RELEASE DAY! Meet Sandra Brannan, author of In the Belly of Jonah

So I've been telling you all about In the Belly of Jonah for the last few days and finally you get a chance to get to know the fabulous author behind it all, Sandra Brannan!

I'm sure you will like her just as much as I do!

Welcome Sandra!

Tell us about In the Belly of Jonah and the other books in the series.

My novel In the Belly of Jonah is a fast-paced mystery with what I hope readers will find to be a likable protagonist and an intricately woven narrative brimming with bizarre yet believable twists. The first in a series, the book lays the groundwork for Liv Bergen, amateur sleuth, and her budding romantic interest in FBI Agent Streeter Pierce. Set in the mountain states, the Liv Bergen and Streeter Pierce adventures are oddly successful as a team and the attraction between them, titillating.

I developed the series around morphed biblical titles to highlight the dichotomic nature of Liv Bergen’s structured mind to her elusive faith, often underscoring this concept by selecting unexpected heroes to help solve crimes of unsuspected villains.   For example, when a woman who was destined to be Liv’s future sister-in-law is murdered in Lot’s Return to Sodom, a family friend casts a light in deeper corners than the FBI’s singular focus on a motorcycle gang member as the suspect.  In Noah’s Rainy Day, Liv’s nephew Noah witnesses a crime yet struggles to communicate what he saw because of his limitations with severe cerebral palsy.

You come from a large family, what was that like?

My parents had nine children – I was the seventh.   Living in the woods, far into the outskirts of town, our house was built by my dad, uncle and grandpa.  My parents had their own room.  The oldest three girls shared a room. My two brothers had their own bedroom, but shared a bathroom with the four youngest girls.  I shared a room with three other sisters and LOTS of dolls.  Home cooked meals, a milk machine, the smell of pine trees and cigars, hand-me-downs, Tonka trucks, fights over pantyhose, long lines for the bathroom, bike rides, military marches through the quarry, and lots and lots of memories, love and laughter. Lucky me!  And what great fodder for my hunger to create memorable characters.

After our own adventures, we’ve all chosen to move back to Rapid City as adults and remain best friends. Today I am married to the love of my life, a Vietnam Veteran with a Purple Heart of gold. We’re a blended family with four sons ranging in ages of twenty years. We also have three adorable grandbabies (so far).

Why have you chosen to write a mystery series set in the mining industry?

I grew up in the world of mining.  Literally.  My childhood home was nestled amongst three limestone quarries, a stone’s throw from each.  I never understood stereotypes of our industry because most miners I know are incredibly concerned for the environment and the communities where they operate.  By choosing a setting to my mysteries that I know and love so well, I hope to shed a little light on my world.

You have been a top executive in your family business working your way up from day laborer to running one of the divisions of the mining company. Can you tell use about your company and your experience?

The family company that I work for, a mining, mineral processing, ready mix and concrete block company, was founded by my grandpa, dad and uncle in 1944.  My dad and uncle sent home their earnings from WWII and subsequently the Korean War to help Grandpa Pete, a WWI veteran, build the company while they served our country.

Through high school, college and graduate school, I worked for the mine in the summers. I went on to work for Boeing for a few years, then started and sold my own company selling computer software. At the age of 28 and eight-months pregnant, I took over a Colorado division of our mining company that was struggling. Ten mines and 50 workers with families depending on them to make a living, I had to perform. It was a scary, but rewarding 10 years spent turning that division around to fit our company’s culture.

Today, I am Vice President Corporate Development for the company, but have carved out some time to write my novels, which is a passion of mine.

You’re pretty tough like Liv Bergen, the protagonist in your series. What are some of the things that have happened to you over the years that could easily be part of a mystery-thriller?

I don’t know if I’m tough, but I sure have found myself in some tough situations.  The first week into my new job, 28 and pregnant, taking over the Colorado division riddled with problems, I was served with a citizen lawsuit that drew national attention and was later dismissed.  With Colorado being one of the most beautiful states in the nation, mining is far from being the easiest business to operate, particularly when it comes to permitting.   As the manager, I received numerous threats, including letters and phone calls.  Eventually as I met with neighbors and invited those individuals to our operations, I realized most of the animosity toward mining was founded on misinformation, old ideologies, or broad brushed generalizations of operators because of one player taking short cuts.  Once we have a chance to welcome people into our world, clearer heads and more positive attitudes about mining prevail.

After Colorado, my success with sticktoitivity led me to spearhead two more business turnarounds in steel related divisions and eventually earned me a spot on the senior manager team as the Vice President of Corporate Development.  My job is to train our management team and to replenish reserves that supply our operations for the coming generations of at least a hundred years, a gift our parents and grandparents gave to our generation.

 What advice would you give aspiring authors?

