Dale Mayer - An Author Interview in the HBS Author's Spotlight

Today our blog puts the Spotlight on Suspense Author Dale Mayer. She is a writer of Romantic Suspense, Thrillers and Paranormal Romance. Dale has written several series including the Design series, By Death Series, Family Blood Ties, and Psychic Visions series.

Author Genre: Romantic suspense,thrillers,Paranormal Romance

Website: Dale Mayer
Author's Blog: Dale Mayer blog
Twitter: @DaleMayer
E-Mail: bdmayer2002@gmail.com
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Author Description:
Dale Mayer is a USA Today bestselling author best known for her Psychic Visions and Family Blood Ties series. Her contemporary romances are raw and full of passion and emotion (Second Chances, SKIN), her thrillers will keep you guessing (By Death series), and her romantic comedies will keep you giggling (It's a Dog's Life and Charmin Marvin Romantic Comedy series).

She honors the stories that come to her - and some of them are crazy and break all the rules and cross multiple genres!

To go with her fiction, she also writes nonfiction in many different fields with books available on resume writing, companion gardening and the US mortgage system. She has recently published her Career Essentials Series. All her books are available in print and ebook format.


SPOTLIGHT Questions and Answers with the Author

Congratulations on your book: Eyes to the Soul. What do you have on the drawing board next? Can you tell us the timeline for its release and give us a little tease?

My next release is Scars – book 2 of the Broken but… Mending series. It's available on Feb. 24th. My next vampire book – Vampire in Chaos is being released on April 28th! After that is Chilled by Death which is coming out at the end of May. As you can see I have lots going on. Then I have Now You See Her… with an expected release date in late October. I actually left an excerpt of the next book in the back of Eyes to the Soul for the first time. Not sure how effective a strategy that will be. As I haven't written the book yet, it will be interesting working backwards. ;)

You have a good following on twitter. How important have your social media relationships been? How did you build your following in your niche? Did you use forums, newsletters and methods like that?

I used a large group blog, newsletter and lots of promo!

Do you do book signings, interviews, speaking and personal appearances? If so, when and where is the next place where your readers can see you? Where can they keep up with your personal contacts online?

No I haven't signed up to do any of those yet. Maybe down the road… ;)

You have great covers. They carry a theme and your brand with them. How does your book cover creation process work? Do you hand over the basic theme or do you have more of a hands-on approach? Do you get your readers involved in its development?

I get an idea of what I want then look for images that can somehow portray my concept. After a discussion with my son – my cover artist – he does up a couple of mockups. I always let my street team see the prototypes.

You have written several short stories like Sian's Solution. Can you tell us if they had an impact on the sales of your novels? Are shorty’s one of your styles of writing or are they created to give readers a sample of your work?

I do some short stories but they have been written for specific anthologies to date. I prefer writing long so short stories are actually hard for me to write.

I like the idea of Author bundles. You are a part of a novel collection called Romance Super Bundle. What was the impact on your other sales? What was the main objective of bundling your works with other romance authors? How did you put something like that together?

The Romance Superbundle was the first bundle like that I ever participated in. It had a decent impact on sales initially then that wanted somewhat but we revived interest in the bundle when we put out a second one. I find that it's not about sales as it is about getting your name out there. Having readers see it over and over again.

What writer support groups do you belong to? Do they help with the writing, marketing and the publishing process?

I belong to several groups but most are friend groups. Some are support groups like Writing GIAM. I've been part of this group for years. They've been there every step of my journey.

What has been your experience in giving your books away free? Have you been involved in any other type of giveaways and how did that work out? What was your main goal in doing this? Did you run into any obstacles?

I love giving away free books! I have done many different types of giveways from facebook parties, draws through my websites, monthly contests, and large donations of books to libraries that have requested materials. It's all about getting your name out there. So far I haven't had a problem with doing any of these.

What is your method of getting reviews for your novels? Do you seek professional reviews, use social media or do you rely on your reading audience to supply them?

