Cate: Today, Cissy Hunt is in the Author's Spotlight. Cissy, will you please share a short bio with us?Cissy: My name is Cissy Hunt and my husband and I live in the beautiful Ozark Mountains with our two small dogs and two cats, where we love to night fish on one of their great lakes. I have been an ordained minister since August of 2007. I am called to minister to hurting women who carry the emotional scars of domestic abuse. For as long as I can remember I have always loved to write. I have always had the problem of expressing myself verbally, but one only had to hand me a pen and paper and out would flow my thoughts. I have written poetry most of my life and now my life-long dream has come true. I have written a book.
Cate: Tell us about your latest release and where it's available.
Cissy: My book, A Rose Blooms Among the Thorns, is about a woman's journey from domestic abuse through healing to forgiveness you can read more about it on my website or it can be purchased from my publisher's website.
Cate: Please tantalize us with a story blurb or excerpt.
Cissy: After finally receiving the divorce that LaRae believed would finally set her free from domestic violence, she ends up staying on the run from her abusive ex-husband, James, who stalks her across the country. When she finds herself really free of James, LaRae struggles through the up and downs of trying to make a peaceful life for herself. A life free of the violence that left scars of fear and pain, not only physically, but mentally as well. LaRae finds a friend that helps point her on a path that leads to hope, healing, and a new life.Cate: What inspired you to write about the theme?
Cissy: My own personal experience that I went through in my past.
Cate: How do you develop your plots and characters?
Cissy: This was my first book and even though it was fiction I based it on my own life. The plot kind of followed my life. Some of the characters are based on people that had a great influnce on my life and others develoved themself where needed.
Cate: Do you feel as if the characters live with you as you write? Do they haunt your dreams?
Cissy: Oh yes, writing this book took me on a journey that was hard for me. It took me back into my past. Yet, I ended the journey healed of all the nightmares that had plagued me throughout the years and many emotional scars that still lingered.
Cate: What's next for you?
Cissy: I'm not sure this book was just released Jan 5th. Many people have been asking me when is the next book due out that has read this one, and that's encouraging. I have been thinking of a sequal to this book. It would continue with some of the main characters.
Cate: Describe your writing in three words.
Cissy: Descriptive, emotional, real
Cate: What’s the most challenging aspect of writing? Most rewarding?
Cissy: To me the challenging and rewarding are the same. You put all your heart and emotions into a piece of work. It is a part of you then you place it out for the public to read to chritique. The public doesn't know what you went through to put this piece of work into their hands; they just know it is there for them to do with what they will. I just have to know I did my best and leave it at that.
Cate: What’s the most interesting comment you have received about your books?
Cissy: "I loved it but you ended it too soon." She went on to tell me I left her wondering "what next". I liked that. I have read many books that left me wondering what next great adventure was the main characture going on, or what kind of trouble was she fixing to get into next.
Cate: Who are some of your favorite authors and books? What are you reading now?
Cissy: Some authors I like to read are Beverly Lewis because of her writing of the Amish community and lifestyle, and Lori Wick because she is a versatile Christian writer in one book she will have you in one book she may have you with the pioneers, in another you may be in Victorian England, the next in any contemporary town. I just finished Lori Wick's Cassidy.
Cate: Where can you be found on the web?
Cissy: I can be found on my website and on Facebook.
Cate: Is there anything you’d like to ask our readers?
Cissy: To pick up the book and read it and see if it doesn't change your life and your way of thinking especially about domestic abuse. I would like to leave you with this small exert from my book: An average of about four women per day dies because of domestic violence. So you see on the day Terri died at the hands of her abuser so did three other women. Three other families in this country lost a mother, a sister, a daughter, an aunt, or a niece.
Cate: Readers, Cissy is giving away two books to random commenters... so start commenting. She'll pick a winner at the end of her book tour.
