“Diana Gabaldon” // Guest post by Marissa St. James

I read. A lot. Like other readers I have my favorite authors. A few years ago, I purchased a couple paperbacks and set them aside. (a bad habit of readers) It was a couple years before I made time to read them. When I finally got around to them I discovered that putting down these books to do other things was nigh on impossible… they were that good. The author was Diana Gabaldon. The books were the first two in her Outlander series. Now, I wait with great impatience for each new Gabaldon book to be released.

Reading those books got my own imagination running rampant. Time travel, Scotland, romance, adventure, mystery. Her books have everything and they encouraged me to try my hand at writing. That’s how Highland Eyes: Spellbinder came about.

I don’t think any book contains a single genre anymore. It can be classified as a romance but be suspenseful or mysterious. It’s just not possible to separate all those elements and still come up with something interesting. Yet, it’s a great challenge to make all the components work together to create a viable story.

Are there other things that influence me? Sure. Reading a sentence in a news story can trigger a “what if” moment. So can phrases or song titles. I like the challenge of giving them my own little “twisted” interpretations that have nothing whatsoever to do with their origins. Of course, there are other writers as well who inspire. Ideas and inspiration can come from anywhere and from the most unlikely places.

With the McKinley’s Jewel books, I wanted to do something different. Somewhere in the book, a character will make an appearance and seem to be completely irrelevant. That might be true of the particular story going on but I can promise that character will appear again in another story and their dilemma sorted out. I hope the ploy will create a bit of intrigue and readers will be curious enough to find out more.

Marissa is a lifelong New England resident. She began writing as a hobby when she was a teenager and turned it into a career after earning a degree in Humanities. She is an avid reader, and when she has the time, enjoys a variety of crafts. Marissa has written several romance novels as well as a collection of paranormal short stories.

Visit Marissa Online!

Website: http://www.msjbookshelf.blogspot.com/
Blog: http://www.marissastjames.blogspot.com/

Find the McKinley’s Jewel series at:
Melange Books

AND

Fire and Ice Young Adult Books (an imprint of Melange Books)
You can find Diana’s Outlander series at www.dianagabaldon.com