Welcome to the blog tour and giveaway for
A Vast and Gracious Tide by Lisa Carter, hosted by
JustRead Publicity Tours!
ABOUT THE BOOK
Title: A Vast and Gracious Tide
Author: Lisa Carter
Publisher: Gilead
Release Date: June 12, 2018
Genre: Inspirational Romantic Suspense
A wounded veteran and the police chief's daughter must work together to bring a killer to justice
Caden Wallis lost friends, his girlfriend, and even his leg to the ravages of war. He arrives on the Outer Banks broken and still reeling, struggling to make peace with his new life.
McKenna Dockery has been stuck in limbo since her fiancé died three years ago. Now, when the handsome yet heartbroken Caden arrives at her doorstep, she starts to wonder if there may be hope for her heart after all . . .
But no sooner do they meet than a man is found murdered on McKenna's property--and Caden is the prime suspect. The two must learn to trust each other, or no one will be safe in the tangled web of conspiracy, greed, and deceit lurking in the tidal marshlands of the Outer Banks.
LINKS: Goodreads |
Amazon |
B&N |
CBD |
Book Depository
Interview with Lisa Carter
Hi, Lisa! Welcome to Stuff & Nonsense!!! We are so
excited to have a sister Carolina girl here today. You know Rebecca and I are
both from the mountains of North Carolina.
Your tagline is fabulous -- "sweet tea with a slice of
murder." :)
Tell us a little about yourself and your writing journey.
Thanks Anne and
Rebecca for hosting me and A Vast and
Gracious Tide today.
I have written
stories in my head as far back as I can remember. As a child, I “told” myself a
story every night to go to sleep. I thought everyone did this until I got to
kindergarten and realized some people might find this strange. I was the kid,
aka Phineas & Ferb, who made up imaginary tales for the other kids in the
neighborhood to act out during summer vacation. Those stories were heavily
dependent on what I’d watched on television—a combination of Star Trek meets
Little House on the Prairie. Apparently, I was writing steampunk without
knowing what steampunk was. :)
I’ve been married for
twenty-eight years and have two daughters. One daughter just finished college
and has moved away to begin her first real job. The other daughter is still in
college. As a teenager, I wrote stories to entertain myself and the habit
continued into adulthood whenever I had spare moments. During my children’s
baby years, naptime was writing time for me. I see that period in my life as a
time of honing my craft.
At age forty-five,
God sort of said to me it was time to get serious about writing. So I stepped
out of my comfort zone to attend a writing conference. I heard the stories of
how long if ever the path to publication took so I felt pretty safe thinking
I’ve got years before I have to deal with the publishing side of writing. Best
laid plans . . . God had other plans. I left that conference with my first
contract. Three months later, I had three more contracts. Talk about being thrown
into the deep end.
It’s been a whirlwind
ever since. A Vast and Gracious Tide
is my nineteenth published book and counting. The writing journey for me has
been a strange mix of sheer terror and absolute dependence on God every step of
the way. Which is probably what He intended all along for me.
What do you think makes a good story?
I write character-driven
stories. To me, a good story must contain a main character with whom readers
feel a visceral connection and with whom they can empathize in regards to the
character’s situation. Readers must immediately have an emotional stake in the
protagonist’s success and feel anxiety at the potential for a protagonist’s
failure.
I like a strong
chemistry between my hero and heroine. I adore snappy dialogue, showcasing the sparks
flying between them. At their core, my novels are about two people falling in
love while dodging bullets.
I also love exotic
story settings. A hero and heroine who are fighting to stay alive while
battling their inconvenient feelings for each other and utilizing a lot of
humor in the meantime are absolute golden reads for me.
How did you come up with the idea for your newest book?
I spent about fifteen
years making quilts for practically everyone I’ve ever known. I read about
quilts of valor that are sent to wounded warriors at Walter Reed Hospital. I
also became aware of the horrendously high statistics of veteran suicide. So the
idea came to me about what would happen if a recent amputee who’d lost the will
to live received a quilt like that. The quilt would have given him a lot of
comfort during grueling physical therapy sessions. And suppose at the end of
all hope for a future beyond his injury, he decided to return the quilt to the
quilt maker identified on the quilt label, express his gratitude and then end
his life?
An added inducement
would be that the quilt originated on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and
he’d never seen the ocean before. But what would happen if the old lady quilt
maker he expected turned out to be a young woman grieving her own losses? Throw
in a murderer on the loose and you have yourself a story.
Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and just have
to write down a thought? If so, do you keep a tablet on your bedside table or
go to the computer?
I have notepads
everywhere—in every room in my house, in my car, in my purse. You never know
when inspiration is about to strike. You have to be prepared. I wrote a great
many scenes for Under a Turquoise Sky sitting
on the bleachers watching my cheerleader daughter at football games and the
other daughter play in a church basketball league.
Where is your favorite place to write?
I move around during
the day—the couch, the antique channel-back armchair I inherited from my
father, my standing desk.
Do you talk to your characters? Keep story boards or
Pinterest Boards? You know we love Pinterest! If so, please share a link.
I don’t talk to my
characters in my head—that would make me psychotic. My characters talk to each other in my head while I listen—which
makes me slightly less psychotic.
Where is the one place you would love to set a book but know
you can’t possibly go there? Would you write it anyway?
Been there, done
that. The Stronghold is set in the no
man’s borderland between Mexico and Arizona. The drug cartels own that mountainous
terrain. I couldn’t go there in person without the risk of dying, but I did my
research, and my imagination did the rest.
There are very few
places on earth I don’t want to travel to—it would be easier to say which places
I don’t want to visit. North Korea and Syria would head that list. I used to include
Cuba, but my daughter has been there now and lists
change. So who’s to say where the next story inspiration will send me.
Everywhere I go story
ideas come to me. It’s more a matter of where my publishers will allow me to
place a story based on reader preference demographics versus where I’d like to
set future stories. I’ve been to the Amazon—story already written in my head.
Just got back from a trip to Thailand celebrating my oldest daughter’s
graduation. Yep, storyworld complete before the wheels of the airplane touched
down again in the USA.
Have story, will travel
and vice versa. I write to feed my travel addiction.
Have you always had a love for suspense? You obviously have
a gift for writing it since you’re a 2015 Carol Award Winner in Romantic
Suspense and 2017 Daphne Du Maurier Award Winner in Mystery/Suspense!
Congratulations on those accomplishments, by the way.
Thank you. It was
such a wonderful surprise winning those awards. I’ve been reading suspense
since middle school. I grew up reading Phyllis Whitney, Mary Stuart and
Elizabeth Peters among others. I love the mental challenge of figuring out the
who-dun-it. As a writer myself now, basically, I kill people on paper. I get a
lot of strange looks when I tell people that.
Do you have a favorite book? What about it makes it stand
out from others?
It would be hard to
narrow it down to one book. I read extensively across genres. I love all of the
late, great Tony Hillerman books. I relate to the gritty Southern realism of
fellow North Carolina author, Margaret Maron’s Deborah Knott books. I think
many of my North Carolina set novels contain more than a trace of the Southern
Gothic. I read those kinds of books, too. I love—and have told them so—Deborah
Raney’s Beneath A Southern Sky and Gina Holmes’ Crossing Oceans. As far as
contemporary romance, I read anything Becky Wade and Denise Hunter write.
In your spare time, do you have any hobbies you enjoy? Favorite
sports team? ;)
I travel, a lot. I
think I’ve mentioned that. J. I love to spend time
with family. I love to read. I’m a big ACC Wolfpack fan. Both of my children
attend/ed North Carolina State University. I like to garden. My husband would
tell you I like to supervise him doing the hard, manual labor of gardening.
What’s the one food item you can’t live without?
I wish I could—I love
bread in any form and fashion. Bread and I—we’re frenemies. I have a love/hate
relationship with carbs.
Thanks so much for sharing a little of yourself and your
writing journey with us today!
Thank you, Anne and
Rebecca, for allowing me to visit with you. Happy reading.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Award-winning author
Lisa Carter describes her Southern suspense novels as “sweet tea with a slice of murder.” She is the bestselling author of seven romantic suspense novels, four historical novellas, and a contemporary Coast Guard series. Lisa enjoys traveling to romantic locales and researching her next exotic adventure. A native North Carolinian, she has strong opinions on barbecue and ACC basketball.
CONNECT WITH LISA: website |
Facebook |
Twitter |
Pinterest
Don't miss your chance to enter this great giveaway prize pack! One winner (US only) will receive:
Print copy of
A Vast and Gracious Tide by Lisa Carter
Sea glass jewelry set (
see here)
Framed print of Psalm 93:4 (
see here)
$65 value
Giveaway will run from midnight June 18, 2018 through 11:59pm July 2, 2018. It is subject to the policies found
here.
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