Hero Interview from Sunset Beach by Trish Perry

» Posted on Jun 30, 2009 in Blog | Comments Off on Hero Interview from Sunset Beach by Trish Perry


This week I’m hosting Trish Perry with her book, Sunset Beach, and Allie Pleiter with Bluegrass Blessings. If you want to enter the drawing for the book, please leave a comment on one of the post during the week with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (July 5th) evening.

INTERVIEW WITH SONNY MILLER, HEROINE OF SUNSET BEACH

1. Sonny, tell me the most interesting thing about you.

Compared to your average person, I know very little about myself. My family background, I mean. I know my mother, but all my life she’s refused to let me know who my dad is or anyone else in my family. She tells me it’s for my own good, but I’m an adult now, and I intend to find out what all the secrecy is about. So I guess you could say the most interesting thing about me is whatever is missing from my family album, and I haven’t yet figured out what that missing element is.

2. What do you do for fun?

I love going to the beach. I’ve been at UC San Diego for the past four years, so my friends and I spend plenty of time at the beach. And I enjoy hiking, parasailing, dancing, and going to the movies. It might sound weird, but I also read Psychology books and magazines for fun.

3. What do you put off doing because you dread it?

All things math related. I just got my psychology degree, and I kept putting off the math courses required of me. So I had to take a bunch of them back-to-back. Statistics was the worst. Actually made me cry one day, I was so frustrated. I have some math-geek friends who saved me more than once over the past four years. I’m sure I’ll have to face that stuff in grad school too, but I hope to study more about counseling and less about calculating.

4. What are you afraid of most in life?

This is going to sound awful, but I’m kind of afraid of my mother. Not afraid of her as if she’s some brutal monster. But she’s probably the strongest-willed woman I know. No, I’ll correct that—not probably. She is the strongest-willed woman I know. And I know she loves me, but if I’m honest I have to say I fear losing her love. Especially considering what I’m cooking up for our week at the beach house in San Diego. But at this point in our relationship, I feel I have no other choice. I can only pray she forgives me and our relationship survives that week.

5. What do you want out of life?

I want to meet my family. I’m pretty sure they’re out there, but they probably don’t know I’m out here. If my father’s alive, I want to meet him. If I have grandparents who are still alive, I want to meet them while I still have the chance. I want my own mother to come clean about her life before me. I want to know why I seem to be the secret she’s kept for the past 24 years.

6. What is the most important thing to you?

Well, of course God is the most important “thing” in my life. But other than God, I think the most important thing to me is a future different than my past. My past has been a big question mark. I want my future to be a big exclamation point.

7. Do you read? If so, what is your favorite type of book to read?

I love to read! As I mentioned above, I love my psychology magazines and books about psychological phenomena, like people who suffer from dissociative identity disorder—what’s commonly known as multiple personality disorder. But I also enjoy a good romance novel. Not the yearning, burning, heaving type of romance. I like real romances, the ones about committed, everlasting love.

8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I’m an eentsy bit of a control freak. I know how I like things, and I have a hard time bending to other people’s wishes sometimes. I’m trying to become more flexible and laid back.

9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?

I’ve never had a pet. Mom always did a lot of traveling with her work—she’s a professional singer—so she always thought a pet would just add trouble to our schedule. Now I won’t be able to have one for several years, because I’ll be in grad school and renting a place. I expect to be too busy to care properly for a pet, anyway. But after I finish grad school and know where I’m going to live and work, I want to get a puppy. Sometimes I get lonely. I mean, I have a lot of friends, but a puppy of my own will feel more like a family member. I like the idea of that.

10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?

This will sound egocentric, but I’d only want to go back four years, to a place here in California called Sunset Beach. Something happened there, and I had to make a difficult choice. It was the right decision at the time, but things have changed. Had I known then what I know now . . .