Featured Interview With Jane Blythe
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia! I still live here, actually I now rent the house I grew up in! I like to keep myself busy, and have plenty on the go! Of course there is always writing (which takes up most of my time!), and there is always time for reading, particularly if lying on one of the many gorgeous, white sandy beaches here in Australia! I also enjoy going to the mountains to ski in the winter as we don’t get snow here in Melbourne, although I would love it if we did. I love to bake, I am working towards my black belt in Taekwondo (only a few months away!), then of course there is work (I currently substitute teach in preschools and schools), and my two Dalmatians, Ivory and Pearl also keep me plenty busy!
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I loved books practically from the moment I was old enough to listen to a story! And not just books I loved listening to my parents and grandparents make up stories for me, and as such quickly learned to love making up my own stories! This then became a love of writing, and my first attempts were little picture books that I would make my younger brothers act out with me. When I got my first laptop in the sixth grade my interest in writing really took off and I probably wrote twenty stories that year. As I grew older my love of both reading and writing continued to grow until I knew that I just had to become an author!
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favourite genres to read are crime, mystery and romantic suspense. Some of my favourite authors are Allison Brennan, Mary Burton, Kendra Elliot, Linda Fairstein, Brian Freeman, Richard Montanari, Kathy Reichs, Karen Rose, and Karen Robards. While I love all of these authors I try hard when I’m writing to make my work my own and not be influenced by the writing style of one of my favourite authors too much. As much as I love all these authors as a kid I absolutely adored the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, they totally made me want to go and live in a little log cabin in the woods or on the prairies until I got a little older and actually realised that they had no toilets or showers and had to work so hard to just survive! So I think Laura Ingalls Wilder would have to be my all time favourite author!
Tell us a little about your latest book?
I just published book one, titled One, in my new crime/mystery series, Count to Ten, in January of this year. The book was based on an idea I had had for a long time but just couldn’t seem to make work. I kept getting put off and would move on to something else, only to find my mind wandering back to it. So I sat down and made myself finish the book, and I am so glad I did! One is the story of Detective Xavier Montague who is struggling to move on from a horrific crime his ex-wife, now in prison, committed. He and his partner enter a house one night after a neighbour reports seeing someone with a knife. There he finds a dead family and one survivor, a woman with unusual eyes who gets to him in a way no one else has since his ex-wife. Unfortunately for Xavier she murdered her whole family and then attempted suicide. Or so he first believes. It turns out she didn’t, and as he works to find out who killed her family and several others, he realises that he just may be able to fall in love with this woman. The woman in question, Annabelle Englewood, has spent her entire life refusing to get close to anyone because she believes she is unworthy of being loved since she feels like her parents stopped loving her after a mysterious event she doesn’t really remember from her childhood. As this is book one in a ten book series the characters will start their journey of growth and continue to develop, both as individuals and as a couple, over the next nine stories.
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