Reviews are huge. I do contact blogs and put out a call for readers through social media, however I have been blessed with receiving most of my reviews from my readers.

You publish fiction and non-fiction plus different genres. Does changing hats create any problems? Any tricks you can share with us? Which genre did you enjoy writing the most?
Does moving from one to the other give you some breathing room?

Changing hats meant rising slower in different genres as I wasn't trying to attract just one audience I was trying to attract and hold multiple audiences. Now however, many of readers have crossed from one genre to the other with me. I often get emails from fans that are waiting on the next installment of several series at a time. I find moving from one genre is a big help mentally. Some of my books are twisted Romantic suspense and some are psychological thrillers. These are much darker and harder to write so breaking that up with a romantic comedy for my Broken Protocol series or writing another action packed vampire book – is sheer fun for me. Now that I've added in straight contemporary romances, I have even more choice! Writing the stories in my head as they come to me keeps my writing fresh and my plots unique. I do write a lot, but this way it never gets old.



Author's Book List
Eyes to the Soul - Psychic Visions Book 7
Just because a person can see – doesn't mean they should look.

Celina Wilton was technically blind, a state she wasn't very happy about. In her case the alternative was worse. So she'd learn to adapt, one way or another.

Stefan Kronos has wanted to get close to Celina for a long time, but she has walls that he's been forced to go around in some unusual ways. When a case he's been called to consult on puts her square in his radar he has to watch his step…and hers.

Unraveling the threads twisting between them and a killer like none Stefan had seen before means Celina has to trust him enough to let him inside her barriers.

That's when Stefan realizes he's not the only with eyes into her soul.


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Rare Find - Psychic Visions Book 6
When people need help or are injured, they call out for their friends and family. When an animal needs help or is injured, it calls out for…anyone…that can help them…

One person hears them…

Tabitha is determined to bury her aching heart in the service of her animals at Exotic Landscape. Until she’s yanked out of her cozy retreat to help someone in need…and she gets more than she bargained for.

Detective Ronin Chandler understands secrets. He’s got a few of his own. But when the woman he loves gets into trouble – the kind that stretches even his belief system – he struggles to understand…and to help…before he loses her. Maybe forever.

As the danger escalates, Tabitha and Ronin need to find out who they can trust…and who they can’t…and who wants them dead…before it’s too late.


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Knock, knock… - Psychic Visions Book 5
There's no best-by date for revenge. Wealthy and beautiful Shay Lassiter runs a prestigious foundation, but her connections and resources were worthless when her fiancé tried to murder her. Now, she's guarding her heart and using her knack for reading people's intentions - both good and evil - to guide her. But when the foundation's clients start dying, she must turn to the new man in her life...one who's giving her mixed signals. Computer specialist and ex-cop Roman Chandler has a secret. It involves Shay and could ruin the fragile relationship he's building with her. Though he can't tell her the truth, he needs to convince her to trust him. He fears that whoever is behind this is about to turn his vengeance on Shay... And vengeance can be deadly.


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Garden of Sorrow - Psychic Visions Book 4
Her world is in chaos. His world is in order. She wants to help the innocent. He wants to catch the guilty. But someone is trying to make sure that neither gets what they want. Alexis Gordon has spent the last year trying to get over the loss of her sister. Then she goes to work on a normal day...and reality as she knows it...disappears. Detective Kevin Sutherland, armed with his own psychic abilities, recognizes her gift and calls in his friend Stefan Kronos, a psychic artist and law enforcement consultant, to help her develop her skills. But Kevin has never seen anything like this case - a killer with a personal vendetta to stop Alexis from finding out more about him...and his long dead victims. The killer can be stopped. He must be stopped. But he's planning on surviving...even after death.


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Maddy's Floor - Psychic Visions Book 3
Medical intuitive and licensed MD Madeleine Wagner thought she'd seen every way possible to heal a diseased body...until patients start dying from mysterious causes in her long-term facility. Causes Maddy believes are linked to an evil force.