I’m no expert, but I can tell you three things made a HUGE difference for me: 

Be a bumblebee.  Our mom used to tell us that the bumblebee was not aerodynamically designed to fly, but no one ever told the bee.  No matter what people tell you or how much they try to convince you otherwise, continue to pursue your dream.  If you love to write, then write!    Even if you weren’t trained as a writer (which I wasn’t), write anyway.

Sticktoitivity!  If you haven’t seen Walt Disney’s So Dear To My Heart, go rent or buy it and you’ll know what I’m talking about.  I’ve been writing since my youngest son was a baby, burning the midnight oils in a therapy I never knew existed.   I didn’t let rejections from potential agents deter my enthusiasm or whittle away at my persistence to improve my writing.

Write, write, write and read, read, read!  Regardless of whether or not you find an agent or a publisher right away, keep writing and learn by reading the books by authors in the genre you most want to emulate in your writing.

Thank you Sandra!

Today is release day! Please check out her website for a list of events she will be doing. She may be in your area. You can get her book at Borders, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon just to name a few. If you like what you are reading about her, convince your local independent bookstore to carry her book. 

It takes a village, people. You got get great books in people's hands!

Thank you so much for stopping by these last few days and getting to know Sandra and Liv and read about In the Belly of Jonah. I hope you all will look for it and read it! 

Oh yeah, I could probably help one lucky reader with that!

GIVEAWAY TIME!

If you would like to win a copy of In the Belly of Jonah, please leave a comment, your email address and heck, wanna become a follower too, if you are not already?

Simple as that. I will pick a winner on Tuesday, September 7!

Do it! Sign up for it! Be a part of the cool club. Come on...

:)

Happy Reading and thanks, as always, for stopping by!

red headed book child

QA with Liv Bergen from In the Belly of Jonah by Sandra Brannan

Today I am pleased to welcome Liv Bergen, the smart, tough protagonist from In the Belly of Jonah. If you haven't already done so, please read my last two posts; one is the book trailer and the second is my full review of In the Belly of Jonah. These will give a small taste of who Liv is and 

the world in which she lives in.

If you have already read the other posts, then enjoy getting to know Liv! 

I hope you like her as much as I did.

Welcome Liv!

1. You have a very interesting and unique career, not one that many 

know too much about. 

Could you tell us a little about what you do?

I am a miner.  Not a gold miner like we often imagine spitting chaw through his teeth while panning for gold in the creeks and not an underground miner where they tunnel underground like Gopher on Winnie the Pooh.  The type mining we do is non-metallic surface mining.  In other words, we find layers of minerals that are close to the surface, remove the layer, and then reclaim the land as we move along that layer.  We do concurrent reclamation, which means we reclaim as we mine.  It's kind of like eating the top layer off a birthday cake and re-frosting it before your mother finds out!  If she didn't know better from the shorter cake, she would never know we'd eaten that layer.  AND we have the artistic freedom to decorate the cake even prettier than it was before.  My favorite flavor cake is high calcium limestone, which can be used for roads, foundations, animal feeds, water filtration and purification, air quality improvement as a scrubber for sulfur dioxide, stabilizing acidic soils, and even for purifying sugar in the beat manufacturing process.  That's right.. I mine limestone for the sugar industry.  

2. You come from quite a big family. Do you use your experience as a member of a large family to help you be the boss you are? Wrangling in the troops, so to speak?

My experience as the seventh of nine children certainly helped hone my managerial skills.  The picture that first came to mind when you asked the question was a time when I was about six years old and my siblings had encircled a skunk, closing in with slow, steady steps, until we trapped it under a box.  We had confused the skunk so much, it didn't think to spray us (although my dad wasn't as fortunate when he lifted the box later to release the poor thing).  My siblings taught me the power of teamwork, the importance of communication and establishing a shared vision, and most importantly, learning how to disagree while remaining compassionate and loving each other at the end of every unpredictable day.  They also taught me the importance of individuality and not losing yourself in a large crowd.  Without individual contributions, teams collapse under the weight of the unproductive.  As a boss, I applaud individual contribution to a shared vision of the team.   

3. What advice would you give to a young woman about to head out into the world? Did you have any strong role models who helped you become the tough woman you are today?

My strongest role models are most certainly my parents.  As a woman, my Irish Catholic mother, Jeanne Kiara Bergen, embodies the all-American immigrant and the spirit of the Dakotas.  Strong yet feminine, tough yet resilient,organized yet serendipitous, task-oriented yet willing to drop everything for those in need.  Oddly, even though my dad taught me everything I know about business, it's my mother who taught me how to be a woman in a man's industry.  Advice I would give a woman today would have to be the lessons I learned watching my mother raise nine children:  1) Work hard and do whatever everyone else refuses to do... joyfully, 2) Be grateful, 3) Be yourself because everyone else is taken, and 4) Be a bumble bee (you know, the whole scientific experts saying bees are no aerodynamically designed to fly, but bees don't know it, so they go ahead an fly anyway... don't let anyone tell you that you can't).

