Author Spotlight: Colleen L. Donnelly

Colleen L. Donnelly put her science education to use for years and then set it aside to allow her other passions to flourish. Her first love is writing and her second is hunting – hunting for that next great story, hunting for antiquated treasures, hunting for the next good author to read. An avid believer in work hard/play hard, Colleen splits her time between indoors and out, always busy at something.

A little bit about Author Colleen L. Donnelly…

From the beginning, I walked in the complementary contradiction of loving science while exercising an active imagination for all things fictional. As for my career, I went from being a kid armed with a microscope and experiment book to an adult employed as a full time laboratory technician. But in the midst of appreciating the “predictability” of science, I was equally fascinated by the unpredictability of the human heart, eventually becoming what I termed “Lab Tech by day and Storyteller by night.” By the time I became a published author in 2014, I had traveled the path of writing and acting out short stories as a child, gaining some attention for pieces written as a college student, utter determination to write an award winning theatre play (I came very close), then the push through the five novels “they” say you have to write before you create one worthy of being contracted by a traditional publisher. Whew! It truly took five for me!

My writing journey began at birth. Although I didn’t understand it when young, I was born with a burning inside that expressed itself in stories. I have an antenna which is always watching and listening for the next tale, whether it comes from my own inner rumblings or a situation that quickens my imagination. As an author, I sometimes write because it’s good exercise for me, but other times the story takes over and I become its pen.

This is Author Colleen L. Donnelly’s writing and publication journey in her own words…

Inspiration to start writing…

I think I was born with a storyteller’s heart, so it is probably accurate to say my soul first inspired me to turn moral dilemmas, broken hearts, the unthinkable, and impossible dreams into tales of the struggle to find a happy ending. I prefer the historical fiction/romance genre to tell these stories, for there were no easy fixes, ready connections, or rapid means of transportation to help solve moral crises in generations past. Characters had to carry their heartache while they pushed through whatever rejection, temptation, betrayal, or threats they were up against. A simpler time, maybe, but a far more complicated time when the answer to your agony lies on the far side of social mores, a long walk or dusty horse ride, or a culture that forbids the very thing you crave. �

I Have a Story Blurb

Jim Turner writes crime but doesn’t live it. He respects his grandfather’s tales of heroes but doesn’t believe them. When his failing grandfather sends him to a remote peninsula to write the end of his own heroic love story, Jim includes a war criminal interview to maintain his edge.

Chastity is an anomaly, a misfit in pre-WWII culture as well as in Jim’s life. Her spritely charm and endearing features turn Jim’s world upside down, especially when she reveals his grandfather’s peninsula as the site of her upcoming wedding.

Do good journalists flee when their interviewee is murdered? Do heroes write fiancés out of another’s story and themselves in? “The End” become the hardest words for Jim to write.

One of Colleen’s favourite scenes from I Have A Story…

I have compared my newest release – “I Have a Story” – to the undersized child with enormous glasses that you put onto the school bus for the first time. You hold your breath and pray as you expose them to the world. “I Have a Story” is a wonderful pre-WWII love story…but unlike any I have written. Therefore I fretted until the reviews began to come in. Five stars and rave applause. My unusual child was a hit!

One of my favorite paragraphs is the one our reluctant hero’s quest stems from. He (Jim) is a successful author of crime novels and is content to live his life writing and arguing with his editor. But when his failing grandfather asks him to leave his comfortable New York life for a remote peninsula in the Midwest to find and finish the love story his grandfather had started to live but lost as a young man, Jim is thrown completely out of his element. “Love” wasn’t a word in Jim’s novels unless it pertained to some thug’s passion to commit a crime. His grandfather understands that, but he also knows what Jim lacks and sends him off with these words:

“Someday, son, something will send your moral compass into a tailspin. Gravity will vanish, and you will fling your guards aside. What has always been singular vision will suddenly become kaleidoscopic. When that happens, grab this pen and write. With blood as your ink, write your heart on the page.”

Book blurb for “I Have a Story”:

Do good journalists flee when their interviewee is murdered? Do heroes write fiancés out of another’s story and themselves in? “The End” become the hardest words for Jim to write.

Colleen’s works…

“Mine to Tell” was my first published novel which also became an Amazon #1 bestseller. �

It can be found on Amazon�http://amzn.to/1PNJo4S

BookBub�https://bit.ly/2FhBGYG

Goodreads�https://bit.ly/3gYClfI �

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“Love on a Train” is a book I mention for the impact it left on anyone who fell in love with the right person at the wrong time.

It can be found on Amazonhttp://amzn.to/1m9eYCx

BookBub https://bit.ly/45gqNgY

Audible https://adbl.co/4hGZDVS

“Letters and Lies” is one of my lighter and more humorous tales of a jilted spinster out to get her man. It is available on Amazon https://amzn.to/2yNFGNv

BookBub http://bit.ly/3pBNDtZ

Goodreads http://bit.ly/3bmGatt

“I Have a Story” is my newest release, a fun and dangerous love story set in pre-WWII. It is available on Amazon https://amzn.to/4lq6qGO

BookBub https://bit.ly/4ivgQls

Goodreads https://bit.ly/4jHc6Lj

Other books are:

Out of Splinters and Ashes: a WWII tale of forbidden love.

The Lady’s Arrangement: a humorous Western love/hate romance.

Asked For: the painful tale of a young girl chosen solely as a wife to provide an heir.

Katie Walsh: a young girl who has to search for her true identity after her father is murdered.

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