Maddy's patients are dying. The terminally ill fight to get into the ward of Madeline Wagner, a medical intuitive and licensed MD. Once there, many miraculously...live. So when her patients start dropping and she senses an evil force causing their deaths, she calls on her friend and mentor, Stefan, for help. Together, they delve beyond the physical plane into the metaphysical... Only to find terror.

She wants to save everyone, but are some souls not meant to be saved?

Detective Drew McNeil has two family members in need of Maddy's healing care, but his visits to her facility leave him wondering - who cares for Maddy? Bizarre events on her floor raise his professional curiosity. And the more time he spends with Maddy, the more personal everything becomes. When the deaths on Maddy's Floor intersect with one of his cold cases, he realizes an old killer has returned - and Maddy's standing in his path.

How can these people stop something that no one else can see, feel or even believe?


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Hide'n Go Seek - Psychic Visions Book 2
A twisted game of Hide'n Go Seek forces an unlikely alliance between a no-nonsense FBI agent and a search-and-rescue worker. Celebrated search-and-rescue worker Kali Jordon has hidden her psychic abilities by crediting her canine partner Shiloh with the recoveries. But Kali knows the grim truth. The Sight that she inherited from her grandmother allows her to trace violent energy unerringly to victims of murder. No one knows her secret until a twisted killer challenges her to a deadly game of Hide'n Go Seek that threatens those closest to her. Now she must rely on FBI Special Agent Grant Summers, a man who has sworn to protect her, even as he suspects there's more to Kali and Shiloh than meets the eye. As the killer draws a tighter and tighter circle around Kali, she and Grant find there's no place to hide from themselves. Are her visions the key to finding the latest victim alive or will this twisted game of Hide'n Go Seek cost her...everything?


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Tuesday's Child - Psychic Visions Book 1
What she doesn’t want...is exactly what he needs.

Shunned and ridiculed all her life for something she can’t control, Samantha Blair hides her psychic abilities and lives on the fringes of society. Against her will, however, she’s tapped into a killer—or rather, his victims. Each woman’s murder, blow-by-blow, ravages her mind until their death releases her back to her body. Sam knows she must go to the authorities, but will the rugged, no-nonsense detective in charge of tracking down the killer believe her?

Detective Brandt Sutherland only trusts hard evidence, yet Sam’s visions offer clues he needs to catch a killer. The more he learns about her incredible abilities, however, the clearer it becomes that Sam’s visions have put her in the killer’s line of fire. Now Brandt must save her from something he cannot see or understand…and risk losing his heart in the process.

As danger and desire collide, passion raises the stakes in a game Sam and Brandt don’t dare lose.


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Vampire in Conflict - Family Blood Ties Book 6
The blood farm is gone. Those behind it have either died, been caught, or are on the run. Time to return to the real world.

Only normal life isn't quite what Tessa expected. Good thing, because there is no 'normal' anymore. She's different. Her family is different. Her friends are different. The world around her is different. Trying to find her place is not easy. She wants nothing more than to be a normal teenager and join Cody and his friends on a Friday night out.

Cody wants the trouble to be over so he can get back to living the life he used to with one major addition – Tessa.

Only Ian and Jewel aren't healing well, Rhia is acting out of character, and Jared keeps tripping over dead bodies. Then there's David, who'll do anything to help Jewel… even something he knows he shouldn't do.

Something is wrong, and once again it's up to Tessa to figure out what is happening under the surface of this 'normal' life.


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Vampire In Defiance - Family Blood Ties Book 5
This was it. For Tessa. For Cody. For Jared. Her family. Her Friends.

Moltere's Mountain is collapsing. With Tessa, her friends and family still inside. Tessa won't go down without a fight...and she won't leave the others behind. But as she races to save everyone, time runs out.

Grounded with an injured wing, Cody wants Tessa to leave while they still can. But most of their friends and family are missing. And he fears the worst...

