Spotlight & Giveaway: Killer Amnesia by Sherri Shackelford

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Sherri Shackelford to HJ!

Hi Sherri and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Killer Amnesia!

 
Hello and Welcome!! After writing fourteen books for Harlequin, I’m thrilled to make my feature debut at Harlequin Junkie!!
 

To start off, can you please tell us a little bit about this book?:

I’ve always wanted to write an amnesia story, and Killer Amnesia was the perfect opportunity to explore the complications of memory loss. Emma Lyons is an investigative journalist who specializes in serial killers. While researching a string of unsolved murders, she may have stumbled onto the most prolific serial killer in Texas history.

Deputy Liam McCourt was wallowing in boredom when Emma crashed into his life. Liam has a few secrets of his own, and together they must race against time to discover who wants Emma dead.
 

Please share your favorite lines or quote(s) from this book:

“Liam didn’t resent God for ignoring his prayers, instead, he’d learned that if a man never asked for anything, he was never disappointed.”

“Memory is a funny thing, isn’t it? I forget things that happened this morning but remember things from my childhood as clear as a bell. It’s like we cling to the stuff that’s been taking up space in our heads the longest.”

“You like the person I am now, and I like that guy too. Except he’s not the whole picture. But I thought, well, I thought that if you could love me at my best, then maybe you could love me at my worst, too.”

What inspired this book?

The idea for this book came from the book, “I’ll be Gone in the Dark” by Michelle McNamara. What would happen, I wondered, if an investigative journalist stumbled upon the truth? What if the killer decided to silence her…forever.

Plus, I was really excited to write an amnesia story. It’s a beloved trope for a reason. There’s something incredibly vulnerable about not knowing your past. Especially when there’s a killer on the loose!

How did you ‘get to know’ your main characters? Did they ever surprise you?

Characters always surprise me! I remember once an editor asked me what my character was going to do at a certain point in the book, and I said, “I don’t know, she’s not there yet.” While I have a synopsis and an outline for my stories, I’ve never been able to see everything from the beginning. As I get to know the characters, they often pull me in other directions.

What was your favorite scene to write?

As an author, I stay conscious of the ‘theme’s of my book and how to carry those themes through the story. In Killer Amnesia, both characters are struggling with identity. Issues in Liam’s past have forced him to be someone he’s not, and Emma isn’t certain of her past. They each have to decide who they want to be once all the rules are broken.

As I was writing the epilogue, I struggled with how to tie the theme together. Then, as cliche as it might sound, the final line of the book hit me like a lightning bolt! I had my Kathleen Turner, Romancing the Stone moment. Because when you find yourself crying at the computer, you know you’ve gotten it right. (If you haven’t seen Romancing the Stone, rent it now!)

That’s why the epilogue was my favorite scene to write. Everything just came together perfectly in that last line.

“Liam stood and helped her to her feet, then glanced at the sign swaying gently in the breeze. “You know, when you first suggested that slogan, I was skeptical. But I stand by those words. More than that, I take pride in them.””

What was the most difficult scene to write?

The first scene is always the most difficult for me. As an author, I have to set up the entire story for both characters in that opening scene. If I don’t hook the reader, they’ll switch to playing candy crush! By the time the book is finished, I’ve probably read the opening scene a couple of hundred times in the hopes of setting the tone and revealing enough information to keep the reader hooked.

Would you say this book showcases your writing style or is it a departure for you?

Killer Amnesia is the continuation of a departure for me! I wrote 11 books for the Love Inspired Historical line before the category was shuttered. I’m still very much learning how to write suspense. Everything is different – the pacing, the plotting, and the even the time period. Instead of wagons and butter churns, I’m dealing with cell phones and infrared goggles. I’m getting there, but I’m still learning.

What do you want people to take away from reading this book?

Most authors have a theme that seems to pop up in all their books in some form or another. For me, my central theme revolves around family. Not just the family people are born into, but the family people choose to surround themselves with. The friends they choose, and the spouses they fall in love with. Sometimes people have to reject their birth families to move forward, and other times they must choose to forgive and embrace their past. Both Liam and Emma make decisions about the family they want in their lives.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have planned?

Right now I’m tossing around the idea of a story that takes place in Denali State Park in Alaska. I had this idea to do a series of stories set in and around state parks. That may or may not work out – it’s early days! But I think it’s a fun idea.

My next release is Stolen Secrets. This is a super fun story about industrial espionage. The heroine works for a government contractor, and she has platinum blond hair with blue highlights. She was a really fun character to write, and she has an absolutely dreamy hero to fall in love with. Stolen Secrets will release in March of 2020!

