Tuesday, April 7, 2015

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT - Lori Robinett


The Author Spotlight shines on Lori Robinett. Lori has visited with us before and now she's back with a brand new novel to keep you turning the pages!

A bit about Lori:

Lori was born in Centralia, Missouri and now lives just a few miles from there with her husband on a small hobby farm. They manage the place for their Miniature Schnauzer and Miniature Beagle, two cats, and three miniature horses. Though she appears to be a normal person, she has a bit of an obsession with Star Trek and is quite proud of her autograph collection. She is even prouder of her "marksman" qualification for shooting. That's not the only reason not to mess with Lori - she keeps in shape by working out at a kickboxing gym. During cold winter months, she enjoys crafting, especially scrapbooking. And, of course, she always has a book with her, so she can read whenever the opportunity arises.  She always has a book or two in process - one at home, one at work, and one on her Nook for those got-a-spare-minute times.

Her first book, Denim & Diamonds, was published in 2014, and her second, Fatal Impulse was published in 2015. Her award-winning short stories have appeared in several anthologies and in The Storyteller literary magazine.

Thank you for being here today, Lori!

Let's see how Lori answered my Fast Five:

 1) Why do you write?
     Writing is a socially acceptable way for me to indulge my creative side . . . including those dark          thoughts that cross my mind.

2) What is your ‘Daily Mantra’ for writing? What gets you to your keyboard above other activities?
     It's one I got from Book in a Week (a monthly writing challenge I participate in): 
                  BIC HOK TAM - butt in chair, hands on keyboard, typing away madly.

3)  What is the best writing advice you ever received?
    That the first draft is perfect purely because it exists. I'm often paralyzed by perfectionism. The          idea of not doing something perfectly terrifies me, and I struggled for YEARS with the first draft         of my first novel (it's still not finished). Once I heard that quote about the first draft being perfect .     it was incredibly freeing.

4) What is your favorite genre to write and why?
     I love to write mystery/suspense. That's what I like to read, and I love working out the details to         figure out how it's all going to come together.

5) What is the one key career you remember from your childhood of wanting to be when you grew up?
   When I was in elementary school, I wanted to be a lab tech. I had no idea what a tech did exactly,       but I knew they were involved in research, and that's what I wanted to do. My mother had health        issues when I was little and ended up at the Mayo Clinic for what seemed like a very long time. I       thought if I could do research, I could help cure her.

Blurb from Fatal Impulse:

Andi is the wife of Dr. Chad Adams, a well respected orthodontist in the small community of Buccaneer Bay, Maine. Together, they appear to be the perfect couple, but behind closed doors Chad has controlled every aspect of his wife's life. After years of control and abuse, he pushes Andi too hard . . . and she pushes back.

In the blink of an eye, Andi becomes a widow. She struggles to find her way, but revels in the joy of her newfound independence. Just as she begins to accept her new status, her husband reaches out to control her life from beyond the grave. As she fights to maintain her newfound independence, she learns that her husband was living a double life, and those he crossed threaten to expose her as a murderer. Can she put the pieces of the puzzle together before her life is destroyed?

Excerpt:
Lightning slashed the sky above them, thunder rolled and the windswept the rain in sheets across the blackness of the Atlantic that stretched away to the East. Andi hugged herself to calm the shivers. The wipers slapped at the rain while Chad berated her for the way she acted that evening. She stared out into the inky darkness.

He glanced at her, “You act like you don’t know what to say or do when we're out in public. You ignored me during dinner, and giggled like a schoolgirl at Carl Franklin at the bar.”
He overlooked the fact that he monopolized the gentleman’s time after dinner, leaving her alone in a sea of strangers. He accused her of flirting with other men on a regular basis, and that night was no different. Hopefully the anger would get out of his system before they got home.

“You make me look bad when you flirt like that,” he continued. “It’s not like Carl Franklin would ever be in the least bit interested in you, even if you weren’t my wife.”


It never occurred to him that his wife found the man’s hobby of rock hounding to be interesting. His accusations stung, and he didn't always stop with words. The two celebrated their sixth wedding anniversary the previous May, and she was determined to make her marriage work. Her parents raised her to believe marriage is forever, ‘til death do you part, so she would not leave him.  No matter what he did.

Lori's book is available on Amazon

You can follow Lori on her journey:

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