Guest Post: P.J. O’Dwyer, author of Relentless

Work: day off.

Continuing in the tradition of guest posters who offer to share the load*, P.J. O’Dwyer has agreed to discuss her new book Relentless. Welcome P.J.:

Thank you for inviting me to spend the day with you here on Rodney’s Saga. I am an author of romantic suspense. I’ve always loved to immerse myself in a good story. Back when I was a teenager, I gravitated toward historical romances. I loved history.

But now, twenty-five years later, married to a state trooper and privy to the day-to-day police work he is involved in, it was inevitable I would combine both our passions: romance and murder. (Not that murder is his passion, only solving them.) I’m often asked if my characters are based on real people and events. They are not. But that’s not to say they are not based on real-life situations. In the case of my novel Relentless, the first book in the Fallon Sisters Trilogy, my heroine Bren Ryan operates a horse rescue farm. I got the idea from a horse rescue across the road from me. I guess driving by it every day must have formed an impression in my subconscious. Now there are other triggers for a storyline. For me, it can be as simple as one word or bits and pieces of a conversation.

Okay, you’ve got me. I confess I’m guilty of eavesdropping. But I won’t apologize. Ask any writer . . . that’s where we get some of our best plots. Writers also have an active imagination. It’s a prerequisite.

Here’s a sneak peek at my debut novel Relentless:

Headstrong horse rescue director Bren Ryan has been a red-headed streak of trouble for more than one man in Clear Spring. She’s grown up needling local “kill buyer” Wes Connelly, and since the sheriff ruled her husband’s sudden death an accident, Bren’s been investigating things herself. She’s certain Tom was murdered, and she’s hell-bent on cornering his killer the only way she knows how—by tempting him to do it again. And she’s the bait.

Rafe Langston came to Maryland looking for land and a fresh start. Or so he says. The sexy cowboy isn’t generous with details, but Bren couldn’t care less—until he buys half her farm at auction and moves into her childhood home. Suddenly, the last man she should befriend becomes her only ally in solving her husband’s murder. Soon their cozy stakeouts sizzle with unexpected desire neither one can ignore, threatening his mysterious plans and her promise to never fall in love again—especially with a handsome stranger whose secrets could shatter what family she has left.

It was during my research for Relentless I realized I had found something I could be passionate about. Yes, I’m passionate about writing, for sure. But learning about the suffering our horses endure every day in the name of greed gave me a reason to finish this book. As a writer, I believe we are entrusted to entertain as well as educate. Relentless gave me the opportunity to do both and became a reality because of the gracious nature of horse rescuers who took a call from a stranger, listened and agreed with enthusiasm to read Bren’s story, and offer their insight and knowledge. They hold a special place in my heart, and as a way to thank them for their kindness and because their fight has become mine, I am donating 5% to horse rescue for every book sold in the trilogy and any other future works. The only catch—you must purchase the books on my website at http://www.pjodwyer.com. There is a list of rescues to choose from including most states, a fair amount of provinces in Canada, and a few in the UK to include my homeland of Ireland, as well as, Australia and New Zealand.

With Relentless soon to be released on April 15, I am busy with the final edits of the second book in the series entitled Defiant, which is Kate’s story, set for release in September. Gorgeous as she is idealistic, this sister wants more than just horse pastures. Next, on my list is the third and final book of the series Forsaken. Dani is the sister neither Bren nor Kate know about, yet. That is until the beautiful Irish barmaid Dani Flynn finds her homeland just a spec on the horizon behind her and open seas dead ahead. She’s poised to change everything Bren and Kate believe to be true. And they’re not the only ones. There was no way I couldn’t write a book about Bren’s best friend Kevin Bendix. More like the brother Bren never had, eventually, they would become family—even if it was by law. I loved writing Kevin. Maybe it’s because I have one just like him at home. It was fun to ruffle this guy’s serious exterior.

Here’s a sneak peek into the life and times of Mr. Law-and-Order:

Sheriff Kevin Bendix’s life is orderly and free of complications. That’s the way he likes it. But that’s all about to change with one gorgeous, blue-eyed brunette who can’t prove she’s in the U.S. legally. It’s his job to have her deported. Only his attraction to Dani Flynn is clouding his judgment. She isn’t your average law breaker. All of about five foot two with a face of an angel and a body of a sinner, she will be his undoing. It’s not only his heart she’ll steal. Loving this woman could cost them both their lives.

I try for strong, likable characters readers can identify with and a plot with a high level of anticipation, uncertainty, anxiety, and sometimes even terror/fear. That’s why I love writing suspense. Whenever possible, I like to create one surprise, something the reader didn’t see coming, usually placed toward the end of the story. And, of course, there’s got to be great chemistry between the two protagonists and a burgeoning love story that warms the heart as menace and mayhem unfold around the pair. If you’ve ever thought about writing, I encourage you to follow your dream. I never had any formal training as a writer, only the desire to put my thoughts and stories on the computer screen. Like anything else, it takes practice and commitment. Writing is a craft, and with time our writing becomes better, sharper, and stronger. Just remember, writing is a journey that never ends.

