You may know Jen by her other author name Sara Driscoll which she uses to write the popular FBI K-9s Series.
About Jen J. Danna W/A Sara Driscoll
In the real world, Jen J. Danna is a scientist specializing in infectious diseases. She works as part of a dynamic research group at a cutting-edge Canadian university.
However, her true passion lies in indulging her love of the mysterious through her writing. Together with her partner Ann Vanderlaan, they write both the Abbott and Lowell Forensic Mysteries and the FBI K-9s (as Sara Driscoll). Jen lives near Toronto, Ontario, with her husband and two daughters.
Find Jen J. Danna | Sara Driscoll Online: Website * Twitter * Facebook * Pinterest * Goodreads.
Now, please make Jen J. Danna's alter ego, Sara Driscoll, welcome.
Take 5 With Sara Driscoll
Q1. What's your guilty pleasure when it comes to food and drink?
Jen/Sara: I’m absolutely a salty snack girl. If you offer me the choice of a piece of cake or a bag of potato chips, I’ll go for the chips every time. Salt is definitely my guilty pleasure, but it’s so incredibly not good for one’s health that I don’t indulge very often. But when I do, I really enjoy it!
Q2. What would you change about your career path if you could wave a magic wand?
Jen/Sara: I’d have given myself more patience. Publishing is a long game, and the sooner an author realizes that, the easier his or her life will be. Querying takes time, and so do revisions, submissions, and then the entire traditional publishing process right up to a book’s actual release. In my opinion, it’s worth the wait for a traditional publishing deal and its production, but patience and an understanding of why it can take so long will go a long way in keeping your sanity.
Q3. What's the worst review you ever received?
Jen/Sara: I don’t know that it was the ‘worst’ review (there isn’t one that sticks out in my mind), but this one was destructive simply based on timing. It was a review of the first book we published, at a time when early reviews were really important. This reviewer had bought the book, versus getting it from the library (or she said she never would have bothered to finish it), and said she was ‘disappointed in the story, the storytelling, the cliched characters, and the banal horror show at the end’. At the beginning of your career, when you’re trying to figure out if you can actually do the job, that was painful.
Q4. What did you do, if anything, after reading that review?
Jen/Sara: We all know the golden rule is you never moan and complain in public. But there’s nothing that says you can’t stress eat or complain to your husband and writing partner! ;) Bad reviews are hard on the ego, but as authors, we need to remember that everyone has a right to their opinion, their opinion isn’t wrong, and there is no way to please everyone all the time. So, I reminded myself to continue to write the books I’d like to read, and I haven’t looked back. Our Goodreads averages are all nearly 4.0 or above, so clearly it’s working for the majority of readers.
Jen/Sara: I listen to music all the time when I write and often have specific playlists for particular books or moods. It all has to be instrumental though, as I find lyrics distracting when I write. Film score music really hits the spot for me and I have a natural bias towards my brothers’ film scores (Mychael and Jeff Danna), as well as Hans Zimmer, James Horner, Alan Silvestri, Mark Isham, Henry and Rupert Gregson-Williams, Howard Shore, Nicolas Hooper and many others.
Before It's Too Late by Sara Driscoll
In this powerful K-9 crime thriller, FBI Special Agent Meg Jennings and her trusted search-and-rescue Labrador, Hawk, must race against the clock before a diabolical killer strikes again…
Somewhere in the Washington, D.C., area, a woman lies helpless in a box. Beneath the earth. Barely breathing. Buried alive. In Quantico, the FBI receives a coded message from the woman’s abductor. He wants to play a game with them: decipher the clues, find the grave, save the girl. The FBI’s top cryptanalysts crack the code, and Special Agent Meg Jennings and her K-9 partner, Hawk, scramble to follow a trail of false leads to the scene of the crime. By the time they solve the puzzle, it’s too late. But the killer’s game is far from over . . .
Soon another message arrives. Another victim is taken, and the deadly pattern is repeated—again and again. Each kidnapping triggers another desperate race against time, each with the possibility of another senseless death. That’s when Meg decides to try something drastic. Break the Bureau’s protocol. Bring in her brilliant sister, Cara, a genius at word games, to decipher the kidnapper’s twisted clues. Meg knows she’s risking her career to do it, but she’s determined not to let one more person die under her and Hawk’s watch. If the plan fails, it could bite them in the end. And if it leads to the killer, it could bury them forever . . .
I can't wait to read this edge-of-the-seat thriller. Add it to your library today. You'll find it at: Amazon * Barnes and Noble * Books-A-Million * Indigo Books * IndieBound.
Takeaway Truth
Want a taut thriller? Then Before It's Too Late is what you want to grab. Get it today.
Joan, thanks so much for hosting me today!
ReplyDeleteHappy to have you!
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