Celebrating Indiana Romance Authors: Anna Hague
Welcome Anna Hague, another of my fellow Indiana RWA Chapter mates. Anna tells me that when she’s not taking orders from her characters, she is a free-lance sports writer for various newspapers in Indiana. She loves covering high school sports, but she’s obsessed with IndyCar racing, and have covered the sport for 17 years at the Indianapolis 500. Anna’s married to the best cheerleader and husband any girl could want, and they live in Central Indiana with a dog and three parrots. They’ve parented eleven foreign exchange students, finding some of their greatest joy in living with teenagers. Anna’s credo is that no one takes the same path to love. Love has its own agenda, and we are just along for the ride.
NAN: Anna, I’m so glad you could stop by for a chat today. What are you currently working on?
ANNA: Thanks for having me, Nan. Right now, I’m doing edits for the first book in a series for Wild Rose Press. The series will be published in their Wilder Roses division which is the high heat level division.
I am also working on a self-published work called Risk, Reward, or Ruin which is a romantic suspense, I’m really enjoying writing this book because my hero, while he is very wealthy and visible, he has some social anxieties. My heroine is a former college basketball star, has no filters, and is taller than my hero. This book should be out in July.
Nan: If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
ANNA: To quote Nike, “Just do it.” I have tablets of paper in a box with several partial stories written. I was afraid of trying. After years of being a sports writer, I now know I can put at least two sentences together. I just wish I’d started earlier.
NAN: Has reading a book ever changed your life?
ANNA: Yes. The was non fiction called A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins, The book was written in 1979 so the pictures of clothing and hairstyles are hilarious, but the story brought out every emotion I had. The story is about Peter Jenkins who didn’t have a job so he and his dog started walking across the U.S. The story made me so aware of other’s people’s lives. It was such a reality check for me at age 20 that the world revolves around everyone and not just me. That book had a huge impact on me as I began to move around the country,
NAN: What keeps you sane as a writer?
ANNA: I have a dog and three parrots so I’m interrupted several times a day. My dog is old and has to go out a lot. My parrots talk and make me laugh all of the time. Also, I have a really great family and friends who really support me.
NAN: If someone wrote a book about your life, what would it be called?
ANNA: The Grass Never Grew Under Her Feet. My husband and I have moved seventeen times since we’ve been married. We weren’t military, but lived in six states. I think all of those moves and experiences has given me, not only ideas for my stories, but also the feel for how people live in different parts of the country.
NAN: What is the hardest part about writing a series?
ANNA: I keep forgetting the last names of my characters and the names of their places of employment. I need to keep a book of facts about my characters, I’m trying, but I’m a terrible organizer,
NAN: What do you like best/least about writing?
ANNA: I get very excited about what happens next, and I can’t wait to get to next big scene, The least: when I go back to edit and think “Wow, did I really say that?”
NAN: If you could marry a fictional character who would it be?
ANNA: I am so in love with Jacob from Aleatha Romig’s Light series, I can’t even explain why. I guess he fits my personal ultimate hero guidelines.
NAN: Is there a theme or underlying message that you hope comes across?
ANNA: I do. I think my books will all be different because I want to portray that love takes many forms and happens in so many different ways. There are many paths to love,
NAN: What do you do in your spare time?
ANNA: My husband and I are big sports fans, especially IndyCar racing and basketball. We like live music and travel, and of course, I love to read,
You’ll find Anna here:
https://www.annahague.com/home
https://www.facebook.com/AnnaHagueAuthor/
annahagueauthor on Instagram
Captured Hearts: Unimaginable Choices, Undeniable Desire
When his parents were murdered when he was sixteen, Jamey Marcum had to make difficult choices. Choices that often changed others’ lives. Now he’s made a decision to change one more life. Allee Jones. Allee Jones is the perfect target. No family. No friends. No one will miss her if she never shows up to her job again. Because of her anxieties, she is a social pariah. When Jamey abducts Allee, he never imagined she would be the one to slip into his sealed heart, and emotions could get both of them killed. Still, he delivers her to a ruthless woman who enslaves Allee to the whims of deviants and predators in a hidden Pacific Northwest location housing dozens of abducted women. In the midst of the nightmare she faces, Allee has to decide to trust her abductor or die, but she has her own attraction to the man who grabbed her off the street. Together they must fight each other’s demons to face their undeniable desire, exposing even more of Allee’s secret afflictions. Once rescued from the operation, their challenges reach far beyond what transpired between them. Terror, guilt, forgiveness, and love all collide on a path to an uncertain future.
Excerpt:
As he pulled into the drive at the church, Jamey remembered the last time he came to have a serious talk with Mark. Months ago he brought a stranger to his home—a stranger who pulled at his heart like no other. His determination and guilt propelled him to make their relationship work, but then he was quite unaware of what life would be like with her. Now he knew. Holding Allee when she was having an episode was not easy. Even as thin as she was, when Allee was fighting against his hold, she was very strong, and keeping her from hurting them both was draining. However, the most draining was the mental pain of not really knowing what to do.
No matter how hard things were, Jamey knew he could never abandon her. He loved her too much. While he went back to get her out of that hell hole, he knew she, in fact, was the one who saved him. He had been drowning in his work. Every day that he spent undercover was a day he lost of himself.
Allee challenged and tried him, but she touched his heart in a way no one had ever before. She tried very hard not to show her vulnerability. She was, in fact, a concrete will with a brain that often betrayed her. In the time he’d lived with him, Jamey learned a lot about Allee. She was smart, but her dyslexia was a constant roadblock to reading. She was an extraordinary baker even though she never used a recipe. She could be funny and sarcastic. What Jamey found more than anything else was that she needed someone to love her, because she didn’t even understand the concept of loving another person.
Easy didn’t describe their lives, but what he thought was attraction had turned into love very quickly. She had never told him she loved him, but Jamey was sure she was happy. She never acted as if she didn’t care for him, except when she struggled to hit him during one of her explosions. One day, Allee would love him. Of that, he was sure.
Buy Captured Hearts at Amazon and other fine online book retailers.