       
4. What attracts you to the landscape of Colorado?  Would you ever live any where else?

I love the Rocky Mountains!  Who doesn't?  But the truth is, I didn't choose Colorado.  I chose to follow my passion, which was mining, and was lucky enough to be offered the opportunity to work at the mine on the foothills of the Rockies.  Wherever I'm needed, I will gladly call the next place home.  As my younger brother Jens says, "Have bags, will travel."  Keep in mind, in our industry, we have to go where the good Lord put the minerals and of course, most of the best geological deposits are in remote, isolated locations, far from areas where our ancestors tended to settle when they moved West.  They tended to curse rocks and move toward water and farm ground.  There's some good mines and great people where you're from... maybe I can pursue something in Minnesota?   I'm thinking for the time being, though, I want to stay put in Fort Collins... after all, it's close to Denver, CO, where Streeter Pierce works at the FBI. 

 
5. Living in and around such beauty and working hard all week, how would you describe your perfect day off?

Hard to believe, but the perfect day off for me starts with an awesome morning.  I love to wake up early and enjoy a great cup of coffee, a good cardio work out, like running outside in any weather, and an awesome breakfast... like steak and eggs or a meatloaf sandwich.   When a day starts out like that, it's always perfect!    II love going to movies and to dinner, but I'd prefer not to go alone.  At home, I turn on the television or music, but I do it for the noise, since I grew up being used to lots of people.  I don't do 'alone' all that well, so I'm thinking about getting a dog or a roommate.   Unless you have some thoughts for me on a single man who would put up with all my idiosyncrasies. 

6. Being a strong, independent woman, how would we know if we ticked off Liv Bergen? What's your tell?

Oh, dear!  You ask tough questions!  I hate to say it, but I have a terrible problem with swearing.  Mostly I swear out of habit and when I'm really scared or shocked.  I have tried the New Year's Resolution thing, the rubber band around my wrist to snap every time I swear, the quarter in the jar, EVERYTHING and I still have trouble breaking the habit.  As far as when I get ticked off, I think it would be easy to tell.  I pace.  Alot.  I've worn out many steel-toed boots pacing back and forth when I'm ticked off, fists slammed on my hips.  Not very attractive, huh?  But I really try to do that in the privacy of my office or home when no one can see me.  It doesn't happen often and it takes quite a bit to tick me off, but when I do, watch out.  What ticks me off the most is bullies.  With a bully, I'm a buzz saw. 

Thank you, Liv!

Be sure to check out Sandra Brannan's website here for more info on her book tour and 

where you can buy the book!

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

Book Trailer for In the Belly of Jonah by Sandra Brannan

Dear fellow bloggers,

I had the pleasure of meeting mystery author, Sandra Brannan at the Book Blogger Convention in NYC this past May. Before the actual convention started we were served breakfast and were able to hop around and mingle with other bloggers, publishers, authors and publicists. I got there a little late and sat down at one table with Jenny from Take Me Away, Jennifer from Crazy for Books, Melissa from The Betty and Boo Chronicles and Sandra Brannan, author of 

In the Belly of Jonah.

We had a blast getting to know one another talking about books, blogging, NYC and life. Sandra and I were sitting next to one another and got along quite famously. We discovered we were both huge fans of mystery/thrillers and talked about our favorite authors. I recommended Nicci French and Laura Lippman and she talked about how she knew Harlan Coben. Cool, huh?

Anyway, it wasn't until we got into the convention and sat down that Jenny's husband handed me the book, In the Belly of Jonah. Sandra was passing them out.  I said, "What's this?" He said it was Sandra's book. I, apparently, had not had enough coffee at that point of the breakfast and missed that part of the conversation where she was the author of a mystery book!

I was very excited to read it, not only because I am a fan of the genre, but because Sandra was such a delightful person that I really wanted to support her work. It really hit me that the purpose of the Book Blogger Convention was not just to promote bloggers but to promote the success of all writers. We are all hear to support one another. It was a great feeling.

The next day I was gearing up to leave and out of all of the books I picked up at BEA and the Convention, I chose Sandra's book to read on the airplane. And I am so glad I did. I loved it.

Over the next few days you will see several posts from me showcasing this title.

Monday: My review

Tuesday: Q&A with the featured character, Liv Bergen.

Wednesday: Q &A with Sandra and a Giveaway. RELEASE DAY!

Today, I give you a sneak peak at the book trailer to get your juices flowing!

Click here.

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child