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: I’d love to give away three books, ebooks or paperback, to three lucky winners! I’ll send signed paperback copies to US residents and unsigned paperbacks to any winners from outside the United States.

Thanks!

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: While I enjoyed writing an amnesia story, I know there are some readers who don’t like the trope. What are your favorite story tropes? Amnesia? Friends to lovers? Secret babies? Most of have a favorite! (When I was writing historical, marriage-of-convenience was my favorite!)

 
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Excerpt from Killer Amnesia:

She found herself in a freezing nightmare of throbbing pain. Blood pounded inside her skull. Her other pains were too numerous to count, and the frigid rain had her bones aching.
The water was rising.
Her heart hammered against her ribs. She wasn’t staying in this car another minute.
“Did you hear me?” She tried to shout over the rushing water, but the words came out warbled. “About the accident?”
“I heard you,” the deputy said, a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I’ll get a description of the vehicle and the driver once you’re squared away.”
“A t-truck, I th-think.”
She attempted to reconstruct the moments before careening off the road, but the images at the edges of her vision blurred.
Someone had tried to kill her, and they’d nearly succeeded.
Her eyes must have drifted shut, because the next instant, Deputy McCourt was gently nudging her. “Stay with me.”
He was somewhere in his early thirties and handsome in an earnestly boyish kind of way. The weak beam of light from the highway above wasn’t strong enough to see his eyes, but she had a vague impression they were blue. His beard was dark, and she assumed the hair beneath his brimmed hat matched. He was tall—his shape hidden beneath his enveloping slicker.
The car shifted, and she frantically reached beneath the water to unfasten her seat belt. The mechanism released, and the sudden freedom sent pain shooting through her shoulder.
She clutched her upper arm and groaned.
“What’s wrong?” The deputy steadied her through the broken window. “What happened?”
The strap had been cutting into her collarbone, but she’d been too preoccupied by everything else to notice. “I’m f-fine. Just the seat belt.”
Her lips were going numb, making speech difficult. She pressed her palm against her throbbing head and winced.
The deputy broke the few remaining glass shards from the surrounding window frame. “You’ll have to crawl out. I’ll help you.”
“A-all right.”
As she drifted in and out of consciousness, the next few minutes passed in a blur. Strong arms lifted her from the car’s wreckage. The pain came in gasping waves. Even the slightest movement jolted her battered limbs. Once the deputy had positioned her on the backboard, she struggled feebly against his insistence on checking her for additional injuries. She was fine. She could walk. As he secured her upper body, a shaft of pure agony jerked through her.
“Sorry,” the deputy mumbled. “You have a dislocated shoulder.”
She blinked rapidly through the rain streaming over her face. “Can you put it back?”
“Take a deep breath.” He hovered over her, his gaze intense. “This is gonna hurt.”
His sharp movement caused an anguished cry, but the relief was almost immediate.
“You’re right,” she gasped. “That hurt.”
At least she’d learned one thing about herself—she appreciated honesty.
He brushed the back of his gloved hand over her temple. “Sorry.”
Stepping away, he slipped out of his raincoat.
She held up a restraining hand. “I’m already soaked. Y-you need that more than I do.”
“No arguments.” He leaned over her, adjusting the ties near her head, his body shielding her from the worst of the rain. “You can at least pretend like I’m in charge, ma’am.”
“Don’t call me ma’am,” she said weakly, wondering if he’d even hear her words over the rain. “Makes me feel old.”
His expression shifted. “What else should I call you?”
She probed the edges of her memory but met only an endless blank wall.
A sudden terror took hold, as though she was standing on the edge of a void. Her lungs constricted, and she couldn’t breathe. She desperately searched for something that made sense. She knew the man standing above her was a deputy. She recognized the insignia on his hat. Clinging to that one simple fact, she inhaled deeply. If she followed familiar items, they’d lead her out of this shadowy maze.
He clasped her hand. “Never mind. Don’t try and remember. We’ll stick with ma’am for now.”
The deputy made a signal with his hand and the backboard heaved. She grimaced, attempting to hide her discomfort.
“You’re doing great,” he said, his face a blur in the falling rain. “Not much longer.”
“I don’t have anything else planned.”
He grinned. “Keep that sense of humor.”
Images raced through her head. She recalled the steady swish of the windshield wipers—the crash of thunder. The visions were like memories from a dream—hazy and unfocused. Had she imaged the whole thing? She couldn’t have. There’d been a white pickup truck. The driver had crossed in front of her, striking her driver’s-side bumper. The blow had sent her car tumbling. The glass around her had shattered.
