Introductions are in Order

Happy New Year!
My name is Terri Reed and I love to daydream. And I love even more that I can take those daydreams and turn them in to stories. I’m a wife and mother first and foremost. My family is and always will be my top priority. But when the hubby is off at work and the kids are off at school, I get to close myself in my office and write. I have a big, comfy chair and a nice workspace that is literally clutter so much you can’t see the desk. I work best in clutter and chaos. And with music playing, all types from jazz and show tunes, to rock and classical to Christan gosspel and contemporay.

My faith has sustained me all my life through the ups and downs and writing books with character of faith has deepened my faith. Before I sold I couldn't figure out what was missing from my books. When I decided to incorporate my faith in to the stories I found the missing element. God has blessed my writing richly and to Him I give any glory.

All About Me:
1. How I got my first name? My mom had narrowed the name search down to Erin or Terri (not short for Teresa). She thought Terri sounded bubbly. I’m more an Erin at heart but hey, I answer to Terri. And I try to be out going but it’s a stretch. I’ve gotten better at it as I’ve matured and aged. (ugh, I sound like a bottle of wine).
2. How I got my writing name? Terri Reed is my legal name.
3. How I pick my characters' names, good guy and bad. There’s no rhyme or reason to how I pick names. Sometimes I’ll look up names if I want one from a certain time period or country in a book that I have called the Names through the Age by Teresa Norman. Sometimes the names will come to me in my daydreaming, but I am careful to make sure it’s not a name I’ve used in another book and that doesn’t sound like or have the first initial of another character in the book.

Three Really Interesting Tidbits About Me:
1. I used to be a model. I lived in New York City and Chicago. I did mostly catalog and magazine work but a few commercials as well.
2. I was a gymnast all through high school and then coached gymnastics up until I gave birth to my second child.
3. I love children. I would prefer to spend my time with kids than adults. And if I did pregnancy better I would have had more children but I hated being pregnant. With both of my children I was sick/throwing up from the moment I conceived right up until I gave birth. I would love to raise a whole house full of kids, but I’m blessed with my two.

All About my Books:
1. How I stumbled into writing suspense...Somewhere along the way I heard someone say write what you love to read. And since I devour suspense novels, writing books with some suspense seemed the logical choice. Back when I first sold to Steeple Hill in 2003, there wasn’t a suspense line so I had to keep the suspense aspect to a minimum. But thankfully, they started Love Inspired Suspense and I found a home here. Though I still really like my Love Inspired Romances (two of which are being reissued in March in a 2 for 1 volume) and I have a story idea bouncing around my head for another romance sans suspense. We’ll see.
2. My favorite suspense book I wrote and why...Oh, that’s hard. I have two, I guess. Beloved Enemy, March 2007. I’m not sure that it was my best book but it was the most fun. I was book three of continuity about six sisters who were trying to uncover the mystery of their mother’s death. Each book was loosely based on a Shakespeare play. Mine was Romeo and Juliet. I had fun with the concept and with using phrases of the old bard as I built the characters.
And A Sheltering Love, June 2004(a RITA finalist book) even though this book was under the Love Inspired Romance imprint, it still have a thread of suspense running through it. I think I identified most with Claire, the heroine of the book.
3. My favorite suspense book I read and why...Now that is really hard. I have shelves full of my favorite keepers. Most of which are suspense books. One book in particular that I love and reread often because it helps me with the structure of the short suspense book is Tess Gerritsen’s Presumed Guilty a Harlequin Intrigue from years ago. I saw that it has been re-released recently.

All About Others:
1. My favorite author is… again, another hard question. I have so many favorites. Tess Gerritsen, Harlan Coben, Faye Kellerman, Lisa Gardner, Cindy Gerard, Lenora Worth, Margaret Daley.
2. My best writing friend is...I have several but my two closest are Leah Vale and Lissa Manley. We’ve been critiquing for nearly thirteen years.

3. My most loyal fan is...my husband. He’s not a big reader, especially of fiction but he has read every one of my books to date.

The funniest thing that's ever happened to me because I'm a writer...not sure I have anything fun to relate, but I do find it interesting that because I write people assume I’ve graduated from college. I wish. That is one of my biggest regrets--that I dropped out in my third year to pursue modeling since I had no idea what I want to do with my life.

The craziest thing I've done gathering research for a novel is...convince my husband we needed to go on vacation to Hawaii so I could research the island of Maui. It really didn’t take any convincing, but I wrote the trip off and used everything I saw, felt, smelled, and heard while on the island of Maui in my September 2008 book Double Cross.

A real life murder (crime) that fascinates me is/was...The murder of fashion writer Christa Worthington in January of 2002 in the small Cape Cod town of Truro.

Finally, I'm excited about this blog because...we have such a wonderful collection of authors participating,