Wildcard, by Robin ShopePlease tell us about yourself. I am the Special Education Coordinator at the Denton County Juvenile Justice System for at risk kids. I am also a writer. Mystery. Romance. Those are my genres and sometimes they intersect. My husband Rick and I are former missionaries and pastored a country church in Illinois for six years. Married for thirty-two years, we have two grown children. I love listening to oral family histories and discovered that we are all story tellers of one kind or another. My daddy told my mother and my older sis terrible stories about the war and how they effected him. I learned at an early age that people had layers to them. I grew up in Chicago, the daughter of a nightclub owner who found God on his death bed. My mother was a Godly woman who passed along to us her faith in Jesus. When we came of age we accepted Him as our Savior. And now I have passed my faith to my children and they have made it their own. This is a big world and there is a story around every corner just waiting to be told. I happen to like telling those stories. I hope you like reading them.
To date, my literary works include approximately two hundred articles in magazines such as: Guideposts, Live, Lookout, Mennonite, Christian Reader, Decision, Breakthrough and Christianity Today. Other short stories appear in the books: A Match Made in Heaven, Stories from the Heart, The Evolving Woman, and the New York Times bestseller, In The Arms of Angels by Joan Wester-Anderson. Ann Spangler also used one of my stories in her book, Help! I Can’t Stop Laughing. Another two-dozen stories have been published in the Chicken Soup books. One story, Mom’s Last Laugh, was re-enacted for a PAX-TV program: It’s a Miracle. I co-authored a thriller, The Chase, for Revell and sold 14,000 copies. My second book, The Replacement, was released in June 2006. The Candidate was released July, 2007. December 2008 hailed the start of my The Turtle Creek Edition series with The Christmas Edition which is being made into a movie. The Valentine Edition followed a month later. Two more edition books will be out in 2010. My stand alone Wildcard is a May 2009 release. I continue to publish short stories in magazines.
What do you do in your spare time? Unfortunately, I have very little spare time. I work full time at a juvenile facility for troubled teens and I am so exhausted at the end of a day, that it's hard to sit down and do what I love them most and that is writing. So perhaps I could say writing is what I do in my spare time. My daughter just had our first grandchild, so every spare moment I am there marveling over the miracle of Kingston. If I had spare time I would read more, sit on my patio and watch birds, visit friends, do volunteer work at a children's hospital and give more of my time to the missions at church.
Please tell us about your upcoming release, Wildcard. Wildcard is about a diabolical plot to take over the government from the inside out. Sounds far fetched to you? How about, the government is taken over by way of the voting machines? What would happen if someone secured a microchip that could be manipulated to give his or her candidate the edge to win the next presidential election? Not enough votes for a landslide, but just enough to put their candidate over the top in a decisive win. The Wildcards are a group of maverick agents who want to take over the outcome of the next election for President of the United States. During Ivy Dillon's last week as a Washington Intern, she and Ms. Geneen Waters, the secretary to the President of the United States, overhear a conversation about voting machines and missing software. Months later Ms. Waters body is found floating in the Potomac River. FBI Special Agent Ian Serby, who swears he will give his life to protect her, takes Ivy into protective custody. Ian is smart, sexy and seems to have a hidden agenda all his own. Will Ivy follow her heart and believe what Ian tells her about trying to stop the Wildcards or is he actually a member of the Wildcards?
Where did you get the idea for your novel? The characters? Ideas just come to me out of the blue. Sometimes I am writing one novel and ideas for another novel start coming hard and fast. I have to write them down then or I will forget them. At times, I am in bed, thinking of nothing in particular, when inspiration hits so I have learned to have paper and pencil next to me on my bedside table. When I begin writing, I know the basic problem and plot, the setting too. I decide to add characters as I wrote in order to move the plot along. Wildcard has been brewing for years. Some books I write in a few months but this one has been in the making for four years and has undergone radical changes. It's nothing like the book I started writing. Six months before I sent it to my publisher, I rewrote it entirely after input from an agent that doesn’t even represent me. She gave great advice.
How did you get involved in writing? The desire was there from an early age but I first considered it as a real possibility in college and took several creative writing classes. That's when I started my very first novel. Someday I will finish it.
What do you enjoy most about the writing process? Once I know the entire plot and know my characters, I love writing the chapters. It's like building a house. When I edit and add more depth, it's like decorating that house.
What story ideas would you like to explore in the future? I want to write more mysteries…also more romance…and as it says in Wildcard…it's as delicious as strawberries and chocolate; when they meet, its meant to be.
