CHRISTOPHER NULL

Winter Austin is launching a new thriller series under the banner of A Bounty of Shadows. Her first book in the series arrives in just a few days, and it promises to take us into some creepy terrain: a little place called Idaho.

Let’s meet Winter and talk shop in advance of her launch.

Who are you, and what do you write about?

I’m Winter Peck and I write under the pen name Winter Austin. I write crime fiction/police procedurals and thrillers/suspense with strong female leads. I live in southeast Iowa, and tend to set my books in Iowa, but I’ve expanded in this new series to go into my old love, the West and in Idaho. Per my brief bio: Author, Veteran’s Wife, NG-Army Mom, Best Aunt Ever, Farm Chick, Goat Mom, All-Around Bad-Ass.

What is your favorite word?

Repercussion. I swear when I was in high school and heard this word for what I believe was the first time in my life and learned its meaning, it became so ingrained in my word vault. I have used it forever and a day, even taught my eldest sons as soon as they were old enough to grasp it. I seriously believe it epitomizes my writing style, my plots, and my characters’ lives and backstories.

What is your least favorite word?

Oh, there’s one word that triggers me like you wouldn’t believe, and I don’t even dare write it or utter it. It’s a nasty word to describe women and it ain’t the B word. I’m fairly certain y’all can figure it out. I hear someone use it and I go nuclear, in fact the one time my husband used it he regretted it. He no longer ever says it. The only context it can be used around me is when mentioning the type of soft cap style of headwear the army used to wear prior to the black berets.

What is the trait you most like about yourself?

I’m a pay it forward gal. I love to teach, instruct, or coach people in something I’m knowledgeable about and they’re seeking the instruction. I really enjoy seeing someone thrive and improve and knowing I had a hand in it makes me want to keep doing it.

What is the trait you least like about yourself?

I’m getting older and it’s not as much of a problem as it used to be, but I’m by nature a people pleaser and try to avoid conflict when I can, or agree to things when I really should be saying no.

What is your greatest fear?

Snakes, dead or alive, doesn’t matter. I can’t remember when I realized I was terrified of them, but I can pinpoint a time when it became apparent. Now I run screaming in the opposite direction if I see them. Even a shed skin will turn me into the proverbial soon to be dead chick from a horror flick.

How do other people describe you?

Depends who you ask. LOL! I’m an INFJ. For all the non-Meyers Briggs personality people out there, that’s Introvert, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging, or aka The Advocate. I’m also a Gen-Xer who is an author. So take those things, shake hard, and you get a wild mix of Crazy.

What talent would you most like to have?

Professional equestrian. I can ride, but I’d love to be able to do all the things I never got to do, dressage, show jumping, maybe not eventing, but I’d love to do reining and cutting too.

If you weren’t working as a writer, what would you be doing?

Well, I do have a day job, so I’m not a full-time writer. I’m doing something I greatly enjoy in our local community college.

But really, if I can ever get it to this point, I plan to run a herd of goats and hire them out to cut back on overgrowth and brush and woodland areas. It’s such a great natural and sustainable idea, it’s just convincing local farmers and landowners it’s safer and cheaper than letting it continue to be a potential fire hazard or worse.

How would you like to die?

In my sleep as healthy as I can be. I’ve had too many relatives die of diseases and I’m witnessing too many family members suffer from ailments of all types. I’d rather not go down that path.

If you were to die and then come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?

Most certainly a person, and I’d be that professional equestrian.

When and where were you happiest?

With my animals. I enjoy hanging with family, but I get overpeopled a lot and animals don’t overpeople me. I didn’t think I’d ever be a goat person, but they remind me so much of horses, which I’m a huge fan of, but just smaller and more efficient.

What is your greatest regret?

Not traveling to far-off places nearly as much as I had hoped. But there’s still time.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

That I didn’t have to work a day job and I could just be a full-time author.

Who is your fictional hero?

Absaroka County Sheriff Walter ‘Walt’ Longmire. How Craig Johnson writes him reminds me so much of my great uncle who was a Korean War vet, a cowboy, a trainer of Quarter Horse racers, the Coors Lite cowboy, the laughing cowboy drawing that adorned the White House wall during Reagan’s term, and a storyteller.

Who are your favorite writers?

Obviously, Craig Johnson. CJ Box. C.S. Harris. Karin Slaughter. Dick Francis. Nalini Singh. Newer favorites, Taylor Moore, Bruce Borgos, and Jack Carr.

What have you been working on lately?

I’m in the middle of writing book 5 of my Benoit and Dayne series. We’re in the production process with book 2 of Bounty of Shadow series we’ve called Bait the Devil. I can’t wait for y’all to read the next adventure in Dot Ybarra’s life. And stay tuned for more mayhem to befall my beloved Sheriff Ellie Benoit and her long-suffering Deputy Detective Lila Dayne.

Here’s the blurb:

Will her life philosophy, “Do right, fear no man,” get her killed?

A string of bad luck has left former Army helicopter pilot Dot Ybarra with a serious case of wrecked nerves and a need for peace and solace at her family’s Idaho ranch. Instead, she encounters a desperate mother who stumbles onto their land, begging Dot to rescue her kidnapped daughter.

There’s a bounty on the kidnapper’s head, and fugitive recovery agent T.J. Roman is not about to let that paycheck slip through his fingers. Together, he and Dot rescue the child.

But their actions set off an explosion of secrets in Euskadi. The sheriff is slinking around with a new shady sidekick, Dot’s friends are stabbed, and armed mercenaries attack her ranch, forcing her to use her hunting and archery skills to defend her family. Cornered by the unknown enemy’s three-pronged attack, Dot and her charges retreat deep into the Payette National Forest. Isolated in the mountainous forest, separated from T.J. and any help, Dot must make a hard choice: fight or walk away?

Will her first recovery job be her last?

Find Winter on Instagram, Facebook, BookBub, and GoodReads, and check out Ride a Dark Trail at Amazon!

Want to be the next thriller writer profiled on the blog? Email me here!