Hi my readers.

So I promised that I would be more of a "real girl" in my posts.
If you didn't notice, my posts have been lacking and reviews have slowed down to a snails pace. Well...

The reason for this is that I've been  depressed. With depression comes the lack of motivation or will to do anything.
My blog is always on my mind and it sucks to not have the energy every day to try to do something for my blog. And this also means that some of the Friday's that I have my Featured Author posts may not get done until I can eke out some energy to do so.

My depression is due to grief. January 8th I lost one of the most important people in my life, my great uncle. It wasn't expected, in many ways. He did have cancer, but he died from a heart attack, not the cancer. My uncle wasn't just my uncle. He was a father figure and he was one of my best friends.
It's a little easier to handle every day, but I definitely do feel this overwhelming sadness when I think about how I can't ever just call him again. Or I can't hear that belly laugh that would turn into this hilarious wheezing laugh. Or the forever long stories he'd tell about some show or movie he watched. It's really tough.
I know that time will heal this wound but right now it's pretty raw and I'm still learning to deal with it.
Thankfully I have some really awesome family members and awesome friends. They're trying to keep me out of the deep abyss and I'm so lucky to have them.

When I do have energy, like right now, I am trying to use it productively and work on my blog. But for authors who are looking for their interviews or reviews, I do apologize for the lateness of it. I'm trying, very much so. Just please be patient with me.

Thanks all,
Leticia ♥

Nearly a year after the events which lead to her dramatic rescue in "Midnight to Morning," Harlie Berryman's new life continues to push the boundaries of what most know as reality. The group who rescued her have become her family, and they are preparing for their biggest battle yet. Billions of lives are at stake, and one wrong move could tip the scales in the enemies favor. It could tip Earth past its breaking point. Knowing this, as well as deeper secrets, Harlie pushes herself harder and farther than anyone thought possible. Go with her on this next stage of missions, lessons, of discovering who she really is, and what those who are the closest to her have been sent to accomplish. Evil lurks in many shadows...

L: Can you tell us a little about yourself and your background?
HGM:  My name is Holly Glogau-Morgan and I reside in the Piedmont Valley area of Virginia, though I grew up in the southern part of New Jersey. We live on four beautiful acres where my main hobbies are adaptive gardening, preserving the harvest, and trying to live more sustainably. I also enjoy sewing, quilting, and I roleplay in an MMORPG in the evenings with a group of dear friends. I have the rare genetic condition Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, so much of what I do ends up needing to be adapted for the damage the condition has done to my muscles and joints.

L: Who or what inspired you to be an author?
HGM: I've been writing notebooks full of stories since I was eight, almost always around one central character. While I've wanted to put her stories down into a YA fiction series, it never seemed to work out. It was my having to stop teaching full-time which started friends and family encouraging me to focus on writing more. With much more time on my hands, it seemed the right moment to shift away from short stories and into novel writing.

L: Who or what inspired your novel?
HGM: "Midnight to Morning" and "Sunrise to Shadows," the series I've been writing was inspired by a series of dreams. I had been working on a totally different project and was struggling. One night, in 2011, I was thinking about what if it was those here in the USA who had a massive crisis and people were fleeing to refugee camps in other countries. That night I dreamed about a young woman who was doing just that. Night after night, for three weeks, she kept telling me her story. I outlined all of it. The few people I told said this was the story I was meant to tell. They were quite right!

L: What would you say is the genre of your novel?
HGM: Adventure Fiction with a healthy dose of military espionage

L: Why did you pick this/these genre(s)?
HGM: The genres pretty much picked themselves as the novel moved from my dreams and onto paper. I never though I'd write anything about the military, never-the-less a story where it is laid thick with it, but it happened. Thankfully, much of my family has served and were very willing to answer questions.

L: How did you develop your plot and characters?
HGM: I developed the plot around a key tragic event which happened in the USA and how future attacks were on the cusp of happening globally. How would it have affected those who had to flee? How did it affect the rest of the world? Who would stop the attacks, or how could those attacks be stopped? The "who would" and "how could" became the main and secondary characters of the "Midnight to Morning" series.

L: Who or what inspired your protagonist?
HGM: The dreams I had made the protagonist seem almost as if she were another version of myself. I wasn't fond of that, so used the basics of a character I used to roleplay to make a few key changes. It worked out quite well.

