Sandra Robbins Interview

Q: Let me start with asking you to tell us a little bit about yourself.

A. I live in Tennessee with my husband, and we have four children and five grandchildren. I am a former teacher and principal in the Tennessee public schools and now write full time.

Q: When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

A. I always had a dream that someday I would write a book, but I kept putting it off. I was busy working and raising a family and just couldn’t find the time to sit down and do it. One night I realized that life is short and that if I wanted to write, I’d better get started. I sat down at the computer with the idea of a story in my head and began to write. I knew nothing about the craft of writing. I just knew God was telling me to write. That first book never sold, but I learned so much from writing it.

Q: Could you give us the highlights of your professional writing career including how you got your first writing break?

A. When I began to write, I searched the internet for organizations and conferences that would guide me in the direction I should go. I found American Christian Romance Writers that later changed its name to American Christian Fiction Writers. I joined the organization, got in a critique group, and went to my first conference in 2005. While there I met a writer named Susan Downs. A few months later Susan was made editor for a new line of mysteries at Barbour Publishing. I submitted a proposal to her for a mystery titled Pedigreed Bloodlines, and she bought the book. The day she called I was at work, and I’m sure my shout of joy was heard all over the building.

Q: Would you tell us about your current book release?

A: My current release is Mountain Peril from Steeple Hill’s Love Inspired Suspense line. It is set on a university campus in the Appalachian Mountains. It is the story of a young woman trying to put her life back together after her fianc?’s death while they were in graduate school. She has returned to work at Webster University even though her best friend was murdered when they were students there years before. When one of her present students is also murdered, she finds herself the center of a madman’s killing spree. It seems anyone who gets too close to her ends up dead.

Q: Mountain Peril takes place at Webster University. Your depiction of the inner workings of a college were so real. How did you decide to write about a college campus?

A. I grew up in a small college town and have been around a university all my life. My husband and I both graduated from there, and he worked on campus until his retirement. I also have taught adjunct courses there. Our son is now the university’s Director of Public Safety, and my granddaughter is a student there. With a college having played such an important role in my family’s life, it just seemed natural to set one of my stories on a campus.

Q: Which character in Mountain Peril, Danielle or Jack, can you most relate to and why?

A. Both Danielle and Jack had problems that I have never experienced, but I really felt drawn to Jack. Maybe it’s the mother in me that felt sorry for the little boy in Jack who longed for the love his father never gave him and who grieved for the mother with her mind lost in the darkness of Alzheimer’s. His torment that his wife wouldn’t have died in a car crash with another man if he’d been a better husband made me want to assure him that he couldn’t be responsible for other people’s choices. I knew there was a tender heart underneath his hard facade, and I wanted Danielle to find the man I knew was hiding there.

Q: Where do your always-riveting suspense/mystery plots come from?

A. I really don’t have a diabolical mind when it comes to my stories. They emerge from hours of plotting and planning what’s going into a book. Then when I think they’re ready, they get tweaked by my agent and my editor until they become the finished product. I also am always watching for interesting stories that I might be able to use parts of in stories.

Q: Mountain Peril is your second romantic suspense book following on the heels of the award nominated Final Warning. Is there another romantic suspense book scheduled for release that we can look forward to?

A. Yes. I just completed a manuscript for another Steeple Hill book that will release near Christmas. It is Yuletide Defender. In this book, two gangs have taken control of their neighborhoods, and murders of gang members are occurring on a regular basis. Rachel Long, a newspaper reporter, receives information from a confidential source that the police are wrong in thinking the gangs have declared war on each other. He says there is a vigilante on the prowl who is killing gang members in hopes of inciting a war so that they will kill each other off. Rachel and Detective Matt Franklin must put a stop to this vigilante before the streets of the city erupt in all-out war.

Q: What inspires you to write?

A. I’ve been an avid reader all my life and always have a book I’m reading. The love of the written word, a story that cries to be told, the desire to transport a reader into another world for a short time-these are all inspiring to me. The greatest inspiration, though, is knowing that God is going to scatter the words He gives me in the lives of people I will never meet. My prayer is that He will plant those seeds and nurture them to help change lives.

Q: How has being a published novelist differed from your expectations of the profession?

A: I didn’t realize how much hard work is involved in this profession. I suppose I was na?ve and thought I’d write a book, it would be published, and I would get money. Not so! There are rewrites, edits, study questions to write, interviews to do, and marketing. All of these things are enjoyable, but they do take time. If a person wanting to write thinks they can sit in an office and just write, they are wrong. The work increases after the book is written.

Q: Would you share with us what you are working on now?

A. I’m working on a romantic suspense series that is set on a barrier island off the coast of North Carolina. It deals with the adventures of members of an island family. I also have had several readers ask me if I was going to write a story with two secondary characters, Dean Harwell and Gwen Anderson, from Final Warning. I’m plotting a story right now that deals with their story. I was really honored that my characters appealed to readers so much that they’d want to follow them further.

Q: Would tell us about a few of your favorite fiction books you’ve read recently and tell us why you enjoyed them?

A. I had never read Stephen King until recently when I decided that I had to know why The Stand is considered such a masterful work. I read the unabridged version and was blown away by the story. I don’t understand why I put off reading this book. His characters were so alive, and the story of good versus evil held me spellbound for the entire book. I’m going to reread it just to see what I missed. After reading it, I searched for the DVD of the television performance and found it through a private dealer on Amazon. I wasn’t disappointed in the film either and had to chuckle when I saw Stephen King in a few of the scenes.

Q: What is something your readers might be surprised to learn about you?

A. Readers might be surprised to learn that my first college degree was in music education and that I studied piano performance. Through my college piano teacher, I can trace a line of piano teachers back to Beethoven. I think that’s neat.

Q: When you’re not writing what do you like to do?

A. I enjoy spending time with my children and grandchildren. I also enjoy going to plays, especially Broadway productions. Antiquing is another favorite pastime of mine.

Q: Anything else you’d like to tell or share with us?

A. I would like to tell my readers that my greatest desire is that they will come to know the peace I draw from my life verse Isaiah 40:31-But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.