Featured Interview With Nancy Sartor
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I am a Nashville, Tennessee-born woman who just never got around to leaving my home town. I was raised in East Nashville, now a trendy location, but at the time I was raised, it was a good, solid middle class area. My husband, classical composer, David Sartor, and I live in Rural Hill, Tennessee, a tiny rural area about twelve miles from Nashville itself. Our property backs up to the U.S. Corps of Engineers’ wildlife preserve so we have wild turkey, deer, and the occasional bobcat roaming around. Inside our house we live with two Maine Coon Cats, Ginger, who is featured in BONES ALONG THE HILL and Autumn Fire who is a growing kitten and a ton of fun.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I began reading before I was five years old. My mother was an avid reader, much to her husband’s chagrin. Many dinners burned in the kitchen while Mother read just one more page. I entered writing contests in grammar and high school, actually received an honorable mention for a contest held at the prestigious Belmont University. I married, divorced and raised my children alone. Writing took a backseat to making a living. When Dave and I married, he strongly encouraged me to begin writing again, and I did.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I love to read. Period. I adore John Irving. His quirky characters are unparalleled in the world of books and A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY is my favorite book of all time by any author. Stephen King chills my blood and also provides characters I never forget. Ian McEwen’s lyrical writing gives me a far distant goal to keep working to meet. Anne Rice’s MEMNOCK THE DEVIL will forever sit in honor on my shelves. Kent Krueger’s tales set in the great northwest fill my non-writing time often, as do Mary Burton’s romantic suspenses. It is Mary, whose tightly-woven suspense will not be put aside even if the laundry doesn’t get done, who inspires me among current writers. Great stories, great characters and so tightly woven, you have to remember to breathe. Jaden Terrell slides so deeply into the characters, they leap from the page and personally guide you through the story. Jaden’s ability to go that deeply into all the characters in a story is unparalleled in my experience.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
The protagonist of BONES ALONG THE HILL came to me in the middle of a dark night and whispered in my ear, “Hi. My name is Neva and I fix the faces of the dead.” I whispered back, “Cool. What else do you do?” But Neva had stopped talking, and so I began to work with those few words. I knew nothing about the funeral industry at the time, so my first step was to research it. I learned a ton about what happens to dead bodies, and there are some pretty nasty stories about misbehavior among those who work in the industry, but nothing that would make a good suspense story. Neva’s aunt Claudia Yates showed up next with her sage understanding of how the world really works and her compassion for the homeless. With her came detective Rex Mason. Neva had her father, Robert, her mother, Sylvia, and her best friend, the irrepressible Moya, but she needed a man. This was, after all, a *romantic* suspense. I struggled for a while, but Davis Pratt, the architect, finally emerged on the pages and became the hunky, brilliant and perfect man he was meant to be. The homeless arrived with Claudia, but human trafficking came late in the five-year writing process and, like real human trafficking, morphed over a year or so into the huge industry it is today. I wanted the novel to say something important, and it does, but I didn’t want it to be a preachy tome on the evils of humanity. From what most of the 25 5-star reviews of BONES say, I achieved my goal. It’s a fast-paced, tightly-woven, suspense-filled story that most readers say they could not put down until the end.
Connect with the Author on their Websites and Social media profiles