Amy Vansant – Friendly Mercenaries

The Joys of Binge Reading

Amy Vansant writes gritty thrillers and cozy mysteries which have one thing in common – they’re all funny because as Amy says – she tried to do serious books but they always ended up full of jokes. Hi there I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today Amy talks about her Shee McQueen series about a family friendly team of mercenaries, and her Pineapple Port cozies, set in a 55+ Florida resort. This Week's Giveaway Our Giveaway is another Booksweeps draw – Link To The Past - Historical and Family Saga stories - 51 books, and an E-Reader. It’s open internationally... Included in this is my Of Gold & Blood Series 2 Book Bundle consisting of Books 1 and 4 in the series.. Poisoned Legacy and the New York Christmas novella Tangled Destiny, the prequel. 50+ novels, 1 E-Reader $550 value I know many of you will appreciate that because we have listeners from all over the world, so this is your chance to win a library! enter booksweeps draw Or - if button doesn't work - https://www.booksweeps.com/giveaway/may23-win-a-bundle-of-historical-fiction-and-family-sagas/ You can now look for Binge Reading on YouTube if you like to consume your podcasts that way – as increasing numbers of listeners like to. And don’t forget, if you enjoy the show leave us a positive comment so others will find us too – word of mouth is still the best publicity anyone can get! Links to things in the show Amy Vansant – Kilty urban fantasy series: https://amyvansant.com/books/kilty-urban-fantasy Loggerhead Florida: https://myfwc.com/research/wildlife/sea-turtles/nesting/loggerhead/ Authors XP: https://authorsxp.com/ Life Hacks: https://amyvansant.com/lifehacks Where to find Amy Vansant https://amyvansant.com/ https://amyvansant.com/enter-to-win-kindle-books But now here's our show. Hello there, Amy. And welcome to the show. It's great to have you with us. Amy Vansant: Thank you. It's great to be here. Thriller and cozy mystery author Amy Vansant with Archer the bordoodle Jenny Wheeler: You're a USA Today and Wall Street Journal best selling author, and you're writing across a range of genres, from thrillers to cozy mysteries, some romcoms and fantasy. How did you get started on this trip? Amy Vansant: I was always a writer ever since I was young. Ever since I could barely write anything, it just seemed like what I was supposed to do. I was the East Coast editor of Surfer Magazine for about five years, and I did a lot of freelance writing for magazines and I wrote a non-fiction book about surfing. And right about then was the time that the internet started to get big. I started to do web design as a side gig, and it turned out that was the next big thing. I ended up doing websites, and I started a web firm for 20 years. I still have it. And then one day I woke up and said, what am I doing? Why am I not writing? I was always supposed to be a writer, so I went back to it. Shee McQueen and the family friendly mercenaries Jenny Wheeler: That’s fabulous. And this Shee McQueen series, which is one of the ones we're talking about today. It's your thriller series. One of the critics has got a gorgeous line to describe it. They say, “Think Stephanie Plum goes to Florida. Full stop. With Jack Reacher.” That just seems to me to say it all, and we are looking at number five in the series, which is The Girl Who Saw The Truth. Now, this whole thriller series is built around troubled mercenaries looking for redemption, and once again, I wondered where did that concept spring from? Amy Vansant: I think it mostly just came from the fact that my other series, which is a cozy mystery is so tame that I wanted to do something that had a little more bite to it, to just to break it up for me more than anything. I came along with this idea and put the hotel that the father runs where my house is in real life. I pretended there was a hotel here instead of my house and took it from ther...