About the Author
Miranda Parker is the author of the Evangeline Crawford Bounty Hunter Series. After graduating from college, she began working as a features editor for various magazines and spent many years as a publicist for national recording artists, actors, ministers, and authors. However, writing fun, feisty, redemptive bad girl gone good stories is her passion. She resides with her family in Georgia near a horse ranch and her daughter’s Girl Scout Troop. On a perfect day she can be found curled up with a good book or in a movie theater with a bucket of popcorn.
Visit the author online at http://www.mirandaparker.com/.
List your published books.
• Sistahfaith Anthology (Simon & Schuster, 2010)
• A Good Excuse to Be Bad (Kensington, 2011)
Which book did you find the hardest to birth?
My next release Someone Bad and Something Blue which releases in July 2012 was my hardest to write. My stories are pretty big as far as story plot points. Because it’s romantic adventure I have to accomplish two things in the story. When I wrote A Good Excuse to Be Bad I knew how the series would begin and end, but the stories in the middle that will drive the series I didn’t know what would happen there. On top of that my editor Selena wanted me to put a cliffhanger on the end of A Good Excuse to Be Bad. That cliffhanger was the catalyst for Book Two and Book Three, so connecting the dots was hard. I rewrote chapter one fifteen times. Each chapter was different from the first.
Which book is your current favorite?
I think most authors would say the book they are currently working on, because you grow as a writer. I love A Good Excuse to Be Bad. I love the idea of a feisty female lead who falls for the worst person at the worst time in her life and then have to honor her responsibilities as a young mom at the same time. This book has to be my favorite, because it’s what sold Kensington on the entire series. So I’m writing Book 3, which I need you all to help me with a title. It is messy, and Angel has put herself in a pickle that is so much fun and a bit scary to write.
How would you describe your writing style?
My writing style is a Catch 22. You either love it or you don’t. I write fast paced novels and I use pitch, diction, and sentence structure to accomplish that. Sometimes it comes across choppy, which is what I want. I want readers to feel the chaos and confusion of certain moments. The best way to do that is playing with sentence structure and pitch.
My writing influences are Chuck Palahniuk, Edgar Allan Poe, Thomas Hardy, Zora Neale Hurston, William Faulkner, Nella Larsen, Walter Mosley and Sydney Sheldon, so that should tell you my writing style is unique.
Do you listen to music while you write? If so, what kind?
I can’t write a scene unless I have the write music that fits the mood. I have a playlist for A Good Excuse To Be Bad you can hear on my Facebook Wall. Hit the Vevo Tab.
There is some rock music on there, Aaliyah is a major influence for Angel’s character. One Republic, Adele, Sade…it’s sensual, adult, not dirty, dark, uplifting. I am a Christian music publicist so I have from traditional gospel Mahalia Jackson to contemporary Christian Natalie Grant also on the playlist as well.
Tell us anything about you as a writer that you think might be interesting or unusual.
I wrote the argument scenes just after I had an argument with my boyfriend or my daughter’s father. I channel those emotions into my story. So if Angel is crying, than I was crying when I wrote it.
What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
Surrender to your gift by becoming a better steward of your talent. Take writing classes to learn craft. Write every day to exercise the craft. Join writer’s groups to motivate, inspire and champion you when you don’t feel like it. Realize that as African Americans it was once illegal for us to read or write. In my state less than sixty years ago our grandparents had to leave school at sixth grade. It is a privilege to write and read. Let’s respect that and do those who died for our right to read and write proud. Let’s write the best stories that can both entertain and inspire our world.
Writers are often encouraged to write what they know. Have you found that to be the case with your writing?
No. No one wants to read a novel about German church architecture. Lol. That’s what I know like I know I have five fingers. I think you should write what keeps you up at night. That is what you know and your readers can relate to. Now the story that you pull together to address that nighttime haunt can be whatever makes you excited and happy about. Because you will have to spend many hours planted in a seat in front of a computer/laptop. If what excites you is a bail recovery agent hanging in Atlanta clubs then write about that. Just make sure that this bail recovery agent shares your heart.
About the Book
Smart gorgeous and too tough for her own good, bail recovery agent and single mom Evangeline Crawford moved to the burbs for a quiet life. Fortunately, it’s not turning out that way…
Angel has to admit she’s feeling restless. The only excitement in her life is her schoolgirl crush on the town’s new pastor, Justus-too-Hot-to-be-Holy Morgan. But a fateful encounter and a job gone wrong at Club Night Candy in Underground Atlanta is about to change all that…Soon, Angel’s trying to save her divazilla twin sister from her big mouth and a scandalous murder charge, and probing a church cover-up–with none other than Justus by her side. But Angel has one more pressing concern; will Bella be ready for kindergarten? Only time will tell for this bad girl gone good whose days are once again far from boring–and hopefully far from numbered…
Book Trailer
Purchase the Book Online at:
Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, BooksaMillion.com
For More Information
Visit the author online at http://www.mirandaparker.com/.
Visit blog tour schedule at http://bit.ly/AGoodExcuseToBeBadBlogTour
