Interview with Trish Perry

Welcome to my blog, I hope you enjoy the brief interview I did with Trish Perry...

CL  Tell us about yourself.

My teenaged son and I live, happy as clams, in the Washington metropolitan area. My adult daughter and grandson (and my new future son-in-law) live about an hour away from me. Before writing I wore a number of different hats. My past “careers” have included work as a stockbroker, working for attorneys, and working for one of the commissioners at the Securities and Exchange Commission. As an adult I decided I wanted to be a psychological therapist. Then I discovered my love for writing while I completed my degree in psychology, so I changed my plans for grad school and tried writing full time. That worked out pretty well—I’m sure it was a God thing.

CL  How long have you been writing?

I’ve been writing for 14 years or so. But I didn’t start publishing books until 2006. Prior to books I published poems, personal essays, short stories, and other short pieces. But I wrote for about ten years before I got a book contract.

CL How many books have you written?

I’ve written five complete books; published four. And I’ve written the first chapter of about ten other novels, which is nuts, but that all has to do with my agent, editor, and I trying to decide upon the next direction to go. The first novel I wrote remains unpublished. That’s partly because the genre isn’t currently popular (supernatural/spiritual warfare). But even if that genre comes back into vogue, I’ll rewrite the book. I’m sure there would be many facets of the writing I’d shudder at after all these years.

CL Tell us about Sunset Beach, and was it hard, taking someone else's original conception (Sally John) and writing a story about it?

No, it wasn’t hard at all. Sally’s excellent concept was to base a series in a particular setting, changing the characters and storyline for each book in the series. So writing books in the series simply required my becoming acquainted with the setting. Sally did such a good job helping the reader to visualize the house and Mission Beach, I felt very much at home by the time I finished reading her second book.

Here’s the blurb for Sunset Beach: Sonny Miller is tired of not knowing who she is. Soon she’ll begin graduate school to earn her masters in Psychology. But how can she counsel future clients about their identities when she isn’t even sure about her own? To that end she has cooked up a little meeting at a certain beach house in San Diego.

Sonny’s mother, classical soprano Teresa Miller, isn’t aware she’s about to be reunited at the beach house with her sister, Melanie Hines, after 25 years of estrangement. And Sonny isn’t aware her mother has invited a surprise guest of her own. Russian adoptee, Irina Petrova, finds herself dragged along on a trip so tumultuous she summons her handsome concert violinist brother for moral support.

The four women converge on the funky little beach house in San Diego, each with her own disappointments and hopes about family, identity, and love. For Sonny, the trip reveals all she expected and more than she ever dreamed.

CL And last question, can we look for another book in this series soon?

That’s not currently in the plans, but never say never!