Blog Tour: Guest Post by Cindy McDonald

Today we are pleased to welcome author Cindy McDonald.  She is promoting her book, Deadly.com.  Enjoy her guest post about meeting her characters face to face.  She is giving away a signed copy of the book.  Make sure to check out the Rafflecopter below!

Publisher: CreateSpace
Release Date: September 2, 2012

Make a note: never agitate a madman. Successful Thoroughbred trainer Mike West just made that mistake-and he’s gonna pay-more than he ever realized. But it’s all in the family; his sister, Kate, has been the object of the madman’s desire on the social network “My Town”. Her constant rejections have infuriated him! People who seem to be in the way start turning up dead, and he’s got Mike and Kate next on his list! In the first book of The Unbridled Series, Cindy McDonald introduces you to the world of Thoroughbred racing, while taking her cast of characters on a wild ride through a maniacs mind.

Meeting My Characters Face to Face

I couldn’t believe it! I was out and about minding my own business and suddenly out of the blue there he stood right in front of me—one of the characters from one of my books! Wow! I had no idea that they actually existed—until that moment!

It was a lovely Sunday afternoon. After church services I always go grocery shopping. I was wearing a bright yellow sundress. I pushed my shopping cart through the parking lot to my car and began unloading my bags into the trunk, when a husky voice called to me, “Don’t you look summery today. That’s a very pretty dress you’re wearing.” the man said.

I straightened to peer over the roof of my car. My eyes widened, my jaw dropped open, and a thin gasped escaped me before I could call it back. I couldn’t believe what my eyes were telling me … George Smuts was leaning against a white panel van parked diagonally from my car. He was wearing a white jumpsuit, aviator glasses, a ball cap, and he was cleaning a wrench with a dirty red rag. George was a horrible character from my first book, Deadly.Com. He was terrifying. He was mentally deranged. He found no remorse in killing or torture. My chest tightened. Instantly my throat went dry. I was barely able to mutter out, “T-thank you.”

Quickly I slammed my trunk closed, got in the car, and drove home well over the speed limit, while watching my rear view—not for the police, mind you, but for George Smuts. I was absolutely terrified that he would follow me home. I had created George. I knew what he was capable of, and I certainly didn’t want to be his next victim. Thankfully, he did not follow me. He probably finished cleaning his wrench and went home to watch the football game. Whew!

It was only weeks later when I bumped into another one of my characters, only this time the view was easy on the eyes—Mike West.  It was a lazy morning. I had no appointments or set plans for the day, so I decided to take full advantage of the leisure time to wander about the house in my nightgown with a mug of coffee in hand. There was a knock at my door. Dang! I contemplated throwing on some clothes but decided against it.

Carefully, I opened the door just a crack to peek out at the man on the other side. Holy Moses, he was wearing a black tank and camo pants. His arms where sculpted with deep muscles and his hair was a thick nest of one wavy dark lock on top of the other. A character from my Unbridled Series that I work with on a daily basis was standing on my porch—Mike West!  He flashed his 1000 megawatt smile at me, and politely informed me that they would be trimming the trees along my driveway, but if I needed out that they would be more than happy to move their big truck for me at any time.

To tell the truth, I’m amazed that I am able to reiterate what the man said to me, because I was so busy staring at him that I wasn’t sure that I actually heard one word the hot hunk had to say. I spent the day at my window watching him bend over, pick up branches, take long swigs of water from his thermos, and more bending over.  I got absolutely no writing done what-so-ever all day long.

Okay, these characters are figments of my imagination—they are not real people—or so I thought. Coming face-to-face with George Smuts totally freaked me out, but coming face-to-face with Mike West, was an afternoon of high caloric eye candy. Delicious!

I have been keeping my eyes peeled. One never knows when Eric West will show up or perhaps someday I’ll be questioned by Lieutenant Lugowski—wouldn’t that be a kick?

People are always asking me: are any of your characters based on real people? My answer is always the same: no, they are imaginary. How will I answer that question now, when I know that they are out there…waiting to bump into me?

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Deadly.com | Hot Coco | Dangerous Deception

About the author:

For the past twenty years Cindy has helped her husband raise, train, and race Thoroughbreds at their forty-five acre farm known as Fly-By-Night Stables near Pittsburgh.

During those years Cindy has paid close attention to the characters that hang-out at the back-side of the track.  She found the situations and life style most intriguing. In 2005 she sat down at her computer and began a journey into writing about this life that few understand.

Cindy has recently retired from making her living as a professional choreographer. She owned and operated Cindy McDonald’s School of Dance since 1985.  She studied at Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School and with the Pittsburgh Dance Alloy at Carnegie Mellon University to name a few.  She has choreographed many musicals and an opera for the Pittsburgh Savoyards.

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Blog Tour: Guest Post and Giveaway: DANGEROUS DECEPTION by Cindy McDonald

Welcome author, Cindy McDonald, who is promoting her latest book, Dangerous Deception.  Today, she shares with us her thoughts on Courageous Characters.  Make sure to check it out after my thoughts on the book.

Giveaway Details:
We also have on ebook copy of the first in The Unbridled series, Deadly.com to giveaway.  Just leave a comment with a valid e-mail to enter.  The giveaway will run until 1/18/13. Good luck!!