Sneak Peek at Chapter One of Wildcard by Robin Shope:
Chapter One
He stared at her with superb green eyes the color of a calm sea, but it was his slow smile that pierced her heart. Eyes and smile. Together they pulled her into the deep waters of wild imagination. The six-footer awkwardly tugged on his collar and no wonder, he seemed totally out of place at the theater’s cast party. Ivy Dillon was ripe for romance. She had to meet Whatzhisname.
“Here’s your fruit punch.” Jordan nudged. “I snagged you a cup before the alcohol went in.”
“Thanks.” Ivy turned toward her roommate. “By the way, who’s that?”
“Who?”
“The great looking guy near the window.” Ivy tipped her head in that direction.
“You can’t mean Martin?” Jordan snorted.
“Martin?” Ivy whipped around and squinted. Sure enough, the man she set her sighs on meeting had disappeared and in his place was Martin, still wearing his stage makeup. He waved at her. Ivy waved back, disappointedly. “No not him.”
Ivy cruised through the stage director’s apartment, trying to catch sigh of the man with the interesting angular features, the hair that curled up along his neckline, and, oh yes, those eyes—those amazing eyes.
On the way by the dessert table, the chocolate covered strawberries distracted her. She bit into one, enjoying the meeting of two rivers of flavors, and just like that Whatzhisname appeared in front of her. A miracle!
“You have a bit of chocolate right there,” he told her pointing at the corner of her mouth.
“Thanks,” Ivy croaked.
“May I?” he asked permission to touch her skin and wipe the chocolate away.
Ivy moved closer and felt the gentle stroke of his touch. Just like strawberries and chocolate, Ivy knew they were meant to be.
“There, you’re perfect again.” He licked his chocolate finger and then glanced around the room scanning faces. “Great opening night for the play. Do you know the cast?”
Ivy nodded. “Yes, in fact, the leading actress is my friend.”
“Jordan Belle is your roommate? Interesting.”
“How did you know she was my roommate?”
Just as Whatzhisname opened his mouth to answer, Martin swayed up and held out a platter of canapés. “Would you help pass these for me, doll?” he asked Ivy.
No, no, definitely no. No way did she want to do anything that would take her away from a promising evening. It was hard to resist the urge to shove the food back toward Martin. Politely, Ivy accepted the canapés and offered them to the guests. The next time she looked up Whatzhisname was heading toward the front door. Running after him would be way too pathetic so she let him go. She had to. He went one way and she went the other way to the balcony where she hoped to catch one last glimpse of him as he left the building. Ivy leaned over the railing and waited. And waited.
An unexpected hand on her shoulder made her jump back, dropping her purse as she did so. The contents flew everywhere. “Oh no!” Ivy chased her belongings, hoping to save them before they rolled over the edge.
“Are you all right?” a male voice asked, as she saw hands scrambling to help pick up the loose items—lipstick, business cards, inhaler, loose change and billfold.
She looked into his face and sighed. “It’s you!”
Whatzhisname was back, with the perfect stormy eyes and that slow smile. It was enough to melt the ice sculpture on the buffet table. She shivered with delight.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“You didn’t frighten me.”
“I hate to contradict you, but you looked quite frightened.”
“Startled may be the more appropriate word choice, but I assure you I ain’t frightened,” Ivy panned.
“Ain’t ain’t a word.”
“I know. I used it for effect.” She loved the color of his eyes.
“I guess that makes it all right then.” One at a time, he handed back he items However, he held tightly onto her business card. “Is this your card?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Then I must keep it,” he sweetly added as if he had no other desire than to know her.
Just like that, Ivy let him pull it from between her fingers. “I think I have everything now, thanks to you.” She snapped her purse shut.
“That’s good.” He straightened, slipped the card into his jacket pocket and turned to leave the party.
His abrupt exit made Ivy dizzy. Nonchalantly, she strolled through the party, smiling and nodding at the guests hoping to find Whatzhisname again. She had a dozen things she wanted to know about him, among them his name. However, they all drained from her head when Jordan hooked her by the arm.
“Catch a cab home. I’ll see ya in the morning.” With the toss of her long hair, Jordan skipped out of the party with a man on her arm.
Just then Whatzhisname sailed right by on his way out the front door, without even so much as a goodbye. Her window of opportunity had shut. After a few more chocolate covered strawberries eaten over deep sighs, it was Ivy’s turn to go home.
