Spotlight on Alana Lorens

I’m happy to welcome back Wild Rose Press author Alana Lorens. Today, Alana shares her creative journey and her new release, Cruel Charade.

Here’s Alana

I knew I would be an author from the time I was eight years old.

My first story was a more journalistic-leaning adventure called, “My Cat Moonbeam Caught and Ate a Rabbit.” Apparently in gory, step by step detail. I don’t have a copy of it, but I do remember my mother carrying on about it at great length. She even told my teacher, who made me read it to the whole class.

Jump forward five years, and I am all of 14 and my writing tastes graduated from Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time (one of my all-time favorite books) and The Island of the Blue Dolphins to romantic suspense. I read everything by Mary Stewart, Victoria Holt, Jane Aiken Hodge, and Dorothy Eden. Back in those days, romantic suspense was more about the mystery and danger than it was about sex. I knew in my heart I could write stories like this, and I wrote my first, a terribly Gothic time travel story about a young woman who enters an old house and is mysteriously transported back a hundred years, becomes the governess, falls in love with the young master of the house…you know. Pretty formula stuff. I DO have a copy of that. Oh boy. What the heck? I was 14.

Sure this was the next great thing, I packed it up (yes, we still sent snail mail submissions then) and mailed it to the Romance Editor at Doubleday. Looking back on that now, I’m flabbergasted. What’s even more amazing is that in 1970, a 14-year-old wannabe author without an agent could be read by a Doubleday editor and receive a polite and encouraging rejection letter, personally written and signed by said editor.

I wrote another novel in high school, and was mentored with one as a senior thesis in college. I got the chance to be a newspaper reporter in south Florida, which gave me a solid writing base over the several years I worked there. I wrote a number of articles and short stories that sold in bits and pieces. I took a break and went to law school, and in 1999 I managed to sell a self-help divorce recovery book to Impact Publishers in California.

But it wasn’t until 2009, when I was over 50, that I found a publisher for my novel-length fiction. As Lyndi Alexander (since I was still practicing law under my own name!) I sold THE ELF QUEEN. The urban fantasy went on into four more books in the series, as well as another sci-fi series and more—16 more.

When I decided to write romance and suspense, I picked the name Alana Lorens. I’ve now got a half- dozen novels under that name, including historical romance, romantic suspense and even a supernatural thriller!

CRUEL CHARADE combines a lot of these pieces of my history all in one. Bet Lenard is a lawyer practicing in Miami, as I did. She is fighting a mysterious disease that causes her chronic pain, as I have. Fortunately, I got my answers because it happened 20 years later. Back in 1996, the answers weren’t there yet. But neither of those is her worst problem right now. Someone wants her dead.

Excerpt

“Did you tell the detectives what Rich said?”

“No. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. Until he confesses. In full.”

She stayed only an hour, distracted by the creeping pain. Maybe Mela was right. I should recuperate at home. I’ve got more control over my work environment there. She gave Mela the satisfaction of knowing she’d been right, then took her laptop and a briefcase of mail and case files home with her.

At home, she marched swiftly to the door and let herself in, locking up behind her. A quick trip to change into a loose caftan necessitated washing her face and changing the bandages yet again. She stared at the angry red blisters with a mixture of disgust and rage. Who were those people and how dare they? How dare they?

Too uncomfortable and anxious to work, she debated calling Hyacinth, but settled for a thorough meditation with the Five Things. A Vicodin dialed back her pain, and a shot of Jameson’s topped it off. Instead of working, she curled up in her living room chair and watched a TV rerun of Heathers.

She’d always identified with Veronica. Part of the wrestling cheerleader squad, Bet had played the game just long enough to establish it on her high school resume, then she’d left the group. These days, I’d just rip the rug out from under those mean girls. She’d purposely chosen a small school, Muskingum College, and joined a sorority dedicated to serving others rather than being popular.

Bad enough still having to play games as an adult. At least now, I have weapons of my own.

Her first weapon for the evening was a spritz of Joy, by Jean Patou, a perfume Rich had bought her years before. The combination of jasmine and rose was once a favorite of Jackie Kennedy; it certainly was Rich’s favorite, too.

Her second weapon was a short maize-and-navy dress with wide diagonal stripes, a real eyecatcher. If Rich thought he’d shove Bet under the rug—or perhaps the bus?—he had another think coming.

Her most valuable weapon would be the small recorder she slipped into her clutch before she left. If she had the chance to get information that could finally give her the upper hand over Rich, she intended to grab it.

Maybe I’m a Heather after all…

Author Bio

Alana Lorens (aka Barbara Mountjoy) has been a published writer for over 45 years, including seven years as a reporter/editor at the South Dade News Leader in Homestead, Florida, after working as a server, a pizza maker, and a floral designer. She writes non-fiction, romance, adventure, and suspense novels. She is the author of the Pittsburgh Lady Lawyers series, which draws on her years as a family law attorney in the state of Pennsylvania. One of the causes close to her heart came from those years as well–the fight against domestic violence. She volunteered for many years at women’s shelters and provided free legal services to women and children in need. Alana resides in North Carolina, and she loves her time in the smoky blue mountains. She lives with her daughter, who is the youngest of her seven children, and she is ruled by three crotchety old cats, and six kittens of various ages.