This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. p.m. terrell will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
What is your reading comfort zone?
I’m probably the slowest reader in the world. I enjoy reading a scene and letting it marinate for the next 24 hours. The characters and settings tend to seep into my soul, so I feel every emotion. I love reading ghost stories, mysteries, some thrillers, paranormal, with history and romance mixed in.
How often do you read out of your comfort zone?
I’d say about every third book I read is outside my comfort zone. They are usually books that require a lot of focus, such as historical or nonfiction. I usually read them as research into a project I am working on or considering. Otherwise, I enjoy reading for the escapism.
Can you read in the car?
I’ve never been able to read in a car. When I was a young girl, my older sister used to tell me ghost stories while we rode in the car, which I loved! At one time, we used to travel the Natchez Trace at night to visit my grandparents in the Nashville, TN, area. It was a spooky, lonely drive, and the Plymouth had huge windows. I was convinced that monsters were following us.
What makes you love a book?
What makes me fall in love with a book is the characters. It might be that I identify with one of the characters and what they’re going through; that gets me every time. Or, I might have no similar experience, but can place myself in their shoes and wonder what I would do in their situation.
How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews?
I will never give a bad review. Years ago, I read an editorial in a large newspaper announcing it would no longer write reviews of books it could not recommend. Their reasoning is that every inch of a newspaper costs money to print, and why should they waste it to tell readers to avoid a book?
Even though we have primarily digital reviews today, I won’t waste my time writing a bad review. I’ll simply move on to the next book.
The worst review I ever received, by the way, was for my book, Songbirds are Free, about my ancestor, Mary Neely, and her Shawnee capture in 1780. I relied heavily on diaries and information passed down through the generations. When it was published, a newspaper reviewer wrote that she didn’t believe the story because I couldn’t have possibly had her diaries; after all, people hadn’t learned to write yet in 1780. (Of course, visions of the Bible flashed through my mind.) The book turned out to be my bestseller, year after year.
Most disappointing film adaptation?
Sorry to say it was What Dreams May Come. That book by Richard Matheson was the first book I read in one sitting, and when I reached the last page, I turned back to the first and read it all again. His writing taught me how to end each chapter with the need to turn the page to the next one. The subject matter was unique and truly came to life in my mind’s eye. When the movie came out, I was super excited. However, the movie didn’t carry the same weight as the book and seemed to rely more on fantasy colors as though I’d been deposited into a child’s game. It’s been years since I saw it, and maybe I’d feel differently today if I watched it again.
What would cause you to stop reading a book half-way through?
Poor writing or bad editing. One-dimensional, cardboard characters. Predictable plot.
Do you like to keep your books organized?
Doesn’t everybody?
Padlocked is an epic historical and visionary novel that follows the lives of a group of ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary, life-altering circumstances as Nazi Germany invades Poland in 1939.
Two foreign photojournalists, an American and a Spaniard, are trapped between armies at Festungsfront Oder-Warthe-Bogen, along Poland’s western border with Germany. It is Hank’s last overseas assignment, and he’s been counting the days until he can go home to North Carolina to be with his family. Rafe fled Spain after the dictator, Francisco Franco, targeted his family. The experience changed him, and he now sees the rise of fascism in Europe as a battle between good and evil. They will find themselves embedded with the Polish, Nazi, and Soviet forces at varying times, forcing them to face moral and ethical decisions in their struggles to survive.
A young woman is separated from her sister in Warsaw as the Nazis encircle it. Agata made a vow that she would return to take Elsa to safety, but soldiers and barbed wire prevent her from entering the newly established Jewish sector. She is consumed with guilt over their separation, and when she discovers her sister was taken by train to a work camp near Krakow, she navigates her dangerous, war-torn country in search of her. Her quest will force her to confront a Hell on Earth to find her.
A young man joins the Jungdeutsche Partei, or the Young German Party. Once bullied as a child, Max’s new affiliations promote him to a position where he can dictate life or death and settle scores. In order to thrive under Nazi occupation, he makes daily choices that legitimize brutality and erode humanitarian principles and scruples.
While they don’t know one another at the start of their journeys, each will make decisions that have the power to transform them and place them on paths that ultimately converge on January 27, 1945, as the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front opened the gates to Auschwitz-Birkenau for all the world to witness.
This is ultimately a story about the strength of love, courage, faith, and resilience in the face of unimaginable hatred and obsession with power, and how every decision we make places us further along specific paths.