****
Ivy sat at the end of the pier with her feet in the water. She stared up at the oversized moon. The reflection of the heavenly constellation floated across the bay toward the shore on a parade of ripples. Suddenly, they turned into hands that leapt toward her, cold wet finger wrapped about her ankles. With a jerk, she was pulled beneath the lake. Frantically, she fought to free herself but she was no match. She lay motionless at the sandy bottom. Something poked her. Slowly, Ivy opened her eyes and inches away lay a body with hair swirling around the head. A skeletal hand reached out to her.
A dog howled outside on Washington Street.
Ivy bolted straight up in bed and pulled at the constricting button on the neck of her nightgown. She couldn’t breath. Mechanically, she swung her arm toward her prescription inhaler and accidentally propelled it across the room. It smacked the wall and ht the floor.
She knew it would be impossible to find her inhaler in a room draped in shadows so she staggered to the window and yanked open the shade. With daylight now sparkling on the floor, she found her inhaler on its side beneath the green cushioned chair alongside her bed. She dropped to her knees and snatched it. Ivy rocked back on her heels and opened her mouth. Several blasts of medicine sprayed her throat, allowing air to rush into her lungs. Slowly she counted her breaths as her eyes settled on a single rosebud in the pattern of her curtains. Bit by bit, she recovered.
Now all she wanted to do was fall back into bed, drag the blanket over her head and sleep for ten hours. Instead, she mustered her strength and latched onto the arm of the chair to pull up. It didn’t matter how sick she felt, she had to go to work.
She took off her nightgown and tuned the radio to a news talk station. Two political analysts from opposing parties were doing what they did best—arguing.
“Slow down, men,” she told them on the way into the bathroom. “The next presidential election is still two years away.”
Ivy stepped into the shower. The whoosh of the water in her face resurfaced the nightmare of the moonlight, the fingers, and the feeling of not being able to breath. Ten years later and she was still haunted by finding her best friend dead in the lake shallows. She felt thankful that during the day she was able to skate above the thoughts, but sometimes at night, when her defenses were down, they returned. Ivy shut her eyes tighter but the memory of Karin’s pale skin and dead eyes was all she could see. It weighed her down making her weak with terror. Ivy leaned against the tiles until she regained her balance.
The phone rang. Ivy didn’t move. On the third ring, she reached turned off the stream of water. After she slipped into her robe, she made her way to the phone. The caller ID read anonymous. She shouldn’t answer, she knew this, but she couldn’t stop herself. Her hands shook as she picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Erin, thank goodness I finally found you.” As usual the ‘Voice’ was calm, so in control.
“No one by that name lives here,” Ivy pushed out the words in a whisper and then slammed down the phone. She waited for it to ring again since it always did. The sound of his creepy tenor seemed to drip from the bathroom walls. Ivy kept staring at the phone, trembling. This time, there was no second call.
Now all Ivy wanted to do was to get out of the apartment and on the street where she felt safer and not so isolated. In her hurry, she nearly broke the zipper on her skirt as she struggled to get dressed.
Then, just as she reached the door, she heard someone fiddling with the doorknob. Ivy set her briefcase and purse down and peered through the peephole. In the hallway was the unmistakable form of her roommate who was now digging through her bag. Ivy turned the lock on the door and Jordan sailed into the apartment.
“Thank goodness you’re still here. I can’t find my key again.”
“Its lucky you caught me. Another minute and I’d be gone.” Jordan hugged several copies of the theater critic’s section to her chest. “Do you have time to read my reviews before you leave?”
“I always have time for you.” Ivy took a paper and read the metro section. “Jordan Belle Stands Out Among a Talented Cast. The only way it could get better is if people knew who you really were, Erin Lowe.”
“My theater name is Jordan Belle. Never, ever refer to me using my given name again.”
“What’s the harm” There’s only the two of us here.”
“Because you might slip up when it really matters,” Jordan said dramatically with a lift of an eyebrow.
“I can’t shake the feeling that there is something more you are not telling me.” Frustrated, Ivy needed to know. “What is it?”
Jordan bit her lip.
“Jordan, we’ve been though a lot since your sister Karin’s death. You owe it to me to let me know what it is you’re hiding from. Help me to understand.”
Jordan dropped into a chair, crossing one leg over the other. “All you need to know is that it involved the ‘Voice’. As long as he can’t find me, I’ll be happy.”
“Well, Jordan Bell, prepare to be sad. The ‘Voice’ called this morning asking for Erin.”
