An interview with author, Lynn Burke, about her HOT, New, Contemporary Novel, Abel’s Obsession

Welcome, Lynn! Your new novel, Abel’s Obsession, about a young Amish man’s obsession with a red-headed “English” woman sounds exciting. Characters with internal struggles are some of my favorites!

All authors have their own reasons for writing a book. What are yours?

If I didn’t listen to the voices in my head, I’d probably end up a wino. 😉

What would you like readers to take away from your story? Does it contain a message?

Seeking TRUTH outside of what people are taught as a child take courage, but the results will set you free.

Where did you find your inspiration for the story? Was it a person, a current event, something you witnessed, or something else?

Abel Beiler’s story came about while visiting my parents in Amish country this past April. While leaving for home early Sunday morning, I pulled up to a stop sign at a four-way intersection as horses labored to pull their Amish owners and families in their buggies to Sunday worship.

One young man in an open buggy sat to my right at the stop sign, unsmiling, leaning forward, elbows on knees and reins slack in his hands. I had this overwhelming urge to smile at him, trying to bring a little sunshine to his miserable countenance.

My plan didn’t work, and even though I was in an SUV with 3 children, the idea of Abel and Dani slammed into my brain, occupying my thoughts the whole way home. I voice-to-text in my phone’s notepad off and on the entire seven hour ride back to Massachusetts as Abel whispered his struggle to find himself in my brain.

Abel’s Obsession is by far the raunchiest story I’ve written to date, and I’m hoping the most eye-opening as well. An oppressed life isn’t a joyful one, and finding the strength to free yourself isn’t always easy. Neither is the choice to take wing and fly.

What or who influences your writing?

I enjoy people watching and imagining how they’ve gotten to where they are. It’s amazing how much the imagination takes over and sprouts new story ideas.

What is your writing process? Are you a patnser or a plotter, or a little of both?

I’m a plotter to the core. I also write my first drafts by hand (one scene at a time) and do a first round of edits when entering them into the computer. Makes for a cleaner first doc draft.

Do you have any author idols and if so, how would you like to meet them?

Roni Loren – YES! It’s because of her that ‘Lynn’ was born.

What are your three favorite books by other authors and why? You don’t have to limit this to three. (I know I can’t.)

Roni Loren – Nothing Between Us, because DAMN.

Keri Lake – Ripple Effect, because no greater dark romance exists on this planet.

A Song of Ice and Fire series – George R. R. Martin, because I’m a fantasy loving fan girl through and through.

What do you do in your down time to feed your soul?

Read, garden, cook.

Blurb:

A young man of religious fervor and self-control, Abel Beiler has every intention of honoring his parents and being baptized into the Amish church. The woman with red curls and flashing green eyes in the back of a convertible, however, makes Abel wonder what life with the English might be like.

He strives to withstand temptation, but the memory of the woman he yearns to dominate, coupled with the explicit images in his cousin’s filthy magazine, threatens his restraint.

Red, his sinful obsession, haunts his shameful dreams and becomes a secret part of his life. When faced with truth beyond faith, Abel must decide where he belongs—with the Amish community, or the woman who owns his heart.

Excerpt:

Much later and hoarse from singing for two hours, my curiosity overrode my better sense, and I followed Eli into the hayloft of their barn. While I held the kerosene lamp, he climbed high into the rafters and returned with a magazine clutched in his hand.

“Got this from my new English friend, Toby.” He sat on a bale, opened the magazine, and turned it toward me.

Lust kicked me in the gut, and I couldn’t speak.

A naked woman lay spread eagle and bound by ropes to a bed, a blindfold and some sort of ball gag in her mouth. A man loomed over her, whip in hand. Tear streaks lined the woman’s face. Red slashes marked her thighs. Wetness coated the pink folds of her sex, glistening, and set my mouth to watering.

The image burned into my brain—submission in an entirely different way than the Old Order’s definition of the word. Spirituality is submission, is what had been reiterated in my ears since childhood. Self-surrender. The willingness to give up oneself to the community and Gott’s chosen leaders.

I soaked in the sinful picture, and for the first time in my life wanted power. Wanted control. I wanted a woman’s submission like the man in leather beside her owned. Unable to tear my gaze off the image, I struggled to swallow.

“Didn’t know people actually did this shit.”

Eli’s curse, the first I had heard from him, barely registered past the blood rushing in my ears. My body tensed as longing to be the man standing over that woman, whip in hand raced through me faster than any thoroughbred—or car.

The image of Red flashed in my mind, and suddenly it was her bound to the bed in the picture, breathing heavily, trembling, and begging for me…

Buy Links:

Evernight: http://www.evernightpublishing.com/abels-obsession-by-lynn-burke/

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0757FM2KL

Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0757FM2KL

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/745254

Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/abels-obsession-lynn-burke/1127046444

Bookstrand: http://www.bookstrand.com/abels-obsession-mf

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/abel-s-obsession

Social Media Links:

Website: http://www.authorlynnburke.com/

Blog: http://authorlynnburke.blogspot.com/