This week I’m hosting Richard Mabry, M.D. with Critical Condition (US only) and Lorna Seilstad with While Love Stirs (US and Canada only). If you want to enter the drawings for the books, please leave a comment on your post 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 (April 27th) evening.
Interview with the heroine from Critical Condition by Richard Mabry, M.D.:
1. Dr. Shannon Frasier, tell me the most interesting thing about you.
I’m as dull as dishwater, I suppose. An experience I had in medical school affected me deeply, and ever since that time my life has centered on my profession—to the exclusion of family, friends, and—unfortunately—my “almost-fiancé,” Dr. Mark Gilbert.
2. What do you do for fun?
Fun, hmm—what’s that? I’m an associate professor at a medical center with a surgical practice that takes about sixty hours a week of my time. I keep an eye on my parents, who live in the same city. I guess my favorite relaxation is watching mindless TV, usually a recorded replay of some silly sit-com.
3. What do you put off doing because you dread it?
Visiting my parents’ church. He’s the pastor, and I always feel like I’m supposed to be the good daughter, making up for my sister, who’s spent most of the past few years in rehab. Sometimes I get tired of putting on an act, trying to be perfect.
4. What are you afraid of most in life?
It used to be spiders. Now it’s that man with the harsh voice, the one who keeps calling to ask, “What did he say before he died?” and threatening to kill me if I don’t tell…even if I don’t know the answer.
5. What do you want out of life?
Right now I want things to settle down. No more worrying about my sister’s drug habit and my father’s cancer, no more looking over my shoulder for the man who keeps calling. And I guess I eventually want a family of my own. But that makes me wonder why I keep telling Mark “Not now” when he asks me about marriage.
6. What is the most important thing to you?
Safety, peace, a sense of direction in my life, and—I guess this is most important—the ability to trust in God…and mean it.
7. Do you read? If so, what is your favorite type of book to read?
I’m lucky if I can snatch time to scan through a magazine, but the book I have on my bedside table is one by Lauraine Snelling. When I pick it up, I can lose myself in simpler times, even if they were tough ones.
8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I guess I’d wish that shooting when I was a freshman medical student had never happened. If that were the case, I wonder how different things would be.
9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?
Growing up, I had a cat named Miss Kitty. I loved her, and—as much as a cat can, I guess—she was fond of me. But she ran away (or at least, that’s what my parents told me), and I swore I’d never have another pet.
10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?
That’s easy. I’d go back to July first of last year. That was just before a man was shot to death on my front lawn. After that, it was all down hill.