He stared at her with superb green eyes the color of a calm sea, but it was his slow smile that pierced her heart. Eyes and smile. Together they pulled her into the deep waters of wild imagination. The six-footer awkwardly tugged on his collar and no wonder, he seemed totally out of place at the theater’s cast party. Ivy Dillon was ripe for romance. She had to meet Whatzhisname.
“Here’s your fruit punch.” Jordan nudged. “I snagged you a cup before the alcohol went in.”
“Thanks.” Ivy turned toward her roommate. “By the way, who’s that?”
“Who?”
“The great looking guy near the window.” Ivy tipped her head in that direction.
“You can’t mean Martin?” Jordan snorted.
“Martin?” Ivy whipped around and squinted. Sure enough, the man she set her sighs on meeting had disappeared and in his place was Martin, still wearing his stage makeup. He waved at her. Ivy waved back, disappointedly. “No not him.”
Ivy cruised through the stage director’s apartment, trying to catch sigh of the man with the interesting angular features, the hair that curled up along his neckline, and, oh yes, those eyes—those amazing eyes.
On the way by the dessert table, the chocolate covered strawberries distracted her. She bit into one, enjoying the meeting of two rivers of flavors, and just like that Whatzhisname appeared in front of her. A miracle!
“You have a bit of chocolate right there,” he told her pointing at the corner of her mouth.
“Thanks,” Ivy croaked.
“May I?” he asked permission to touch her skin and wipe the chocolate away.
Ivy moved closer and felt the gentle stroke of his touch. Just like strawberries and chocolate, Ivy knew they were meant to be.
“There, you’re perfect again.” He licked his chocolate finger and then glanced around the room scanning faces. “Great opening night for the play. Do you know the cast?”
Ivy nodded. “Yes, in fact, the leading actress is my friend.”
“Jordan Belle is your roommate? Interesting.”
“How did you know she was my roommate?”
Just as Whatzhisname opened his mouth to answer, Martin swayed up and held out a platter of canapés. “Would you help pass these for me, doll?” he asked Ivy.
No, no, definitely no. No way did she want to do anything that would take her away from a promising evening. It was hard to resist the urge to shove the food back toward Martin. Politely, Ivy accepted the canapés and offered them to the guests. The next time she looked up Whatzhisname was heading toward the front door. Running after him would be way too pathetic so she let him go. She had to. He went one way and she went the other way to the balcony where she hoped to catch one last glimpse of him as he left the building. Ivy leaned over the railing and waited. And waited.
An unexpected hand on her shoulder made her jump back, dropping her purse as she did so. The contents flew everywhere. “Oh no!” Ivy chased her belongings, hoping to save them before they rolled over the edge.
“Are you all right?” a male voice asked, as she saw hands scrambling to help pick up the loose items—lipstick, business cards, inhaler, loose change and billfold.
She looked into his face and sighed. “It’s you!”
Whatzhisname was back, with the perfect stormy eyes and that slow smile. It was enough to melt the ice sculpture on the buffet table. She shivered with delight.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“You didn’t frighten me.”
“I hate to contradict you, but you looked quite frightened.”
“Startled may be the more appropriate word choice, but I assure you I ain’t frightened,” Ivy panned.
“Ain’t ain’t a word.”
“I know. I used it for effect.” She loved the color of his eyes.
“I guess that makes it all right then.” One at a time, he handed back he items However, he held tightly onto her business card. “Is this your card?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Then I must keep it,” he sweetly added as if he had no other desire than to know her.
Just like that, Ivy let him pull it from between her fingers. “I think I have everything now, thanks to you.” She snapped her purse shut.
“That’s good.” He straightened, slipped the card into his jacket pocket and turned to leave the party.
His abrupt exit made Ivy dizzy. Nonchalantly, she strolled through the party, smiling and nodding at the guests hoping to find Whatzhisname again. She had a dozen things she wanted to know about him, among them his name. However, they all drained from her head when Jordan hooked her by the arm.
“Catch a cab home. I’ll see ya in the morning.” With the toss of her long hair, Jordan skipped out of the party with a man on her arm.
Just then Whatzhisname sailed right by on his way out the front door, without even so much as a goodbye. Her window of opportunity had shut. After a few more chocolate covered strawberries eaten over deep sighs, it was Ivy’s turn to go home.
****
Ivy sat at the end of the pier with her feet in the water. She stared up at the oversized moon. The reflection of the heavenly constellation floated across the bay toward the shore on a parade of ripples. Suddenly, they turned into hands that leapt toward her, cold wet finger wrapped about her ankles. With a jerk, she was pulled beneath the lake. Frantically, she fought to free herself but she was no match. She lay motionless at the sandy bottom. Something poked her. Slowly, Ivy opened her eyes and inches away lay a body with hair swirling around the head. A skeletal hand reached out to her.
