Today I’m hosting an incredible writer and my good friend Cyn Hadyn. We’ve “known” each other through a mutual friend for years, but finally caught up in person (Thanks Bette!) If you’re into paranormal or historical, check her out!
Tell us about yourself – Firstly, I hate talking about myself. I’d rather talk about you or my books. Okaay, I will cooperate. I grew up in Pennsylvania, went to university in Colorado and Kansas, married a West Point guy and saw the world: Germany, Brazil, Panama. Before choosing a one income lifestyle, I was lucky enough to vacation in Egypt, Greece, Switzerland, France, Italy. Been back to Italy three more times since then, and let me just say, I LOOOOVE Italy. Before I retired in 2012 I had a three-part career, Museums, Archives and Military History. Retired from Civil Service in my position as Command Historian for Marine Special Operations Command. Now I’m living in Clearwater, Florida and enjoying the warm weather and being able to write whenever the muse prompts me.
What television sitcom is most like your family? Err, Addams Family. Why? Perhaps because all the women in my family have been born with fangs. No, seriously. Modern dentistry has kept us from outing ourselves.
What’s your favorite thing to do to relax? Read, drink scotch, read, write until midnight.
Do you prefer…
Public speaking or public singing? If you’ve ever heard me sing, you’d know the answer to that. I’ve worked hard to cultivate the friends I have and want to keep them.
Writing in a notebook or typing on the computer? Computer. Hate laptops, although I have two. 
Coke or Pepsi? Pepsi, if I can’t have a scotch and soda.
Living without your cell phone or living without your computer? Is it possible to live without a computer?
Now about you as an author…
Did you always want to be an author? That’s like asking did you always want to breathe.
What authors had an impact on you growing up and as an adult? I guess the Russians: Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. I read Brothers Karamazov and War and Peace when I was about ten. Yeah, aside from the unpronounceable names, I understood it. Read Sartre in college, and it had the desired effect, he drove me nuts, but fortunately not suicidal. Now I follow J. R. Ward, Lynn Viehl. Love paranormal writers. Also loved Dick Francis for his books on horse racing and Maeve Binchy for her Agatha Raisin detective stories, but for historical romance you can’t beat Diana Gabaldon.
Did anyone in your life influence you or encouraged you to be a writer? I had a college professor, Arthur Bennett, who read some of my old Man From Uncle scripts and encouraged me to send them in. Never did so, and am seriously disappointed in my cowardice.
What is your favorite aspect or writing? Your least favorite? Sitting in front of my computer late at night and just letting it flow. Least favorite is writing myself into a corner and having to figure out how to back out of it.
What aspect of writing would you most like to improve on? Punctuation. Believe it or not, I was an English teacher in a previous life, and having to correct all of those papers ruined my sense of what goes where.
Do you have any “must haves” with you while you’re writing? Aside from a glass of wine? I sort of play computer mahjong for a few times to warm up before I write.
Do you have a common theme or item that appears in each of your books? In my paranormal books it’s family. Family warped, see fang reference, or vanilla, but still family hanging together.
What have you learned the most from being in the writing business? If you were to ask my editor, it would probably be NOTHING. What I have learned is that writers are extremely supportive of each other. If you have a problem, all you have to do is reach out and you get instant help and instant support.
Tell us about your latest release: 
Amazon
Barnes & Nobles
AllRomance
Latest in historical romance with a paranormal twist is Piper Paid coming out on 10 November 2014
It was to be a working vacation and a childhood dream come true. Alana MacLeod from Dunedin, Florida would learn how to use herbs to treat common ailments, and in lieu of course cost, would teach her Scottish instructor how to forage for and use edible plants in her cooking.
Alana ‘s dream was to open her own business, offering an unusual combination of herbal remedies, edible weeds, acupuncture and different styles of massage, but her renowned plastic surgeon father thought it New Age twaddle and refused to support her financially. Not unlike her stubborn MacLeod ancestors, Alana refused to take no for an answer and followed her beloved grandfather’s example by joining the Marine Corps and serving two tours in Afghanistan to pay for the unusual classes she needed to open shop in Dunedin.
One of her first stops when she reached Scotland was to honor her grandfather’s memory by visiting the site of the famous Battle of Culloden, and walk the Drumossie moor where on April 16, 1746, the British forces of King George II destroyed the power of the Scottish clans. She and her grandfather had war-gamed the battle from the time she was able to understand strategy and tactics, and as she walked the terrain, she could almost feel the agony the clans must’ve experienced at such a major defeat.
Once she left mainland Scotland for the Isle of Skye, and the home of the renowned herbalist Annie MacCrimmon, her time in Skye flew by until she had but two last lessons to learn. The first of which was, never, ever summon a fairy as a lark, because you wouldn’t care at all for the results. Especially if you found yourself sent back to 1745 and given the task of saving a MacArthur piper’s life as payment for the fairy’s debt of honor.
The second hard lesson learned was never put a ring you’ve just dug up in a patch of four leaf clovers on your left ring finger. One, you wouldn’t be able to get it off again, and, Two, you’d find yourself wed by clan custom to a MacArthur piper. If she did manage to save Alasdair MacArthur’s life, the fairy had promised to send her back to her own century, but she’d been so flummoxed by the beautiful creature’s appearance, she’d forgotten to ask what would threaten the piper’s life so she could save him, and more importantly, what would happen if she failed.
Alana is forced to call upon her knowledge of foraging and herbal remedies, her Marine Corps training and her MacLeod stubbornness to fit into eighteenth century Skye. Although the fairy hadn’t given her a deadline, Alana had set one for herself. She’d convinced the MacArthur piper to handfast with her rather than an actual marriage, and so she would move heaven, hell and a certain fairy to see her mission was completed within a year and a day. But time was running out, and curse that tricky fairy, it was looking like the life threatening event Alasdair MacArthur needed saving from was the battle that would occur on Drumossie Moor on 16 April 1746.
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Thanks for hosting me, Donna. One small correction. The author of the Agatha Raisin books is M.C. Beaton, not Maeve Binchy. My bad!
I forgive you! I believe I’ve read both of those authors.