Cold-Blooded by Lisa Regan (VNBtM, guest post, excerpt and GIVEAWAY) GFT

I have the pleasure of sharing a guest post from author Lisa Regan, who answers the following question:

ELF:  What was the most difficult thing to overcome on your path to becoming a published author and how did you conquer it?


LR:  For me, the hardest thing was not giving up. My love of writing never went away, but after so many years of rejection, I really started to think that it simply wasn’t meant to be. It took me years and years to produce something I felt was good enough for others to read. Then I started submitting to agents. I started querying in April of 2006 and finally landed my agent in October of 2010. That was just about four and a half years. That was a whole lot of rejection. I had even written a second book and was also querying for that one—and still loading up on rejections. It really got to the point that it seemed like utter madness to even think about sending out another query. There were so many times I asked myself, “What are you doing? This is never going to happen.” Then it did and it was magical and miraculous. Then publisher after publisher rejected my book. Eighteen more months of rejections. Again, I was saying, “What are you doing? This is never going to happen. It’s just not meant to be.”

And then it happened. And it was magical and miraculous.

I sent out my first query in April of 2006 and my first book came out in December of 2012. It was over six long years of raging insecurity and horribly nagging self-doubt. So how did I persevere? I got through it by surrounding myself with amazing people who supported me at every turn. Many of those people are other writers, people who understand the business and who are intimately familiar with the ups and downs. My family and friends were huge cheerleaders, buoying me up through every rejection. I also looked at my daughter every time I wanted to give up and asked myself, “What will I tell her in ten or twenty years when she asks why I gave up on my dream? What kind of example will it set for her if I give up now?” When I was on submissions, I asked my agent to stop contacting me unless she had good news. That helped. But mostly I just kept writing. I kept trying to create something new, to just keep my head in a new book and enjoy the actual writing. It wasn’t always easy but it did help to remember why I was doing it in the first place—for the love of it.


*******************************



Cold-Blooded
by Lisa Regan

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

GENRE: Mystery/Suspense

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BLURB:

Fourteen years ago, high school track star Sydney Adams was gunned down in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park. The investigation yielded useless clues, and the case went cold. But homicide detective Augustus Knox never gave up on finding Sydney’s killer. Now, retired from the police force and with only months to live, he enlists the help of private investigator Jocelyn Rush to clear the case once and for all.

Armed with little more than a theory as to who murdered Sydney, Jocelyn tries to lure a killer into the open. But unraveling the mystery means facing off against a cunning psychopath whose ruthlessness knows no bounds. When more bodies start to pile up, Jocelyn has to decide just how far she’s willing to go to catch a cold-blooded killer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~


EXCERPT
“So tell me,” Jocelyn said to Knox. “About your case.”

Knox cleared his throat as if he were about to address a room full of people. “The victim was Sydney Adams. She was seventeen years old, a track and field star for Franklin West High School. She was a senior there.”

“The charter school over by Drexel University?” Anita asked. “The one where they had that shooting in 2006?”

“Yeah, that one,” Knox answered. “Sydney was only a month or so from graduating. She left her grandmother’s house around seven in the evening for her nightly run through Fairmount Park. She always ran the same route. She didn’t get very far that night, so I think she was killed close to seven-thirty, although I was never able to get the medical examiner to say so. He would only give us a four-hour range. He said Syd died sometime between seven and eleven.”

“Where in the park?” Jocelyn asked. Fairmount Park was really a collection of outdoor parks that covered over 9,000 acres in the city.

“She started her run around the athletic field on Boxer’s Trail. Not too far from her house.”

“She lived in Strawberry Mansion?”

“Yeah, over by 31st and Dauphin. Anyway, she was shot in the back three times at close range. There was a bullet lodged in the tree, so there were four shots in all. .22s. There were no shell casings, so we think the killer picked them up and took them.”

BUY LINKS:

Amazon

iTunes
Nook
Kobo
Amazon UK
~~~~~~~~~~~~~



AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Lisa Regan is an Amazon bestselling crime/suspense novelist. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in English and Master of Education Degree from Bloomsburg University. She is a member of Sisters In Crime, Mystery Writers of America and International Thriller Writers. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and daughter. Her debut novel, Finding Claire Fletcher won Best Heroine and was runner up in Best Novel in the eFestival of Words Best of the Independent eBook Awards for 2013. Her second novel, Aberration won Best Twist in the 2014 eFestival of Words Best of the Independent Book Awards. Her third novel, Hold Still was released by Thomas & Mercer in 2014 and has been translated into German. She is at work on her fifth novel. Find out more at www.lisaregan.com.



Website
Amazon author page
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads

******************************


GIVEAWAY


a Rafflecopter giveaway


The tour dates can be found here