I’m delighted to welcome a new to me author, Sheree Smith, to Linda’s Book Bag today. Sheree is telling me all about her cross-genre romance thriller Dark Obsessions.

Darkest Obsessions is available for purchase in e-book and paperback from Amazon UK and Amazon US.

Darkest Obsessions

All Sadie wanted was a normal life and when her ex-boyfriend, Matthew, was finally sent to jail she thought she could start that normal life in a little village on the Scottish Borders.

Tom, a small county veterinary had spent the last five years just surviving. A tragic accident had left him riddled with guilt. But when the beautiful Sadie Buchanan waltzed into her parents cafe, his meaning for life is questioned. Now he has to overcome his demons before he can start living again.

But Matthew has already hurt Sadie before, would he allow Sadie to have the happiness she always longed for…….

Cross-Genre Writing

A Guest Post by Sheree Smith

My name is Sheree Smith and I am the author of Darkest Obsessions, a romantic suspense set in the Scottish Borders.  Firstly a little about myself, I spent my childhood in Doncaster, UK, and then after meeting my husband in 2000 I moved to Nottingham (Robin Hood Country).  Last year, we both decided that our lives were far too stressful and so we decided to leave our jobs, sell our house in Nottingham and move to the North East of England, to a village in Northumberland with only a few hundred inhabitants – compared to the big city of Nottingham! During this time, I thought it would be the ideal opportunity to do what I’ve always dreamed of – writing a novel.

I have always loved romance novels along with the odd thriller and so Darkest Obsessions came into fruition.  It is a romance story between two people who meet up in the fictional Scottish Border village of Pelancy.  Both of them have their own issues.  Sadie has recently gone through a traumatic time with her ex-boyfriend/stalker touching on how this affects a woman and mental abuse.  Tom has feelings of guilt for the sudden death of his wife and so both of them reach for each other in their time of need.  However, things always do not go to plan and when Sadie’s past comes back to haunt her in the form of her ex, Tom and Sadie have to start to reassess what they have together.

This is my first novel and so I wanted to create a scene whereby the characters are both equally challenging yet also have some depth and humour to them.  I did not want to write a novel which would be dark and gloomy and so I’ve tried to add in a little light humour here and there and I hope you find some of their antics quite amusing.  Something which I feel always makes the story and characters more realistic. We all go through good and bad, sad and funny moments and so I tried to put this across in the story and with each of the characters.

Even so, I tried to mingle the story with enough intrigue to keep the reader guessing how the story will end.  In my book, Sadie’s ex (Matthew) returns and even though he has gone through his own torment, he is still fixated in his lost love for Sadie.  I found writing Matthew’s story the easiest; I especially liked the bitterness he portrays and the conflict he has inside.  I also particularly liked entwining the love story of Tom and Sadie, trying to make their characters as true to life as possible yet trying to make the reader also feel for them eventually bringing the love triangle to an exhilarating conclusion.

I hope you enjoy reading my book as much as I enjoyed writing it. I am currently writing my next romance novel also set around Northumberland which will be out in 2017.

About Sheree Smith

Sheree Smith was born in Doncaster and lived in a small mining village called Harworth until she was 22 years old. She married her husband, Dean and moved to Nottingham where she lived for a further 15 years. They both now live in a beautiful part of Northumberland where Sheree enjoys walking, reading and of course, writing books. You can find out more by visiting Sheree’s YouTube page. You’ll also find her on Facebook.