Jared had led the army into the mountain. Only to find they were looking to annihilate all vamps, not just the bad ones. He can't leave his friends vulnerable to yet another attack. But the mine is a death trap, and he could be the one that ends up dead.

The pressure is on – to save friends, family, each other – only the enemy is just as determined that no one survives.


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Vampire in Deceit - Family Blood Ties Book 4
Note: This book ends on a cliffhanger as did the other books in the series. Book 5 is likely to be the conclusion of this series and will be out soon. Hurt and hurting, Tessa wages war against her own as she tries to protect those she loves and save those that can't save themselves. Ravaged by the constant attacks, afraid for her friends and family, Tessa is driven to the ends of her reserves as she strives to beat back the never ending wave of war. Thankfully she's never alone...inside or out. Kidnapped and injured, Cody struggles to escape and find the girl whose connection to his heart, mind and soul is growing by the moment. The chances of them all surviving this chaos are slim...but he just knows he can't live without her. Jared is determined to help his father and friends. He can't leave them alone to their fate, even when his own life becomes endangered...again. Only this time, he has allies on his side...or does he? The war unites humans and vamps as the war ratchets higher to a survival of the fittest...but the people most deeply involved can't take any more. And then they find out the worst…


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Vampire in Design - Family Blood Ties Book 3
This is book 3 of Family Blood Ties Series - like the others - it has a cliffhanger ending! Book 4 is due out in the late summer/fall of 2013. Left behind. Scared. And getting really pissed off. Tessa and her friends were supposed to be on their way home. On their way to safety. Instead she wakes up alone, with her friends kidnapped. Targeted and hunted, Tessa goes on the attack, desperate to find her friends and family. But her attackers want her throwback genes and will do anything to have her locked down in their lab. Caught in a dangerous maze, Cody is torn between helping his fellow captives and finding Tessa. He's young to have the connection that's growing between him and his best friend's sister. But any future they might have is in jeopardy if they can't stop the blood farm from taking over the humans…and his people. Jared is free at last, but he can't stop thinking about what he went through at the blood farm and those who helped him. Then he finds out something personal that is so horrifying, he has to act…even if it means walking back into the place he swore to never return. These three need to be strong…the war is far from over…and they are right in the middle of it.


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Vampire in Distress - Family Blood Ties Book 2
WARNING - there is some mild swearing and the book has a cliffhanger ending! Who you are on the inside is more important that what you are on the outside... But not when your're fated to be a lab rat for the rest of your life. Sixteen-year-old Tessa, a vampire with weird throwback human genes, is an outsider in both worlds. Always the odd one. Now, imprisoned in a blood farm, she fights to free herself and rejoin her family and friends. Especially one young male vamp. Cody, eighteen and the youngest of the long line of ancient flyer vampires, wants Tessa back at his side where she belongs - even as he struggles with conflicting emotions about his best friend's kid sister-turned-hottie. Jared, the cute human who'd befriended Tessa, is relieved to be rescued and wants to see the trussed-up, drugged humans in the warehouse taken care of. Only he's freaked that the people who rescued him are vampires...and then he finds out the truth about Tessa...


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Vampire in Denial - Family Blood Ties Book 1
Blood doesn't just make her who she is...it also makes her what she is. Like being a sixteen-year-old vampire isn't hard enough, Tessa's throwback human genes make her an outcast among her relatives. But try as she might, she can't get a handle on the vampire lifestyle and all the...blood. Turning her back on the vamp world, she embraces the human teenage lifestyle--high school, peer pressure and finding a boyfriend. Jared manages to stir something in her blood. He's smart and fun and oh, so cute. But Tessa's dream of a having the perfect boyfriend turns into a nightmare when vampires attack the movie theatre and kidnap her date. Once again, Tessa finds herself torn between the human world and the vampire one. Will blood own out? Can she make peace with who she is as well as what?