Max was unprepared for the pandemonium as he stepped outside the building. He supposed it made sense as he could hear the voices from his office even if he hadn’t been able to make out the words. Still, it was jarring to see people who would normally walk with controlled purpose now rushing this way and that, as though the sky were falling. It made him hasten his steps, his heartbeat quickening as he joined the throngs. Many stopped along the way to cheer on the passing army vehicles, but he dodged around them, eager to get his book and get back to work. He didn’t want the soldiers to give his office to anyone else in his absence.
“Max! Max!”
At the sound of his name, he almost hid, thinking his ruse was discovered, but he quickly realized the voice was female. His eyes darted around the crowded faces. After a moment, the horde parted, and Stella rushed through to him.
“They’re on our doorstep!” she shouted excitedly. Her face was aglow, and he wanted nothing more than to scoop her into his arms and kiss her.
But, as others glanced their way, he grabbed her hand and led her to a quieter area. “Stop smiling,” he directed, swinging her around to face him.
“Why?” she demanded.
“They are not here yet. Do you want the Polish Army to pick you up?”
“Why would they? I have done nothing wrong.”
“Oh? Now that they are here and we are locked in a battle with them, you and I are collaborators.”
“Huh! That is not true.”
“Isn’t it?”
“It is not. We knew nothing of their plans to invade. We only know that we like their system of government.”
“And you don’t think they are here to change our system of government to their own?”
“Isn’t it exciting?”
“Stop it, I say. Stop it!” Max wiped his forehead. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“The shop where I worked closed.”
“Closed? Why?”
Stella shrugged. “Excitement. Fear. Maybe a little of both.” She peered at him, her eyes narrowing. “Why are you here and not in the mayor’s office? I would have thought you’d be very busy there.”
“I am very busy.” He pulled at his suit jacket as if straightening it. “I have been promoted.”
“Promoted! To what?”
“I am now a liaison to the military.”
“The Polish military?”
“Do you see another here?” He waved his hand toward the tanks passing by them.
“What are you doing for them?” she breathed, her brow furrowing.
“English translation.”
“You don’t speak English!”
“How do you know that? I do, actually. And I am on a mission, and you are delaying me.”
“Be that way, then.” She pouted briefly before adding, “What will you do when the Nazis arrive in Będzin?”
“How do you know that they will?”
She shrugged. “I am hedging my bets.”
“For right this moment, today, I am a military liaison. That is all I know for now.” He waved as though pushing her away. “Now, go.”
As she started to leave him, he pulled her back into an embrace and kissed her. Startled, he thought she might pull away, but she didn’t. She leaned into him, her tongue flicking inside his mouth and her body pressing against him. She smelled of flowers and musk, and he held her more tightly as he inhaled her essence. Then she abruptly stepped back. “Call on me later,” she said, “when you are no longer working your military liaison shift.”
Then she was gone, as if she had never been there; her petite figure disappeared among the taller men and women crowding the sidewalk. He stared in the direction she’d gone, but when he didn’t spot her among the cluster of people, he turned back in the direction of home.
I began writing when I was nine years old, inspired by a schoolteacher and elementary school principal. Scott-Foresman published my first book, a computer instructional for universities, in 1984. Scott-Foresman, Dow-Jones (Richard D. Irwin branch), Palari Publishing, Paralee Press, and Drake Valley Press have published 27 books to date.
Before embarking on a full-time writing career, I founded McClelland Enterprises, Inc., in the Washington, D.C., area in 1984, specializing in workplace computer instruction. I opened another business, Continental Software Development Corporation, in 1994, which focused on custom application development, programming, website design and development, and cybersecurity.
I was honored to be the first female President of the Chesterfield County/Colonial Heights Crime Solvers. Since moving to North Carolina, I served on the boards of the Robeson County Friends of the Library and the Robeson County Arts Council.
I launched The Book ‘Em Foundation with Waynesboro, Virginia, Police Officer Mark Kearney, and assisted in Virginia, New Hampshire, and South Carolina events before establishing the Annual Book ‘Em North Carolina Writers Conference and Book Fair, chairing it for several years before turning it over to Robeson Community College in Lumberton, NC.
Padlocked is available in all eBook formats, trade paperback, hardcover, and large print editions.
Website: https://pmterrell.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pmterrell.author/
Apple: https://books.apple.com/us/book/padlocked/id6759671735
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/padlocked-pm-terrell/1149563468
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GPWWNBFN
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/padlocked-2
In France: https://shop.vivlio.com/product/9781935970569_9781935970569_10020/padlocked
All other eBook formats: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1977075
