Stolen Obsession by Marlene M. Bell - Audio Book Tour

Author: Marlene M. Bell

Narrator: Katina Kalin

Length: 9 hours 38 minutes

Publisher: Ewephoric

Released: Nov. 28, 2018

Series: Annalisse Series, Book 1

Publisher: Ewephoric

Genre: Mystery

People die, but legends live on.

New York antiquities appraiser Annalisse Drury recently lost her best friend to murder. The killer's identity may be linked to her friend's expensive missing bracelet, a 500-year-old artifact that carries an ancient curse, one that unleashes evil upon any who dare wear the jewelry created for the Persian royal family.

Weeks later, Annalisse sees a matching necklace at a Manhattan gallery opening. She begs the owner to destroy the cursed piece, but her pleas fall on deaf ears, despite the unnatural death that occurs during the opening. With two victims linked to the jewelry, Annalisse is certain she must act. Desperate, Annalisse enlists the gallery owner's son to help, even though she's afraid he'll break her heart.

Wealthy and devastatingly handsome, with a string of bereft women in his wake, Greek playboy Alec Zavos dismisses Annalisse's concerns, until his parents are ripped from the Zavos family yacht during their ocean voyage near Crete.

Annalisse and Alec race across two oceans to save his mother, feared dead or kidnapped. When the killer changes tactics and goes after Alec behind Annalisse's back, can her plan to rescue Alec's mother save them all?

Marlene M. Bell is an award-winning writer and acclaimed artist as well as a photographer. Her sheep landscapes grace the covers of Sheep!, The Shepherd, Ranch & Rural Living, and Sheep Industry News, to name a few.

Her catalog venture, Ewephoric, began in 1985 out of her desire to locate personalized sheep stationery. She rarely found sheep products through catalogs and set out to design them herself. Order Ewephoric gifts online or request a catalog at TexasSheep.com.

Marlene and her husband, Gregg, reside in beautiful East Texas on a wooded ranch with their dreadfully spoiled horned Dorset sheep, a large Maremma guard dog named Tia, along with Hollywood, Leo, and Squeaks, the cats that believe they rule the household—and do.

Website⎮Twitter⎮Facebook

What inspired you to become a writer? My love of sheep. I had a story to tell about them and the rest naturally transpired from there into fiction.

What are your hobbies? I’m an artsy person. My training is in fine arts with a preference of painting in oils. I dabble in mosaics and still sketch the sheep once in a while. When I’m not writing I enjoy photography and even enter a few contests with my pictures every year. Our sheep are part of my retail business where I take paintings and photos and turn them into merchandise for resale. My next project is taking yarn from the sheep’s wool and working on hooked rugs.

What are you passionate about? I love to read mysteries and romantic suspense when I’m taking a break from writing. The sheep are a big part of our lives, so they would certainly take the top slot in the passion department.

What interests are you into? Photography and sheep. I also love to research my upcoming series books since much of the action takes place in foreign countries—places I haven’t visited.

What social media do you use to contact with your fans? My favorite platform is Twitter where I have over 34,000 followers, but I also like Facebook for conversations with my serious readers, ARC Team and other sheep breeders.

What is your username on the different social media platforms?

I can be reached on Twitter: @ewephoric (MY COMPANY NAME.)

My Facebook personal page is: facebook.com/marlene.bell.3194

My Author page is located at: fb.me/marlenembell

What did you do before you became a published author? I had a few jobs right out of high school as a receptionist at a flying service, then moved to production assistant at a fire protection company is the bay area of California. I met my husband in late 1979 and he had the sheep. When we married in 1982, he encouraged me to start my own business and I did so part-time in 1985. Ewephoric went full time in 1989.

Do you have another job other than writing? Yes! I have two websites where I retail sheep related gifts from my artwork and photography. The other site is my author website where my novels are featured.

How long have you been writing for? I began writing small articles for sheep magazines in the early 1990’s. My first book, a memoir of sorts, started in 2007 and I published it in 2009. I began writing fiction in 2010.

What's your writing style like? I write page-turner mysteries in the third person. I may dabble in first-person just to change up the point of view in the not-too-distant future though! I’m big into descriptions and love to add plenty of dialog between characters.

What's your favorite genre to write/read in and why? Mystery and suspense are my favorite movies, and the same goes for the books I prefer to read. You will find Romantic Suspense written by authors like Karen Rose and a few Texas authors on my book shelves. The more complicated the plots…the better.

What's your least favorite genre to write/read in and why? Vampires and horror with the gory blood scenes are my least favorite. I will pass on Stephen King books as well. I don’t mind a bit of language and violence, but I have my limits. If I can’t relate to the characters and their situations, I’d rather not pick up the book. The cover of these types of books usually tell me a great deal.

Some writers have something playing in the background, do you and what? I like to write in silence for the most part, but if I do feel like background music, my choice is instrumental jazz.

What's the inspiration behind your books? I’ve had a saga in my head for years. With each book in the Annalisse series, I’m able to build on the basic story. I expect to write at least 4 books if not 6 in the series.

If you could do it all over again, would you change anything about your books? I would have researched how to write fiction the proper way prior to writing my first draft. There were many rules that I broke in that draft that had to be relearned in order to complete my first book, STOLEN OBSESSION. The learning process took eight years prior to publication.

Is there anything you found particularly challenging about writing? Yes! How to please an agent and traditional publishing house. I’m still working on that one, but it will have to wait for another book not associated with this series.

Who are your cover designers? I’ve used two different designer firms. The first is Steam Power Studios, a husband and wife team from Australia and other is Isabel Robalo from Portugal.

what authors are your inspiration? I love Diana Gabaldon’s use of imagination, fantasy and actual history, although I think she’s a bit too wordy, and Karen Rose for her twisty, complicated romantic suspense.

What is your take on fanfiction? There’s something plagiaristic about writing characters already in print and on screen. I’m not a “fan” of the practice.

What advice would you give any newbie author or anyone that wants to pick up writing? I would recommend learning the correct way to write fiction for todays reader. Read every fiction craft book you can get your hands on. Your writing will improve immensely. Read other author’s work at the same time, but stay away from well-known bestselling authors. They break every writing rule, where the new writer cannot. If you don’t read…you can’t write worth a darn. I tried it. Not a good idea. 😊

What are your fondest childhood memories? Spending time on my grandparent’s small ranch catching lizards in coffee cans with my Italian grandfather who spoke broken English. Wandering their huge garden picking vine-ripened tomatoes, warmed by the sun. Biting into a hot tomato, the sticky juices running down my chin. I learned so much from him and my grandmother. Later in life, I lived with my grandmother for seven years prior to meeting my future husband.

If you Don’t mind tell us a little about your personal life? Due to the sheep ranch where we reside, I am a bit of a hermit and homebody. The sheep require feeding twice a day and my husband, Gregg doesn’t work where we live. I’ve learned to take care of our 50-acre ranch myself while he’s away.

Do you have any pets? We have 2 inside domestic cats and one outdoors who keeps the gopher population at bay. Tia, our Maremma Large Guard Dog is also outdoors with the sheep. In the last year we have reduced the number of sheep we keep. At present we have 20 head of Horned Dorsets.