This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. p.m. will be awarding a Celtic bracelet (US only) to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
Our pet was very interested in p.m.’s pets and had some questions— pull up a cushion and get comfortable as we bring you Dog Dish.
So, your human writes books. Does this mean she is home all day and easy to access? Elaborate if necessary.
Oh, is that what she’s doing? I wondered why she sits in her chair all day, every day, and just bangs her fingers around. I thought it was the worst piano playing I’d ever heard.
But I have to say our peep does take good care of us. She installed doggie doors all over the house so we can go outside any time we want. We enjoy rushing outside like a pack of dogs (oh, that’s right, we are a pack of dogs) and barking our heads off at neighborhood cats and the neighborhood in general.
What are your techniques for distracting your human during crucial writing moments, just because it’s fun? Whose primary job is it? What do the rest of you do to support the one doing the main distracting?
This is a tall order, so we take turns. Simone the collie is great at sticking her big, long nose on the keyboard so our peep has to stop and look up. Eddie the Jack Russell likes to roll his adorable eyes as he leans on the chair arm. And Lucy, a Jack Russell – Basset mix, is terrific at whining at our peep’s feet. Once our peep stops the piano playing—uh, typing—we all come over and nudge her and eye the cookie jar.
What indignities and neglect have you suffered because of your human’s writing career?
Oh, the indignities! We’ve tried to phone Oprah a number of times and we don’t know why she won’t take our call. Sometimes our dinner isn’t ready until a whole half hour after we’re ready for it. Sometimes Lucy will pee on the carpet behind Mommy, and she won’t even stop typing! (Though she did rename her Lucy Loo, and that’s not a typo.) Sometimes she’ll pet us and not even look at us, but one hand will continue to type. Now that’s neglect if we ever saw it.
Tell me about the animals in your human’s fiction. How often do they appear and how big a part do they play?
Well, Simone wants to point out that she is in the Black Swamp Mysteries series and she hasn’t received her first paycheck for it. She is the collie who belongs to the neighbors next door (the homicide detective, ooh, scary). In Dylan’s Song, Dylan is reunited with his border collie named Shep in Ireland and brings her back home. And Simone got her agent to write a letter to Mommy asking why a border collie, and why does Simone have to live next door? Then she was reminded that Simone is shy, and besides the border collie gets creepy.
Then another border collie shows up in The Tempest Murders. This one is named Henry. What is it with border collies and Mommy? Is she trying to tell us something?
What movies involving animals does your human enjoy sharing with you? Books with animals?
Well, we finally trained Mommy to turn on The Animal Planet every time she leaves the house. Eddie, in particular, enjoys sitting on the sofa, munching popcorn and watching TV. It’s like one big window, and we all have to take turns making sure nobody pops out of that screen and onto our turf. When we’re really bored, Mommy puts in the Turner and Hooch DVD. There’s lots of barking in it, which we love. And have you seen that handsome mastiff?
If you could make one change to your human, what would it be?
She needs to be more active. Like, take us on motorcycle rides. Bicycle rides, even. Eddie and Lucy could sit in a basket up front and Simone… Well, maybe we could get a red wagon for her. God knows we don’t want the exercise.
Are you happy with your human? If you could tell your human one thing, what would it be?
We’re pretty happy with our peep. If there’s one thing we could tell her, we’d say thanks for taking each of us out of the slammer. Yep. We were all three jailed. Two of us were picked up by some perv in a white jacket and a net and when our other peeps (who were neglectful, let’s get real about it) never showed up to bail us out, we were sent to death row. Can you believe it? Just for checking out the neighborhood? Anyway, our peep rescued us and took us away from that horrible place. Simone was rescued from a back yard breeder who was starving her to death so if she could talk, she would burp and say thanks for the endless supply of food. Great invention, that contraption that holds 30 pounds of food and drops it whenever we want it!
About the Author: p.m.terrell is the pen name for Patricia McClelland Terrell, the award-winning, internationally acclaimed author of more than eighteen books in four genres: contemporary suspense, historical suspense, computer how-to and non-fiction.
Prior to writing full-time, she founded two computer companies in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area: McClelland Enterprises, Inc. and Continental Software Development Corporation. Among her clients were the Central Intelligence Agency, United States Secret Service, U.S. Information Agency, and Department of Defense. Her specialties were in white collar computer crimes and computer intelligence.
Vicki’s Key was a top five finalist in the 2012 International Book Awards and 2012 USA Book Awards nominee and her historical suspense, River Passage, was a 2010 Best Fiction and Drama Winner. It was determined to be so historically accurate that a copy of the book resides at the Nashville Government Metropolitan Archives in Nashville, Tennessee.
She is also the co-founder of The Book ‘Em Foundation, an organization committed to raising public awareness of the correlation between high crime rates and high illiteracy rates. She is the organizer of Book ‘Em North Carolina, an annual event held in Lumberton, North Carolina, to raise funds to increase literacy and reduce crime. For more information on this event and the literacy campaigns funded by it, visit www.bookemnc.org.
She sits on the boards of the Friends of the Robeson County Public Library and the Robeson County Arts Council. She has also served on the boards of Crime Stoppers and Crime Solvers and became the first female president of the Chesterfield County-Colonial Heights Crime Solvers in Virginia.
For more information visit the author’s website at www.pmterrell.com, follow her on Twitter at @pmterrell, her blog at www.pmterrell.blogspot.com, and on Facebook under author.p.m.terrell.
A provocative story of a love that spans centuries, of soul mates found, lost and reunited… and the lengths to which one man will go to change their destiny.
Irish Detective Ryan O’Clery is working a series of homicides in America when he discovers a journal written by an uncle, Constable Rian Kelly, five generations earlier. The journal detailed the same type of murders as the worst storm in Ireland’s history slammed into the island in 1839.
As Hurricane Irene barrels toward the North Carolina coastline, Ryan discovers even the killer’s description matches his cases exactly. And as he falls in love with television reporter Cathleen Reilly, he begins to wonder if she is the reincarnation of Caitlin O’Conor, Rian Kelly’s lover—the woman who was lost to the killer as the storm raged in Ireland—and if he is the reincarnation of Constable Rian Kelly.
Now he’s in a race to rescue Cathleen before the killer finds her—or is history destined to repeat itself?
Buy the book at Amazon.