If you’d like to learn more about P.J. O’Dwyer, here’s where you can find her on the web: website, Facebook, Twitter, Linked In. Giveaway: Autographed copy of the hardcover edition of RELENTLESS.

How do you incorporate charity into your life or work? One commenter will be awarded the giveaway copy on April 15 – to counteract the karma of the day.

(*For which I am exceedingly grateful. List of previous book posts, List of previous guest posts. [Yes, double clicking will be required. Such is the price of a comprehensive list.]) RS

Lowercase v for Small Victories

Work: PM Began work on jogging in hand.
Report: Low grade fireworks, despite using a very short stretch, very close to the barn. Uncalled-for but not unexpected. Still, he did not depart in haste once I removed the halter, as he has done before [Advisory].

Ramblings for the Day: I’ll take victories where I can get them. This morning, I had to do the meds. We were out in the field, me fooling with the plunger, Rodney standing next to me ground-tied. The dog took off after a turkey, much to the consternation of everyone, particularly the turkey. Rodney danced sideways but did not run off (victory 1). I fixed the plunger, gathered the leadrope, & moved us toward the water trough. Dog returned. At high speed. From behind. Rodney flipped out, pulled forward, & spun. As an anxiety attack it was not a maximum effort (victory 2). Most importantly, I was able to hang on to him (victory 3). Every time he doesn’t pull away and run off, he learns that he can keep it together and I learn that I can stay on top of it. The dog, on the other hand, is one paw closer to being banned from barn.

I don’t hope to stop all spooking, fussing, and cavorting. At his calmest, he will remain a high-strung Thoroughbred with lightning reflexes. I wouldn’t have him any other way. However, I do hope to tame the explosions from atomic down to chemical. Then, the goal of our groundwork is to establish in his mind a quiet space that we can return to and reboot.

Ever success is a feather on the scale, but even feathers add up over time.

What is your most recent lowercase v?

The Grass Was Greener

Work: PM1 hose in lieu of grooming/PM2 groom.
Report: An “easy” day after the “challenge” of yesterday. Ridiculous, I agree, but the student gets to set the terms of what is easy and what is hard.

Ramblings for the Day: This weekend, we cut the grass near pasture gate and along the outside of the fence. I was sorry to see it go. It was lush and green and yummy looking. Unfortunately, it had grown long enough for giraffe neck to reach over and graze. I wish I trusted horses in general or this horse in specific enough to hand-graze him outside of the field.

We used to let Mathilda and Previous Horse loose on the spring grass in a temporary, electric pen around the front yard. Right up until Previous Horse tuned into Cow Radio, revved up, and trotted right through the lit wire. The picture does not properly convey the unmitigated weirdness of having one’s horse looking in one’s front door.

Rodney is perfectly well-behaved on a lead, most of the time. However, a) I don’t trust him not to have a come-apart; b) I don’t trust myself to hold him if he does; and c) I don’t want him to be outside the field if a leads to b. I do realize this phobia limits our ability to leave the property for lessons & shows (Pretty Head).

Maybe he can have the grass next spring.

What phobias are keeping you from going where you want to go?

A Fool But Not an April Fool

Work: PM1 groom & hosing/PM2 groom & equine obstacle course [combination walk & exercises]
Report: did all his exercises despite being in new locations.

Ramblings for the Day: I hold with C.S. Lewis on the subject of practical jokes, “Cruelty is shameful — unless the cruel man can represent it as a practical joke.” [The Screwtape Letters Bles 1942 Time 1981] Perhaps I am simply too literal for AFD. However in keeping with the spirit of the day, I offer an amuse tete (an amuse bouche for the head):

I took the reins in a firm grasp to show the horse I knew what I was doing. He turned his great head all the the way round, gave me a long, thoughtful stare, and turned his head away again.
“You have to let him know who’s in charge,” said Suzie.
“I think he already knows,” I said.

Not a horse book. The only other equids in the novel are animated by spirits brought up out of Hell. Still, one must give props for clever portrayal where warranted.
A Hard Day’s Knight
Simon R. Green
[ACE 2011, PB 2012]

In the spirit of foolhardy adventures, I have joined NaBloPoMo for April. “Just make the commitment to (1) blog daily for the month (nothing more to it than that!) and (2) to support your fellow NaBloPoMo’ers by reading a handful of the other blogs on the blogroll.”

The only different from what I do already is no chron jobs, which I had been scheduling on Tuesday evenings for Wednesday posts. However, I usually log on early Wed am to check that it worked. So, no substantive change there. The theme for April is Poem, which I will not be following as my appreciation of poetry stops at Jabberwocky [plain & fancy].

Can you name an accurate or amusing portrayal of horses outside of equi-lit?

