CJ Lyons

Good morning! I am pleased to introduce today's Get Lost in a Story interview, the incomparable CJ Lyons. I may not be a medical professional, but I feel it is my duty to put a cautionary label on CJ's books.

WARNING: Picking up a CJ Lyons novel may result in severe disorientation, e.g. you will get lost--truly. Reading is not recommended when one has to pick up kids, has something in the oven, or has an appointment to keep. With that, Dear Reader, pick one up at your own risk.

Please join the GET LOST crew as they welcome CJ Lyons:

Donnell: Which of your characters would you most/least to invite to dinner, and why?

CJ Lyons: That's a tough one. Amanda is the only one who can actually cook but Gina has excellent taste in ordering take out from exclusive restaurants, Nora is the best hostess for putting everyone at ease, and Lydia has the most interesting stories to tell (but you'd have to get her drunk first, she's pretty shy)…I think I'd invite Trey. Not only is he an interesting (and cute!) guy, but all the women would pitch in and help out, so you'd get the best of everything.

Donnell: Do you read reviews of your books? If so, do you pay any attention to them, or let them influence your writing?

CJ Lyons: I read reviews when they come to me in my google alert (I don't go looking for all the online reader reviews on Amazon, etc) but they don't influence me much. So far they've been uniformly positive, so the main reason I read them is they provide nice quotes for my website.

The feedback that does influence my writing comes from the fanmail readers send. I do make sure I answer all the questions they want answered (and they think of some I never dreamed of and so had to figure out the answers to!) and work hard to give them the elements of story that they want the most: rich, strong but flawed characters and interesting situations to challenge them.

Donnell: Have you ever written a character who wasn’t meant to be a hero/heroine but he/she wouldn’t go away?

CJ Lyons: Lucky, the sidekick of my romantic thriller CHASING SHADOWS….he stuck around and kept bugging me until I gave him his own book in LOST IN SHADOWS (both available as ebooks)

Donnell: What is your favorite cheese?

CJ Lyons: Asiago

Donnell: Tea or coffee?

CJ Lyons: Neither, hot cocoa for me, please

Donnell: What name have you been dying to use as a lead character, but haven’t found the right fit yet?

CJ Lyons: Nicholas Shade….but I think I will be using him in my new project, so don't steal him!

Donnell: What’s in your refrigerator right now?

CJ Lyons: Tangerines, skim milk, asiago cheese, cat food, Ghiradelli dark chocolate, humus, feta cheese, spinach, red peppers, olives

Donnell: (yum on the refrigerator answer ;) Is Elvis really dead?

CJ Lyons: Yep, but then he was cloned…

Donnell: What is your favorite tradition from your childhood, that you would love to pass on or did pass on to your children?

CJ Lyons: We have a 250 year old family recipe for the ugliest (but yummiest!!) Christmas cookies on the planet…going strong with the next gen already!

Donnell: (that's an old tradition!) What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

CJ Lyons: I don't write in order. In fact, because CRITICAL CONDITION (the finale of my Angels of Mercy series that just hit the stores) was so tightly paced and took place in less than four hours AND I had four main characters' story lines to juggle, I wrote it backwards.

Literally. Knew who was alive at the end of the book and wrote it scene by scene backwards from there….sounds crazy but it was great fun!

Donnell: What was one of the most surprising things you learned while writing/researching a book?

CJ Lyons: That elevator hatches are locked from the OUTSIDE (yeah, how many movies does that ruin???)

Donnell: (I know. That messed me up too ;) What is your favorite kid joke?

CJ Lyons: How do you make a Kleenex dance? Just blow some boogie into it!

Donnell: Which is your favorite language other than your native language?

CJ Lyons: Navajo

Donnell: (difficult language!) What would you do if you had a time machine?

CJ Lyons: Hook up with Dr. Who (the David Tennant incarnation, if you please!)

Donnell: How much money does it take to be happy?

CJ Lyons: None

Donnell: (hence why you became a writer? ;) If you couldn’t be a writer anymore, what profession would you take up?

CJ Lyons: I always wanted to be a film editor—pulling all those images into a cohesive story visually and narratively

Donnell: What’s the first thing you do when you finish a book?

CJ Lyons: Start the next…

Well, there you have it. Some insights into what makes CJ tick. Thanks for sharing about the Elvis clones. All this time I thought they were impersonators.

Today, CJ is giving away WARNING SIGNS, one of her Angels of Mercy series novels and the Mainstream genre winner in the published division of The 2010 Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense, in which CJ was a double-finalist.

About CJ:

As a pediatric ER doctor, CJ Lyons has lived the life she writes about in her cutting edge suspense novels. She has assisted police and prosecutors with cases involving child abuse, rape, homicide and Munchausen by Proxy and has worked in numerous trauma centers, as a crisis counselor, victim advocate, as well as a flight physician for Life Flight. CJ credits her patients and their families for teaching her the art of medicine and giving her the courage to pursue her dream of becoming a novelist.

Her first novel, LIFELINES (Berkley, March 2008), received praise as a "breathtakingly fast-paced medical thriller" from Publishers Weekly, was reviewed favorably by the Baltimore Sun and Newsday, named a Top Pick by Romantic Times Book Review Magazine, and became a National Bestseller. LIFELINES also won a Readers' Choice Award for Best First Novel.

Her award-winning, critically acclaimed Angels of Mercy series (LIFELINES, WARNING SIGNS, URGENT CARE and CRITICAL CONDITION) is available now. Her newest project as co-author of a new suspense series with Erin Brockovich, starts with the release of ROCK BOTTOM in March 2011. To learn more about CJ and her work, go to http://www.cjlyons.net/

Join us tomorrow as Cat Schield hosts Urban Fantasy Author Skyler White!

YESTERDAY'S WINNER OF CJ LYON'S WARNING SIGNS WAS RASHDA KHAN! Congratulations, Rashda!