Love by Premonition, Holley Trent (Giveaway/Guest Post/Review)

I asked author Holly Trent about writing across genres and she answered. Also Scroll down for more on her new book. Love by Premonition. I loved it, which is great since I had reviewed it anticipation of her book tour. It is always awkward to have a guest author and not like their book. Well that was not the case, which was lucky for me!

 Channeling Janet

Holley Trent

 Shortly after my husband and I bought our house in Durham, I signed up for my first library card of my adult life. Mostly, I kept returning every week in hopes people had returned books by my favorite Southern authors—Clyde Edgerton and Fannie Flagg.

While trawling that E/F section, I kept passing a clump of interestingly-titled books by an author named Janet Evanovich. I liked series books and wanted to start a new one, but I wanted to read them in order. The library never had the first few books on the shelves, and I hadn’t at that point figured out the library hold system (duh, Holley).

For lack of anything else to grab my attention, one week I picked up one of the mid-series books and gave it a go.

I was hooked. I think I plowed through that entire series in just a couple of months. I’m not ashamed to admit I appreciate lowbrow humor, and those books had me doing belly laughs in bed. Before those books, I didn’t know writers could get away with that. The prose wasn’t all that sophisticated (which actually works well for audiobooks), but man, was the storytelling engaging. I fell in love with the voice, and I started to think, “Hey…maybe I could get away with that, too.”

So, when I wrote Love by Premonition—my cross-genre novel (it’s a light paranormal romantic comedy with a mystery element), I had the lessons I learned from Ms. E in mind.

1)      I wrote it in first person so the reader could bond quickly to my heroine Marcia.

2)      I gave Marcia a large supporting to enhance the world-building.

3)      I set the story in places I’m very familiar (Halifax County, North Carolina and The Triangle) and spotlighted those places’ unique quirks.

4)      I made the cast look and act like the people I know from back home…and had some lighthearted fun at their expenses. Yeah, they’re caricatures of a sort, but definitely grounded in real life.

Marcia and her sister Shane are loosely based on me and my sister. Their interplay is what you’d witness if the two of us were in a room together. …and their ethnic mix? That’s something I shook out of my own family tree—theirs is blurry, because that how mine is.

5)      I interwove a few subplots so the book is a slice of life about Marcia, and not one straight-shot plot. [Which is why the book is hard to categorize. It’s more like an episodic sitcom and not so much a “pure” romance.]

6)      I purposefully developed Marcia into a sort of kook, and gave her a man who’d love her in spite of it. And a man with an accent, at that. No idea why I decided to make McCoy Scottish. That’s just the way he came to me, and I can’t imagine him any other way now.

Love by Premonition is the only book I’ve written thus far that has this sort of style. The rest of my books are more in the realm of true romance and in third-person. And I’ve got to say, although it was the most fun of my books to write, it was the hardest to revise and make digestible (humor is a tough nut to crack).

I don’t know how Janet Evanovich does it book after book. I’d like some of whatever she’s got in her coffee.

Love by Premonition

Holley Trent

Genre: Light Paranormal Romance

Marcia Andrews is a freelance psychic consultant. Sick of living hand to mouth, she accepts a contract with Raleigh Police. A new gang called The Cardinals is terrorizing The Triangle, and Marcia gives the department an edge in tracking them. Help that she is, one cop isn’t so keen on her involvement, and makes sure she knows it.

Detective Nat McCoy would rather see Marcia in his bedroom than the bullpen. The gorgeous Scotsman isn’t the typical chauvinist pig, though. He’s keeping a secret that even the psychic doesn’t anticipate.

A close encounter with a Cardinal’s bullet knocks Marcia off her game when the police need her most. She loses hours to trances and ghosts haunt her sleep. She can hardly function, and everything she thought she knew about playboy McCoy suddenly seems questionable. McCoy thinks he knows the cure for what ails her—him. But can she trust him?

Giveaway: Holly Trent is giving away tour wide 5 ebook copies of Love by Premonition enter a Rafflecopter giveaway

Bookswagger Marcia: I loved, loved this story. It is a light paranormal but the cast is what keeps you involved. All the characters, even the bad guys have layers. I loved, did I say loved the fact Mrs. Trent’s characters were so realistic. I love reads with unique and multicultural characters. Unfortunately they are  easily done wrong or just over the top dot com. Well these are my friends and family if you take away the psychic ability I could easily see these people in my family tree.  The lingo was on point and made the read very funny and as someone who lives in North Carolina I can really tell Holly Trent grew up in the area. You have Marcia (Marsha) a normal woman who through life choices is not what she went to school for, in debt and  has a weird family but normal to her and a hot perspective boyfriend who happens to be her best friend’s partner. Nat is hot and women are drawn to him (there is a secret reason why beyond him just being a hot Scottie). He knows Marcia is meant to be his and it is fun watching the tension and him applying his charm (or inappropriate jokes) to Marcia. This romance is actually about the romance and solving the crime of course. This story showcases the tension between Marcia and Nat, you feel the pull of attraction…You find yourself on the end of your page wondering is this it, is this the time they take it to the bedroom.