Love Romantic Suspense? Meet Author Sharon Wray

Sharon Wray writes romantic suspense with incredible alpha male heroes. Today she talks about her writing life and where she gets her ideas.

Welcome Sharon..

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Tell me about yourself

Hi Zara and thank you for inviting me onto your blog today. I’m a romantic suspense author who writes the bestselling Deadly Force series. This series is about a group of ex-Green Berets accused of vicious war crimes who are determined to prove their innocence and find the enemies who want to destroy them before time runs out. As these men struggle to rebuild their lives and redeem their honor, it’s the women they love who teach these alpha males that Grace always defeats Reckoning. I’m also a librarian, wedding gown designer, mother of twins, and caretaker of a one-eyed rescue dog.

What is your most recent release?

 My most recent release, ONE DARK WISH, is the second book in the Deadly Force Series that’s known for National Treasure-type plots. The heroine, Sarah Munro, is a historian who specializes in 17^th century pirates. Her hero, ex-Green Beret Nate Walker, has just been released from the U.S. Army’s secret prison hospital in Maine. When Sarah and Nate meet in a remote colonial-era cemetery outside of Savannah, GA, and they’re threatened by a Fianna assassin, Sarah and Nate realize their very different lives are somehow connected. Unfortunately for them, that connection is a 17^th century unsolved pirate cipher.

While Nate is on a secret mission of his own to redeem his honor and save the rest of his men in prison, he’s also been ordered to stop Sarah from solving that old pirate cipher. An order he ends up ignoring that, in turn, puts the two of them in even more danger.

Is anything in your book based on real life experiences or purely all imagination?

My books are all fiction, yet I always tie in forgotten bits of history. In ONE DARK WISH, I did a ton of research into the pirates the plagued the early colonial coastline in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. Specifically, I studied the types of ciphers and maps these pirates used. The struggle with writing a contemporary romantic suspense is that characters have so much technology and access to information that can solve a mystery or a question almost immediately. But for this series, I wanted the villain to resurrect old ciphers that have never been solved in order to throw off the hero Nate Walker and the rest of his men. So I used the story of an old pirate cipher, that has never been solved and was supposedly used during the Revolutionary War, to throw off Nate and Sarah.

This cipher supposedly hid the location of hide sites the pirates used to store and move their illegal merchandise to both the black and white markets. In ONE DARK WISH, Nate and Sarah are worried the enemy is moving illegal weapons through these hide sites. I needed Nate and Sarah to rely on their intelligence and wits instead of googling the answer. And because Nate and Sarah have been pitted against each other, if they don’t solve the cipher and find the hide sites (and the weapons) the people they love will die.

What interesting jobs have you had?

I’ve been very lucky. I’ve had the opportunity to live overseas and travel and work in all sorts of unusual places. The most interesting job was when I worked as junior case worker for the American Red Cross in South Korea. I worked in the northern city of Uijongbu and spent a lot of time up at the DMZ (the border between North and South Korea) handling cases for young soldiers. This was before cell phones and the internet so if a soldier had an emergency at home, the family would contact the Red Cross and we’d have to deliver the message and help them deal with the aftermath. Sometimes we got permission to send them home and sometimes we just offered them long distance phone service. Things were so much more remote before the internet and cell phones. And, if the soldiers were in the field, it could take days if not weeks to deliver their message. It was a difficult yet rewarding job and I’d go back in a minute and do it all over again.

Is writing something that comes easy to you or not?

Writing is always a struggle for me. It doesn’t help that my books are long (over 130K) with complicated romance and suspense plots intertwined. I write slowly and do a ton of revisions. My drafts are also incredibly long, much longer than the finished books, so I need the time not just to get down the story but to edit and condense. I’m also really slow. I wish I was a faster writer, but that’s not the case. I do outline, though, and that does help. Without an outline, I’d be completely lost.

But, having said all that, I still love writing more than I’ve ever loved any other job I’ve ever had. Besides my family, writing is the most important thing in my life.

My favorite place to write

This is such an interesting question because it changes with each book. Right now I’m writing on my couch. But the book I just finished I wrote almost exclusively in a coffee shop near my house. The book before that I wrote at my kitchen table. I don’t know why it changes with each book, but once I find a rhythm for that story I stick with it. I’m just now finishing up a novella for the Deadly Force series and for that I’m writing at a small desk in my bedroom. I’m not sure how long that will last, though, because the chair is not comfortable at all!

Will I have a new book coming out soon?

Yes, the third book in the series IN SEARCH OF TRUTH will be out February 24, 2019. Here’s the blurb: Some treasure is hidden in plain sight… The last thing anthropologist Allison Pinckney expects is to inherit the key to a seventeenth century pirate cipher that makes her the target of two brutal arms dealers. But to save those she loves, she must solve the cipher. When this perilous mission takes a dangerous turn, she reluctantly seeks help from ex-Green Beret Zack Tremaine, the one man she’s been avoiding. Because if she gives into her long-buried feelings for him, it will cost them their lives.

Zack Tremaine is haunted by regrets. Years ago, he betrayed his men and lost the only woman he ever loved. Now that his men are caught in a fierce rivalry between two deadly enemies, his only hope is to find Allison. She holds the secret to a pirate treasure, making her his only chance to save his men and redeem his honor. Even if she breaks his heart again.

Advice for aspiring writers

My advice comes directly from a speech Winston Churchill gave at Harrow School on October 29, 1941: “Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.”

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ONE DARK WISH by Sharon Wray

Her life must be forfeit for his to be redeemed

Historian Sarah Munro is not used to being shot at, but that’s just what happens while she’s poking around cemeteries on Georgia’s Isle of Grace, searching for the key to a centuries-old cipher. Her quest has unwittingly drawn the attention of two deadly enemies intent on destroying each other—and anyone who gets in their way.

Ex–Green Beret Major Nate Walker is on a mission of his own: to restore the honor of his men. To do that, he is required to stop Sarah—or one of his own men will die. Caught in the middle of a deadly rivalry, Nate can’t afford to trust the woman standing in his way. But his heart says he can’t afford not to…

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Where to Buy

AMAZON http://bit.ly/ONEDARKWISH

AMAZON AUDIBLE: http://bit.ly/OneDarkWishAudible

BOOKS A MILLION http://bit.ly/OneDarkWishBAM

KOBO: http://bit.ly/OneDarkWishKobo

INDIE BOUND: http://bit.ly/2kMTZeG

BARNES & NOBLE: http://bit.ly/OneDarkWishBN

iBooks: http://bit.ly/OneDarkWishiBook

Google Play: http://bit.ly/OneDarkWishGP

Sourcebooks: http://bit.ly/OneDarkWishSB

 

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Learn more about Sharon Wray

Facebook Author Page: http://bit.ly/sharonwrayauthor

BookBub Author Page: http://bit.ly/sharonwraybookbub

Website for newsletter & blog: http://bit.ly/sharonwrayblog

Instagram: http://bit.ly/sbwrayinsta

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sharonbwray

Pinterest: https://www.instagram.com/sbwray/

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Sharon would love to hear from you.

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