INTERVIEW WITH GAIL PALOTTA

Gail Pallotta’s a wife, mom, swimmer and bargain shopper who loves God, beach sunsets and getting together with friends and family. A former Grace Awards Finalist and a Reader’s Favorite 2017 Book Award winner, she’s published five books, poems, short stories and two-hundred articles. Some of her articles appear in anthologies while two are in museums. She loves to connect with readers. Visit her website and her blog.
 

INTERVIEW 

 

If you had to describe yourself in one sentence, what would you say?

I love God, my family and friends, and am thankful for God’s blessings.

What do you do when you’re not writing? Any interesting hobbies?

I enjoy swimming three times a week and making flower arrangements when time permits. It’s not the usual hobby, but I love to bargain shop with my daughter when she’s in town and watch movies with hubby.

What was your favorite book as a teen or child?

Any Nancy Drew mystery.

Tell us three things about yourself that might surprise your readers.

I can moonwalk.

I’m terrible at sewing. Once when a friend tried to teach me to cross stitch, I sewed the picture to my jeans, and had to cut the threads to get it off. 

I end up in long conversations with total strangers. My husband says I’m the only person he knows who can go in the grocery for a loaf of bread and come out with someone’s life story.

What genre did you start out writing? Have you changed course? Why or why not?

I started out writing romance because I found someone willing and able to show me how to write a romantic novel. I’ve since expanded to romance with mystery and suspense because I’ve always loved reading that genre and enjoy writing in it.

Any other genres you’d like to try. If yes, what and way?

I’m so glad you asked. I have a new release, Hair Calamities and Hot Cash, coming out on November 2nd. A romantic comedy with mystery, it was inspired by my mother’s beauty shop. 

In the book New York stockbroker Philip Wells crashes his rental car into Eve Castleberry’s beauty shop in Triville, North Carolina. On the same day the young widow’s defective hair products cause wild hairdos. Philip’s attracted to the distraught top-notch

hairstylist and asks her out. She starts dating him, but stops because she falls too hard for a wayfarer who’ll leave and break her heart. When there’s another catastrophe in the shop, Philip comes to Eve’s rescue and convinces her to go out as friends. Later he solicits her help to find the thieves who stole his client’s cash. Then they trail two of the FBI’s most-wanted criminals. Romance blossoms amid danger, suspense and Eve’s hair-brained plan to get back the money.

My publisher will put Hair Calamities and Hot Cash on pre-order on Amazon for .99 a few days before the release date, so if you’re like me and love to find bargains, check it out then.

If you could go back in time and do something differently at the start of your career, what would it be?

I’d ask more questions of people in the industry and look for more direction. For example, I thought I had to have a fiction book published to join American Christian Fiction Writers, so I didn’t consider becoming a member until I’d published one. Looking back, I should have contacted the group and asked if I could join. There are other examples too, such as going to a small writers’ conference and not pursuing the information I really wanted and needed. In a nutshell, I’d advise those new to the field to be aggressive about finding the answers they need to succeed.

What is the most important thing you’d like readers to take away from your books?

I’d like readers to come away believing the best life they can have is one lived in the Christian faith.  

 
BREAKING BARRIERS

 

In this action-packed thriller gunshots ring out as Ann Jones enters church. She hides in the bathroom until they stop then stumbles into the sanctuary. The congregation lies dead in pools of blood. To rebuild the church she starts True Light Guardians. At the first meeting she's attacked by a terrorist but rescued by James Crawford. He melts her heart, cold from her father’s abuse, and they fall for each other. She’s afraid to commit to love that might grow angry later like the type she knew as a child. James yearns to stop other attempts on Ann’s life, but can’t. Tormented by her constant risks, he breaks up with her. When an assault sends her to the hospital, an unlikely ally shares Ann’s plight with James, but he reveals a lead that puts all three of them in even more danger.

If you'd like to win an ebook copy of BREAKING BARRIERS, please leave a comment, along with your contact information! (BREAKING BARRIERS is book 8 in Prism Book Group’s Love Is...Series. Each author centered their book around a phrase from I Corinthians 13: 4-8)