Second of Three Part Interview with Liz Adair

Liz, tell me what your favorite genre is, and why?

My favorite genre is Romance with a bit of intrigue. Why? First, because it’s so fun to write. Secondly, I feel that I’m doing good for mankind. Or, make that womankind. A good romance is like a cheap vacation from life’s stresses. That’s what I want to write. Cheap vacations. It’s my service to harried mothers on a tight budget.

Of all the wonderful pieces you’ve written (Please list them all so I don’t miss one or worse, misspell one), which is your favorite?

I’ll list them all, and you can decide if they’re wonderful or not when you read them. My first books published were the first two Spider Latham mysteries, The Lodger and After Goliath, which came out at the same time. They were followed the next year by the third in the series, Snakewater Affair. After that, my publisher wanted a woman as a main character, so I wrote the stand-alone romance/intrigue The Mist of Quarry Harbor. Sometime in there, I edited and published the letters my mother wrote from Afghanistan when she lived there in the 1960’s. The book is called, natch, Lucy Shook’s Letters from Afghanistan. My last book, Counting the Cost, came out in 2009. It won the Whitney Award in the romance category for that year and was also a finalist for the Willa Award and for two categories (literary and regional) for the Arizona Publishers Association’s Glyph Award.

Which is my favorite? Probably Counting the Cost, as it’s based on family history, although I think I’m proudest of Letters from Afghanistan. Proceeds from sales of the book go to SWAN (Serving Women Across Nations), a charitable foundation founded by my daughters and me that gives microcredit to poor women in Bolivia and Kenya to start small businesses. My daughter Terry is the force behind SWAN. I just sit on the board and look wise. You can go to www.swanforhumanity.org to read about what has been accomplished there.

Link to Counting the Cost book trailer. www.sezlizadair.blogspot.com

Thanks Liz. We'll do more next week!