Mixing the elements of a romance and a thriller is no easy task, but Sharon Buchbinder demonstrates how to craft a page-turning romantic suspense. She would know after having penned eight of them. One of those books, the second in her Hotel LaBelle series, Legacy of Evil, is a prime example of intrigue, passion, and spot-on pacing. It won First Place for Published Romance in the 2018 Royal Palm Literary Awards. Sharon discusses working toward success and making a good impression on this week’s RPLA Showcase.
Sharon’s Writing Journey
I’ve been writing fiction since middle school and have the rejection slips to prove it. An RN with a PhD in Public Health Sciences, I have provided health care delivery, conducted healthcare research, been an association executive, and am now a professor. All along the way, I’ve been writing fiction and nonfiction—short stories, blogs, textbooks, novellas, novels—and as I like to joke, became an “overnight fiction success” in 30 years.
The Winning Entry, Legacy of Evil 
Logline: One battle, one outcome. Who will win? Good or evil? When the lives of many are on the line, Emma and Bronco are not sure if they will live or die—let alone have a chance at love.
This story came to me when I read a February 2016 piece about a “Sovereign” group buying 400 condo units near the abandoned Glasgow Air Force Base for back taxes. The residents of the town of St. Marie, Montana were quite nervous about this entity showing up on their doorstep. Since I already had a story based in Billings, Montana, I thought, “What if this were a domestic terrorist group that moved in next door and attacked with armed unmanned drones?” The rest of the story flowed from that moment.
Read an excerpt of Legacy of Evil here.
Two Truths and a Lie, Writer’s Edition
Write every day.
Do not expect to be an overnight success.
Always submit your best effort.
The lie? Write every day. I write in sprints between all my other professional and personal obligations. The better advice: Carpe diem! Write in the odd moments, use a voice to text program on your phone to make notes when you’re stuck in traffic. Buy Dragon Speak to speed up your productivity. Make appointments with yourself to write and keep them.
Success almost never comes overnight. With rare exception, everyone pays their dues. Paying your dues includes being of service to other authors and participating in helping developing authors, whether as a contest judge, critique partner, mentor, or sounding board. Pay it forward and invest in yourself.
You should always submit your best effort. A manuscript with typos and grammatical errors distracts from the story. It also tells the editor you don’t know your craft. Or don’t care. Neither will get your work out of the slush pile.
Other Works by Sharon
In addition to my winning piece, I have written: five (5) textbooks, eight (8) novels and novellas, 20-30 short stories, over a hundred peer-reviewed abstracts, publications, or blogs, and innumerable program reviews, letters of recommendation, lectures, case studies, and debriefings. When I’m not writing, I’m thinking about writing.
Coming Next from this Author
The fourth book in the Hotel LaBelle Series is tentatively titled Cry of the Wolf.
The raven-haired Chief of Tribal Police on the Crow Reservation Jacob Graywolf with quicksilver eyes is a wolf shape-shifter and keeps it very much to himself. His nearly perfect clearance rate is due, in equal parts, to his unique tracker skills and to his education and training as a police officer.
When a taskforce crossing tribal and non-tribal law enforcement officers is convened to investigate the disappearance and murders of indigenous women in Montana, Jacob is called upon to work with other local and state law enforcement agencies. When a Crow woman is found dead on the reservation, as the first officer on the scene, the case belongs to Jacob. But when another woman is found killed in a similar manner in on non-tribal lands, Jacob and his Billings Police Force colleagues suspect they have a serial killer on their lands.
Forced to call in the FBI, Jacob is shocked that the agent sent in to help them is neither Native American, nor a male. With her red hair, green eyes, and petite frame, Special Agent Zena Adalwolf is the physical antithesis of everything he expected. He’s also disconcerted by the fact that she has a master’s degree in Legal Anthropology and a JD with a focus on Native American Rights. What Jacob has yet to discover is his distractingly attractive new colleague has some paranormal abilities up her sleeves.
Can Jacob and Zena work together to bring the serial killer to justice? Or will the killer get to one of them first? The clock is ticking, and no one knows who will be next—their lives or their hearts.
Connect with Sharon
You can find me just about anywhere!
Amazon Page https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001IODIE2
BookBub https://www.bookbub.com/authors/sharon-buchbinder
Facebook: Sharon Buchbinder Romance Author https://www.facebook.com/sharon.buchbinder.romanceauthor
Twitter ID @sbuchbinder https://twitter.com/sbuchbinder
Instagram: https://instagram.com/sharon_buchbinder/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/sbuchbinder/
Website http://www.sharonbuchbinder.com/index.html
Goodreads author page https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4417344.Sharon_Buchbinder
More About RPLA
The Royal Palm Literary Awards competition is a service of the Florida Writers Association established to recognize excellence in members’ published and unpublished works while providing objective and constructive written assessments for all entrants. Judges include literary agents, publishers, film producers, current or retired professors, teachers, librarians, editors, bestselling and award-winning authors, and journalists from across the nation. Entries are scored against the criteria set by RPLA using rubrics tailored to each genre. Winners are announced at the annual FWA conference during the RPLA awards banquet. To learn more about RPLA, click here for the guidelines.
