Please welcome Suzanna J Linton...

...to my blog this week. Thank you so much for being here today Suzanna and I'd like to know all about your latest book...

SJL  My latest release is a novella called Calculated Magic.  It takes place after Secret Burdens, which is Book #3 of my Stories of Lorst Series.  It follows the adventure of a wizard in exile whose actions can affect the outcome of a meeting of enemy kings.

AW   What first got you into writing and why?

SJL  I first got into writing to cope with living in a violent home.  My parents fought a lot and it oftentimes became physical.  However, when I was in high school, I read Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonflight.  Something about the novel and its world made me want to write novels for others to read.

AW  You write Fantasy.  Is it all imagination or do you also undertake research?

SJL  Both!  Imagination is the starting place but I also do research into the practical stuff, like how people used to keep clean, how did soldiers in armor fight, and things like that.  I feel that grounding the novel in reality, in things that the reader can easily see being done, makes it more believable when the magic shows up.

AW  I notice that you describe your writing as ‘magic, mayhem, and mystery, with a touch of romance’.  Have you ever dabbled, or thought about writing stories, in other genres?  A pure romance perhaps or a crime story?

SJL  You know, I’ve thought about writing a mystery.  I started thinking about it when I wrote Secret Burdens because the main character is essentially investigating an attempted murder.  I really enjoyed setting out the clues and the red herrings.  I also love those true stories about weird ways people have died or gone missing and surely that sort of interest would come in handy for a purely mystery novel.  Knowing me, though, I’d probably give it a touch of the supernatural.

AW  Famous authors, such as Roald Dahl and Dylan Thomas, had a special space for writing.  Do you have a writing ‘shed’ of your own?

SJL  I would love to have a writing shed, complete with electricity so that it would be bearable in the summer.  I do have an office where I go for my writing and other work.  It’s small, painted a lovely shade of purple, and my desk does not face the window or I would end up staring at the trees for hours.

AW  Finally, if you had a whole afternoon to yourself and could choose to spend it with any one individual, living or dead or a character from a book, who would it be, and what would you want to discuss?

SJL  I would spend it with my mother, who passed away eleven years ago.  I would ask her all the things I wish I had asked when she was alive, about her life before she met my father and things like that.  And I would get her recipe for cornbread dressing.

AW   Oh Ok.  But, now you are just going to have tell me what cornbread dressing is.

Cornbread dressing courtesy of S J Linton

SJL  Cornbread is similar to bread but made with corn meal and without any yeast.  It can be sweet or not.  It can have things added to it like broccoli or jalepenos but not when it's going to be used for dressing.  Cornbread dressing is not like a salad dressing.  In the Southern USA, this baked dish is always served with turkey at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  So, I suppose dressing is meant as another way of saying "accompanies".  In the northern USA, there is cornbread stuffing, which is cooked inside the turkey.  But in the southern US, that is considered an abomination. Cornbread dressing is made using cornbread, stock, onions, celery, and spices, then baked in the oven.  Oftentimes, people like to top their serving with giblet gravy, which is gravy made from the giblets of the turkey.  Every Southern family has its own cherished cornbread dressing recipe and I never got my mother's before she passed.  All I know is the house smelled of sage as the dressing baked.

AW   Thank you Suzanna.  And that dressing sounds absolutely scrumptious!

about the author… Suzanna grew up in (very) rural Orangeburg County, South Carolina.  She was fed a steady diet of catfish, tall tales, and ghost stories.  After reading the Dragonriders of Pern books in high school, Suzanna decided she wanted to be a writer.

However, after many, many rejection letters, she decided to reject traditional publishing.  She self-published her first novel, Clara, in 2013.  In 2014, she quit her job at a library to write full time.  

Today, she continues to live in South Carolina with her husband and assorted pets.

about the book… Bruin, exiled to Arvent, starts life over as a simple charm-seller. That is, until he learns of Emmerich’s plan to meet Precene in a historic summit of kings.

In this game of secrets and alliances, the one wildcard is Galeen.  The small coastal kingdom is dying under the stranglehold of Tier.  The actions of the Crown Prince Gentius could be the difference between peace and war.  Bruin decides to go to Gentius and offer his services in the hope of preventing disaster.  However, only smugglers can pass through Tier’s blockade.  He buys passage on one such ship for himself and his newly acquired apprentice.

During the voyage, Bruin discovers the ship carries precious cargo stolen from Lorst. It’s destined for persons unknown—a person that might be Gentius.  Caught out in the ocean with nowhere to go, Bruin must choose between what is convenient for his mission and what is right.

You can get all of Suzanna’s books Here  or from Amazon

You can follow Suzanna on her  Website and on Instagram