INTERVIEW WITH GAYLA HISS

Award-winning author Gayla K. Hiss began her writing journey painting landscapes. In her imagination, characters and scenes came to life as she painted beautiful natural settings. Her inspiring novels combine her love for the great outdoors with romance, suspense, and adventure. Her book WILDFIRE recently won the Faith, Hope, and Love Reader’s Choice Award for romantic suspense. Gayla and her husband often tour the country in their RV, visiting many state and national parks. She enjoys hiking, camping, and traveling, and lives in the Pacific Northwest. She’s excited to announce the recent release of COLD PURSUIT, book 4 in her Peril in the Park series, which can be purchased on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/2kl3qSo. 

Visit www.gaylakhiss.com to learn more, and connect with her on Facebook, Amazon, and Goodreads.
 
INTERVIEW

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

I travel quite a bit and enjoy taking road trips with my husband. We like to camp in state and national parks in our RV. I also enjoy hiking and attending music concerts.

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

I used to be a software engineer and worked for NASA on the Space Station program. I also worked for the Navy a few years.

I eat a pretty strict diet due to my food sensitivities and make almost everything from scratch, including things like mayonnaise. When I was younger, I wasn’t very interested in cooking, but now food preparation has become a big part of my life out of necessity. As a result, I’ve become much more knowledgeable about nutrition and the importance of eating a healthy diet.

I’m a Bible prophecy buff and have attended several prophecy conferences and have an extensive Bible prophecy library.

What genre did you start out writing? Have you changed course? Is there another genre you’d like to try someday? What is it?

I started with contemporary romance but kept adding mystery and suspense to my stories until I realized that the romantic suspense genre was a natural fit for my style of writing.

Because Bible prophecy intrigues me, I’d like to write a story set in the future that ties in with that.

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

Since I was a software engineer for 22 years and a writer for 10 years after that, I can’t think of anything else I would want to do. Writing was my dream when I was a software engineer, so I’m living the dream right now. I’m blessed to have experienced the best of both worlds.

Do you have any writing goals you haven’t met yet? What are they?

Writing screenplays would be interesting. It would also be fun to see my books become movies one day since they have a lot of action and adventure.

What are you working on now?

My first book, AVALANCHE, is being made into an audiobook, so I’m involved with that as well as the release of my new book, COLD PURSUIT.

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

A common theme in my books is getting back to the simple things in life like faith, family, and the land. I feel like we’ve become so busy and distracted we’ve lost touch with those three basic things. To me, there’s nothing more enjoyable and restorative than going camping outdoors and connecting with God, the Creator. We are so blessed to have our state and national park system. I want future generations to value and enjoy them too.

Anything else you’d like to share? 

My book, COLD PURSUIT, is the fourth and final book in my Peril in the Park series and is set in Yellowstone National Park in winter. In writing the story, I drew from my own experiences from a tour I took one winter in Yellowstone that was a very unique trip. By sharing the beauty and wonder of that amazing national park, I was a able to relive my own adventure there.

COLD PURSUIT

Can they elude the relentless danger before it’s too late?

A December tour of Yellowstone National Park sounded like the perfect escape from Faith Chandler’s problems at home—until she

discovers her tour guide is her jilted childhood sweetheart, Jake Mitchell. Faced with guilt from her past mistakes, plus a disturbing pattern of suspicious incidents, Faith has second thoughts about staying on the tour.

Despite her misgivings, the serene splendor of the winter wonderland provides a much-needed respite from her stressful life and gives her a fresh perspective. After a little soul-searching, she wants to come clean with Jake. But can he forgive her for the heartache she caused—or the truth she’s withheld from him? Meanwhile, Jake wants to keep Faith at a distance, yet he must protect her from the menace stalking his tour group.

As her enemies close in like ravenous wolves, Faith is the only one who can stop the mayhem by finding the missing piece of the puzzle. Is it a smoking gun—or a trap set to destroy both her and Jake?

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