Author Spotlight: Gayle Donnelly and Robyn Mackenzie

Hi friends! A pleasant surprise for us all! Double the fun with double the authors! Please welcome Gayle Donnelly, and Robyn Mackenzie! I’m especially pleased because they interviewed themselves! This sick, and sleep deprived Lime can’t tell you how grateful she is about it. Se’s even speaking in third person! I’ll stop now. (But really – aren’t they adorable?!) Don’t miss the giveaway at the end!

As readers ourselves, there are always certain questions we want to ask authors when we meet them or read a blog with an interview.  What we would like to do today with Limecello, is answer those questions for you.  We hope you enjoy our story and hope to see you at Authors After Dark!

  1. How did you get into writing?

We are both English majors and always enjoyed writing in college.  Once life started getting in the way of enjoying reading (both of us are married with two children and have full time jobs) we fell out of it.  Believe it or not, like so many readers, Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight Saga brought us both back to reading.  Since then, we are never without a book and probably go through 3-4 a week each.

One afternoon, we were sitting outside by the pool, kids splashing and playing and we started talking about a book that we both mutually did not care for (and yes, we will leave the name of the book out!).  We couldn’t understand how it had gotten published with so many errors both plot as well as grammar.  Robyn looked over at me and said, “You know, we could do this!”  And basically…that was it.

We came up with a story line and went with it.  I did an outline and we then proceeded to meet at Starbucks every Sunday morning.  It was “our” time and we loved it.  It took almost two years but we finished Infinite Betrayal and took it with us to Lori Foster’s Reader/Writer event in 2010.  We pitched to Liquid Silver Books and they took it.  We were very lucky!

  1. What is the most important aspect of your writing?

Honestly, we just think about what we would want to read about.  It HAS to include Alpha males and great sex but most importantly…the STORY has to be there.  One great piece of advice we received was “If you like the story without the sex scenes, then the story isn’t just based on sex.”  Those are the stories we like.  Solid plot lines, good characters, and meaningful relationships.  Once we get that, the sex is just a bonus!  And a good one too!

  1. What is the writing process when there are two writers involved?

Well, everyone is different but for Robyn and I, we take each storyline that we come up with and determine “ownership”.  In Infinite Betrayal, Mina and Mathias were Mine from minute one.  Once we developed that story, Robyn immediately owned Chloe and Talon.  The “owner” of the characters comes up with the outline of the story and begins the writing process.  The writing partner then comes in with suggestions, corrections, enhancements, and editing.

There are several times when we don’t agree with each other in where a story goes and when that happens, we are close enough to each other to accept honest feedback and really step back and take a look at the story as a whole.  As long as we remain TRUE to the original story we have created, we pretty much listen to each other and remain open to constructive as well as positive feedback.

  1. Do you read reviews of your book(s)?  What did you think of them?

Not usually unless we have sent our work to the reviewer.  For review and blog sites we have solicited for reviews, we usually comment on them as well.  Thanking the bloggers and reviewer for the attention given to Infinite Betrayal.  We truly appreciate everyone’s opinion and if they loved our story, we are soooo very thankful for it.  But if they didn’t, everyone is entitled to say what they believe and in our eyes, our story just wasn’t for them.

Really, any review is pretty good in our minds because it means our story reached a reader.  Honestly, we were extremely pleased with the reviews of our story and were shocked to have been nominated as one of the best Indie Paranormal novels of 2011 by Romantic Times.  For us, that was a HUGE deal!!

  1. Who are some of your favorite authors?

We are pretty much the same on this one:  JR Ward, Larissa Ione, Lora Leigh’s Nauti Boys, Shannon Stacey, Jill Shalvis, Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark Hunters, Jaci Burton, Shelly Laurenston, Karen Marie Moning’s Highlander series, Erin McCarthy’s Fast Track series….we could go on and on!!!

  1. What do you want to get out of attending Authors After Dark?  Why this conference?

Well, first of all, paranormal work is our favorite genre and we wanted to go to a con that was dedicated to it.  Second…it’s taking place in the paranormal capital of the US!  New Orleans is one of our favorite places to visit and we haven’t been in about a year.  We cannot wait to be back in the Big Easy!  Third and finally, we want to meet all of the readers and authors in the genre.  We have so much in common and we felt that this was the one conference to meet some wonderful readers and incredibly talented authors….all while enjoying the city of spirits (both alcoholic as well as paranormal!)

  1. What’s coming next from you both?

Well, Infinite Surrender; Book 2 of the Infinity series is in the final editing phase and we hope to have that out soon.  Book 3/Infinite Desire has been outlined and we will begin the writing process as soon as Surrender is out.   Desire will have Tremayne as the main character.
We are both also working on independent projects and hope to be publishes with single works as well.

Thank you so much Limecello for having us and we would like to give away an E-copy of Infinite Betrayal to one of your commenters.  See you at AAD!!!

So what questions do you have for Ms. Donnelly and Ms. Mackenzie? What’d you think of their interview?  Obviously I liked it. 😀 (Giveaway/contest rules can be found here, and as usual I’ll do my best.)

0 thoughts on “Author Spotlight: Gayle Donnelly and Robyn Mackenzie

  1. TrishJ

    I love to hear a great success story. Congrats. As a reader I look for an interesting story line and great characters first. I look forward to reading your book. Thanks for the giveaway.

    Reply
  2. JoAnne

    Great interview even if you did have to interview yourselves. Love that you like some of the same authors I do. I look forward to reading this series.
    Thanks for sharing and for the giveaway.

    Reply
  3. Lynnette

    Fun interview. I wish everyone felt the way you do about the most important aspect of your writing – I, too love the sex scenes, but if there isn’t a great story, what’s the point?
    allenlwa1179 (at) gmail (dot) com

    Reply
  4. Pingback: AAD Spotlight Interview and Giveaway with Limecello! | Donnelly Mackenzie

  5. Pingback: Guess What? Winners What! « Limecello

Leave a Reply to LynnetteCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.