Dana R. Lynn Interview

Q: Let me start with asking you to tell us a little bit about yourself.

A:  I grew up in Illinois near Chicago. I had three brothers, so my family was a bit boisterous. I met my husband at my best friend’s wedding in Pennsylvania. He was the best man, I was the maid of honor. A year and a half later, we were married. That was twenty years ago. We now live in northwestern PA with our three kids and a menagerie of pets. I work as a teacher for the deaf and hard of hearing during the day, and I write in the evening.

Q: When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

A:  I have always loved telling stories and making things up. When I was in fifth or sixth grade, however, I got the idea to try to write a book. It took me many years to accomplish that dream, but it never left me.

Q: What do you write and why this genre?

A:  I mostly write inspirational romantic suspense. It’s funny. I never really thought of myself as a suspense writer. Most of my other attempts were contemporary or regency romance. In 2014, Love Inspired Suspense invited authors to enter the Search for a Killer Voice contest. I felt drawn to enter the contest, although I doubted my ability to write suspense. To my shock, I loved it! The plots and the suspense threads came to me far more naturally than the other genres had. I was hooked.

Q: Do you base your characters on people you know or are they totally made up?

A: My characters are made up, although I have sometimes used real life conversations. I have never sought to make characters based on actual people I know.  I don’t want to offend anyone. Also, once in the middle of the story, the characters seem to develop their own personalities. Trying to copy someone I already know wouldn’t allow for that growth to happen.

Q: Would you tell us about your current book release Amish Christmas Abduction?

A:  I had so much fun writing this book! I had introduced both Paul and Irene in earlier books. I knew right away that Paul would insist on his own story. Irene wasn’t planned to be a heroine until after my second book. Here’s the blurb on the back cover:

KIDNAPPED IN AMISH COUNTRY
After catching a glimpse of something she wasn’t supposed to see days before Christmas, Irene Martello is run off the road and barely survives. More shocking is the backseat whimper of an Amish toddler stowaway and the familiar sight of their rescuer—the man who’d let her down years earlier. Police chief Paul Kennedy fears Irene stumbled onto a kidnapping ring with two dangerous agendas: retrieving the girl and silencing the witness for good. Only Paul can keep them safe for the holidays. Guarding Irene means risking his heart—and his secret—but to save the child and the woman he never stopped loving, it’s a risk he has to take.

Q: Where did the idea for this story come from?

A:  Irene Martello is a special ed teacher, as well as a widowed mother of two young boys. She’d turned her back on love, and on God. I knew that her story would have to have a child at it’s center in order to draw her in. Paul Kennedy has been demanding his own story since I introduced him in Presumed Guilty. And I had readers write me and ask for his story, too! I just needed to find the perfect woman for him.

Q: Would you share with us what you are working on now?

A:  Sure! I am working on the next Amish Country Justice book. I have four more books contracted in the series. However, while some of the characters will be familiar with the readers, I plan to make these four books more loosely connected to the previous books. That way, the readers won’t feel they’ve missed anything if they start with Amish Country Ambush, which will release in August of 2018.

Q: Tell me three things about yourself that would surprise your readers.

A:  This is a hard one for me. Let me think… I am really short, 4’ 10 “. Number two… I am a huge science fiction fan. Number three… I can frequently be found singing showtunes at the top of my lungs around my house. Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera, Chess, Cats, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat are some of my favorites.

Q: Milk or dark chocolate? Coffee or tea?

A:  Milk chocolate always. I don’t care for dark chocolate. But white chocolate or milk chocolate are perfect. I like both coffee and tea, but I have to be in the mood for them. I can drink unsweetened iced tea, but my coffee has to be flavored, whether it’s hot or cold.

Q: Favorite TV show or shows?

A:  Star Trek has always been a fave. I own the full DVD collections of the original series, The Next Generation and Voyager. My husband and I don’t watch a lot of TV, but we do enjoy going through the DVD’s one series at a time. We are working our way through Voyager, for the third time, now.