A Slice of Cake With... Lynette Burrows

This week I am delighted to be having a slice of cake with Lynette Burrows.

Lynette M. Burrows is a survivor. She survived moving to seventeen different schools before she graduated from high school. She contends that this makes her uniquely qualified to write a dystopian novel or two.

Lynette enjoys coffee, the pleasure of real books, and the crack of a nine-millimeter, not necessarily all at the same time—although they all appear in her stories. Spiced with a dash of intrigue, a dollop of mayhem, and a liberal dose of automatic weapons her stories aim to entertain.

The White Box stories, her collaborations with Rob Chilson, appeared in Analog. She’s also had stories published in regional and national children’s magazines.

Her five-star debut novel, My Soul to Keep, takes place in America but it’s not the nation you know. Read her blog for information on how the story developed and the history that made its way into the story. She blogs regularly about inspiration, books, story research, writing, and other subjects of interest. She loves to talk to people. 

Lynette, her artist husband and their pack of Yorkies live in Oz, otherwise known as Kansas.

What kind of books do you write?

I write suspenseful stories of empowerment and survival spanning space and time. My debut novel is an alternate history, a kind of Thelma and Louise meet the Terminator in the world of The Handmaid’s Tale. A mixture of robots, aliens, automatic weapons, humans, space ships, alternate histories, and more can be found in stories I’ve written. 

Can you describe your writing why?

Good question. My earliest memories are of consuming stories. Stories that were read to me, I read, or I viewed on television or a movie screen all became part of me. I’d live and breathe the stories. Sometimes I’d play-act them, sometimes they lived on in my heart and mind. They helped me make sense of the world, find a place where there was right and wrong, and gave me hope. 

I have a great need to pay that hope and sense of justice forward through the stories I write. I only hope that my stories will touch my readers as much as the stories I read and continue to read, touch me.

Share with us your favourite passage from the book you enjoyed writing the most

Only a paragraph? ACK! I write novels of 100,000 words or more in length. I’m going to cheat a little because these paragraphs are so short. This is from the beginning of Chapter 6 in My Soul To Keep. 

Beryl Clarke stood in the transgressor’s box of the judgment chamber. She’d endured ten years of lies. Ten years of isolation. Ten years of torture. 

She wanted to shred the white blouse and long, navy blue skirt of Redemption they forced her to wear. She wanted to break the shackles that held her hands behind her back and hobbled her legs. She wanted to kill the two guardians who flanked her. 

And when she escaped, she would annihilate the soulless men who accused her of murder.

Tell us about your latest project

Currently available is My Soul to Keep

It is 1961 and... America’s a theocracy.

Following the rules isn’t optional.

Miranda’s family, part of the ruling elite, have plans for Miranda’s life.

To escape the tyranny, Miranda makes a break for freedom.

Now she must outwit her mother’s ruthless ambitions… while avoiding the deadly Azrael. The Fellowship’s enforcers Take unbelievers.

Ian’s Trust, a novella in the world of My Soul to Keep, is about how a young man and his siblings survive when their parents are Taken by the Azrael. It will be available Mid-2019

Book two in the My Soul to Keep trilogy, If I Should Die, will be available at the beginning of 2020.

What's your favourite cake?

 I love many different cakes, but if I have to choose one it would be German Chocolate cake. Coconut flakes, nuts and chocolate cake—what’s not to love?

A truly scrummy sounding cake, Lynette! Keep in touch with Lynette at her website, follow her on Facebook and Twitter and see what she pins about.

Join me next week when I'll be having a slice of cake with Yvette Bostic.

If you would like to take part in A Slice of Cake With... please fill in the form found here. I'd be delighted to have you.

You can also support my writing endeavours and buy me tea & cake - it's what makes the world go round!

Claire Buss is a multi-genre author and poet, completely addicted to cake. Find all her books on Amazon. Join the discussion in her Facebook group Buss's Book Stop.