Blogging Influences

Work: PM1 groom/PM2 groom & group walk [twox3/4].
Report: no heat therapy. Microwave broken. Plus – improved on second lap of walk. Minus – will graze at location x. On the end of halter at location x, he displays tension. Sigh.

Ramblings for the Day: Authors never write alone. At the end of each month (or close thereto), I pause like a caterpillar [4/1 oops, centipede] counting her feet to examine the process of blogging. This month, the books & authors I channel, or try to channel, while I type my posts:

Direct Influence
In “A Visit to the Barber Shop” ( I’m a Stranger Here Myself [Broadway 1999 pb2000]), Bill Bryson starts with “I have very happy hair.” and goes on for four pages about a recent haircut. Anyone can tell a fish story. It takes brilliance to make a reader care about your fish story. To that end, I have loaded Bryson in the car’s CD player. I make a conscious effort to notice his use of metaphors, overstatement, and exaggerated precision. Whether or not I succeed will be up to my biographers to decide.

Indirect Influence
Before my life as a blogger, I wrote articles for horse magazines: show coverage, expert interviews, health care. Informative stuff with the potential for dryness if the writer did not wrestle life and humor into the text. My hero for this style of writing is John Phillips of Car & Driver. His articles entertain without omitting a single engine specification to appease the gearheads, of which I most definitely am not one. For example, In “Project Car: The Lounge Lizard” [C&D November 1998, archived here], his first sentence reads, “If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it… well, maybe I have only said it once: Anything weighing two tons and casting a 17.7-foot shadow ought to be a national monument.” Would that I could come up with as good a start to an article on fly spray.

For the blog, I do not consciously look to Phillips the way I do Bryson, but since I wrote these articles for over 20 years and have only been doing the daily blog for 3 months, I figure elements of that style have lingered.

Model
When I started this project as a monthly column for the USEA website back in 2010, I envisioned Back to Eventing as my answer to Kip Goldreyer‘s Thinking Horseman column in Practical Horseman. I would pontificate in a warm and witty fashion on my graceful rise from acquiring a new horse to riding in the American Eventing Championships. Of course, there would be hiccups, this was horses after all, but such setbacks would be occasions for me to indulge in philosophical discourses on the nature of progress, with my trademark touch of humor. However, when your main activity consists of standing at the fenceline admiring the sleek coat and beautiful movement of your pasture ornament, you quickly run out of activity upon which to pontificate.

Goal
In the Acknowledgements to The Chronicles of the $700 Pony [Half Halt 2006*], Ellen Broadhurst thanks the folks on the Chronicle of the Horse bulletin Board who “provided a venue for my writing and then encouraged, cajoled, threatened and ultimately provided the impetus for me to make my words from cyberspace to the printed page.” That’s what I wanted. A supportive cyber-community that would pester me for the important details & shoot me down when I got bogged on the unimportant ones, leading to my award-winning book about my award-winning horse. But, as above, you cannot cajole and comment if I do not give you activity to c&c upon.
(*Out of print but soon to be rereleased on Kindle.)

Wither?
That was then; this is now. The economic downturn has not been kind to the freelance market. So, as I said on the About page, I have committed myself to a daily blog for one year as a writing exercise. I’m taking advice from another favorite writer, Michael Perry, “Raised on a small dairy farm, Perry equates his writing career to cleaning calf pens – just keep shoveling, and eventually you’ve got a pile so big, someone will notice.”

Yesterday was my 100th post. Yikes! Today is 101. 264 to go.

Previous blogging posts
Numbers Game [March 9 for February 29]
Life As a First Draft [Jan 31]

Writers, which authors inform your work?

Zeno’s Massage

Work: PM heat therapy/PM groom & exercise [rp, wv, cx].
Report: After separating the cones to make his maneuvering easier, he did so well that he got ahead of me.

Ramblings for the Day: History reports that at the beginning of the month, the adhesion between underlying scar tissue and the skin on Rodney’s back was an area the size of a quarter [Changes]. I said it and why would I lie? It is easily half that now. So, using a wide-angle lens*, we have made progress. Using the day-to-day zoom, I feel that we will progress infinitely and never reach the end. I’ve broken up half of what was there. I have to break up half of what’s left. Then half of that. Then half of that. And so on.

If I can’t unkink the final knot, have I made it worse? Before I started fiddling, the old injury had frozen into a functional unit. He showed with it for years. Now most of skin moves over the muscle but a small part is still fixed, making for potential under-the-saddle skin wrinkles if I can’t get it all the way undone.

On the other hand, if I do get the skin loosed from the muscle, what then? In her comment [Stinker], Sara Light-Waller of Sacred Touch Healing said, “You’re fortunate that the release is so benign. In some horses that replay of emotional events can lead to some temporarily wild and naughty behavior.” Rodney is by nature an expressive and emotional horse. I have to wonder if he’s saving the fireworks for the final reveal.

(*Can you tell I was taking pictures for Foto Friday this afternoon?)

What long-term piece of progress did your horse finally achieve?