Obsessed and Broken Characters

My special guest today is Lisa Sanchez who is celebrating the release of her erotic suspense, Obsessed. Over to Lisa…

Hi everyone! Before I start rambling, I’d like to give a big shout of thanks Shelley for allowing me a guest spot on her blog. I’m so happy to be here!

Okay then, let’s jump right in! Broken characters…why do we love them and are they easy to write? I can’t speak for anyone else, but I know for me, I like reading about broken/shattered characters because I enjoy seeing their growth and healing. I’m a sucker for a happy ending, and when a broken down, battered character finds healing through love…well, there’s nothing better in my opinion.

Halley Davis, the female protagonist in my erotic suspense, Obsessed, suffers from debilitating anxiety. A victim of a brutal attack, a rape attempt, and a serial stalker (eeck!) she struggles with panic attacks and lives in constant fear. Large crowds give her the heebie jeebies and men, in general, freak her out. These feelings are not exactly conducive to finding the man of your dreams, and therein lay her struggle.

It was definitely a challenge for me to write Halley, but not for the reasons you might think. As someone who has suffered from anxiety, I instantly related to Halley’s emotional rollercoaster and the words literally poured onto the page. I’d experienced everything she had; I knew what she was feeling. My challenge was in making her relatable, making her panic believable to everyone else.

Anyone who has ever suffered from an anxiety attack can attest to the fact that they hit you out of nowhere and take you from normal to freaked out in the span of sixty seconds or less. My first draft of Obsessed featured Halley bouncing around like a rubber ball, on an emotional high one moment, then scraping the bottom of the barrel the next. While this was very true to her character and mental state, it would have been a bit jarring to readers who aren’t used to such up and down feelings. My second pass through the manuscript focused on smoothing Halley’s emotional ride, and softening transitions between her panic episodes and fine tuning her growing attraction for Nick. The fruits of my labor resulted in a tale of love, recovery and a whole lot of suspense I sincerely hope readers will enjoy.

The victim of both a brutal attempted rape and now a serial stalking, Halley Davis is broken, and desperate to glue the shattered pieces of her life back together. Tormented by a psychopath and battling a heavy dose of anxiety, sex and dating are the last things on Halley’s anxiety-ridden mind. That is, until she meets the man who rescued her from the hands of a would-be rapist. With a body made for sin, a wicked, sexy tattoo and an aura that screams “badass,” her rescuer not only calms the storm of terror raging inside her mind, he ignites a passion within her she’s never known before.

Tired of using meaningless sex to drown out the horrors of his past, Nick Ackart has sworn off women. In fact, if women were classified as meat, his ass is Vegan. Despite his determination to remain unattached, Nick is unable to stay away from the emerald-eyed beauty he rescued from a sadistic pervert. Immersed in a tangled web of sexual desire and deep emotion he was certain was long dead, he vows to protect Halley from the monster hounding her, even though he stands to lose his heart in the process.

To learn more about Lisa and her books visit her website or her blog. You’ll also find her on Twitter or Goodreads

CONTEST: Lisa is currently doing a blog tour and will give away a $20 Amazon gift certificate to one commenter. Increase your chances by following her tour!