Interview with Patricia Guthrie

Wanted to post this early in the morning but wound up taking two dogs to the Vet's. Abbey has a stomach ailment and is on one kind of medication and Barney is on another, for sore and stiff back end. I finally got back to the office and it is now after ten.

But here is the interview with Patricia Guthrie, who wrote In the Arms of the Enemy.


This story is dedicated to those horses lost to man’s greed and inhumanity and to those humanitarians whose mission is to save and protect them.

Questions;
1) What gave you the idea of writing about horse racing fraud and its outcomes?
The seed was planted around those horse show scandals. I had horses in a couple of barns in the northern suburbs of Chicago. I showed a little. Not much. When I moved to the south suburbs I moved into a great barn that specialized in dressage. I’ve ended up in western pleasure. But, believe me everyone knew about the Helen Brach disappearance and the murder of the show horses.

2) What kinds of horses are you writing about and what kind do you ride?
The prologue is set at a race track. Maggie is a trainer and Adam’s father owned many of the horses Maggie and her fiancee trained. The rest of the story takes place at Maggie’s father’s boarding barn. Maggie rides an old quarter horse named “Playboy”. A horse she rescued from the track.

3) Tell us about your main character, please. Is it a horse?
This is a romantic suspense, so there are two protagonists. Adam Blakely and Maggie O’Brien. Adam thinks Maggie had a hand in killing his father’s race horse and its trainer, thus causing his father’s fatal heart attack. The police already have made up their mind that his father was responsible, so Adam goes undercover to try and catch a killer. Only problem, he falls in love with her. This is a story about greed, murder, deception, love and horses. Its motto: Keep your friends close; but your enemies closer.

4) Are you aware of the scandal that went on in the Horse Show business over the deaths of horses, several years ago?
Yes. That’s the seed that planted the story in my mind.

5) Do you intend to write more about the horse business? Yes. I’m plotting another one out right now. It should take a while to get it together.

6) If so, what phases are you going to explore next?
My next book that will be coming out in the spring is called Waterlilies Over My Grave. This is about a woman who leaves a career and an obsessive ex-husband to take a job in a resort town, only her ex follows her with deadly intentions. It’s a romantic suspense. There is a collie in this book named Lady. (I have three collies at home who help me write) and she helps get the bad guys. She’s in quite a few of the scenes.

After that, I’m working on another romantic suspense where the heroine inherits a castle in Romania inhabited by drug dealers. This one has a horse in it that belongs to a nine-year-old boy. The horse wears a straw hat. I haven’t worked out her name or breed yet.

For much more information about Patricia Guthrie and In the Arms of the Enemy, please visit her virtual book tour page at http://inspiredauthor.com/promotion/Patricia+Guthrie