HOW TO COME UP WITH A "KILLER" STORY

 Ever since my husband and I discovered the joy of kayaking, we've spent more time camping than ever before. There is something completely relaxing about skimming across a glass-like surface of water. Unless you're a suspense writer. Then, your traitorous mind goes off in all kinds of directions.

During this particular camping trip, we saw wild donkeys, mallards, eagles, pelicans, cranes, and a skunk. 

Yep. I got up at night to visit the toilet and almost stepped on the little bugger. Luckily, all he gave me was a dirty look as he dug through our garbage. I was half asleep and too afraid to take a picture, but he was kind of cute. Our neighbor campers weren’t so lucky. Pepe Lapew made them a visit inside their tent! And off my mind raced again.

Then, on the final day of kayaking, early in the morning, I found this gnarly tree that spent much of the year submerged under water. Hanging from a branch was a lone lure. The what ifs started flying.

What if…you were camping and a crazed killer was hiding in the desert and your only route of escape was by kayak?

What if a group of people took an annual camping trip, bringing along a friend who was not at all who he appeared to be?

What if the gnarly tree was a hanging tree?

What if it were used in strange rituals?

As a writer, I use all my life experiences to come up with a ‘killer’ story. Leave a comment about your favorite camping experience to win a print copy of Mountain of Fear.

Widowed and broke, Rachel Kent collects her two children, packs up their belongings, and heads across the Ozarks to stay with her parents. They stop for the night at a newly opened campground, then take a short hike. The three return to find the other occupants of the campground murdered. They flee the campsite and stumble upon a ranger’s cabin, where they enlist the help of handsome, former-Army Ranger, Wesley Ward, who informs them a survivalist group laid claim to the mountain. Only God can help them now. Can a man who wants only to escape his past and be left alone and a woman damaged by life forge a love that survives a flight through the Ozark Mountains?

  

Website at www.cynthiahickey.com

Also www.forgetmenotromances.com

Multi-published and Amazon Best-Selling author Cynthia Hickey had three cozy mysteries and two novellas published through Barbour Publishing. Her first mystery, Fudge-Laced Felonies, won first place in the inspirational category of the Great Expectations contest in 2007. Her third cozy, Chocolate-Covered Crime, received a four-star review from Romantic Times. All three cozies have been re-released as ebooks through the MacGregor Literary Agency, along with a new cozy series, all of which stay in the top 50 of Amazon’s ebooks for their genre. She had several historical romances release through Harlequin’s Heartsong Presents, and has sold close to a million copies of her works since 2013. She has taught a Continuing Education class at the 2015 American Christian Fiction Writers conference. You can find her on FB, twitter, and Goodreads, and is a contributor to Cozy Mystery Magazine blog and Suspense Sisters blog. She and her husband run the small press, Forget Me Not Romances, which includes some of the CBA’s best well-known authors. She lives in Arizona with her husband, one of their seven children, two dogs, two cats, three box turtles, and two Sulcata tortoises. She has seven grandchildren who keep her busy and tell everyone they know that “Nana is a writer”.