A dog howled outside on Washington Street.
Ivy bolted straight up in bed and pulled at the constricting button on the neck of her nightgown. She couldn’t breath. Mechanically, she swung her arm toward her prescription inhaler and accidentally propelled it across the room. It smacked the wall and ht the floor.
She knew it would be impossible to find her inhaler in a room draped in shadows so she staggered to the window and yanked open the shade. With daylight now sparkling on the floor, she found her inhaler on its side beneath the green cushioned chair alongside her bed. She dropped to her knees and snatched it. Ivy rocked back on her heels and opened her mouth. Several blasts of medicine sprayed her throat, allowing air to rush into her lungs. Slowly she counted her breaths as her eyes settled on a single rosebud in the pattern of her curtains. Bit by bit, she recovered.
Now all she wanted to do was fall back into bed, drag the blanket over her head and sleep for ten hours. Instead, she mustered her strength and latched onto the arm of the chair to pull up. It didn’t matter how sick she felt, she had to go to work.
She took off her nightgown and tuned the radio to a news talk station. Two political analysts from opposing parties were doing what they did best—arguing.
“Slow down, men,” she told them on the way into the bathroom. “The next presidential election is still two years away.”
Ivy stepped into the shower. The whoosh of the water in her face resurfaced the nightmare of the moonlight, the fingers, and the feeling of not being able to breath. Ten years later and she was still haunted by finding her best friend dead in the lake shallows. She felt thankful that during the day she was able to skate above the thoughts, but sometimes at night, when her defenses were down, they returned. Ivy shut her eyes tighter but the memory of Karin’s pale skin and dead eyes was all she could see. It weighed her down making her weak with terror. Ivy leaned against the tiles until she regained her balance.
The phone rang. Ivy didn’t move. On the third ring, she reached turned off the stream of water. After she slipped into her robe, she made her way to the phone. The caller ID read anonymous. She shouldn’t answer, she knew this, but she couldn’t stop herself. Her hands shook as she picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Erin, thank goodness I finally found you.” As usual the ‘Voice’ was calm, so in control.
“No one by that name lives here,” Ivy pushed out the words in a whisper and then slammed down the phone. She waited for it to ring again since it always did. The sound of his creepy tenor seemed to drip from the bathroom walls. Ivy kept staring at the phone, trembling. This time, there was no second call.
Now all Ivy wanted to do was to get out of the apartment and on the street where she felt safer and not so isolated. In her hurry, she nearly broke the zipper on her skirt as she struggled to get dressed.
Then, just as she reached the door, she heard someone fiddling with the doorknob. Ivy set her briefcase and purse down and peered through the peephole. In the hallway was the unmistakable form of her roommate who was now digging through her bag. Ivy turned the lock on the door and Jordan sailed into the apartment.
“Thank goodness you’re still here. I can’t find my key again.”
“Its lucky you caught me. Another minute and I’d be gone.” Jordan hugged several copies of the theater critic’s section to her chest. “Do you have time to read my reviews before you leave?”
“I always have time for you.” Ivy took a paper and read the metro section. “Jordan Belle Stands Out Among a Talented Cast. The only way it could get better is if people knew who you really were, Erin Lowe.”
“My theater name is Jordan Belle. Never, ever refer to me using my given name again.”
“What’s the harm” There’s only the two of us here.”
“Because you might slip up when it really matters,” Jordan said dramatically with a lift of an eyebrow.
“I can’t shake the feeling that there is something more you are not telling me.” Frustrated, Ivy needed to know. “What is it?”
Jordan bit her lip.
“Jordan, we’ve been though a lot since your sister Karin’s death. You owe it to me to let me know what it is you’re hiding from. Help me to understand.”
Jordan dropped into a chair, crossing one leg over the other. “All you need to know is that it involved the ‘Voice’. As long as he can’t find me, I’ll be happy.”
“Well, Jordan Bell, prepare to be sad. The ‘Voice’ called this morning asking for Erin.”
You can purchase Wildcard at: http://www.amazon.com and Christian retailers.
Don't forget to post a comment to be entered in the drawing for a FREE copy of Robin's book! (Winner will be decided in 1 week from post date.)
2 comments:
The book sounds great! Please sign me up for the drawing!
Blessings
Michelle
m.vasquez@grandecom.net
Yay, Kelly and Robin! Great interview. You are both such a blessing to so many!
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