Hi everyone! Diana here. Today’s guest is Abbie Roads whose new, and fantastic thriller, Race the Darkness is out, TODAY! I got a chance to see it early as a reviewer, and I will say you’ll be up all night turning pages. She does an incredible job of meshing unforgettable characters, bound in their own pain, with gripping atmospheric settings. Against this eerie landscape, good and evil cohabitate, and literally anything can happen. Before I turn the con over to Abbie, and she tells us about her backwards approach to writing, here is a little about her.
But first, committing to Abbie’s backwards state of mind I’ll post right here at the beginning, instead of the end ;-), that if you leave a comment about whether you’re a straight-up, backwards, or in-between kind of person, you’ll be entered to win a copy of Race the Darkness.
Five things About Abbie Roads:
- She loves Snicker Parfaits. Gotta start with what’s most important, right?
- She writes dark emotional books featuring damaged characters, but always gives her hero and heroine a happy ending… after torturing them for three hundred pages.
- By day she’s a mental health counselor known for her blunt, honest style of therapy. At night she burns up the keyboard. Well… Burn might be too strong a word. She at least sits with her hands poised over the keyboard, waiting for inspiration to strike. And when it does—the keyboard might get a little warm.
- She can’t stand it when people drive slowly in the passing lane. Just saying. That’s major annoying. Right?
- She loves taking pictures of things she thinks are pretty.
Being Backwards
by Abbie Roads
Don’t let anyone tell you there’s only one way to do things. I’m a pro at doing things backwards.
I drink decaf in the morning when I wake up. I have caffeine after noon. I find that drinking a cup of coffee in the afternoon gives me enough oomph to get through the day and on into evening.
I read the ending of a book before I read the book. I gotta make sure the characters have a melt my heart happily-ever-after.
When shopping for a book online, I only read the negative reviews. Of course the blurb has to capture me first, but then I’m digging through those negative reviews. I’ve bought many a book because of a negative review. Too much sex and violence = automatic buy for me. The hero was an alphahole = automatic buy for me. I love alphaholes! This book was too much like something J.R. Ward would write = automatic buy for me. I LOVE J.R. Ward. See what I’m saying about these negative reviews influencing me to purchase?
And the ultimate thing I did backwards…
Wrote my books backwards… Sort of… Let me explain.
I wrote Race the Darkness, edited it for a year, and then realized it sucked. But I didn’t know why it sucked. I thought I had a good plot. I thought I had good characters. I just couldn’t figure out what was wrong with the story. And I knew something was wrong.
So I moved on and wrote Hunt the Dawn. I wrote it. I edited it. Then realized it sucked too. That’s when I discovered Margie Lawson who taught me exactly what I needed to know to make my books great. So I re-wrote Hunt the Dawn. Only about 10% of the original story remained after I finished it.
After I polished Hunt the Dawn, I sent it out on submission to agents (I got my agent from Hunt the Dawn) and then revisited Race the Darkness. By that time, I’d grown so much as a writer that I realized Race the Darkness needed to be completely rewritten. So I trashed the old version. I mean trashed it. Gone. No more. And rewrote Race the Darkness from scratch. The only thing that remained the same was Isleen and Xander’s names. That’s it. The plot changed. The character profiles changed. Everything. Not one thing from that old book remained.
So backwards…
I believe everyone deserves to be unique and do things her own way. For me, I’ll always work through life upside down and inside out. That’s just how I roll.
Don’t forget to leave a comment about whether you’re a straight-up, backwards, or in-between kind of person so you’ll be entered to win a copy of Race the Darkness. The prize winner will be announced in the comment section and must live in the U.S. to qualify.
RACE THE DARKNESS (Out today!)
Cursed with a terrible gift… 
Criminal investigator Xander Stone doesn’t have to question you-he can hear your thoughts. Scarred by lightning, burdened with a power that gives him no peace, Xander struggles to maintain his sanity against the voice that haunts him day and night-the voice of a woman begging him to save her.
A gift that threatens to engulf them
Isleen Walker has long since given up hope of escape from the nightmare of captivity and torture that is draining her life, her mind, and her soul. Except…there is the man in her feverish dreams, the strangely beautiful man who beckons her to freedom and wholeness. And when he comes, if he comes, it will take all their combined fury and faith to overcome a madman bent on fulfilling a deadly prophecy.
