Author Interview

Debbie De Louise

Author ~ Librarian

I’m pleased to welcome Debbie De Louise to Kat’s corner.

Bio:

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Kat: I think we all bring part of us into our writing. How does your own life’s experiences come to light in your books?

Debbie: I use many of my past experiences in my writing, but I fictionalize them to make them fit the particular scene I’m writing and sometimes also dramatize them to make them more interesting to readers. For instance, I used my experience on my college newspaper in my latest release, Cloudy Rainbow. In that book, I also wrote about my cat, Floppy, who I named the cat character after. Although I didn’t get Floppy in college and he wasn’t a lost cat, I made those details up. The part about the main character panicking when Floppy made himself a nest inside her bed mattress was based on my true experience with him as a kitten.

In my Cobble Cove cozy mystery series, I use a lot of my background as a librarian for the scenes with my main character, Alicia, who is also a librarian. Some of the patrons at the Cobble Cove library are based on some of the real ones at my library, although I make changes to them.

Kat: What’s the toughest part of your job?

Debbie: If you’re referring to my writing and not my work at the library, I think the toughest job is finding the time to write, edit, and promote my books.

Kat: What do you like most about your job?

Debbie: I love creating characters, giving them life, and seeing what they do on the stage of my book.

Kat: What don’t those who aren’t writers not understand about the world of writers?

Debbie: I don’t think non-writers understand the amount of work that goes into writing and that it’s a rare few who make it big quickly or even ever.

Kat: If you could go anywhere in the world where would that be and why?

Debbie: There are so many places I’d like to visit. My family and I had plans to go to Italy one year, but it didn’t work out. I’m still interested in going there. I’ve been overseas but only to England after college. In the U.S., I still want to go to the Grand Canyon and California.

Kat: What were you like as a child?

Debbie: Very shy and a real bookworm. I was also an animal lover especially of cats and still am. I had a weight problem and still struggle with my weight. I’m currently a Jenny Craig member. I’ve lost over 60 pounds but went off the diet and started gaining it back, so I returned and am now less than 10 pounds higher than what I was when I stopped going. From there, I’d like to lose another 10.

Kat: If you weren’t a writer, what would you be?

Debbie: Well, I’m a librarian as well as a writer, so I guess that’s what I would be. Those were the only occupations I ever considered, but I wanted to be a writer before a librarian.

Kat: Is there anything you would hope your readers get out of reading your book?

Debbie: I hope that I surprise and entertain my readers with my mysteries. I hope they enjoy my characters and feel like they can relate to them and even be friends with some of them.

NEW RELEASE

By Debbie De Louise

Dedicated to my mom who recently passed away, Cloudy Rainbow is a story of love, loss, and love regained through the power of hope.

CLOUDY RAINBOW

This revised edition celebrates the 10th anniversary of the author’s first published novel.

When you lose a loved one, whether it’s a relative, friend, or precious pet, you wonder where that special soul has gone and if you will ever see him or her again. For Dulcie Mills, Long Island computer programmer, the answer may lie between a virtual world and the real one, between the past and the present, between dreams and reality.

Unable to get over her fiancée’s death and facing the impending loss of her 15-year-old cat, Dulcie escapes to a virtual world. When Dulcie’s best friend accepts a job from a clairvoyant who offers predictions regarding Dulcie’s dead fiancée and Dulcie becomes attracted to an online stranger, history begins to repeat itself in ways that are both promising and terrifying. What Dulcie discovers through a virtual séance may mean the only chance she has left for love or death itself.

Addressing topics of reincarnation and soul transfer in similar ways as Greg Iles’ Sleep No More and Nora Roberts’ Midnight Bayou, Cloudy Rainbow features an interesting mix of technology and the paranormal and will also appeal to cat lovers.

First time in KU and Amazon eBook: mybook.to/CR2
Paperback also available