L: Who or what inspired your antagonist?
HGM: While it is important for us to come together globally, there is a wrong way of doing so. Those with too much money and too much influence coming together to slowly undermine peace and unity and rule through lies and deception ended up being the inspiration for the antagonist - a secret group of elites who set off the attack on the USA and were planning on doing it again elsewhere.

L: What was the most difficult part to write in the book?
HGM: When the main character was still living in the refugee camp, a series of tragedies happened. She was so strong and brave throughout all of it, but I still cried, hard, as each event occurred, knowing she had to be broken, to find the "midnight" of her life in order to be able to thrive once rescued.

L: What was your favourite part of your book to write?
HGM: It actually happens in the second book of the series, and was on the first anniversary of her rescue. As she wakes, the most beautiful train of thought happens. Later on in the day, the group she lives with has a moment of reflection while standing arm in arm. It was tears of happiness when that day was written.

L: Are you a full time or a part time writer? If part time, what do you do besides write?
HGM: I write part-time. I also work part-time for an accredited homeschool academy, helping online high school students.

L: What are you currently reading?
HGM: Love Life by indie author Steve Fulgate. After losing his son to suicide, he has walked across the US multiple times to spread the word about loving life.

L: What are some of your favourite books or authors?
HGM: This is such a tough question, as there are too many to really narrow down. I read and enjoy such a wide variety of books and admire so many authors!

L: What are your future projects, if any?
HGM: I want to finish the other two books in the series and have already started on the third novel. With better adaptive equipment in place, it is not taking near as long to write, so I'm able to do much more of it. I'm also working on a short story series on my blog. It's fanfiction and is the story of my current roleplay character in Star Trek Online. After that, I'll be ready to tackle that YA fiction series.

L: What is your preferred method for readers to get in touch with you and your books?
HGM:
My Blog - http://ddraigswife.blogspot.com/
Amazon Author Page- https://www.amazon.com/Holly-Glogau-Morgan/e/B006CUQ3HQ/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0
Goodreads Page- www.goodreads.com/author/show/7285073.H_Glogau_Morgan

L: Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
HGM: Don't give up! I had a period of 3 years where I could barely get any writing done, because of the Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. Between the injuries and the medications to treat it dulling my mind, it was extremely difficult to focus and think through what needed to be written. However, I was able to troubleshoot. Better equipment was found, and I was able to work around what the medications did. Keep trying. You are not failing, you are just finding out ways that don't work just yet. You can do it!

The year is 1835 - in the back alleys of London John Campbell-John is running for his life. A rogue, imposter, swindler - a man without honour, without empathy for his fellow man. But his massive debts have now vindictively caught up with him. He has even stolen from his best friend. He has one option - to flee the country In Venice there is a chance encounter and an unlikely friendship emerges. Robert Babcock is everything John is not - honourable, academic, a man on an admirable quest - to travel in Egypt to find the earliest original copies of the Gospels to prove the reliability of the story of Jesus, as told in the King James Bible. Is Gospel Truth, as we say today, really undeniable. A story of discovery, of adventure from the River Nile to the endless deserts of Sinai, and ultimately a personal redemption.

L:  Can you tell us a little about yourself and your background?
ST: I was once a happy and reasonably well-adjusted person; that was until an urge to write invaded my psyche, this need to be a writer, to tell tales. I spent my days as a Tax Inspector (Now come on out from behind the sofa – they’re a fine bunch of lads and lasses at the Tax Office), and chauffeuring my daughter about. I was born in Yorkshire but brought up in Manchester. I am now retired, living with my partner in Hathern Near Loughborough in Leicestershire, England

L: Who or what inspired you to be an author?
ST: Let me introduce myself, I am a writer. There I’ve said it. It took me a long time to be able to call myself that - a writer. I just used to tell people that, “I do a bit of writing.” I feel like a new recruit to Alcoholics Anonymous, standing up and admitting to the world that I have a problem. I needed to stand up and admit - yes, I’m a writer. Welcome to my world. My addiction has been with me for over twenty years now; it’s the craving in my particular life. I need to write, I need to tell stories. When I was younger if somebody told me a good joke, when I retold it, it was twice as long, embellished, the story enhanced, the characters fleshed out. I’ve always done it, it's something in me, I suppose. With me, it was never just about and Englishmen, an Irishman and a Scotsman. It was an Englishman in a bowler hat with a monocle, an Irishman in a donkey jacket with a pint of Guinness and a Scotsman in a kilt with a set of bagpipes.

