Interview with the Authors of Leave Me Breathless: The Black Rose Collection

What can you tell us about your new release, Leave Me Breathless: The Black Rose Collection?

a. Response from Dakota Willink: My book in this anthology is called The Sound of Silence. This story was inspired by something I wrote for a SOVAS Award-winning and Audie nominated audiobook anthology, Nevertheless We Persisted: Me Too, produced by Blunder Woman Productions. I took certain elements of my personal story and made them into a fiction novel about a domestic abuse survivor.

b. Response from Sonya Jesus: It combines my love for criminology, science, and romance in one.

What books are currently on your nightstand?

a. Response from Sienna Snow: Currently on my nightstand are signed paperbacks of M. Never’s Decadence After Dark Series. It is a deliciously twisted love story that I can’t get enough of. I’m rereading them for the third time.

b. Response from Jo-Anne Joseph: I actually don’t have a book on my nightstand, I’m more of a devour, return to shelf kind of reader if it’s a riveting read. More thought-provoking reads that cause me to pause now and then, are usually wherever I am.

What advice would you give your teenage self?

a. Response from Pepper North: Learn all you can about everything. Crafting intriguing books requires believable characters, locations, and interactions. Live life and be observant. Each bit of life experience will find its way into your writing to enhance it.

b. Response from Cayce Poponea: Boys lie like rugs, wait for the grown man.

If you had an extra hour each day, how would you spend it?

a. Response from Elizabeth Knox: I’d read. Sadly, I don’t read very often but I need to get back in the habit of it. When writing became my job, I somehow shifted into working more versus splitting my time equally.

What makes your world go round? Why does it bring you joy?

a. Response from Patricia D. Eddy: I’m the most fulfilled when I’m giving a voice to people who so often don’t get one. Those with anxiety, depression, invisible illnesses like MS, Fibro, etc. Those with scars who don’t think they are worth loving any longer. For a long time, I saw myself as broken. Anxiety, ADHD, and PTSD made me feel like I could never be accepted or loved or…normal. And then I realized that normal is a myth. There is no “normal.” We’re all broken in different ways, and that makes us no less perfect. Broken doesn’t mean busted. It means we’ve lived and survived and grown and learned and healed and maybe broken again. Our scars make us who we are, and we ALL have value.

What scene in Leave Me Breathless: The Black Rose Collection was your favorite to write?

a. Response from Crimson Syn: My new release is Insidious Love. It is the second book in my Bleeding Heart series and it is part of my darker trigger-filled romances. My favorite scene to write was Chapter 8, where Jake Cavanaugh is fighting with himself and whether or not to kill Rose Blackthorne or keep her for himself. There’s a very intense sex scene that involved a weapon. His struggle and the intense need between them was an interesting piece to write.

b. Response from Sierra Hill: In Precious Gems, my romantic suspense, I wrote my first ever murder scene! I’ve never killed anyone off before and I have to say it was liberating! Ha!

Leave Me Breathless: The Black Rose Collection is the new romance collection from Dakota Willink, Crimson Syn, Sierra Hill, Sonya Jesus, Elizabeth Knowx, Sienna Snow, Sin Silverfall, Pepper North, Jo-Anne Joseph, Patricia D. Eddy, and Cayce Poponea.