Meet Romance Author Lori Matthews
Romance Author Lori Matthews is here today to tell us about her newest suspense novel. Take it away, Lori…
Is writing something that comes easy to you or not?
Yes and no. The ideas and the plot usually come very quickly. Half the time, my characters walk into my mind fully formed with a name, flaws, and a few problems. That’s the easy part. The hard part is often getting what’s in my head down on the page. Some days it flows pretty quickly, and some days every word is a struggle. What has helped me recently is treating my writing as a job, not negatively but as something that I must do. I am at my desk by nine, and I work at writing, marketing, etc., until five. It’s not constant, but it does help me to focus and get my word counts finished.
What was the most interesting place you ever visited?
The Sahara Desert. Hands down the most extraordinary place I have been. We did a tour of Morocco which was truly amazing, but the Sahara was outstanding. We drove into the desert to stay at a Bivouac in the late afternoon. We then got to ride camels up into the dunes. The dunes are immense. Anytime you see a movie with desert shots and giant dunes, that’s Morocco. We got to stand at the top of a dune and watch the sunset into the desert. It was breathtaking. Then all of the stars at night were mind-boggling. There’s no light pollution there, so instead of seeing a few stars when we look up at night, there you can see millions. There’s almost no black sky. We got up early and watched the sunrise as well. It was spectacular. The food was also excellent, and the people were fabulous. It is one of my favorite trips I have ever taken.
Do your travels influence your writing?
I have set my next few books in places I have been. It’s been hard during Covid to get any traveling done, so there are a few stories set in places I haven’t traveled to, but I tried to do lots of research to get the details correct. I set my books where I’ve been because it makes it easier to create a mood for the reader when I can visualize the setting.
Is anything in your book based on real-life experiences or purely all imagination?
My books are my imagination at work, but I try to base the plot on reality. If I wrote about real-life experiences, my readers would be bored to tears. My life is not that exciting. ? One of the great joys of being a writer is creating my own world and doing whatever I want in that world. I may or may not have named some characters after ex-husbands or ex-boyfriends of friends and then killed them off in a dramatic manner… Muahahahaha
Can you tell us about any other upcoming books, series, or writing plans?
I thought you’d never ask. ? I have two series on the go now, the Callahan Security series and the Coast Guard RECON series. I have been writing new entries in both series this year. The latest entry in the Callahan Security series, Catch and Release, is out this month. The third book in the RECON series, Conflicted, is out next month, and then if all goes well, the fifth book in the Callahan series will be out in June.
My books are all linked in the series, and reading them in order helps but is not necessary. Each book has its own central storyline that ends when the book ends. If you want to find out more about my books, you can check out my website www.lorimatthewsbooks.com
Incinerated
by Lori Matthews
From the bestselling author of the Callahan Security Series...
Meet Axel Cantor of the US Coast Guard’s TEAM RECON.
As in reconstructed.
As in broken and needs fixing.
When a cargo ship gets stuck in the Suez Canal and an American journalist on board ends up dead, Axel is sent in to investigate. He didn’t count on running into Sloan Bishop, another reporter, and the love of his life. Or maybe the hate of his life. Ever since he ended up in one of her articles.
Sloan is a driven reporter who fights to get the story at any cost, even if it means jeopardizing her personal safety. She’s on board the Sea Jewel, to document the first-ever female pilot to navigate the canal. But it all goes sideways, literally, when the ship becomes mired in the narrowest part of the canal. As worldwide shipping gets backed up, the female pilot is blamed. But Sloan knows there’s more to the story. When one of the other journalists covering the historic story is murdered, Sloan casts aside her misgivings to find out why.
As the body count rises on the stuck cargo ship, both Axel and Sloan must lower their defenses to work together to undercover the real motive. There is something much bigger at play here, so big that Axel has to call in reinforcements – his RECON teammates.
Available from
AMAZON | B&N
Learn more about author Lori Matthews
