Welcome Samantha Gentry to the garden blog

We have Samantha Gentry here today and her new release Fated  Encounter. 

This is the 8^th Encounter book published by The Wild Rose Press—Designed Encounter, Third Floor Encounter, Unexpected Encounter, Masked Encounter, Steamy Encounter, Accidental Encounter, Island Encounter. Three of them (Unexpected Encounter, Masked Encounter, and Steamy Encounter) have been put into an anthology titled Erotic Encounters Anthology available in both ebook and print.

Hello Samantha

Do you plot or let the story unfold as you write?

I do a basic story line and try to determine all the major points before I start writing so that I have a beginning point, a middle turning point, and a plausible ending. I also determine the primary information about my main characters. As I'm writing the manuscript, some of those points will be deleted with new ones being added and some merely being altered to fit the natural progression of the way the story is flowing. When I first started writing, I'd have a general sense of my characters and a basic story concept in my head and write from that. The story concept usually consisted of the event that would set a series of events in motion. I had to have a completed manuscript before I could get a contract. Once my writing career advanced to the point where I was being contracted on a synopsis and the first two chapters, I had to change my method of work. I needed to have a synopsis showing that I had a completely thought story line with all the necessary elements and clearly defined lead characters along with the major secondary characters—who they were, some basic background information on them, and what their connection was to each other. So I started out as mostly a pantser (by the seat of the pants) and ended up as primarily a plotter.

What's your favorite book you've written?

I'd say my favorite Samantha Gentry book is DÉJÀ VU, a mystery/romantic suspense. I have a particular fondness for mystery, or more specifically romantic suspense. I love creating the intricacies of the mystery with its plot twists and a character who isn't necessarily what the reader initially assumes. It could be one of the main characters who is being deceptive about his/her identity for valid reasons or a major secondary character who is far more involved in the story than the reader initially knows. And when you add the romance element to the mystery, it ups what's at stake for the characters. It's no longer enough for the main character to just solve the mystery. With romantic suspense, you have two main characters with a growing emotional attachment who now must protect each other from danger—quite often the threat of death—in addition to solving the crime.

How do you deal with writer's block?

Mostly, I deal with it by having more than one work-in-progress going on it a time. If I'm frustrated and not making any headway on my primary work-in-progress, I turn to another manuscript I'm been working on or start on an idea that's been percolating in my mind. If it's only a momentary problem such as trying to figure out how to word the transition to the next scene, I'll do a temporary activity such as playing a game of Scrabble with the computer while running the scene transition through my mind.

When you wrote this book, did you have an idea of how it would end at the beginning?

With a romance, regardless of the sub genre, the mere appearance of the word romance says it will be a happily ever after or at least a happy for now ending. It's a matter of figuring out how your characters achieve that ending and the circumstances that made it possible. How you get from that dark moment when all seems lost to that happily ever after ending. With FATED ENCOUNTER, my April 20, 2020, release from the Scarlet Rose line at The Wild Rose Press, I knew the ending but didn't have all the steps worked out in how my characters got there. I was about half way through the manuscript when I finally decided on the sequence of events.

Would you like to be friends with the main character?

With romance novels, your main characters need to be likeable, the reader needs to want them to have that happily ever after ending. I usually write the hero as someone I would be attracted to for a variety of reasons, characteristics I find desirable. He needs to be someone I can personally relate to—intelligence, humor, variety of interests, someone I can trust. The heroine also needs to be someone I can relate to, someone I like. First and foremost, she definitely cannot be one of those too stupid to live type of romance heroines. She has to be intelligent, independent, and have common sense. No wimpy clinging vines need apply.

And now for a little fun

What is your favorite drink?

I'm a coffee drinker rather than hot tea but do drink iced tea in summer. If you're talking alcoholic beverage—I prefer wine.  Cabernet Sauvignon for red and Chardonnay for white.  Of course, if eating in a Mexican restaurant it will be a margarita.  I make sure I drink an adequate number of glasses of water every day.

Do you laugh at your own jokes?

Not normally, but I appreciate it when other people do.

What is your favorite time of year and why?

I think my favorite time is Spring. I like the colorful spring flowers blooming, the trees budding out with new green leaves, and the grass turning green—the reemergence of life as it awakens from the winter sleep.

If you were going to commit the perfect murder, how would you go about it?

Ideally, the thing to do is make it look like an accident or a natural death, depending on the victim's medical history. That way there won't be an ongoing investigation beyond the initial determination for cause of death, i.e. a heart attack in someone with a known heart condition. If there is no known medical condition that would cause death, I would need to select the type of accident that would be plausible for the person being killed and for the location where it happened. Next, I would need to make sure I have an alibi for the time of the accident, to coordinate when and where the accident will happen with proof of where I'll be at that precise time. Then to make sure that I've carefully established the forensics connected to the accident—forensic evidence the ruled me out as having any connection to the crime or crime scene.

Has the dog ever eaten your manuscript?

In real life, I have to say no. However…within the pages of an early manuscript (never published) I did have the heroine's dog eat a letter that had been delivered to her apartment by mistake. It belonged to her next door neighbor. But as to another cliché, I had a female character in a book whose occupation was author of mystery novels actually start one of her books with, It was a dark and stormy night. Then the character immediately chastised herself for using the trite sentence as the opening line.

Were can we learn more about you

Website:   www.samanthagentry.com

Facebook Profile:  www.facebook.com/SamanthaGentry.author 

Facebook Fan Page:  www.facebook.com/SamanthaGentry.Author1  

Blog https://samanthagentry.blogspot.com  

Find Fated Encounter on Amazon

www.amazon.com/Fated-Encounter-Samantha-Gentry-ebook/dp/B0867J9YJJ 

and other online retailers