Howdy folks. Talented author, Alana Lorens has embraced my mania today to stop by for a chat. She’s sharing a bit about herself and Second Chances, her  latest release. Welcome, Alana, I’m so pleased to have you.Second Chances sounds fascinating. I can’t wait to read it! What is the germ of the idea behind the story?  

Actually, it became the first line of the novel—the concept of a “pink slip” as a notification that someone had lost their job. Inessa finds out she’s been laid off by a letter on pink paper—paper she knows isn’t standard in her office. So she knows it’s personal. That hurts.

Ugh! An issue all too familiar these days. Well, except for the personal part. What is the first book you remember loving?

A WRINKLE IN TIME by Madeleine L’Engle—talk about opening one’s imagination!!

Hmm. How did I miss that one? Looks like I need to make a trip to the library with my granddaughter. Where is the oddest place you’ve ever pulled out a book?

Halfway across the Seven-Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys. The turquoise-ocean panoramas on both sides are incredible, but I have a weird phobia about bridges. So I always had a book handy to bury my face in so I didn’t freak out.

LOL Freak out control? One of the many benefits of being a voracious reader, I’d say. Besides a critiquing partner, is there someone you let read your ms before submitting?

My husband reads everything I write. He’s not particularly fond of the romances—prefers the sci-fi—but he has been an omnivorous reader since he was very young, and has a really good sense of what flows, what doesn’t, what questions have not been properly answered, etc. And he’s a great resource. I can say to him, “Honey, if I’m in the garage and I want to start a fire that will burn down half of it with just what’s in there, what tools do I need?” He just answers me and never bats an eye. Of course I’ve never actually burned down the garage. Yet.

Good thing he understands your writer’s imagination. Those kinds of questions would make a lot of men nervous. Since first becoming published, what was the biggest ‘Woot’ moment you experienced?

When I connected with an editor who loved my YA post-apocalyptic story, the real book of my heart, that had been turned down over 100 times…. And she said “This really needs to be a trilogy. Do you think you can expand it?” I’d really given up on it ever seeing publication, and I thought my heart would stop. Next year, the first book will be released and it will be amazing.

Awesome! Don’t you love when perseverance toward a dream pays off? What is one thing your readers would be surprised to learn about you?

That I’m on my third family. My first family, I have two daughters. My second, I have one daughter, and two stepdaughters with whom I’m very close.  My current husband and I married twelve years ago, and I adopted his children, two boys and a girl, (the youngest was only six months old at the time!) and all of them are on the autism spectrum. It’s been a real education.

Wow, I’ll bet it has! What did you find most surprising when you were first published?

Silly me, I thought writing the book was the hard part!! Now I know with all the post-editing production work and the promotion, the energy associated with each book has to continue for months longer. When you’re also trying to carry energy along for other projects at the same time, it wears very thin.

I hear you, sister! Okay, put some words in my mouth. Give us a question I didn’t ask, and the answer too, of course.

If you always put something of yourself into each of your characters, how come you always feel so dull?

Right? I mean characters are fascinating and always finding bright and clever ways to get out of trouble, and meeting interesting people…and I just write books and slog away at the day job. Huh.

For example, Inessa Regan, the heroine of SECOND CHANCES. She’s a family law attorney, like me. She’s on the upper side of 40, and a little on the curvy side, like me. She even meets a younger man and falls in love, like me. But when I write her, she has the will power to stick to her diet and exercise plan (well, except for that whole pint of Ben and Jerry’s in chapter six)—NOT like me. *sigh*  Those people we create, even if they have characteristics in common with us, we can always make them a little more perfect, because they exist on paper. The real world is a little harder. And there’s a LOT more ice cream out here.

LOL I hear you there. Willpower and perfection are a lot easier on paper than they are in the flesh. So tell us where we can find you, and I’d love a tease of Second Chances.

DUAL BOOK/BLOG TOUR!!
CONVICTION OF THE HEART (release date June 8, 2012)
And SECOND CHANCES (release date July 2012)
The first and Second books of the Pittsburgh Lady Lawyer Series!
Come by the following blogs or live booksignings and leave a comment to be entered in a drawing—at the end of the tour, I’ll be giving away one ebook copy of each book and one paperback copy of each book—Four lucky winners! Check out all the websites at http://alanalorens.com

Blurb:

Inessa Regan, a 10-year associate at a Pittsburgh law firm, gets a pink slip when the economy tanks. Insecure, her pride wounded, she flounders helplessly until she meets Kurtis Lowdon, a man 15 years younger than she, an Iraq War veteran with cancer.  He helps her take the first steps back from the pit of despair after she loses everything that defines her.

First as her client, then as her landlord, then as her partner, Kurt shows her the power of  believing in oneself. Their journey is tainted with secrets from Kurt’s own past, as well as some of the horrors of war that have followed Kurt and his friends home from overseas. When his cancer returns, she must take control of her own life and fight to survive.   Can the lessons he’s taught her keep her strong enough to survive? How much will she risk to save him?

Book trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEMtSxd6FQQ

Excerpt:

Inessa had visited the Pittsburgh IKEA store half a dozen times before, addicted to the simple, classic furniture designs and colorful décor items, but none of those experiences had ever been like this. Perhaps the difference was that Kurt was a man, maybe it was the purpose of the visit, but negotiating the departments along the store’s dictated path became an adventure different from any she’d had with a girlfriend.
The things that attracted Kurt’s attention!
Forget the Swedish meatballs. He raved about a cushy pillow in shades of spring green and chocolate. He bought new towels in bright red and orange. Every gadget fascinated him, and he dug a sample out of the bins to test each one. When they passed one bedroom setup, the poufy beige-and-green down comforter was softly rumpled, as if the owner had just climbed out seconds before.
“That looks comfortable.” he exclaimed, and he scrambled right in.
“Kurt!” She looked around, mortified. Several young couples in madras Dockers and khakis stopped to stare; some smiled.
“What? This is a display bed. You’re supposed to try it out. Come on.” He held up the covers for her to join him. The mischievous expression on his face broke her up, embarrassed as she was.
“I don’t think so. You rest. I’ll be looking at office fixtures.”
“Spoilsport. No one cares if you romp in the bedroom department at IKEA. Look, now everyone else is, too.”
He gestured at several displays around them as other customers climbed onto neighboring beds, laughing and teasing each other. When she still held back, he affected a pout and pushed himself out, smoothing the bedspread.
“All right. Business first. Let’s go.”
Over the next couple of hours among the seeming miles of displays, he thoughtfully helped her select what she needed—a desk, comfortable chairs for her consulting clients, bookshelves for her legal research materials—but he also remained playful. He experimented with every one of the wheeled desk chairs, spinning them around until he found the one with the least traction.
“Try this one. It’s better than the merry-go-round at Kennywood.”

Buy link: Amazon