back the tears attempting to form.

“You’re trying to push me away because of a couple of nightmares? That’s ridiculous. You think I don’t understand the stress you’re under because of this case? You think I haven’t driven myself crazy worrying about the best way to take the Bucks down?”

“It’s not just this case. There’s more.”

A hell of a lot more.