L: Who or what inspired your novel?
ST: I've been writing novels for over twenty years now. I started with contemporary fiction but then moved to my favourite genre - historical fiction. I had previously conceived of a Georgian trilogy, three stories set in London; a decadent time a decadent place, but a gold mine for an author, with some deliciously naughty and profligate characters. The first novel, No Quarter Asked, No Quarter Given was long-listed for the Brit Writers Award. The second Novel, A Canopy of Stars, the third, Ripples and Shadows, was the winner of the Great Beeston Book Read. Then somebody asked me what happened to one of my characters, John Campbell-John - I should tell his story; what happened to him.

L: What would you say is the genre of your novel?
ST: Oh, the new novel, Gospels - it's primarily historical fiction, but it is also an adventure story. A story of discovery, of adventure from the River Nile to the endless deserts of Sinai, and ultimately a personal redemption. There is also a back story of bible hunting in Egypt, but it's not really a religious story, even though our characters are forced to face some uneasy religious truths.

L: Why did you pick this/these genre(s)?
ST: I am a history buff at heart. I love the idea of winding fictional characters through historical events and times.

L: How did you develop your plot and characters?
ST: The skeleton of the story was set down from the start - that's the way I work, and was as follows. The year is 1835 - in the back alleys of London John Campbell-John is running for his life. A rogue, impostor, swindler - a man without honour, without empathy for his fellow man. But his massive debts have now vindictively caught up with him. He has even stolen from his best friend. He has one option - to flee the country. In Venice, there is a chance encounter and an unlikely friendship emerges. Robert Babcock is everything John is not - honourable, academic, a man on an admirable quest - to travel in Egypt to find the earliest original copies of the Gospels to prove the reliability of the story of Jesus, as told in the King James Bible. Is Gospel Truth, as we say today, really undeniable. Then I read about the real-life bible hunters in the nineteenth century. Robert Curzon, in particular, left behind a published account of his travels in his book Visits to Monasteries in the Levant. This opened many more story-lines for me. It was a goldmine, as not only did it recount his travels, but it has detailed descriptions of the people he met, how they dressed, what they ate, their manners, etc. But what’s more, it gave me an insight into the Egypt that he encountered in the 1830s: an eyewitness of the time period I have set the story in.

L: Who or what inspired your protagonist?
ST: The lovable rogue is a powerful literary device. John Campbell-John is such rogue, and an impostor, swindler as well. Having created him, there was so much mileage left to examine. He's personable, witty, a mischievously playful rapscallion (what a great word) He's just fabulous,

L: Who or what inspired your antagonist?
ST: The Flashman novels by George MacDonald Fraser. I didn't realise it at the time of writing however.

L: What was the most difficult part to write in the book?
ST: Bible hunting is historically accurate. These men were academic adventurers in the nineteenth century, and I had to get their history correct as well as the chronological history of the gospel writers.

L: What was your favourite part of your book to write?
ST: Writing about the Cairo souk (the bazaar). Finding enough adjectives to do it justice.

L: Are you a full time or a part time writer? If part time, what do you do besides write?
ST: I keep a normal working week - Monday to Friday and write for 3 hours every morning.

L: What are you currently reading?
ST: Imperium by Robert Harris

L: What are some of your favourite books or authors?
ST: Love, love, love - To Kill a Mocking Bird. I read Catch 22 as a young man and it was part of my rite of passage into adulthood. Just realised that they are both American. Big Dickens fan as well.

L: What are your future projects, if any?
ST: A crossover novel, part medieval 1152 England where a young girl is hanged as a witch after claiming to have had a vision of the twenty-first a century and the murder of an Angel. Its recorded in a chronicle and when it is translated the historian realizes that it matches a modern crime. Mustn't say too much.

L: What is your preferred method for readers to get in touch with you and your books? Please provide links.
ST: Through my web site please - stephentaylorauthor.com. Or through Goodreads  www.goodreads.com/author/show/6525446.Stephen_Taylor - recently joined.

L: Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
ST: Yes - the hardest part about writing a novel is to START. I always tell people at Book-fairs this simple advice. Don't keep putting it off.