My Guest Today: Susan Roebuck

  

I'm excited to welcome friend and fellow author Susan Roebuck to my blog. A while back, Sue and I did a challenge together. The result? Two books. Here's Sue on the challenge.

The Birth of Two Books

Ute and I decided to take part in a challenge in which we had to follow these few simple rules:

• Write a story in a genre we’d never tried before;
• The story must include a firefighter and a vet;
• The main character must go to a house/building he or she has never seen before;
• There must be a neighbor called Slater;
• We mustn’t show each other our stories until they are completely finished.

Neither of us was sure that we’d actually finish the challenge but thanks to an exchange of emails that went along the lines of: “I’m 20k words in”…”I’m going to finish by the end of the month”, we did! Although, initially, we only intended to write short stories, they turned into novels and both are now published: mine’s Hewhay Hall published in April 2012 by Etopia Press and Ute’s is The Whisper Time published in September 2012 by Whispers Publishing.

You’d think we’d have written very similar stories, even though we weren’t allowed to communicate anything about our stories, except how far along we were. But Ute and I would make excellent case-studies for psychologists investigating the creative mind because we ended up with wildly different books. For a start, Ute’s is a time-travel romance (and it’s lovely – you can see my review on Amazon or GoodReads or even my blog: www.susanroebuck.com) and mine’s a dark fantasy/horror. I like reading Stephen King, and Clive Herbert but I didn’t think I could write that genre. However, readers have told me that Hewhay Hall is a “page-turner” that has them on the edge of their seats.

I don’t think there’s one single aspect of either book that’s similar. The neighbor in Hewhay Hall, Slater, is a demon whose delight is to feed on the terror of his victims – and the fact that they’re all courageous unsung heroes makes them all the more delicious to him. Ute’s neighbor in Whisper of Time is called Slate and he’s a fine figure of a hero who I wouldn’t mind meeting on any dark night!

Blurb for Hewhay Hall:

An unsung hero’s destiny–Slater’s house of horrors.

Fire-fighter Jude Elliott loses part of his leg trying to rescue a family held hostage during a terrorist attack. He journeys to mysterious Hewhay Hall, where it is told there are wondrous, magical cures. Little does Jude know that his destination is Slater The Prince of Envy’s lair where a demon resides and courageous souls are tormented… Can Jude escape Slater’s house of horrors, or will he suffer for all of eternity?

I’d thoroughly recommend a challenge like this for any authors – and I’ll always be willing to take part in one again.

 You can read more about the challenge on Sue's Blog today -Ute
Buy Hewhay Hall here 
Buy The Whisper of Time here