Publisher: Acorn Book Services
Date of publication: November 2012

Vic Deveaux’s glory days as a winning jockey have ended, but he refuses to accept that pile of horse hockey! 

When the West family asks Vic to take an easier position at their Thoroughbred farm, Westwood, he becomes enraged and teams up with two greedy stable hands in a scheme to kidnap the youngest son, Shane. 

Things turn ugly when Vic discovers that his new-found friends have murder on their minds. Suddenly Vic finds himself between a rock and a hard place. He has betrayed his good friend, Eric West, but will he participate in his son’s murder as well? 

Not content to sit at home and wait for her men to bring her brother home, Kate West convinces homicide detective, Carl Lugowski, to check out a hunch at an old abandoned mansion. Soon they’re trapped in a hornet’s nest of a notorious biker gang. 

Oh yeah, Vic’s deception has placed the West family in more danger than they know what to do with!

My thoughts:

When I started this book, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get into it.  I felt like there were too many characters and plot points.  I was getting confused.  I had that feeling that I should know these people already.  Once I pushed past that, I found the book quite enjoyable.  It's fast paced and kept me engaged.  The West family and the people around them were interesting characters.  The family dynamic reminded me of a soap opera.  I definitely want to go back and read the first two in the series now. 

Courageous Characters

Wow! How much do we love those courageous characters? You know the alpha males and the gutsy heroines that seem to ooze nerves of steel from their very pores. As authors we send our characters into situations we would never, ever, not-in-a-million-years get into, and we ask them to do it with keen finesse and dashing good-looks—well, okay, maybe a little stubble on their chin.

Ahhh, they are everything that we are not—and that is the beauty of it all.

I love to write in the evening, it is the quiet time of day, and my thoughts turn to my latest Unbridled adventure, and what dodgy debacle I will ask Mike, Shane, Punch, or Lugowski to walk into without hesitation. I finish cleaning up the dinner dishes, check to see what my husband is watching on TV, I pour myself a glass of wine, and then retire downstairs to my office, where my characters live inside my computer. They are waiting for me—sometimes in a panic, depending on what state of affairs I’ve left them in the last time we met. I click on the file, take a deep breath, a sip of the wine, re-read what I wrote the night before, and then I ask myself one question: what if?

Sometimes I could swear that I hear them groan when the what if tumbles from my lips, especially Mike West—his sense of humor doesn't stretch very far, I’m afraid. Who can blame him? In the first book, DEADLY.COM I asked him to withstand electro shock treatments at the hands of a madman, walk into the fire to protect the women that he loves, and in this latest book, DANGEROUS DECEPTION, he must come face-to-face with betrayal of an old reliable friend, and a notorious biker gang.

Ya gotta love Mike’s younger brother, Shane. The youngest West darts toward danger like a bee to honey. A bit on the hot-headed side, he’s also the playboy of the group, but he’s not been exempt from the wrath of my writing. His fierce loyalty to family put him in harms-way in Deadly.Com, and in my newest book, Dangerous Deception, the question what if will test his strength and constitution to the limit—it will take all the courage that he can muster to survive at the hands of his malevolent  captor.

Punch McMinn is an enormous man and enormously soft-hearted. He keeps a cool head when trouble comes to call and trouble never seems to be very far from Westwood Thoroughbred Farm, or the West clan.

And then there’s Lugowski, Lieutenant Carl Lugowski, that is, he took a bullet for Ava in Deadly.Com, but in DANGEROUS DECEPTION it is Kate West that drags him into deep do-do that will take a whole lotta guts to get him and her out alive.

Truth be told we authors really don’t live that exciting or death defying life styles. Non-the-less at the end of our finger-tips we wield the sword of courage at our characters and expect…no demand that they come through.  Is it because we wish that our lives were as exciting as theirs? Are we cowardly thrill-seekers? Truthfully, I must admit that I really don’t care. I’ve just poured myself a glass of chardonnay and my computer screen has just lit up my latest manuscript. Hmmm… what if.

About the author:

For twenty-six years my life whirled around a song and a dance: I was a professional dancer/choreographer for most of my adult life and never gave much thought to a writing career until 2005. Don’t ask me what happened, but suddenly I felt drawn to my computer to write about things I have experienced (greatly exaggerated upon of course) with my husband’s Thoroughbreds and the happenings at the racetrack.
Surprised? Why didn’t I write about my experiences with dance? Eh, believe it or not life at the racetrack is more…racy. The drama is outrageous—not that dancers don’t know how to create drama, believe me, they do but race trackers just seem to get more down and dirty with it which makes great story telling—great fiction.

I didn’t start out writing books, The Unbridled Series started out as a TV drama, and the Hollywood readers loved the show. The problem was we just couldn’t sell it. So one of the readers said to me, “Cindy, don’t be stupid. Turn your scripts into a book series.” and so I did!

In May of 2011 I took the big leap and exchanged my dancin’ shoes for a lap top—I retired from dance. It was a scary proposition, I was terrified, but I had the full support of my husband, Saint Bill. It has been a huge change for me. I went from dancing hard five hours a night to sitting in front of a computer. I still work-out and I take my dog, Harvey, for a daily run. I have to or I’d be as big as a house. Do I miss dance? Sometimes I do. I miss my students. I miss choreographing musicals, but I love my books and I love sharing them with you.