Then—nothing.
Her pulse sputtered. That was the worst part—the nothing. The nothing was horrifying. When she neared the edge of her memories, her stomach dropped as though she was falling. As though she was dropping into an endless void.
The only thing she knew for certain was the shocking feel of her car rolling down the hill, and the deputy’s soothing voice. Everything else was gone.
Erased.
When they neared the top of the embankment, another deputy joined them. He was older. Thinner. Not as handsome as Deputy McCourt, and his expression was stricken. Did she really look that bad? The two men rapidly unfastened her from the backboard, and the second man reached for her.
She frantically clutched Deputy McCourt’s arm. “No.”
The reaction came from a gut instinct she didn’t understand and couldn’t govern. Uncontrollable trembling seized her body, and her teeth chattered.
“You drive, Bishop,” Deputy McCourt ordered. “We’ll take my truck.”
He gathered her in his arms, compressing her shaking limbs. He was the only solid thing in her world, the only person she remembered. She pressed her cheek into the damp material of his shirt, her mind filling in the blank spaces with impressions of him. His deep, baritone voice, the curve of his lips in a half smile, the feel of his rough beard against her cheek as he’d drawn her close.
“I’m s-so cold,” she murmured, her mouth close to his ear.
The next moment the rain ceased pounding her skin, and a door slammed. She gasped in sheer relief. The noises outside were instantly muffled, soothing even. She was sheltered. She was safe. Reckless gratitude flooded through her, and she never wanted to leave the protection of the deputy’s arms. His strength and self-assurance were comforting. Everything outside the circle was unknown.
“Not much longer,” he said, his warm breath a soothing balm against her chilled skin. “Stay with me.”
“T-tell me your name again,” she pleaded, her voice hoarse. “Y-your first n-name.”
For reasons she couldn’t explain, his brief hesitation alarmed her.
“Liam. My name is Liam.”
She sensed his ambivalence toward her. As though he didn’t want to be kind to her but couldn’t find it in his nature to act unkind.
“Liam,” she repeated, testing the name on her tongue, but there was no spark of familiarity. “Do I know you?”
“I don’t think so, ma’am, but I haven’t lived in town long.”
Panic threatened to crush her. How much had she forgotten? What if she was imprisoned in this vacant place forever?
Her breath came in shallow puffs. The memory flashed in her mind again. A white truck. The crash of steel on steel. The sound of breaking glass. Then…nothing.
As though familiar with her moods, Liam seemed to sense the moment the wave of anxiety threatened to drown her.
“You’re all right,” he soothed. “The doc at the ER is good. He’s reliable. I’ve never seen his car parked outside Red’s Bar and Grill. That’s something around here. Not much else to do.”
The even drone of his voice steadied her. She couldn’t look backward; she had to look forward.
Something touched her elbow and she started.
Liam chuckled. “Don’t worry. She’s harmless. She’s my unofficial deputy today. Say hello, Duchess.”
The muzzle of a rust-colored Pomeranian nuzzled her arm, provoking a reluctant grin.
A staticky voice sounded over the police radio. “I have a positive ID on the license plates,” the voice declared.
“Go ahead,” the deputy who was driving said.
She was breathless, her heart pounding as though she was standing on the edge of a precipice. If the dispatcher said her name, surely there’d be a spark of recognition.
“The car is registered to a female. Brown eyes. Brown hair. Five feet five inches, one hundred and thirty pounds, age twenty-nine. Initial background check has her occupation listed as self-employed. journalist. The name is Emma Lyons.”
Nothing. No flash of memory. No spark of recognition. Nothing. Her stomach pitched, and her fragile world collapsed.
Someone wanted Emma Lyons dead.
Someone wanted her dead.
Why?

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Her life is a mystery, and forgetting the past can be deadly.
Run off the road, investigative journalist Emma Lyons awakens with no memory of who she is or what happened. And researching her own past with Deputy Liam McCourt quickly leads to a killer who wants them silenced. Branded outsiders in a sleepy Texas town full of dark secrets, can they escape an unknown threat dead set on robbing Emma of her past—and future?

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Meet the Author:

A former naval reservist with a top-secret security clearance, Sherri writes rapid-fire suspense featuring captivating characters and heart-pounding romance. She’s authored more than a dozen novels for Harlequin publishing, including both historical and contemporary suspense.

Her first suspense book, No Safe Place, was a finalist in both the New England Readers’ Choice Award, and the Faith Hope and Love Readers’ Choice Award.
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