Thursday, November 10, 2016

Q&A with Sharon Buchbinder‏, author of The Haunting of Hotel LaBelle





Being released on November 16th from The Wild Rose Press is the paranormal fantasy The Haunting of Hotel Labelle by author Sharon Buchbinder.

Cover Artist: Rae Monet

Amazon   *  BN   *   iTunes  *   Kobo  *  ARe  *  Bookstrand


The author has taken a few minutes out of her busy schedule for a Q&A about her newest novel. 



When did you become interested in storytelling?

Before I could write, in fact, I’ve been telling stories since I was a child—and got in trouble for telling them. Now I get rewarded!

What was your first book/story published?

Hmm, now you are making me dig through my files! My first published fiction story (I also write non-fiction) was PICA in Web Mystery Magazine in 2005. I was fascinated by a family legend that said we had a two-headed cousin in the Smithsonian Museum in a jar. My family roots are in Kentucky, so I combined that oral history with a mid-wife I created from Frontier Nursing, now a university, one of the first nursing services to send midwives out into rural areas, and the story grew from there. It’s creepy, but believable in a dueling banjoes kind of way.

What inspired you to write The Haunting of Hotel LaBelle?

My husband and I travel a lot for work and pleasure. We have had so many good, bad and weird (see also paranormal) experiences at hotels that when I was telling someone about our latest horror story, she said, “You should write a book about that.” That’s when the bells went off.

What character in The Haunting of Hotel LaBelle is the most/least like you, and in what ways?

Tallulah Thompson is the most like me. She is independent, smart, hard-working, sassy, and owns a pug. Like Tallulah, I was raised by my grandmother and learned sign language--only her grandmother was Choctaw and mine was deaf and non-speaking. Interesting side note: a lot of the Plains Nation hand signs are similar to American Sign Language. Tallulah is also unlike me in that her grandmother was a Choctaw Medicine Woman and Tallulah has visions. I don’t see dead people. I hear them (not kidding). Also, she is very stubborn, like me, only I call it persistent.

What is your favorite part in The Haunting of Hotel LaBelle?

There were many parts that tickled my fancy, but the scene where Tallulah is being interviewed on a paranormal talk radio show by the “Ghost Hostess with the Mostest” made me laugh out loud when I was writing it. It’s a little over the top, but that’s what makes it so funny.

What was the hardest part to write?

The scene Lucius turns Tallulah down when she offers him her bed. It was in character for Lucius, a turn of the century innkeeper, but it still made me cringe as I wrote it. Tallulah went from hot and bothered to insulted and mad as a wet hen in the space of one page. She did not hold back, either, which I felt was in character for this modern woman. There is an HEA, but from this scene you know it’s not going to be an easy one, nor will it be a straight shot.

What would your ideal career be, if you couldn't be an author?

Professor of Healthcare Management, which I am now. I love teaching and mentoring people to grow in their health care management careers. I am still friends with many of my graduates and they are connected with me on Facebook and elsewhere. It is a wonderful feeling when I receive emails and letters thanking me for support and nurturing them through the years.

Do you read reviews of your books? If so, do you pay any attention to them, or let them influence your writing?

Yes, I do read my reviews. I ignore destructive feedback that serves the review writer’s personal agenda. My cross-cultural books have themes and messages that some people find disturbing or threatening to their belief systems. I enjoy constructive feedback, especially when I see similar comments three or more times across reviews. I take that to heart and use that to improve my writing. While I’ve been writing professionally for over thirty years, I’ve only been a fiction writer for eleven years, so I consider my craft a work in progress.

What well-known writers do you admire most?

I have the utmost respect for the work ethic and have enjoyed many books written by some very prolific fiction authors across many genres, such as Ken Follett, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Patricia Cornwell, J.K. Rowling, Nalini Singh, Nora Roberts, and James Patterson. They are at the top of the charts because of perspiration and inspiration. I also admire the authors who spend ten years to write a perfectly crafted novel, working on each pearl of prose as if writing poetry. Donna Tartt falls into this category, as does my goddess role model Katherine Neville, who also happens to be a very kind and gracious lady to blithering fan girls.

Do you have any other books/stories in the works?

I am working on two books and have a novella on the backburner. In Bury My Heart: Book Two of the Hotel LaBelle Series, Emma Horserider, a horse whisperer and secondary character in the Haunting of Hotel LaBelle, gets her man in the form of a tattooed biker and remote viewer named Bronco who works for her brother. In Kiss of the Burmese Prince: Book Three of the Kiss of the Jinni Hunter Series, a new jinni hunter inherits her dotty old grandmother’s estate and discovers she was employed by the OSS, the precursor to the CIA and was not the least bit crazy. The novella is tentatively titled The Billionaire Cowboy Baron’s Surprise Baby, and as you can tell from the title, there’s a rich cowboy, a surprise baby and an unexpected romance.



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About the Author: Sharon Buchbinder has been writing fiction since middle school and has the rejection slips to prove it. An RN, she provided health care delivery, became a researcher, association executive, and obtained a PhD in Public Health. When not teaching or writing, she can be found fishing, walking her dogs, or breaking bread and laughing with family and friends in Baltimore, MD and Punta Gorda, FL.

You can visit the author's website at: www.sharonbuchbinder.com


You can follow the author on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Goodreads, and on her blog.

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