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Skin - Broken but... Mending Book 1
A journey of exploration...
A journey of healing…
A journey of love…
Two people are forced by circumstances into a therapy class to help them deal with their problems. They are strangers. Forced to be partners. Naturally opposites.

Kane is dealing with anger of betrayal at the deepest level, needing to find his way back to forgiveness. Tania is a previous rape victim hoping to deal with her fear of intimacy so she can have a loving relationship.

Tania's medium of expression - her camera.

Her subject – the human body – Kane's physical body.

Looking through the lens of a camera, she learns to find beauty and compassion…and the strength to find wholeness…with him.


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Haunted by Death - By Death Series Book 2
This is book 2 in the By Death series Death haunts anthropologist Meg Pearce… In her last summer before college, an innocent camping trip ended in a friend's disappearance…and destroyed her life. She lost everything. Her innocence. Her plans for her future. Her best friend and lover. Seventeen years later, she returns reluctantly to the same area, hoping to move on. But a gruesome discovery sends her reeling back to that dark time. Detective Chad Ingram has spent the last seventeen years trying to solve the mystery of that camping trip so he too can regain his life…and the lost love of his life. Only death isn't done shaking up their lives…and this time they are in the crossfire.


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Touched by Death - By Death Series Book 1
Death had touched anthropologist Jade Hansen in Haiti once before, costing her an unborn child and perhaps her very sanity.

A year later, determined to face her own issues, she returns to Haiti with a mortuary team to recover the bodies of an American family from a mass grave.

Visiting his brother after the quake, independent contractor Dane Carter puts his life on hold to help the sleepy town of Jacmel rebuild. But he finds it hard to like his brother's pregnant wife or her family. He wants to go home, until he meets Jade - and realizes what's missing in his own life.

When the mortuary team begins work, it's as if malevolence has been released from the earth. Instead of laying her ghosts to rest, Jade finds herself confronting death and terror again.

And the man who unexpectedly awakens her heart - is right in the middle of it all.


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Dangerous Designs - Design series
Drawing is her world...but when her new pencil comes alive, it's his world too. Her... Storey Dalton is seventeen and now boyfriendless after being dumped via Facebook. Drawing is her escape. It's like as soon as she gets down one image, a dozen more are pressing in on her. Then she realizes her pictures are almost drawing themselves...or is it that her new pencil is alive? Him... Eric Jordan is a new Ranger and the only son of the Councilman to his world. He's crossed the veil between dimensions to retrieve a lost stylus. But Storey is already experimenting with her new pencil and what her drawings can do - like open portals. It ... The stylus is a soul-bound intelligence from Eric's dimension on Earth and uses Storey's unsuspecting mind to seek its way home, giving her an unbelievable power. She unwittingly opens a third dimension, one that held a dangerous predatory species banished from Eric's world centuries ago, releasing these animals into both dimensions. Them... Once in Eric's homeland, Storey is blamed for the calamity sentenced to death. When she escapes, Eric is ordered to bring her back or face that same death penalty. With nothing to lose, can they work together across dimensions to save both their worlds? This is book 1 in the series and ends on a hook that is picked up in book 2.


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Sian's Solution - Family Blood Ties Short Story
This 9k word short story was originally published in 2011 as part of the Entangled anthology - sold to raise money for Breast Cancer awareness

Sometimes the depth of love is only understood when it is lost forever…

When a vampire discovers the human man she loves has been captured and hung in a blood farm, she goes against her own kind and risks everything to save him.

Sian Tallant is a scientist and a vampire. Her lover is a doctor and a human. Their relationship is taboo. Taz doesn't know that she is a vampire. But when she tried to break up with him, he followed her into vampire territory and was captured.


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Author Recommended by: HBSystems Publications
Publisher of ebooks, writing industry blogger and the sponsor of the following blogs:
HBS eBook Author’s Corner
HBS Mystery Reader’s Circle

Check out the index of other Spotlight authors. Spotlight Index.